PARMAGIANO REGGIANO

Mammamia!   What is this?

Actually, it is the Italian name for parmesan, the well-known, universally used Italian cheese so important in the cuisine of Italy.

Parmesan has a great quantity of calcium and is very low in fat, thus nearly no cholesterol.  This is a big contrast to most other cheeses which are high in fat.  Calcium, in addition to strengthening bones and teeth, is very important in controlling high blood pressure.

This cheese is also rich in protein and phosphorus and contains many vitamins.  It stimulates digestion and because of this it is very good for children.

Parmesan can be added to food during cooking or sprinkled on top of prepared dishes.  Aside from pasta, it is delicous in omelettes.  As cocktail food, serve small cubes of parmesan. It is very tasty, and the health benefits are enormous.

Parmesan is made in certain parts of Italy only, in the Parma region, and is aged for one to three years in cellars before being put on the market.   Add it to your grocery list and enjoy!

Grandma Nature

Older

When you wake up and find that you’re older,
Put a Big “B” in mind and Be Bolder
With more sage in your age
And more miles to your smiles,
Like the sun, you’ll just feel much more golder!

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem

AU CINEMA February 2011

Very Good ***  Good**

You will note several foreign films among these.  Watching them in their original language will stimulate your brain neurons, good for your age esteem.

Another Year ***1/2   Mike Leigh of England makes films about ordinary people and here he depicts a very happy, loving couple surrounded by an array of miserable mortals who just can’t get it right. It could have been dreary, but it is a perfect example of great drama based on simple observation.  And how, sadly for the losers, one’s character ultimately defines one’s life.

Angèle et Tony *** (vo French)  By artist and first-time director Alix Delaporte, this is somewhat the French version of the above, with a bit more hope and sensuality thrown in – naturellement! It’s a sort of modern Taming of the Shrew: an incongruous couple meet and slowly discover each other, due to Tony’s basic goodness and patience, and despite Angèle’s rough, desperate character. It’s fresh and moving in its treatment of simple people, making them shiny and special.

Last Night ***   A yuppie couple have a tiff after a party when the wife detects a definite attraction between her husband and his sexy colleague. He denies all, she forgives, but the seeds of doubt have been sown. This is a smart, elegant take on modern relationships and fidelity, moments of temptation and the Venus and Mars differences between women and men.  It’s an excellent beginning for Iranian/American director and screenwriter Massy Tadjedin, who has managed to rope into her film such stars as Keira Knightley, Eva Mendes and Guillaume Canet.

Honeymoons ***  (vo Serb)  The terrible difficulty and injustice of emigration and being a refugee is treated here within two hopeful love stories, one of an Albanian couple and the other Serbian. They go from their dysfunctional families and weddings to the hell of trying to enter fortress Europe, even with the correct documents. It’s gripping, revealing and brilliantly directed by Goran Paskaljevic.

Africa United ***  This colorful road movie, about a handful of African kids crazy about football, covers a lot of ground – not only the seven countries it traverses, from Rwanda down to South Africa, but such topics as class, prostitution, child-soldiers, AIDS and of course friendship and solidarity. The destination of the World Cup down in South Africa is the vehicle for this exuberant journey of fun and mishaps, which mixes in some charming cartoon footage that’s the fairy tale which carries the children through this improbable voyage. Sweet, naive and hopeful, it’s the work of British director, Debs Gardner-Paterson, who knows Africa well.

La Petite chambre ***  (vo French)  A stubbornly grouchy old man (the grand Michel Bouquet) resents his aloof son and wants to be left alone. A caretaker for the elderly, who has her own heartbreak, manages to bring him out of his shell. Touching and well directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond, both from Lausanne, it was the Swiss entry to the Oscars.

In the Beginning there was Light (Am Anfang war das Licht) **1/2  (vo German)  Apparently there are certain people who can subsist on air and light, without eating or drinking for long periods of time.  Are they liars and charlatans or deeper spirits than the rest of us? And why would they not want to eat? The Austrian P.A. Straubinger sets out to find out who, how and why in this engrossing and well-researched documentary. He leads us through the scientific facts, but there is also the Eastern idea of higher consciousness that cannot always be explained. He goes to all corners of the world, from Australia to the US, India, China and Europe, and takes us from scepticism to considering spirituality and the importance of mind-over-matter. This is well-balanced, eye-opening reportage.

Toi, moi et les autres **1/2  (vo French)   A bit of Romeo and Juliette and a modernized offshoot of Les parapluies de Cherbourg, here’s a socially-conscious musical by Audrey Estrougo that’s young, touching and aesthetically filmed, set between a wealthy family and an immigrant section of Paris. It has some lovely songs and a delicate Leila Bekhti as the heroine, but is too lethargic in its pacing.

Rien à declarer **1/2 (vo French)  After the colossal success of Bienvenu chez les Ch’tis, France’s Dany Boon has been looking for his next big comedy. This one, about two opposing border guards (Boon and Benoît Poelvoorde) on the French and Belgium sides, is an amusing take on their differences and prejudices at the time when European borders were being eradicated. A good premise and quirky characters make for many laughs – the café-owners and the bumbling drug-transporter are hilarious.

The Black Swan **  Here’s a bit of the classic Red Shoes, lots of melodrama, some quite fearful scenes set in a New York ballet company and a sublime Natalie Portman as the tortured, paranoid, perfectionist ballerina. Darren Aronofsky’s surrealistic film is somewhat over-the-top, but Portman is fragile and convincing, meriting her Golden Globe.

Neptune Ravar Ingwersen, film critic

AU CINEMA February 2011

Good **

Largo Winch 2 **1/2  (vo French and English)    The James Bond franchise should wish to be as smooth, cool and smart as the Largo Winch films. There are super chases, financial intrigues and political treachery, a serious love affair, a sweet kid and gorgeous locations, especially in the Far East.  Jérôme Salle (who wrote and directed the French film, Anthony Zimmer, which inspired The Tourist) directs it all with respect for our intelligence, and Tomer Sisley (a stand-up comedian from TV with an Israeli/German/French background) is perfect as Winch, the reluctant billionaire. The violence of the fight scenes could be toned down.

Hereafter (Au-delà) **  Matt Damon can hear and see spirits, but does not want to. Cécile de France comes back from death after a tsunami accident, and a shy English boy loses his closest soul mate. In this Clint Eastwood yarn, all these people converge somehow and there is a connection and a raison d’être. Ok, he knows his audience well, but it nevertheless feels concocted, like an overly-intricate puzzle.

Narnia 3 – Voyage of the Dawn Treader **1/2  This is a great one for the kids – inspiring, adventurous and especially fun due to a really nasty cousin paired with a talking monkey on the high seas.  Good to have clean thrills for our kids and some moral lessons in this hazardous world.

The Next 3 Days (Les trois prochains jours) **   A happy couple is torn apart when the wife is accused of murder and jailed for life. When her desperate husband finds no legal recourse, he decides to get her out any way he can. Russell Crowe is intense as usual, but the convoluted scenario and Elizabeth Banks as the wife are too weak to be as convincing as the French original, Pour Elle, despite the fine director Paul Haggis, of the award-winning Crash and In the Valley of Elah.

Tron – the Legacy **  For adolescents and the testosterone crowd, this is a clever futuristic and back-to-the-future action blockbuster that is fun to watch, especially a young Jeff Bridges created by computer graphics, vying against the real Bridges of today. This is quality popcorn stuff.

Burlesque **  GREAT musical numbers, like going to a Broadway show, but the script and acting are so banal that it’s embarrassing, especially for dear old Cher, who is looking mummified. Christina Aguilera sure can move and belt out those numbers, especially the blues!

The Tourist *1/2   It’s like a party – you can have all the right ingredients – best food, guests, locale, but it still falls flat. Same here: there’s top director Florian Henkel von Donnersmarck, from the German Oscar-winning The Life of Others, and Johnny Depp plus Angelina Jolie as protagonists in an international heist film – but it’s boring and lacks chemistry. And it’s so obviously trying to be ultra cool, but doesn’t make the mark. Too bad.  Depp is smooth and above-it-all, though Angelina should put some meat on her bones and lay off the heavy make-up and that lip thing…it’s distracting.

Somewhere *1/2   Here’s another dud. And so empty, though that’s what it’s about – the empty life of a movie star in a cult hotel in Hollywood. The usually brilliant director Sofia Coppola is too minimalist here, but the star’s teenage daughter, played by a radiant Elle Fanning, gives the film its moments of grace.

Neptune Ravar Ingwersen, film critic

AU CINEMA February 2011
Superb ****

Films are not just entertaining.  They are also thought-provoking, stimulate conversations and keep our minds alive.  –  All of which is good for our age esteem.

The King’s Speech ****   This superb film tells the story of the stuttering that plagued King George VI of England (father to Queen Elizabeth II), and the man who helped him overcome it. Each historical figure, from the spunky young Queen Mother (Helena Bonham-Carter) to the abdicating Duke of Windsor (Guy Pierce) and Colin Firth as the central figure, Bertie, shines in this evocative, tightly-wound yet very moving account of the man who did not want to be king, but took the mantle with responsibility and old-fashioned British resolve. Brilliantly directed by Tom Hooper, Firth brings out an amazing array of emotions as the shy king, while Jeffrey Rush is masterful as his speech teacher. Firth fully deserves his Golden Globe (and Oscar?) for best actor.

The Way Back (Les chemins de la liberté) ***1/2   A Peter Weir film is always superlative – Gallipoli, Witness, Dead Poets’ Society, Master and Commander. This latest one, with a strong character-actor cast (including Ed Harris and Colin Farrell), is about the long, harrowing journey on foot to freedom – from Russia to India – of a desperate group that escapes from a Siberian gulag. Fine acting and pacing make this true story a heroic odyssey.

True Grit ***1/2  The Coen brothers are back, once again at the summit of their craft, with a bold and entertaining remake of the 1969 John Wayne classic of the same name. And who else but the versatile Jeff Bridges to fill the Duke’s boots, with no apologies and a huge amount of grimy charm. The other wonder of this film is Hailee Steinfeld, a 14 year-old rising star playing the feisty girl who hires Bridges to find her father’s murderer. And Matt Damon makes a fine third wheel. The cinematography is perfect in its rich tones, both indoors and out, the dialogue is melodious, if one dares call it Shakespearean, while the mood is outrageously campy and tongue-in-cheek. Even if you’re not a fan of Westerns, you’ll be bowled over.

Neptune Ravar Ingwersen, film critic

Acidity in food leads to joint pain making it more challenging to exude your age esteem.

Tackling the acid-alkaline composition of food is very complex.

It is known today that we all have too much acid in the body.  This enhances conditions such as rheumatism, arthritis and even cancer to name a few.  The problem is that nearly all foods are acid: meat, fish, cheese, eggs, and starch such as rice, pasta and oats.
The alkaline or non-acid foods are vegetables, some fruits and some nuts.  Anything green is alkaline and thus very healthy for you.  In fact, all vegetables are non-acidic except for tomatoes.  Potatoes are alkaline as well as dried fruits in moderation, except for apricots.  Only two kinds of nuts are known to be alkaline – almonds and brazil nuts.

With fruit it becomes complicated as well. The sweeter the fruit, the more basic or alkaline it is.  Bananas are alkaline. Strawberries and raspberries among other berries are acid; and one interesting fact is that lemon, once it is absorbed in the body, becomes alkaline.

Therefore, if you want to get rid of some aches and pains, try increasing the amount of vegetables eaten as well as the other alkaline foods mentioned above.

Grandma Nature

Bonnie Fatio spoke to the Paying Forward Club in the Tuscany Falls Ballroom at Pebble Creek, Arizona.  People in the Paying Forward Club give of their time and talents in multiple ways.  They also provide a list of places in need of volunteers.  Bonnie’s talk was on the theme  “Aging and the benefits of volunteering”, sharing research, stories, tips and techniques with active audience participation.

“After hearing Bonnie whatever I look at, I’m going to look at it in a positive way.  I think at our age we can look at the people in our life and say “I don’t need that person in my life anymore.”  That gives us power.   It was wonderful to hear Bonnie.  She really spoke to me. Ginette, 63

“I’m going through a rough transition.  I’ve recently retired and I feel like I have this whole part of life ahead of me.  I’m not sure what I want to do with that.  Bonnie’s talk was a good motivator and inspiration that has given me a lot to think about.” Grace, 58

“We get such negative thoughts on a daily basis… bombarded with what a “bad time” this is. I really identified with Bonnie, especially where she said to replace the negative thoughts I have with something positive.  I think all of us are guilty of being self-critical, but it’s time we divested ourselves of that language and replace it with something else.” Carol, 65

New Beginnings

Let us toast to the New Year’s Beginnings,

Let us boast our new powers of forgiving,

Let us host and become more engaging,

Let us most of all fear NOT old-aging.

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem

Watercress, what a lovely name. – And it does grow in water, being semi-aquatic.  Since modern medicine has existed, watercress has been considered a miracle vegetable as it is an aid in preventing and healing a number of conditions.

Watercress is a green salad type vegetable which can be used in various ways according to your taste and ingenuity. For example use it in sandwiches or mixed with other salads, or even on its own with a delicious vinaigrette. It has a peppery taste.

Calcium, iron and folic acid are important minerals found in watercress, and it is a potent antioxidant which is believed to help in controlling cancer cells.  It purifies the blood and kidneys. It eliminates metals from the body.  It is considered a powerhouse of good things for you with its minerals, vitamins and heart-preserving properties. It helps in reducing water retention which plays an important role in controlling cardio-vascular illnesses.

In addition it is loaded with the phytonutrients, lutein and zeaxanthin, which help prevent aging related changes in the eyes.  The amount of vitamin C is greater in watercress than in oranges and the iron content is higher than in spinach.  Rashes, eczema and other skin conditions are treated with substances containing watercress such as creams to be rubbed on the rash.

The moral to this story? – Always have some watercress within reach!

Grandma Nature

Each day of this new year will bring new opportunities and experiences to be experienced and savored.

Do you look forward to each day?

One of my favorite AgeEsteem mentors and friends was Doris Blunt.  Doris was a woman of amazing inner faith and strength.  She always seemed to be bubbling over with happiness and interest.  Yet she had buried two husbands, both of whom she had accompanied through Alzheimer’s in their last years.

When I asked Doris how she remained so enthusiastic and happy she offered me the following secrets to her happiness.

• When you wake up in the morning you have choices.  You can listen to the birds and give thanks for the day as a new blessing and get up to greet the day or you can lie in bed and feel bitter about your aches and pains.  She chose the first.
• Remind yourself that whether you have a good day or a bad day depends on you and the attitude that you bring to it.  She brought a positive attitude which began when she first awoke.
• Decide what your purpose for the day is.  Doris was the sunshine of the home where she lived, so she always put on her sunniest smile when she left her room.  She said that although her smile was not always genuine when she put it on, it definitely became real by the time she met another person.  In fact her smile became infectious.  Others returned it!

These are simple yet powerful pointers for each of us to enhance our age esteem and positive attitudes to live happier lives.  Let’s look forward to each day!

Bonnie Fatio