When most families get together for holidays and special occasions, everyone sits around a dining room table in Rockwellian fashion while the patriarch carves a roast beast. At my Italian family’s events, seventy-five people scarf down pounds of Italian sausage while the fraternal brotherhood of retirees complains in escalating fashion about the food not being ready yet. We have the typical American fixins’ like baked ham, deep-fried turkey, stuffing/dressing, potato salad, and mac and cheese, but there are also a couple of lasagnas, stuffed shells, fried eggplant, etc. One of the stars of the show is the stuffed artichokes. We haven’t seen them much at events since my grandmother died, so I decided to learn how to make them.
I was having a conversation last week with a friend about good western films. When I threw out my favorites, he hadn’t heard of them. That’s not surprising, since the heyday of the western genre was before we were born. I’m guessing a lot of people my age aren’t that into watching older movies, which is a shame when you consider the recycled and ‘reinvented’ crap that Hollywood has been putting out for the past ten years. So here’s a primer on which movies you should check out if you’re relatively young and into Westerns. They’re not all old, but they’re all really good.
