6 — Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
By Roland Huget
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/12/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
02/12/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Tuesday, February 12, 2019
ACROSS
1 Enjoys
Breckenridge, say
5 Cries out loud
9 “If I Had a
Hammer” singer
Lopez
14 In the past
15 Geometry
calculation
16 Pay by mail
17 Metered work,
usually
18 Duck that lends
its name to a
color
19 Word from the
wise
20 100-mile-an-hour
fastball, often
23 Vent opening?
24 Stein filler
25 Classy neckwear
33 Total confusion
34 Made public
35 Summer Games
org.
36 Admission of fault
37 Less clumsy
38 Back up a step,
as in an app
39 “__ is me!”
40 For all to hear
41 Good feature
42 Bike storage
bags, e.g.
45 Partner of to
46 22.5 deg.
47 What a plus
sign indicates
on a golf match
scoreboard
55 Pick up gradually
56 Crafted, as a tale
57 Keep for later
58 Wonderland cake
message
59 Morales of
“NYPD Blue”
60 Express line unit
61 Jacket material
62 Bakery product
63 Fiddling emperor
DOWN
1 Soaks (up)
2 Wood
imperfection
3 Cake finisher
4 Part-time players
5 Glossy fabric
6 Layered Nabisco
treat
7 Belle’s
counterpart
8 Basic food
preservative
9 Was behind in
the match
10 Herbal brew
11 Apple since 1998
12 Soon to happen
13 Suffix with urban
21 Songwriter
Kristofferson
22 School research
assignment
25 Slap the puck
toward the goal
26 Get to the point?
27 Cameroon
neighbor
28 Prepare for a
bodybuilding
competition
29 Middle Corleone
brother
30 Salon procedure
31 Rich ore deposits
32 Many a clan
member
33 Farm moms
37 “Take __ at this!”
38 Signals the
arrival of, as a
new era
40 Dressed like a
chef
41 Embarrassing
spots
43 Typical chalet
44 Launch, as a
new product
47 Side with a
sandwich
48 Head of Haiti
49 Vessel with a
spout
50 Ho-hum
51 Avocado shape
52 Canapé spread
53 Say with certainty
54 San __, Italy
55 “__ it?”:
“Comprende?”
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GO BLUE
When I was 10 years old, my
dad threw out our toaster. To
replace it, he cleared about 80
percent of our counter space for
a large, steel industrial panini
press. Suddenly, our kitchen
felt less like our homey space
and more like the industrial
kitchens of restaurants. Growing
up, my friends came over and
ogled over the machine: the
centerpiece of our kitchen, the
shining star of our counter space,
the replacement for the rusted,
old toaster. From that day on,
everything from toaster waffles
to grilled cheese was made in
the press, and thus began my
training as a panini connoisseur.
Initially, I was a bit intimidated.
What could this panini press do
that my old toaster or a skillet
with some butter
couldn’t have done?
How would I use
it? When would I
approach it?
A panini, or more
authentically
the
“panino,” is a grilled
sandwich
made
with Italian bread
such
as
ciabatta
or
michetta.
My
parents
never
grocery
shopped
for
snacks
like
Oreos and Goldfish,
but they did always
make sure we had
ciabatta bread, an
array
of
artisan
cheeses and other
accoutrements
to
engineer
our
perfect after school
breakfast,
lunch
or dinner paninos.
Paninos became a
staple of my every
day life, a constant
challenge I looked
forward to. I took
to
popping
any
odd
combination
or faithful classic
in
the
press
that
I
could
engineer from the
ingredients in our
fridge, from fig jam,
brie
and
turkey
on
cinnamon
bread to braciole,
parmigiana
and
honey
on
crispy
baguette, to peanut
butter, banana and
jelly on a baguette
—
everything
and
anything
was
willing
to
transform
magically
and
deliciously in the
panini press.
The panino dates
back to 16th century
Italian cookbooks;
however,
the
sandwiches became
trendy in Milanese
bars in the 1960s.
In the 1980s the
term
paninaro
arose in Italy with
the rise of youth
culture represented
by patrons of sandwich bars
in Milan. With the addition of
our panini press, my kitchen
transformed
into
a
Milano
panini shop, and my brothers
and I transformed into the young
paninaros of suburban New
Jersey. On any given weekday or
weekend afternoon, you could
find us huddled in our kitchen as
salty cheese melted and spilled
over the sides of homemade bread
and hit the searing hot grill.
When I say “panini,” the first
thing that comes to your mind
might be a toasted baguette, a
thick slab of mozzarella cheese,
juicy, slightly sweet tomatoes
and slices of basil, all stacked
and grilled to perfection and
served with balsamic reduction
or grassy pesto. While the typical
“caprese” panini is for sure a
fan favorite and always one I’m
willing to have a bite or two of, it’s
a bit basic. Ever since my father
came home and ceremonially
threw away our dingy toaster,
I’ve been on the pursuit to the
more unique, more idiosyncratic
flavors that trump those of the
mundane “caprese” sandwich.
Through my panini journey,
I hope you’ll feel inspired to
ransack your fridge, hit the
grocery store and start on your
own unique paninis — there is so
much more to the space between
two slices of plain bread than we
expect. A sandwich is typically
seen as the lazy person’s meal,
the regular, old lunch or the
boring, easy snack. But the panini
changes all of that — it transforms
a cold, basic sandwich into the
crispy, crunchy, warm handheld
queen of all foods, kicking aside
Wonder Bread, ham and cheese
for a prosciutto, provolone and
sweet pear panini on fresh,
dream-like ciabatta.
Good Italian bread is where
it all starts. My father always
told me that bread is the key to
success in a panini: The minute
the bread is soggy, slightly
stale or just bad in general, the
sandwich goes down with it. The
bread is the anchor of the whole
ship: It ensures that the juice and
sauce stay soaked into the moist
space in the puffy bread without
turning it soggy. You cannot have
panini success without ciabatta
success. The key to good ciabatta,
you ask? It’s actually quite
simple, despite what one might
think. It’s made from wheat flour,
water, salt, olive oil and yeast.
Paying good attention to how
long it should rise and bake is
important, but the rest is rather
simple. If the bread is perfect, the
other ingredients can take center
stage and shine.
My flavor muse is my uncle
Bobby. He knows flavor like
no other and can always pair
the most unlikely ingredients
together to make the most
gastronomically pleasing dishes.
While pondering the perfect
sandwich to share with you all, I
decided to call him. I knew that
he would have had a homemade
panini recently, as a fellow
panini scientist, and I knew he’d
immediately be able to speak on
the most distinctive, individual
sandwich possible. He said he’d
get back to me, as the call took
place early in the morning, and
he hadn’t had lunch yet.
The anticipation nearly killed
me.
When he called me back, the
first thing he said was, “spicy
pickled chicken panini,” and I
was immediately intrigued. He
told me the process of making the
simple, spicy sandwich:
Chicken thighs brined in spicy
Grillo’s pickle juice. Trust him on
this one. He is a flavor god. (“Plan
ahead! A one day brine with dark,
juicy meat is the best!”)
Bread and then pan fry the
chicken thighs to a crispy,
crunchy golden brown. (“Batter
in
eggs
and
Panko
bread
crumbs”)
Use a crusty roll with light,
chewy insides for the perfect
happy medium. (“Top secret, it
holds all the juice in!”)
Top with mayonnaise, red
wine vinegar, thin slices of red
onion and Grillo spicy Italian
pickle chips for added flavor.
Press for five minutes — here’s
where the press comes in! (“Half
crunch, half chew!”)
After
making
it
myself,
the result certainly does not
disappoint. This panini is a jack
of all trades: It’s creamy, spicy,
crunchy, chewy and salty all at
once. While the flavors could
seem distracting, they somehow
come together in a serendipitous
moment of crispy perfection.
Bobby’s review seems to sum it
up perfectly for me:
“Crunch… yes! Chew… yes!
Salty… yes! Spicy… yes! Fatty &
creamy & delicious… yes!”
The special thing about paninis
is that they are so much more
than just separate ingredients: in
one bite you can have the whole
world on your palate as flavors
that you never imagined combine
and blend. No other food in the
world is at once so simple and so
complex, so manageable and so
high maintenance.
Like I said, the caprese is a fan
favorite, but it is overdone and
much too basic for the millions
of possibilities that can nestle
between two slices of perfect,
fresh bread. Let that crunchy
ciabatta try on some different
dressings. Be creative — with
a blank canvas of fresh, soft
bread you are an artist. Once you
open your fridge and turn that
panini press on high heat, the
possibilities are simply endless.
The pursuit of the
perfect panini
DAILY FOOD COLUMN
ELI RALLO
Daily Food Columnist
“Velvet Buzzsaw,” a hot mess
of high art horror-satire from
Netflix, is the absolute best
kind of bad movie. Written
and directed by Dan Gilroy
(“Nightcrawler”), the film is
such a nebulous rollercoaster
of jumbled ideas and characters
that there is not one dull
moment throughout. It works
so unintentionally well because
it balances a viewer’s reactions
between “What am I watching?”
and “This is so ridiculous I can’t
stop.”
Jake Gyllenhaal (“Wildlife”)
plays a cynical, cheeky art
critique with the meticulously
lazy bangs and thin black wire-
rimmed glasses to match. To
complete the caricature,
think of the most over-
the-top art critique name
you can. Do you have it?
I have a better one: Morf
Vandewalt. His character
faces dark and paranormal
consequences when an agent,
Josephina
(Zawe
Ashton,
“Nocturnal Animals”), steals
the
paintings
of
recently
deceased artist Ventril Dease
and begins to sell them. To be
fair, the plot is hardly the draw
of “Buzzsaw.” Every single line
of dialogue in this movie is
so breathlessly written that I
actually started making a list of
Morf’s most memorable verbal
ruminations. You will discover
some of them below.
To quote from Vandewalt,
“A bad review is better than
sinking into the great glut of
anonymity.” He’s right. And as a
staunch advocate for the power
of bad movies, I cannot let this
one go unnoticed. Truthfully,
it would be easy to tear this
movie apart for what it is. But
I can’t. The reason is that,
unlike in so many bad movies,
the cast and crew of “Buzzsaw”
seem completely genuine in
their effort. Nothing is awarely
awful about the movie, and
yet everything is laughable.
It’s a precarious Jenga tower
of scenes that don’t at all cut
together,
two-dimensional,
inexplicably fickle characters
and perplexing plotting that
appears to have even escaped
the understanding of its author.
For all these things “Buzzsaw”
deserves
far
more
than
a
rudimentary rant.
I’ll again allow Vandewalt’s
wisdom to guide me: “Critique
is so limiting and emotionally
draining. I’ve always wanted to
do something long form, dip my
toes into an exploration of origin
and essence. A metamorphosis
of spirit into reality.” Whatever
that means.
In the name of dipping my
toes into an exploration of
origin and essence, here are
some of my most noteworthy
observations
from
“Velvet
Buzzsaw”: The most fitting
metaphor to describe the film is
that it centers around dumpster
paintings for which the entire
art
community
immediately
clamors.
“They’re
visionary,
mesmeric,” Vandewalt admits
immediately after a once-over.
While the Dease collection
becomes
the
next
hottest
collection in the pretentious
and stuffy world of art buyers,
the group that Gilroy fails to sell
on his own art is the audience of
the film.
The movie frantically leaps
around genres to such an extent
that I’m not sure what was
intentionally funny and what
wasn’t. Although the finale
does play out like the ending of
a slasher movie and surely was
not meant to evoke laughter, I
couldn’t help but crack up at
the entire sequence. At times,
art gala owners turn into
professional investigators on a
whim and banal love triangles
appear out of thin air. It’s
glorious.
The
denouement
of
“Buzzsaw”
is
intentionally
open-ended,
unwilling
to
divulge the specific mechanics
of
the
ghostly
apparitions
that haunt its periphery. To
me, the actual reason for this
ambiguity was that there was
no legitimate way to explain
any of the events in the film to
begin with. Oh yeah, and John
Malkovich appears in the end
credits drawing lines of sand on
a beach with a wooden stick. He
was in the movie at some
point. I think.
Given
my
aforementioned
belief
in the importance of bad
movies, I cannot stress
how important it is to see
this one. It is as fun to discuss
with others as it is to watch, a
hollow interpretation of high
art that only reaffirms to me
that bad movies can be art after
all. But, alas, I cannot do my
own words justice. There’s only
one man who can. My favorite
Morf quote describes both his
own convictions and mine in
reviewing this movie: “This
is my life. How I connect with
some sort of spirituality. I assess
out of adoration. I further the
realm I analyze.”
Say what you will about
the forgettability of “Velvet
Buzzsaw” in the vast abyss
of Netflix misfires, but Morf
Vandewalt
is
an
inspiring
idea of a man. His movie may
have failed, but he did indeed
convince me to further the
realm I analyze. So thanks,
Morf.
‘Velvet Buzzsaw’ is an
enjoyable camp atrocity
ANISH TAMHANEY
Daily Arts Writer
NETFLIX
FILM REVIEW
‘Velvet Buzzsaw’
Netflix
The minute the
bread is soggy,
slightly stale
or just bad in
general, the whole
sandwich goes
down with it.