Year: 2024

Twisters (PG-13)

Attractive people chase tornadoes in Oklahoma in Twisters, an, I guess, in-universe but otherwise sort of unrelated follow-up to the 1996 Twister.

When we meet college-age buddies Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), Javi (Anthony Ramos) and friends, they are chasing a storm to try out an experiment: putting barrels of moisture-absorbing material in the path of a tornado in hopes that the material will draw water out of the tornado and the lack of water will cause the tornado to collapse. It’s the non-toxic particles used in diapers, one girl explains. (Except if you’ve ever accidentally put a diaper in a washing machine you’ll know that what you have is a bunch of slippery, impossible to clean up blobs and are people really going to want those in their wheat fields? Never addressed.) But on this day, the tornado they try it out on is a, whatever, category five tornado (it’s called something else but let’s just go with cat 5) that eats these diaper science particles for breakfast and then proceeds to come roaring after the buddies, eventually vortexing away everyone but Kate and Javi.

Five years later, Kate is working at NOAA in New York City and avoiding anything to do with tornadoes and Oklahoma. Javi searches her out and asks her to join his new company to chase tornadoes. His company makes three-dimensional maps of tornadoes which something something profit and helps people. As little sense as what he says he’s doing makes, what he’s actually doing is a viable, if slimy, business that doesn’t require close storm-monitoring at all but you can only pull so many threads of this plot before this whole movie unravels.

And anyway, what he’s doing makes more sense than what rival (sort of) storm chaser Tyler (Glen Powell) is doing. While Javi and his well-equipped, uniform- and tech-sporting team seek to gather storm data, Tyler and his crew, sporting kind of a post-apocalyptic cowboy pirate look, are YouTube stars. They drive into tornadoes and shoot off fireworks and somehow this — well, this plus merch sales — brings in the dollars. For what? I’m not sure.

Anyway, it allows for inter-group antagonism and Tyler calling Kate “City Girl” and the two groups chasing after the same storms. Though Kate is still working through her trauma from the whole “friends dying in a tornado” thing, her overall purpose in joining Javi’s work is still, somehow, to use the data to find a way to protect people from the increasingly frequent, increasingly powerful storms.

I realize how grumpy, how “old man yells at cloud” this will sound but I don’t find Glen Powell handsome and charismatic as much as I find him to be a product being sold to me as Handsome and Charismatic TM. The salesmanship is so aggressive, so “embrace this next-gen Tom Cruise, embrace him!” that it gets in the way of my actually relating to any character he is playing. His character here comes off as like 73 percent grin and cowboy hat. It’s as if I were watching an ad for, I don’t know, Arby’s or Chili’s on a loop, something where the food might look plausibly intriguing on first watch but looks more suspicious the longer I have the same pitch yelled at me.

Powell’s Tyler is thus a prickly irritant that kept me from just letting the dumb action and pretty cinematography of this movie wash over me. The wide-open spaces of the Midwest can be beautiful and director Lee Isaac Chung (who also directed the excellent Minari) truly shoots this movie for maximum wonder. Even crumbly farms and oil storage tanks have landscape loveliness. The twisters of Twisters are also fine — perhaps it is a function of the theater I saw the movie in (just a regular screen) that they didn’t have a greater wow factor. I feel like if you want to see this on the big screen probably go for the biggest, most total-attention-getting screen you can.

Beautiful images plus one half of the lead actor duo who needed to dial it down gets me to a movie I didn’t enjoy as much as I wanted to but I didn’t find actively loathsome. I feel like this movie never fully found its footing, never really decided what it wanted to be — straight-faced action? 1990s near-camp action? something else entirely? — and as a result always felt like it was running at half strength. C+

Rated PG-13 for intense action and peril, some language and injury images, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung with a screenplay by Mark L. Smith, Twisters is two hours and two minutes long and distributed in theaters, where it made $80 million its opening weekend according to media reports, by Universal Studios.

Featured photo: Twisters.

The Summer Pact, by Emily Giffin

The Summer Pact, by Emily Giffin (Ballantine, 352 pages)

For the Love of Summer, by Susan Mallery (MIRA, 400 pages)

Neither The Summer Pact nor For the Love of Summer — despite their titles’ insinuations and their beach-vibe covers — is about summer, the season. The titles both refer to a character named Summer. So cute. Because both authors had this clever idea, and because I read them one after the other and felt equally annoyed by their bait-and-switch covers, I figured I would share their other downfalls.

Emily Giffin’s The Summer Pacthas a trigger warning before the novel begins announcing that difficult themes, including suicide, are present. If you read the jacket cover carefully, it’s pretty easy to figure out what’s going to happen — and it does, in the first 10 pages of the book, so this is not a spoiler but rather the basis of the story. After their college friend Summer dies by suicide, Hannah, Lainey and Tyson make a pact to be there for each other if they are ever in crisis. A decade later, Hannah’s engagement ends abruptly, and she finds herself reaching out to Lainey and Tyson for support.

They each agree that they should embark on a trip together, a journey meant for healing and self-discovery. Instead, it seemed like a messy, depressing coming-together of three people who do not make sense as friends — and not in the quirky, we’re-so-different-it’s-funny kind of way, but in a forced, uncomfortable way.

It might have helped if Giffin had spent more than a few pages at the very beginning on the origins of their friendship, the solid foursome that existed before Summer died. But 10 years post-college, they seemingly have nothing in common other than this pact that they made.

It’s hard to even like or care about most of the characters, especially Lainey, who seems to be on a mission of self-destruction and generally comes across as selfish and immature.

The way Lainey reacts when she meets her half-sister for the first time is just childish. She was wronged by her dad, yes, but she confronts them as if she’s an angry 13-year-old with absolutely no filter or ability to communicate like an adult. When her other half-sister later tries to connect with her, Lainey refuses to have anything to do with her.

Hannah is the meek one of the group. The way she reacts to her fiance’s infidelity is pitiful. It’s infuriating to watch a main character not stand up for herself — and when she finally does, it’s at the prompting of her friends, in their presence, under false pretenses, because she couldn’t confront her cheating fiance on her own.

I didn’t have a problem with Tyson, other than he seemed to be Giffin’s attempt at racial inclusivity, with a lot of focus on the fact that he’s a Black man and not much other character development. That makes it hard to believe the romance subplot that Giffin throws in toward the tail end of the story.

I’ve been an Emily Giffin fan for years and have read all of her previous novels, so this was a disappointment for me.

I wish I had read For the Love of Summer first, because I probably would have appreciated Giffin’s writing a bit more – she, at the very least, does not repeat the same messages over and over again, the way Susan Mallery does in her “summer” novel.

The plot of Mallery’s book is cute: Allison’s husband gets sent to jail, and her stepdaughter — Summer — feels bad for her because she’s got a toddler and a baby on the way and no money, so Summer begs her mom, Erica, to let them move in. New wife living with ex-wife — could be fun, right?

Sadly, somehow, most of the book comes across as depressing and negative, with the exception of Summer, who is so positive and hopeful and empathetic that she’s actually unbelievable. This is another example of a cover that’s made for marketing and not representative of what the book is actually about.

The amount of repetition is maddening — the book easily could have been 100 pages shorter (yes, we know Allison is broke, pregnant and raising a toddler alone – we don’t need every character to think and say this over and over). There’s also at least one significant editing issue, where Mallery uses the wrong character’s name. Both of these issues may be the result of Mallery churning out multiple books a year, because it certainly felt hastily written.

With both of these books, I obviously cared enough to finish reading and find out what happened, which is something (honestly, though, I almost gave up on For the Love of Summer because I was so tired of so many words when so little was happening). If you want to give one of them a try, my vote is for The Summer Pact. But if you’re looking for light, fun, well-written beach reads, don’t let these covers fool you. The Summer Pact, B-; For the Love of Summer, C

Album Reviews 24/07/25

Sweet, Give Us A Wink (Capitol Records)

I’m still kicking myself for forgetting to mooch press passes to this seminal arena-rock band’s recent appearance at the Tupelo Music Hall (all the original members save Andy Scott are deceased), but this album still merits a few paragraphs for the edification of Zoomers and millennials, who need to understand that the ’70s weren’t just about Zeppelin and Skynyrd. It was 1976 and seemingly everything was under the influence of LSD, from the bands to the Lipton Noodle Zoopman; this album’s vaguely Zep-like sound was a new thing, heavy and progressive but the instruments were played so mechanically and succinctly that I’d describe it as a predecessor to today’s hard-electro, like that of Pendulum for example. The octave-level, Munchkinesque vocal harmonies took a little getting used to, although people were well-accustomed to them after their prior hit “Ballroom Blitz,” a more generic rawk tune that was nothing like the ones on this album, like the spazzing “White Mice” and “Healer,” their answer to Zep’s “Kashmir.” Anyway, this is one you’d want to be familiar with if you’re at a pool party and the old folks are waxing nostalgic about the days “when music didn’t suck.” A+

Brian Ray, My Town (Wicked Cool Records)

Decent rock ’n’ roll musicians are born swindlers, musical roustabouts whose importance exists only in their own minds; the trick is to get everyone else to believe in their trip. This 69-year-old guitarist’s papers check out; he parlayed his 1970s stint with Bobby Pickett (of “Monster Mash” fame) into a reputation that allowed him to troll his way into Etta James’ band and then Paul McCartney’s in 2002. As you’d guess, the credits on this record are decidedly too-long-didn’t read; Smokey Robinson, Michael des Barres and Gia Ciambotti turn in vocal contributions, just for starters, and I could go on, but as far as the demographic this might appeal to? I don’t know, maybe people who’ve never heard a Rolling Stones record before? I mean, that’s what it is, tempo- and vibe-wise; the guitar sound alternates between grunge and Kinks, which is fine, and at times the sound wants to be Weezer-ish (Scott Shriner is here, by the way), but ultimately it’s background patter for an ’80s action movie, and bloody disengaged at that. B-

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• At this writing the temperature is exactly one million degrees outside, here in sunny Manchvegas, New Hamster, and I have melted into a puddle of snark, so fair warning, all you new albums coming out on Friday, July 26, you’d better be good, or I’ll — why, I’ll — well, just you wait, ’enry ’iggins, I have plenty of outraged rage I’d love to direct at the wrong places, Given that my new book about social media and politics, My Year In The Online Left, just dropped a bit in the bestseller list, which means I can’t afford a trip to the North Pole! Yes yes, in my melted, snarky, basically liquefied state I am a loose cannon, and all I’ve been able to tolerate listening to lately is old — as in old — music, like, I made a mixtape for my car that has songs from Outlaws, Andrew Gold and Ace Frehley on it, and those are the most modern artists on the CD! The rest of it comprises stuff from the 1950s like Jerry Lee Lewis, The Dovells and Eddie Cochran, stuff that all the bros used to have playing in their souped-up ’32 Ford Coupes when they drove over to pick up Petunia and take her “parking” [nudge, nudge]. Yessir, 1950s greaser rock is all my delicate constitution has been able to tolerate lately, like, this week, Petunia wanted to catch up on the most recent season of Yellowjackets, and when I heard that stupid, sad, morose Radiohead song playing in the background during that one awful, disturbing, horrible scene, well, that was it, fam, something broke inside me and suddenly I had to hear “Sweet Little Sixteen” or I knew I would crack in half! But wait, don’t flip to Amy’s film reviews quite yet, I can still be as “groovy” as any other music journo; here, watch this, as I take a listen to the new Ice Spice single “Did It First,” from the TikTok/Nickelodeon princess’ fast-approaching new album, Y2K! Spoiler, it’s about romantic cheating and hawk tuah-ism, as always, but at least the beat is sci-fi and noise-garage-y, not that stupid wimpy trap stuff, like, this thing would totally shred the woofers in your totally keen souped-up Toyota Corolla to tatters if you cranked it while heading over to pick up Petunia and take her to the Twerk-O-Rama to watch her do her subtle, seductive mating dances! OK, may I go back to listening to The Silhouettes’ “Get A Job” now!

• OK, spread out, let’s stop making fun of twerking princesses and get down to the real meat of the era, namely bands that are kind of fun in a Mungo Jerry sort of manner, you know, amateurish bands led by broke, smelly millennial NEETS (which stands for “not in employment, education, or training,” have you heard this 15-year-old expression yet?), for instance Los Angeles outfit Alex Izenberg & The Exiles! Yes, they are in my “You should talk about this band” list, but they aren’t recommended, because they are broke and slovenly, so let’s be rebellious and talk about the band’s new single, “Drinking the Dusk Away,” from their new self-titled album! Wow, I have to report that although the song is appropriately moronic to fit the times, the vocal harmonizing is pretty concise, and they use an actual dobro. It’s on Domino Records, which is all you really need to know; i.e., it’s good.

• When he’s not having anxiety attacks on stage, North Carolina dance DJ Porter Robinson releases albums, like his new one, SMILE! 😀! The tune I listened to, “Knock Yourself Out XD,” combines a Nintendo beat with emo and Beatles. It is OK!

• We’ll call it a column with New York twee/dream-pop band Cults, whose new LP To the Ghosts features the tune “Left My Keys,” which sounds like Bon Iver with a (slight) pulse, or a really uninteresting M83, take your pick.

Cucumber yogurt

Yogurt

  • 1 half-gallon (1,900 g) whole milk
  • 1 small container – 7 ounces or so – of plain yogurt; it doesn’t matter what brand, although I like Fage, but the ingredient label should say something like “Contains live active yogurt cultures” and then a list of their Latin names

Cucumber Syrup

  • 1 large, flavorful cucumber, washed
  • An equal amount, by weight, of white sugar

Equipment

  • A food thermometer
  • A medium-sized cooler. It could even be a disposable, Styrofoam one.

Sometime, an hour or so before bedtime, pour the milk into a saucepan, and cook it over medium heat to 190°F. Remove it from the burner, and keep an eye on it while you clean up the kitchen.

When the temperature of the milk has dropped to around 120°F, whisk in the container of plain yogurt. The “live cultures” the yogurt label referred to are strains of bacteria that feed on sugars in the milk and produce lactic acid, which thickens it up and makes it tangy. The live cultures you are adding to the warm milk have been living in the cold and dark for quite some time. When you plunge them into an infinite vista of untouched milk, they are going to behave much like a bunch of frat brothers given the keys to a brewery. They’re going to go a bit wild and put 110 percent of their effort into partying and reproducing.

Pour your proto-yogurt mixture into two one-quart containers, then place them in the cooler. To keep it warm, fill several bottles or jars with very hot water, and pack them around the yogurt jars. Wish everyone a good night, seal the lid, and go to bed.

The yogurt should do its thing for six to 12 hours. The longer the Bacteria Bros have to party, the more lactic acid they will produce, and the tangier the final yogurt will be. Open one of the jars and taste it. If it’s a little bland for your taste, refill the hot water bottles and leave the party to rage for a while longer.

You will end up with a very creamy full-fat plain yogurt. It will be about as thick as heavy cream. If you want to firm it up, drain it through a tea towel in a colander for half an hour or so. A lot of the liquid — “whey” is the official term — will drain off, leaving you with about a third less yogurt, but much thicker. When it’s at a consistency you like, put it in the refrigerator.

This is good yogurt — creamy, fresh and satisfying. But it is, as noted above, plain. If you’d like a sweeter, flavored yogurt, you could do a lot worse than hitting it with some cucumber syrup.

Before you make that face, consider that cucumbers are technically fruit.

Chop, freeze, and make a syrup out of a medium cucumber, with an equal amount of sugar. Strain it, and add it to your yogurt to taste.

Featured Photo: Photo by John Fladd.

In the kitchen with Keith Sarasin

Keith Sarasin is a renowned chef, restaurateur and cookbook author who has dedicated more than a decade to studying the art of Indian cuisine. With a deep passion for the food and culture of the Indian subcontinent, he has honed his skills through extensive research and study, working with top food researchers like Dr. Kurush Dalal, and chefs like Maneet Chauhan and Chintan Pandya of Dhamaka, to expand his knowledge and abilities. Sarasin is the author of six cookbooks that offer a wealth of recipes and tips on topics such as meat cooking and preparation, the art of fermentation, and seasonal recipes using fresh ingredients from local farmers. He is currently filming a documentary-style show, Finding India, which chronicles his personal journey as a chef, from overcoming tragedy to rediscovering his passion for cooking.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

A Vitamix or a mixer-blender. It’s such an important tool to make smooth sauces, gravies and more.

What would you have for your last meal?

For my last meal? Pizza and a side of butter chicken gravy to dip the crust in. Because if I’m checking out, I’m doing it with the best of both worlds.

What is your favorite local eatery?

Chowrastha in Nashua. They are serving really great dishes from the Indian subcontinent without compromising anything.

Name a celebrity you would like to see eating your food.

Shah Rukh Khan. He is an incredible actor and producer who is a legend in the Bollywood world. The stories of his incredible work ethic are inspiring. I would love to share my passion for food that he grew up on with him.

What is your favorite thing on your menu, or for your pop-up dinners?

It’s like choosing a favorite child, but if I must, I’d say our signature Butter Chicken, because it’s the dish that made my taste buds throw a party and convinced me I had to share this magic with the world. Plus, we toast all the spices and it leaves you wanting more. Our version of the dish will change your world.

What is the biggest food trend you see in New Hampshire right now?

People are seeking out quality restaurants and food. From pizza to Indian, people are seeking to try new things and it is really encouraging.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Simple Masoor Dal. It reminds me of my mentor Indira and how the first time she made it, it changed the way I thought of food.

Masoor Daal
“This recipe was handwritten by my mentor, Indira. It was the first dish I ever ate that she made, and it blew my mind,” Sarasin said.

Ingredients
3 Tablespoons canola oil
Pinch of hing (asafoetida) – available online or in Asian markets, this is a very pungent spice, used in small quantities, to give a subtle depth to Indian and Middle Eastern dishes
2 teaspoons cumin seed
2 teaspoons ajwain (sometimes known as carom) seeds – available online or in Asian markets.
1 cup chopped onion
3 teaspoons minced ginger
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 teaspoons turmeric
2 Kashmiri chilies – these are deeply flavored, hot-but-not-intensely-hot red chiles
3/4 cup chopped tomatoes
1/4 cup water
3 cups of masoor dal – Indian red lentils
1 Tablespoon kassori meti – dried fenugreek
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Directions
First, wash and rinse the dal well. You want to wash this with clean water several times till the water runs clear.
Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in pan.
Once the oil is hot, add a pinch of hing into oil.
Add cumin and ajwain seeds.
Once they pop, add the onion and salt and fry until translucent.
Add ginger and Kashmiri chiles and cook for 2 minutes.
Add 3 teaspoons of turmeric and ¾ cup of chopped tomatoes.
Add ¼ cup water.
Add 3 cups of dal and cover the mixture with water.
Cover dish partway and cook for 20 minutes on low heat or until the dal absorbs all the liquid and is mushy.
Add kassori meti and garam masala (1 teaspoon).

Explaining ranch water

Buena Gave serves summer drinks in a can

If you were to walk into a bar a couple of summers ago and order ranch water, you might have gotten some odd looks. Steve Poirier and the other owners of Buena Gave have been working to change that.

Poirier said that the first year he and his partners in the Manchester-based canned cocktail makers were trying to introduce their canned tequila drinks, their “ranch water” — a common drink across the southern U.S., particularly in Texas — was completely unfamiliar to New England customers.

“We still have ranch dressing conversations all the time,” he said. “Ranch water is obviously a massive thing down in Texas and any of the southern states. The original ranch water recipe is tequila, Topo Chico mineral water, real lime juice, and then salt or no salt, depending on your personal preference.” Now in its third year, Buena Gave Ranch Water is selling well.

“This cocktail is going to continue to boom,” Poirier said, “because tequila is on a rocket ship to the moon right now as a category. People are trying to clean up their drinking right now, and ranch water allows that to happen. It’s basic — no sugar, no sweetness, just back to basic ingredients.”

The Buena Gave team decided to start their own canned cocktail business because they saw an untapped market for simple tequila-based drinks. Poirier and his partners set out to make something different, with clean, easily tasted ingredients.

Poirier said customer demand has also been surprisingly high during the winter. “We see a lot of success with the ski community. We’ve had two great years at Waterville Valley ski resort. It’s the whole convenience factor — lower-calorie, cleaner drinking, cleaner taste, refreshing — that’s definitely becoming more of a thing as we meander through this whole process.”

The decision was made early on to limit the number of Buena Gave products to tequila-based cocktails that are popular in Mexico and the Southwest, near Jalisco, Mexico, where tequila is produced. A strong example of this is Buena Gave’s Cantarito.

“It’s a classic Mexican drink in tequila country,” Poirier said. “You get it at a lot of roadside stands and bars. It’s named after the mug it’s served in — a terracotta mug called a cantarito. It’s grapefruit juice and orange juice, with tequila, some soda water, sugar or no sugar depending on your preference. It’s like a mimosa meets a paloma. It’s super juicy, super citrusy. It’s unique [in this type of product]; the can is close to 28 or 30 percent fruit juice.”

“There are lots of places that just have beer and wine licences and don’t have full liquor licenses,” Poirier said, “and because of our alcohol level [6 percent ABV, or less], we fall into the beer and wine category. [We have customers] who have done really well with our Ranch Water, for instance, because they can’t carry full-proof spirits but they can carry canned cocktails.”

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