Where’s the beef?

by chuckofish

Earlier this week I made meatloaf for dinner — or at least tried to. I got it ready ahead of time and put it in the fridge, and then became deeply engrossed in a writing project. At the appropriate time, I took a break to put the oven on. Eventually, the DH arrived home from the office and I went to prepare potatoes and veg. When I opened the oven door to check the meatloaf, I was surprised to discover… nothing. How could this be? Where was the meatloaf? I found it in the fridge, where I had left it. Oops. My husband, who remained unperturbed, calmly suggested that we have bacon and eggs and save the meatloaf for the next day. So, we did. It all worked out, and hey, at least I didn’t do this:

In other beef related news, I saw a good movie on Netflix called Operation Mincemeat. I’m not saying it stands among the greats but compared to 99% of other new movies it was wonderful. Anyway, I thought it struck all the right chords, and it’s a true story!

It’s 1943 and the Allies are getting ready to invade Sicily. Rear Admiral John Godfrey and Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming (yes, the author who created James Bond) write a memo suggesting a way to hoodwink the Germans into believing that the attack will come in Greece rather than Sicily. Committee twenty (as in XX or double cross) is tasked with carrying out the deception, which involves finding an appropriate corpse, creating a backstory for it, putting Top Secret material in a briefcase attached to its wrist and then dumping it in the sea off Spain in such a way that the Nazis are certain to find it. Political problems, love triangles and plenty of nail-biting ensue. The movie has a good script, excellent cast (Colin Firth, Jason Isaacs, Penelope Wilton and Matthew MacFadyen), no violence to speak of and no sex. It was refreshingly normal. Back in 2020, my DP posted about an earlier version of the story that I have not seen, the 1956 film The Man Who Never Was starring Clifton Webb. If you are interested in Operation Mincemeat, you can watch this documentary to find out more.

https://youtu.be/bh2e6sE6YXA

It’s our anniversary today and also happens to be my turn to cook dinner. If you can recommend easy but delicious recipes that don’t involve long periods of inactivity during which I can get distracted and then forget to cook the rest, I’d be delighted if you’d put them in the comments.

Have a great weekend and stay cool!