Right Wing Nation

Dinah Shore sang this song on Chevrolet ads from 1951-1961. It’s one of my earliest memories.

I watched The Patriot, the other day, the Mel Gibson movie released in 2000.

It’s a real stinker. I mean it’s incredibly bad. If I’d seen it in the theater, I would have demanded my money back. In fact, I’m still thinking of sending Mel Gibson a bill for the time I lost watching this crap.

The scariest thing about it is this: “Screenwriter Robert Rodat wrote 17 drafts of the script before there was an acceptable one.”

I can’t imagine what the worse scripts were like, because the “acceptable one” was the reason the movie sucked. Really sucked. Big-time sucked. Completely, totally, sucked. Like a massive black hole sucked. The worst movie I’ve seen in years sucked. Even worse than M. Night Shmaltzamayhem sucked.

The suckiest of a great many sucky things about The Patriot is that it’s not about the Revolutionary War — the Revolutionary War is nothing more than a backdrop. No, it’s about Mel Gibson’s character, and the awful things that happen to him. Lots of people slammed the movie for historical inaccuracy, but I won’t go there — it’s a frigging Hollywood movie, only an idiot would expect historical accuracy. But seriously, it’s an American movie ostensibly about the Revolutionary War, but if you knew nothing about it when you went to see this garbage flick, you’d come out still not knowing what all the fighting was about. It’s not that the movie is historically inaccurate. The movie has no historical information at all. None.

Come on. What were you people thinking?

It did make me realize one thing. There are very few movies about the Revolutionary War. Think about it. Don’t you think, considering the remarkable lack of movies about the Revolutionary War, that they’d slip in just a little historical information, even if it was inaccurate?

In this piece of crap, the only history is the costuming.

I’ve got news for the morons who made this movie. The Revolutionary War is a great deal larger than all the awful things that happen to Mel Gibson’s character. This movie needs to be destroyed.

That Amish farmers’ market is the best discovery we’ve made since moving here. Ah, the corn! The preserves! The tomatoes! And it’s every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday!

We went this morning, of course, the earliest we’ve gone yet (around 8). They don’t start as early as they do in Bloomington, and they were just getting set up. When we were leaving, we saw they had set out the preserves, so we went back through to get some.

With corn this good, you need to use it in something that will show it off. Then, you have to figure out what else you’re going to eat. I decided on simple and homey.

I picked up a pork loin, and I’m smoking it. We’ve got the corn and some new potatoes, so I’m making creamed potatoes and fried corn to go with the pork roast. For dessert, we picked up a raspberry pie from the farmers’ market, and there’s Haagen-Dasz vanilla in the freezer.

My theory is that State College suffers from “we’re an ag school and we really want to be hip and happenin” syndrome, especially when it comes to restaurants, and especially especially when it comes to Italian restaurants.

Mario & Luigi’s is the exception. All the other Italian restaurants in Happy Valley fall into the California-ized, castrated Italian category: Light! Fresh! Seasonal! Organic! Try our linguine with fresh basil and soy dip, garnished with our light, fresh oregano and mango salsa!

Please. If there’s any food trend I’m sick of, it’s the 80s nouvelle cuisine, Fresh! Light! Organic! We promise you’ll leave here hungry and guilt-free! trend. And it’s particularly obnoxious when it comes to Italian.

I know, I know. You’ll have to forgive my penis-waving, serial-raping, patriarchal palate. But please. Give me palate-orgasm-inducing Godfather Italian, not mincing girlish-figure-watching pseudo-Italian, thanks.

We have just down the road in the little village of Lemont, Alto, one of the most pinkie-up places to eat in Happy Valley. It’s free-range! It’s fresh! It’s organic! And they can’t even spell “gnocchi” on their menu.

Seriously. Scroll down and see for yourself.

Less chi-chi, but extremely popular with the “we want to be hip and happenin” university crew is Faccia Luna, full name Faccia Luna Pizzeria. Their claims to fame are their wood-fired pizzas and (are you ready?) they make their own pasta.

They make their own pasta. I’m so utterly unimpressed. Any idiot can make pasta. I couldn’t care less whether they make their own pasta — and by the way, they may make it, but when we’ve eaten there, the pasta was way overdone, you know, soft and slimy — the criterion is the sauce.

Everything is castrated Italian except (possibly) the Bolognese, and that’s what I ordered. It’s the worst excuse for Bolognese I’ve had. It has no guts. It’s thin and watery. Olive Garden has better pasta than Faccia Luna.

Mario & Luigi’s is pretty good — not the best, and certainly not Maggiano’s in Philadelphia, which, amazingly, is a chain, and has the best Italian I’ve eaten in at least twenty years. But it’s good, and the food shows little weenification from salad eaters and the fresh! light! organic! you’ll leave here hungry, we promise! crew.

I leave swearing I’ll never eat again.

The Bolognese is rich, spicy, and has guts. The lasange really is lasagne roma, with not a hint of that messy, nasty ricotta, but a white sauce. Hands down the best Italian in Happy Valley. If Don Corleone lived in State College, you’d find him at Mario & Luigi’s.

Bellefonte has Mamma Lucrezia’s (no web page), which is pretty good. Dark, cavern-like, and old-fashioned, but pretty good. There are a couple of other Italian places in Bellefonte we haven’t tried, largely because they provide no online menu or web page, and to get an idea of what they’re like, you have to go there.

There’s one place I’m very interested in trying, not in Happy Valley, or even in Centre County, but next door in Blair County, Altoona, to be exact. Finelli’s. There are plenty of things I’d like to try on their menu, and unlike the people who own Alto, who can’t spell “gnocchi,” the Finelli’s folks have no problem with Italian, but the English isn’t perfect. Finelli’s is 30 miles from here, not far.

Speaking of not far, there’s also DelGrosso’s Amusement Park, in Tipton, just 30 miles away, and also in Blair County. It’s more than an amusement park. It’s a family business, and they make pasta sauce that’s actually pretty damned good for sauce in a jar. They also have all-you-can-eat specials at the amusement park every Wednesday, as well as an Italian food festival next month. Why not?

But you can keep Faccia Luna. It’s crap.