Michael Jackson – This Is It – Directed by Spike Lee from 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks on Vimeo.

For the New Year, we wanted to confuse you, so here’s our list of the top 10 Top 10 Youtube videos:

10. Top 10 Halloween Costumes 2009

9. Top 10 Japanese Nintendo Commercials

8. Top 10 Antiques Roadshow Items – #1

7. Top 10 Shotput Performances All time

6. Top 10 Things American People Say to Brits

5. Top 10 Quirky Science Tricks for Christmas Parties

4. Top 10 Seinfeld Moments

3. Top 10 Jackie Chan Stunts

2. NBA – Top 10 Plays of 2009:

1. Top 10 Ways the Country Would be Different if Britney Spears were President

The editors over at Rolling Stone have released their list of the “25 Best Songs of 2009″ and I must say, I have no idea who half of these artists are and some of the ones I do, I have never even heard the song!  So I must ask, what do YOU think about this list?  Who is missing off of it?  With all of her popularity, I’m suprised Tayor Swift didn’t make the list.

1 | U2 — “Moment of Surrender”
2 | Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys — “Empire State of Mind”
3 | Bruce Springsteen — “Outlaw Pete”
4 | Miley Cyrus — “Party in the USA”
5 | Phoenix — “1901″
6 | Pearl Jam — “The Fixer”
7 | Dirty Projectors — “Stillness is the Move”
8 | The Big Pink — “Dominoes”
9 | Yeah Yeah Yeahs — “Zero”
10 | Lady Gaga — “Bad Romance”
11 | Avett Brothers — “I and Love and You”
12 | Wilco — “Wilco (The Song)”
13 | Animal Collective — “My Girls”
14 | Black Eyed Peas — “Boom Boom Pow”
15 | Kid Cudi — “Day and Night (Crookers Remix)”
16 | Franz Ferdinand — “Ulysses”
17 | Drake — “Successful”
18 | Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band — “Slowly (Oh So Slowly)”
19 | Miranda Lambert — “White Liar”
20 | Miike Snow — “Animal”
21 | Bat For Lashes — “Daniel”
22 | Peter, Bjorn and John — “Nothing to Worry About”
23 | Dawes — “That Western Skyline”
24 | Girls — “Hellhole Ratrace”
25 | La Roux — “Bulletproof”

Post a comment below with your thoughts!

Recently I’ve had several calls on “how to cook” a piece of tenderloin of beef. “I need a quick recipe and what can I do with the left over’s”?!  Although there are several quick recipes to sputter out, the most important one is to cook beef tenderloin properly. Then you can also stuff it, tie it, add a sauce, and roll it in a concoction you created for a crust to top it & roast it in and baste it while it cooks. Tenderloin of beef is as good as a perfectly cooked rib roast for this time of year. It’s also a family tradition in some households to create a menu that is built around a great piece of meat!

If you’re not good with the professional’s guide of touching the meat to see if its “done” to your likening, use a thermometer for accuracy, it’s that simple. Starting at room temperature is helpful when roasting a piece of  meat and please note: when you remove it from the oven after cooking your selection, its best to remove it to another pan, loosely wrap it in foil and understand the internal  temperature of the meat will rise about 5-10 degrees F as the meat rest. It’s best to wait & carve it after about 12-15 minutes (depending on the size and selection) once you remove it from the oven, otherwise the natural juices (flavor) will run off when you slice it. So the recipe I gave out was for Peppercorn Crusted Beef Tenderloin:

Ingredients:

• A – 2 ½ # piece of meat (cleaned and trim by the local butcher) with serve 8 people with the right side dishes.
• 1 T. olive oil
• ¼ cup tri-color peppercorns cracked/smashed
• 1 t. sea salt
• 1 cup thin sliced sweet onion
• 1 T minced garlic
• 1 T chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 cup cabernet – red wine

Directions:

1. Rub the beef with the olive oil then roll or pat the peppercorns into the beef. Season with the salt.
2. Roast in preheated 425 degree F oven until the internal temperature reaches 135 degree F. About 35 minutes, (if you sear it on the stove in a pan first, it reduces your cooking time & seals in the flavor).
3. Remove from the oven, then from the pan you roasted it in and loosely wrap it in foil.
4. Heat your roasting pan on the stove on medium heat and add the onions and cook until translucent, then add the garlic and cook both until golden brown. Be careful not to over season, you should have some remnants of the peppercorns in the pan.
5. Add the rosemary and cook for 1 min then add the wine and stir with a wooden spoon to loosen the flavorings in your pan. Bring to a boil then reduce to simmer for about 5 minutes.
6. Slice the Tenderloin against the grain in medallions and serve your red wine onion sauce on the side.

Last week we had the bruschetta appetizer as a featured recipe. If you thinly slice the meat and place it on your Crostini then top with the diced tomato mix, you have another great recipe to add to your repertoire

ciao, Bernard

Arthur Mole’s Living Formations

Almost a century ago and without the aid of any pixel-generating computer software, the itinerant photographer Arthur Mole (1889-1983) used his 11 x 14-inch view camera to stage a series of extraordinary mass photographic spectacles that choreographed living bodies into symbolic formations of religious and national community. In these mass ornaments, thousands of military troops and other groups were arranged artfully to form American patriotic symbols, emblems, and military insignia visible from a bird’s eye perspective. During World War I, these military formations came to serve as rallying points to support American involvement in the war and to ward off isolationist tendencies.

Another of the most notable photographers of living people groups was Eugene Omar Goldbeck. Along with the large scale work, he also took photographic portraits of important personalities, such as Albert Einstein.

Artist John Quigley is internationally renowned for his environmental messages and images spelt out by human bodies and photographed from the air.

On July 2008, three Kennedy Space Center engineers helped set two new world records in the parachuting sport of “canopy formation“, with 81- and 85-person formation dives that took place over Lake Wales, Fla.

Grenzhausen, Germany – 1st Field Artillery Brigade, 1st Division, 1919

209th Engineers, Camp Sheridan, Alabama, 1919

Spencer Tunick’s nude group photography