SteveJamieson.com

By now everyone ought to know that I’ve moved (more on that later). So now that I have this cool new pad, what am I going to do with it? Since I’m somewhat of a movie fan, I decided to start hosting movie nights on a quasi-regular to regular basis. In fact, I specifically configured my new living room to support maximum seating when I moved in. And to make things more interesting, I decided to try to add a themed dinner into the mix each time.

Now, when one wants to start a movie night series-type thing, what does one start with. Star Wars Trilogy, of course! Having settle on the movie and the date (September 4th—a week after I moved in), I had to decide what the themed dinner would be. I eventually settled on Captain Solo’s Chicken, which was just renaming a recipe I had for “Captain’s Chicken”.

Star Wars Trilogy night (err… day) went rather well, and the next week followed with “Grosse Pointe Blank” and Chicken Pot Pie (no theme intended–you try to find a food that goes with a dark romantic comedy about an assassin going to his high school reunion in Detroit). Then last week was an X-Men Double Feature with X-treme Pasta, which drew a veritable crowd of a dozen over the course of the evening.

Tonight I’m showing “This Is Spinal Tap”, and the meal is Eat Like A Roadie—pizza and corn dogs. I thought about getting lunch-meat and small bread to mimic a particular scene in the movie, but I couldn’t find any small bread at Schnucks and lunch-meat wasn’t on sale.

Happy New Year all! 2004 is here, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s off to a fine start. On New Year’s Eve, I was scheduled to preach at my church’s annual New Year’s Eve Communion Service. In preparation for this event, I had written a sermon on the Lord’s Supper for my preaching class last semester. Although I got a B+ on the sermon, I had only put 2 days into it, and I wasn’t satisfied with it. During my trip home for Christmas, I spent a considerable quantity of time improving the sermon. The revised version turned out much better, and went over well at the service.

After the service, rather than go across the street to Forest Park where the big St. Louis New Year bash was being held, I went to a small party at the home of the McGarrys. This turned out to be a wise decision, since the organizers of the events at the park had planned on 25,000 people and 3-4x as many showed up. Needless to say, it was a mess over there, and I was glad to avoid it. Anyway, the party with the McGarrys was the expected subdued yet fun affair featuring a variety of cheeses, people I’ve never met before, a quick round of Taboo, an appearance by the other Steve Jam(i)eson, and a screening of Airplane 2.

And then there was the pickled herring. Amongst the wide variety of cheeses I noticed a bowl of gray matter that appeared to have a fishy texture. Upon inquiring what it was, Jessica challenged me to eat it before being informed of its identity. And just to prove that it was safe, she placed a piece of the mystery matter on a cracker and consumed it. Nevertheless, I declined for the moment. Later in the evening however, the challenge came up again. Despite having discovered that the substance at hand was pickled herring, I agreed to give it a try. Feeling like I was on “Fear Factor”, I took a bite from the chunk of the repellent smelling fish on cracker that I had been given. For the first nanosecond of mastication it was tolerable, but soon my taste-buds began to rebel against this foul fish. My face contorted in many strange ways as I chewed and fought the urge to puke. After I managed to swallow the small bite, I immediately downed a can of soda to wash away the revolting aftertaste. Jessica can keep her pickled herring. As for me, I have a new rule: If it looks nasty and smells nasty, by no means am I to put it in my mouth!