“Welcome to Hawkins, where the strangest things happen”

* Spiced potatoes with basil mayonnaise
(the recipe is from my dear friend, Anna)

Ingredients for the potatoes for 4 people:

-8 Red potatoes.
-150g Parmesan
-1 teaspoon of strong paprika.
-1 Teaspoon of dry rosemary
-1 teaspoon of pepper
-30g parsley
-Salt to taste
-50 ml Extra virgin olive oil

Ingredients for basil mayonnaise

-2 egg yolks
-Juice of half a lemon
-Salt and Pepper To Taste
-Extra virgin olive oil
-10 basil leaves

Basil mayonnaise:

Pour the egg yolks into a bowl, add the salt and pepper, then begin to blend with an immersion blender, adding the oil slowly.
Once the mayonnaise begins to thicken, add the lemon juice too, but little by little and alternating it with the oil. Before completing, add the basil leaves, continuing to whisk, and a pinch of pepper.
Once the desired creaminess has been reached, transfer the mayonnaise to a glass jar.

Spiced potatoes:

For this recipe the potatoes should not be peeled, so let’s wash them well and dry them in the same way.

First cut the potatoes in half and then in sticks, fill a bowl with water in which to immerse the potatoes and leave them to soak for about 20 minutes, during this time we change the water about 3 times, so the excess starch will be eliminated .
Dry the potato sticks again and pour them into a very large bowl and season them with the oil and Parmesan, mix with your hands so that the two ingredients end up on each stick.
We combine the rest of the spices and mix once more. We arrange the potatoes, from the skin side, on an oven bowl and bake for 30 minutes at 220 °
While the potatoes are cooking, finely chop the parsley, with which, when cooked, we will season the potatoes, sprinkle with salt and serve accompanied by basil mayonnaise.

Finally, here we are! Plaid, spiced potatoes * and I’m ready to enjoy the whole Stranger Things first season marathon, waiting for the whole second season to come out today!

I love, love, love, such fall series. With the wind whistling outside the window, the leaves rustling away in the distance and the bag of hot potato chips in my gloved hands. The first cold, the beautiful one, which doesn’t break your bones but gives you some peace after the summer heat. And never has there been such a need as this year.  We needed this first scent of scarves and chestnuts in the air. Light off, curtains closed and you are ready: welcome to Hawkins, where the strangest things happen.

Beyond Winona Ryder’s skill, Millie Bob Brown (Eleven), Finn Wolfhard (Mike), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), Noah Schnapp (Will) and Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas) exceptional skills, very young and already extraordinary! Every expression, joke, action seems so real that we completely forget that we are watching a fiction.

As Lucy Mangan wrote in the Guardian, “All child actors are good enough to confirm my judgment on Area 51: it has nothing to do with aliens, but it’s where Hollywood brings up its young talents.”

Supernatural, science, parapsychology, experiments, fantasy, mix with skill in this revelation series, a bit E.T. a bit Super8, with a fabulous Eighties atmosphere

<< It is nice to take refuge in a more intimate era, in which relationships took place between person and person, in flesh and blood, and there was an innocence that now seems to have disappeared. Our characters are not heroes: to say it would be to belittle them. They are rather normal people who perform heroic deeds >>[1]

 (poor protagonists who have to keep that look even after shooting!) where nothing is as it seems. The rhythms are not fast but not slow either, I think they are ideal for an afternoon with friends in front of the TV, to fantasize and be influenced by the flashing lights and the walls from which strange creatures come out.

To watch after dark!

Also because it seems that the whole series was inspired by a true story (or allegedly) quite widespread in North America: the Montauk[2] project (which was also the original title chosen by the Duffer brothers, creators of the series).

Legend or truth, the mystery behind the disappearance of Will and other Hawkins people, keeps you glued to the screen without mercy. Also because behind the facade of the X-Files, there is a very tender side made up of adolescent loves, eternal friendships, unconditional affection. Acceptance of the different and overcoming the prejudice. And that’s why I LOVE this series!

So, see you on the other side of the gate, in sixteen episodes.

And if you just can’t help feeling nostalgic and thrill  in anticipation … we could always learn to play Dungeon and Dragons to kill the wait.

as long as it doesn’t turn into some kind of Jumanjii …….

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[1] Natalia Dyer, Nancy – Lucca Comics 2016

[2] https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/stranger-things-true-story-montauk-project-philadelphia-experiment