The Friday Five, 9/24/21: 5 things I've been up to this week

This week has been long, but I'm doing Schitt's Creek trivia with some friends tonight, which should be interesting, and I leave for Vegas on Sunday for work. Delta apparently will let me switch to an earlier flight for free, if I like, but I have yet to find an aisle seat ... definitely not doing a middle seat for a 4.5-hour flight. 

Low-cal popcorn chicken with avocado sauce from Dinnerly
Low-cal popcorn chicken with avocado sauce from Dinnerly

What I've been up to this week:
  1. Cooking. I had Dinnerly last week and I have Marley Spoon this week. I made a low-cal popcorn chicken dish (pictured above) from Dinnerly, with avocado sauce, which was interesting—it was a mix of guacamole, white wine vinegar, water, and a few other ingredients. Last night we made rosemary butter steak with string beans and mashed potatoes, from Marley Spoon, and tonight I'm cooking coffee-rubbed steak with chimichurri. On Sunday I will be cooking butter chicken with cauliflower rice. I probably should not have ordered a box this week but I'll make time to cook the rest of the meals; I may have to freeze the second butter chicken portion though. 
  2. Seeing movies. On Saturday, I shlepped to Livonia to see The Card Counter, which ended up being just okay—great acting by Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish, but way too slow, so the best I can give it is 3/5 stars. I was visiting my parents later in the day, otherwise I wouldn't have gone down there ... AMC Livonia has no recliners so it's not my favorite. My parents and I watched Come From Away, on AppleTV+, later that day, which was excellent—I saw the stage musical in Detroit when it was here a few years ago, I think in 2019, and that was excellent as well, so I wasn't surprised the Broadway taped version was good too. On Tuesday, my boyfriend and I tried watching Cry Macho, on HBO Max, and I'm glad I saw it there instead of at the theater, because it was pretty boring; he fell asleep after an hour into the movie and I wasn't super invested in it either, so I didn't finish it. This weekend I want to watch either Birds of Paradise, on Prime, or The Starling, on Netflix with Melissa McCarthy, but I've heard Starling has terrible reviews, so it might be the Prime movie. 
  3. Catching up on TV. Netflix's Sex Education is back so I've been watching that. I finished Nine Perfect Strangers which has a crazy ending, so now of course I want to read the book. Dear White People is back on Netflix this week too so I want to watch that. I'm now officially caught up with The Circle, at least until the season finale next week, and for new shows this week I tried out the new Wonder Years reboot, which was pretty good, and Ordinary Joe, which I also liked; it reminded me a lot of Sliding Doors (movie) and also one of Taylor Jenkins Reid's books, Maybe in Another Life. I also finished The Other Two, on HBO Max, which I highly recommend, and I've still been watching American Crime Story: Impeachment and Doogie Kamealoha, M.D., both of which I also recommend. 
  4. Watching the Emmy's. On Sunday I watched the Emmy's but did a lot of fast-forwarding on my DVR, because I didn't think Cedric did a great job as host. It was nice to see all my favorite celebs on the red carpet, but as Seth Rogen put it, "they said this would be outside," during the main ceremony ... I think technically they were in a tent or something, but it didn't seem super COVID-19 safe. The big winners of the night were definitely Ted Lasso (of which I think I'm the only person in America who thought it was just okay), The Crown, which I do like, and Mare of Easttown, which I also liked, but Jean Smart snuck in a win for Hacks which I was pleased about.
  5. A friend's chicken taste test birthday party. A friend had a small birthday gathering at B. Nektar in Ferndale last week, and she made it a chicken tasting party: we each had to bring some fried chicken, and we later ranked them and chose the winner. I brought Korean fried chicken from Hola Seoul, in Troy, which is inside Dae Jae Keung (sp?) ... I had never tried it before and it was really good. The winner in my book of all of the chicken that was brought was Penny Red's, in Detroit, which I also haven't tried before, but the OFFICIAL winner was Gus's ... I've never been a big fan of their chicken (they have Royal Oak and Detroit locations, and I believe a few others too in this area) but their fried green tomatoes are delicious. I also had a lot of B. Nektar's tasty drinks, and now I know what I want to order tonight, since the Schitt's Creek trivia is also being hosted there. Side note: B. Nektar was awesome with our small group, my friend had set it up with them beforehand so they held a few tables for us and also we had waitservice, which normally you don't get there (normally you have to go the bar area to order your drinks). 
Chicken party scoring paper! B. Nektar made us these fun signs too
Chicken party scoring paper! B. Nektar made us these fun signs too


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