Hunk of the Month Club: Gael Garcia Bernal

We had the hardest time settling on a hunk to celebrate this month, readers. It feels like lately, we've spent so much of our time exasperated over the lack of new hunks coming through the pipeline, and by how Big Movie expects us to believe people  like Bradley Cooper and Ryan Reynolds are hunks, that there's barely been any time for true hunk reflection. I was about to suggest to J that we revisit Jimmy Bartel, what with it being the last week in September and  the Brownlow producers' apparent inability to give the audience what it wants.

But then inspiration hit. 

Gael Garcia Bernal.

Actor. Director. Mexican. Hunk.

I emailed J straight away and she said "Yes. He is a deadset hunk and I love him!" 

It's not hard to see why, readers. But lets explore it anyway.

K: Mate, when did you first discover GGB?

J: God, I remember the first time I saw GGB like it was yesterday. I was watching Amores Perros at the Kino and there he was. Like some kind of golden god. I was watching it with David and I could tell he was hating that movie so hard. That guy sure doesn't know a hunk when he sees one. 

Snaggle toothed and hot

K: Too bad, so sad, David. I feel sorry for people who can't (or won't) see the hunk in others. For me, there is no film experience more satisfying than one that delivers a new hunk in to my consciousness when I had no expectation of it at all. It's a rare and absolute joy. 

My first GGB experience was in Y tu mama tambien. Hot.

Of course, I had heard you talk about what a hunk GGB is, so I wasn't surprised when I saw him and found him to be a total hunk. But sometimes a little anticipation is a good thing too.

Mate, what do you think is the root of GGB's hunkiness?

Brooding and hot

J:Oh a movie with a new surprise hunk is one of the all time best things! I love that. But you are right, sometimes being a little primed for a hunk doesn't hurt. Y tu mama tambien is such a special movie of hunk. I mean, it is such a great film and GGB really, shall we say, shines.

That's a great question about the root of GGB's hotness. Let's break it down. Firstly, he is so pretty. That square jaw and big smile. Plus he can look adorable and doofusy, scary, sad hot, he does it all! Plus, an accent. And finally he's a hot Mexican. And you don't get to see that in a movie every day.

What do you think it is?

K: I think GGB being as pretty as he is goes a long way. And so smiley. Miss Soft Crab has said it before and she'll say it again: A brooding hunk is great, but a smiling hunk is something else altogether. Often, hunks own one of these dimensions, and while they may dabble in the other, they tend to hold fast to their source. GGB is equal parts a brooding hunk and a smiling hunk. Equal parts! Again, it's a rare joy. 

I feel that we should note that GGB is 1.68 metres tall. This means that GGB is in fact, short. Obviously this kind of thing can be difficult for a gentleman. A real hunk-inhibitor. Not so with the GGB.

He manages to make being a short man a source of his hunkiness, not an impediment to it. He's a short, hot man.

Black and white and hot

J: It's true. It's almost as if GGB's height is an enhancement rather than inhibitor of his hunkness. To be a grade-A hunk at the height of 168cm proves how special a person is. 

Plus not only is GGB really damn pretty, but he also speaks 5 languages and has two babies with his wife. Quintlingual family man! Hot!

Shopping and hot

K: Oh man, what a guy. I'm pretty sure GGB is our first Quintlingual HotMC hunk. Lets just go through the list to be sure:

Paul Newman

Jake Gyllenhaal

Casey Affleck

Jimmy Bartel

Viggo Mortensen.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure none of those guys is a fiver.

But geez, look at that list and tell me does MSC know how to choose a hunk or does MSC know how to choose a hunk?!

Here's to you, GGB. Welcome to the HotMC family. 

Haiku Thursday (AM)

Rain

Since the drought done broke

The countryside's gotten green

So soft on my eyes

Springtime

How'd you get so fine

Sweetest of seasons, springtime

Want to make you mine

Taquitos

If life was good as 

Trippy taco taquitos

Life would be so good

Sound and Vision (AM)

This is a story about the Two Bright Lakes rooftop show J and I went to last Saturday night.
Remember last Saturday? It looked a lot like this:

All day it rained.  It was the kind of rain that drives people indoors. People are right to stay indoors in that kind of rain. Even ducks would be right to stay indoors in that kind of rain. But you know how it is when you're planning to go to something, and you know that thing will be really fun and even though you kind of want to stay warm and dry at home you also want to make sure that you are not turning in to a real pussy, so you go. It was kind of like that.

Plus, Biz, beloved member of the Crab community, is also a founding member of Two Bright Lakes. The thing Biz knows above all the other things is sound and vision. And don't you think that sound + vision + rooftop + rainstorm of biblical proportions = a wonderful night?
We thought so.




We met at Rue Bebelons for a drink  and a little text messaging first. The rain continued to fall outside but we were getting excited about the sound, and about the vision.  Russeth came to meet us, so we finished our drinks and headed out.

The show was on the Melbourne Central Rooftop. But who has ever heard of such a thing? No one, that's who. We thought it would take us ages to find it, but of course TBL are helpful guys and it was really well signed.


Excitement hit fever pitch when we found the door and got carded!Yesss!

The entrance was hung with beautiful strings of leaves that we wove our way through on our way out to the rooftop. It was light and airy and we couldn't help but linger for a little while to frolic  amongst the leaves.








But the music and its promise of fun times was calling to us. We soon joined the group of folks standing in the rain, listening to Lost Animal. 

Perhaps you can't get a sense of it from these pictures, but it was pretty great to be standing in a place I've never been, looking at a view of Melbourne I'd never seen and listening to some music in the rain. The rooftop space actually felt really cosy, and despite the persistent rain, in my famous blue yellow raincoat, nothing was getting in.

Of course, it wasn't long before we felt like a snack. We are, after all, us.

TBL thought of that too, and there was a delightful young man on hand to ply us with burritos and/or grande melt (which are slightly bigger burritos that you throw in the sandwich press for a while). Obviously we chose the grande melt.







We stood by the wall, ate our grande melts and listened to the music. Darkness was falling, and it wouldn't be long before standing around would have to give way to a little boogie.

But readers, remember what we told you about Biz's specialties? Sound AND vision. As darkness fell, the light show began and it was then the wonderment really took over. I don't want to say too much, because in this afternoon's post, J is going to tell you what we saw.
Let me just leave you with this picture of rain and paper planes, and be sure to come back to Miss Soft Crab in the PM,  when our story continues.

Double the freshness (AM)

Last week I invented this awesome new thing I like to call fresh nachos. Like nachos but fresh. And they are effing awesome. Like I said. Basically you make some delicious chilli beans and make a delicious salad then pile it all on a handful of corn chips with some good chilli sauce and sour cream. All the deliciousness of nachos without the gross oily melty cheesiness. I mean I love the gross, stodgy cheesiness of nachos as much as the next person but, you know,  without the grossness and with heaps of freshness they are a whole new kettle of fish. A delicious kettle of fish. Sure, you can't have corn chips in a meal all the time but I am telling you that fresh nachos are very, very special.

One thing that made them so special is my new approach to cooking chilli beans. Two things happened a couple of months ago that changed everything. I don't know which happened first but one thing was that K, Legsly, Blephanie and I made paella. The recipe called for us to make sofrito and add 10 tablespoons to the paella for cooking but didn't mention what to do with the rest. So we added it to our personal serves at the end. Wholly moly! It added this wonderful whole other dimension to it.

The other thing that happened was I listened to all the episodes of Fresh Air's food week and heard people talk about lots of food stuff, including how to do it best, science-wise. And this one guy talked about how adding flavours at the end was important and different to adding things at the start of the cooking process. Sounds self-evident, but I just had never thought about this before in this context. He was basically talking about how cooking your spices and everything for a long time changes and mellows the flavours, of course. So NOW when I make slow cooked things like chilli I add the same flavour profile TWICE. I may fry off some garlic, chilli, cumin and coriander (seeds AND fresh) at the start and cook everything in it. Then I chop up fine those same things and stir it all in at the end. A whole new layer of fresh flavour!

You don't have to thank me, you just have to do it!

A tale of two Mexican dinners Pt. 2

Isn't it funny that K and I found ourselves at two separate Mexican dinners last night?! Mate, yours sound lovely. Piksticks don't work for me. My teeth are too close together (not freakishly so readers, I just can't get anything wider than floss in. I actually get compliments on my teeth so don't start picturing me as some sort of freak. Please).

Anyway, on to the dinner Russeth cooked for the family.

Menu
Let me remind you that this is not a competition, readers. But I do have to tell you what Russeth made.

Tortillas. These were beautiful. The proper corn flour makes them so fragrant and tasty. Apparently the other secret is to wrap them in a tea towel so they steam themselves, becoming all soft and delicious. These would have been the hero of the meal if there weren't so many other damn heroes fighting it out for supremacy.

There was a white fish in bits covered with almond meal, sesame seeds and paprika (THIS, I think, was the ultimate hero warrior), there was a very spicy delicious potato thing, slow cooked pork (cooked for hours in lard so it just falls apart), also Russeth made salsa verde (coriander, tomatillos, a whole lot of fragrant deliciousness), salsa rojas (so much chilli and depth), a delicious guacamole with tomatoes and coriander, red cabbage in lime juice, and some chopped tomatoes.


Shit. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I think Russeth might have out done himself. (I don't know, he always puts on a pretty fine spread. Was this better than Sexico - his Mexican feast 29th birthday party? It's hard to say. I think maybe it was!)


Of course I made chocolate molten babycakes for desert.


All in all this meal was delicious. DELICIOUS!

Interesting conversation
Now, let me remind you, readers, that this is not a competition. But our conversation was quite high brow and political if you must know.

Of course we talked of of poor Amy Winehouse (RIP Amy Winehouse. Really). We talked of the massacre in Norway.

Later when we talked of Baby's poo, Dad (still eating) pulled a face and observed "Even talking about Rupert Murdoch is better than this." To which Mum replied "That's how we got onto this topic!" Hahaha! (It's true.) Oh, how we laughed.

Then someone (me) mentioned Smurf jiz and the world was right again.