WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: I get to converse with fellow martial arts nerds. I get to learn a bit more about other styles, how they train and their philosophies. I can glean some training tips, commiserate about gradings and injuries, talk about martial arts movies, books, and weapons. We even have a thread called “Celebrate Your Victories” where we can have a bit of a gloat and some back-patting. Seeing how furiously the group members train motivates me to suck it up, get off my lazy butt and go do some more push-ups.
DISCUSSION TIP: Don’t be a troll. Simple, sage advice for young grasshoppers?
BEST RANDOM QUOTE: “A belt is nothing more than something to hold up your pants.”
MOST HEATED DISCUSSION THREAD: There is a stigma attached to martial artists; people tend to think we are an arrogant bunch, but in my experience in this group there are no such ass-hats. The most heated discussion I came across was over the value of belts as a way of ranking people within their relative systems. There was also discussion about using sharpened weapons versus blunt training weapons. I don’t even know if you could classify those discussions as heated, more teasing really.
WHO’S WELCOME TO JOIN?: Any martial artists of any level and even the armchair martial artists enthusiast who doesn’t feel the need to turn himself into a human punching bag.
I love experimenting with stuffed peppers, especially bite size mini’s! This colorful finger food is great to serve for any summer time party, but I particularly like to serve them during the 4th of July celebrations. There is something about the explosive flavor and bright colors that makes this the perfect holiday treat.
– Ryker Suicide
Ingredients
7 jalapenos, halved lengthwise and seeded/deveined
7 serranos, halved lengthwise and seeded/deveined
7 banana peppers, halved lengthwise and seeded/deveined
1 lb sweet Italian sausage, casing removed
16 oz pancetta, diced
1/2 orange bell pepper, minced
1/4 cup red onion, minced
3 TBS minced garlic
2 cups cream cheese
1/2 Parmesan plus more for garnish
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
Salt/pepper
1/4 bread crumbs
Olive oil for roasting
Directions:
1. Set oven to 350 degrees and roast peppers until soft, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
2. In a small pan sauté 1/3 of your onion/bell pepper/garlic until soft. Add pancetta and allow to brown. Remove from pan and allow to cool at room temp.
3. In a medium pan crumble and sauté sausage. Once cooked add the rest of your onion/bell pepper/garlic and cook until soft. Remove from pan and allow to cool to room temp.
4. Take pancetta mixture and mix with 2/3 cup of cream cheese. Add 1/8 cup of parsley, and salt/pepper to taste. Add 1/4 cup of Parmesan. Mix well and fill banana peppers. Sprinkle with parmesan and bread crumbs.
5. Take sausage mixture and add remaining cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, and parsley. Salt/pepper to taste. Mix well and fill remaining jalapenos/serranos. Sprinkle with Parmesan and bread crumbs.
6. Broil until cheese is melted/browning. Remove and serve!
Indie film darling Greta Gerwig already has two movies out this year, one of them being Damsels in Distress, in which she starred. I actually got to meet her for that film when I was interviewing Whit Stillman. While they were paired, Sillman commented on her character in the Arthur remake, as an example of how studio movies give characters silly traits.
In Lola Versus Gerwig stars as Lola, a woman whose fiancé (Joel Kinnaman) cancels their wedding sending her on a spiral of casual sex, dating, drinking and disaster. This is not one of your Kate Hudson wedding movies.
The impressive credentials of Greta Gerwig include a magna cum laude honor from Barnard College. As an actor, she starred in notable indies like Hannah Takes the Stairs and The Duplass Brothers’ Baghead. Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg got her enough notice to land big Hollywood movies like No Strings Attached and Arthur.
Curled up in a hotel chair, Gerwig remembered me, since we’d only met two months prior. We sort of continued the conversation where Damsels in Distress left off. Durning our conversation, Gerwig got us thinking about how awesome it is to be bored, which was a most exciting and unexpected twist.
