June 1

When something good happens I like to share.  If you have already read this on my facebook page just skip this paragraph.  Just got back from lunch with friends at The Glory Days Restaurant in the Fox Mill Shopping Center.  Three of us order grilled chicken salad. When they came, mine had a full breast of chicken, but the others had just a few pieces. We asked for the manager to express our displeasure. Not only did he bring out a plate of chicken for them, we had ordered bread and he gave us another loaf, coupons for free appetizers and the on top of it free dessert for the five of us - yummy ice cream sandwiches. We would have been content with just getting what we ordered, but this is how one should run a business; to rectify the mistake and go above and beyond. You can be sure that we will be patronizing this restaurant in the future. Way to go Glory Days!!

We also just attended their New Belgium Beer Dinner.  For $45 it was a wonderful deal with great food.  Arriving early, we were treated to a wonderful canape of some kind of cauliflower.  The first course was shrimp ceviche coupled with a summer  lager.  Lager was a bit watery.  Second was a peach caprese salad.  I love caprese salad.  This was coupled with a snapshot wheat beer.  The entree was a grilled pork loin with cherry compote served with a potato pancake and roasted asparagus.  This was paired with a transatlantique kriek.  I loved this beer as it tasted like champagne.  For dessert, they served homemade cheesecake infused with fresh basil and topped with blueberry and basil sauce.  This was paired with a Ramant Imperial IPA.  The food was not items that are usually served on the regular menu, but were very tasty.  Although I am not a beer drinker, Sy enjoyed the beers especially the fat tire served with the canape.  Lovely way to spend an evening.

In theaters:

Chef - When I finished watching  this film, all I wanted to do was go out to dinner.  This is a feel good movie about a chef, his dreams and how they become a reality.  No real drama, just a film that makes you smile.Jon Favreau stars as the chef and Sofia Vergara is his wife.  I like how they did not exploit Vergara's sexiness for this film, but used her Latino background as an integral part of the story.  The young boy playing their son ,Emjay Anathony, is wonderful and John Leguizamo is perfect as the line chef.  Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, Oliver Platt and Bobby Cannavale round out this star studded cast.  

On HBO:

The Normal Heart - This poignant story about the beginning AIDS epidemic just about broke my heart.  It is based on writer Larry Kramer's story of the frustration in the gay community when the epidemic first broke out in 1981. He was a co founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis.   Mark Ruffalo stars as the writer, Ned Weeks, who nurses his lover played by, Matt Bomer who is dying of this unnamed disease.  The story also tells of the doctor, played by Julia Roberts,who is puzzled and frustrated by having no resources to research it .Jim Parsons and Alfred Molina co star.  The movie will make you angry as the government did nothing to help this cause at the time.  And once they finally did, they following year decreased the budget for research. It will also touch your heart as the story between Weeks and Bomer is one of pure love. It is an important film to see.

The following was a review from the New York Times.  It is about the play which the movie is based: Frank Rich said:

Kramer accuses the governmental, medical and press establishments of foot-dragging in combating the disease—especially in the early days of its outbreak, when much of the play is set—and he is even tougher on homosexual leaders who, in his view, were either too cowardly or too mesmerized by the ideology of sexual liberation to get the story out. "There's not a good word to be said about anyone's behavior in this whole mess," claims one character—and certainly Mr. Kramer has few good words to say about Mayor Koch, various prominent medical organizations, The New York Times or, for that matter, most of the leadership of an unnamed organization apparently patterned after the Gay Men's Health Crisis

From the sublime to the ridiculous on HBO and Netflix:

The Heat -   I am a big fan of both of the leading stars - Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy so I put this on my list.  Was it silly yes.  Did it make me laugh out loud, yes.  Is it pure escapism absolutely!  It is an action comedy as Sandra Bullock plays a uptight FBI agent who is sent to Boston to help on a case.  She is paired with the unconventional street cop played by Melissa McCarthy who is crude, loud and does not follow anyone's rules.  You can write the rest of the story.  They bond and all is good in the end.  After watching the movie I thought about Bullock's career.  She has tackled so many different kinds of roles and does them all so well from a movie like this to Blind Side to Gravity.  She is truly a versatile actress.