Dinner and a Movie

[Serve this with whole wheat couscous and a big spinach salad – perfect! By the way, most of the recipes I’ll post are originally from Cooking Light, though I may have modified them somewhat to fit my tastes].

Dinner
Pork Medallions with Double Apple Sauce
Half-and-half finishes the sauce of tart green Granny Smith apples and sweet cider, richly mellowing the flavors.

1 cup apple cider
2 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and each cut into 8 wedges (about 14 ounces)
1 (1-pound) pork tenderloin, trimmed and cut crosswise into 8 (1/2-inch-thick) slices
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Cooking spray
1/2 cup half-and-half
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed

Pour cider into a large nonstick skillet; bring to a boil. Add apples. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes or until apples are barely tender. Remove apples from pan with a slotted spoon, and place apples in a medium bowl. Cook cider until reduced to 1/2 cup (about 3 minutes). Pour reduced cider over apples; set aside.

Sprinkle pork evenly with salt and pepper. Wipe pan clean with a damp paper towel. Heat pan over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add pork to pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until browned. Remove from heat. Add the apple mixture, half-and-half, and rosemary. Serve immediately.

Movie
Thank You for Smoking (2005) (run-time 92 minutes):

The media satire Thank You for Smoking stars Aaron Eckhart as Nick, a man who has turned spinning news and information into a successful career for the tobacco lobby. The cast includes William H. Macy as a Senator who runs on a strong anti-tobacco position, Rob Lowe as a Hollywood bigwig, and Robert Duvall as the king of the tobacco industry. The film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Christopher Buckley.

We watched this on August 3, 2009, while doing an easy 90 minute recovery ride after the Laramie Enduro. I expected this to be more of a documentary, but that was my misunderstanding and not the fault of the film. Once I realized it was a satire rather than a documentary, I just relaxed and enjoyed it - well done!

4 stars. In my opinion this film doesn’t really take on the tobacco industry – it just uses it as an example of “Big Business.”

People hear what they want to hear, and Big Business spends a whole lot of money to make sure what they hear doesn’t smear Big Business.

If you don’t want dead chickens in the morning, don’t let the fox guard the henhouse – or in plain speak – be independent. Think for yourself. Do research. If it sounds too good to be true – it is!