Some Healthy Food Fun: Dinner and a Movie
Apocalypse Now
On the Menu
Vietnamese Inspired Recipes
Video Scenes from the movie, "Apocaplypse Now"
"I love the smell of Napalm in the morning........smells like, VICTORY" (...the classic quote)
--Robert Duvall
"Hey Soldier.......do you know who's in command here" ? (...my personal favorite quote)
--Martin Sheen
"Never get out of the boat, absolutely Godd@$&%mn right.....unless you're going all the way (...my other personal favorite quote)
--Martin Sheen
I think I'm understanding the cadence, of the when's and why's of me even spending time putting together a "Dinner and a Movie", due to my boycott of mainstream Hollywood, for reasons I mentioned in my "Dinner and a Movie" : Mississippi Masala review....
....which in a nutshell, is that Hollywood is putting out so little that is inspiring or provoking to my current, transcendental Nubian "Wavelength". I mean, a Nubian who has evolved psychologically and connected with its real heritage and roots I think I deserves a lot more from Hollywood than Kevin Hart.
It seems now, the movies I now wanna feature on my "cyper-spot", are those that seem to have more of an impact on my psyche now, as opposed to when they were originally released, and perhaps movies whose main point is more relevant now than when the movie was made.
I've always been a big war movie fan, but I'm kind of tired of this one sided, "Euro-centric" based, John Wayne, storming the sands of Iwo Jima crappy propaganda style that traditional war movies try to plant in our psyche
(...it actually took me 4 decades to even see "the game")
Even the British are jumping in on the lame ass Hollywood Bandwagon, with their World War II Epic "Dunkirk", which I absolutely hated, and now they're doing "The Darkest Hour",
the story of British leader Winston Churchill and how stood up to Hitler, after almost every country in Western Europe was defeated by the Germans.
Obviously, they're following Trump's pathetic ass, antiquated, Euro-centric theme, I guess they wanna "Make Britan Great Again"....
In reality, one could argue that the Russians deserve the real credit for standing against Hitler, because they are the ones who really defeated Hitler, something Western history leaves out, along with a million other finer points.
War is not so noble as Hollywood makes it out to be, with White American [and British] Males always being the "Good Guys", it's simply murder, tragedy, and Hell, on all sides. "Apocalypse Now" brings that point home unlike any other war movie.
Even with Apocalypse Now, which could [arguably] be considered a masterpiece almost 40 years later, though it breaks ranks with the traditional "Halls of Montezuma" bulls@%$it of traditional war movies,
it still has a couple of those classic "syndromes" that always rub me the wrong way....
...such as, in this movie, on boat with 5 guys, somehow, the two black guys get killed first. If you know anything about statistics, combinations and permutations, the odds of that
happening in real life is 1 chance in 120. (as the young kids say on Twitter, "SMH")
Anyway, rant over. It took me almost 40 years to see the deeper point that resonated in this movie to me, and I suppose there can be 20 other deeper, esoteric points that other people may get if they revisit
this masterpiece of the madness and tragedy of war.....
...that is, if one's inner self has evolved enough to understand what Francis Ford Coppola was really trying [or not trying but did by accident], to say here.
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Vietnamese Inspired Recipes
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[Below, Left] Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls (...watch the ingredients in the Peanut Butter in this recipe) click photo below left for recipe
[Below Right] Fish "Banh Mi" with Quick Pickled Vegetables (click photo for below right recipe)
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[Below] Vietnamese Lettuce Cups (click photo below for recipe)
[Below] Vietnamese Style Baked Chicken
(use healthy Coconut Palm Sugar
instead of the brown sugar in the recipe)(click photo below for recipe) 
[Below, Left] Vietnamese Noodle and Smoked Chicken Salad (click photo below left for recipe)
[Below Right] Vietnamese Beef Skewers with Vermicelli Salad (click photo for below right recipe)
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[Below] Vietnamese Style Meatball Sandwich (click photo below for recipe)
[Below] Vietnamese Style Ginger and Lemongrass Coolers
(use healthy Coconut Palm Sugar
instead of the caster sugar in the recipe)(click photo below for recipe) 
WARNING!!! Harsh Language in the clips below, but necessary to illustrate the madness of war
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So here's what it took me 4 decades to get from this movie. I suppose we all have some
war within that we have to fight, represented externally by this presentation of the Vietnam War. Colonel Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando), externally represents this beast that lives within......
....this thing is not about an external war, Kurtz is only an EXTERNAL manifestation of the inner monster within the psyche. At some point, to transcend the chaos and madness of this life, one has to go inside oneself and slay
the "Beast" that resides within (...each of us has to figure out what that beast is, mine is all the negative societal programmings laid on a Black Man in America, and slaying [slaying by making it null and void in my reality] other's negative perceptions of that very same Black Man they have "hardwired" into their psyche). Now that the beast is slayed, nothing controls my perceptions of me, but ME!!!
Hope that's not anti-climactic to the reader, but it's been very "climactic" for me in my personal life in the past year or two.
Now that the monster is slayed, I'm living in a personal world of peace amidst this crazy ass world of chaos and madness. Within my own psyche ..."I know who's in command here" !!!!.
~stay healthy~
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