If you’ve recently seen this Chicken Tetrazzini kite flying over Lake Highlands, it’s because Dallas Lutheran teacher Phil Seris has been taking advantage of the wind, getting his students outside to fly the kites they built in geometry class.

Below, Dallas Lutheran School students Charlotte Pollett and Lauren Huffman of Lake Highlands try to get their classroom-made kite airborne.

(I’m guessing the kite in the first pic belongs to either a lover of delicious casseroles or a fan of The Soup on the E! network.

A hot new recording artist debuted a music video this week that’s getting lots of play, and, if you look closely, you might see Lake Highlands in the background.

Recording and mixing all the sound on ”A Million Years” is Lake Highlands High School 2006 grad Dan Stringer. Dan grew up going to Park Cities Baptist Church with the talented singer/musician in the video, Johnny Stimson, and they maintained their friendship despite being at different high schools then colleges. (Stimson graduated from Highland Park High). That’s Jillian Edwards adding vocals, also quite talented. She graduated from Berkner in Richardson.

Dan studied sound recording and mixing at SUNY Purchase in New York, graduating in three years and working with popular artists like Talib Kweli, Chester French, Travis Barker, Pharrell Williams and Pusha T. (yeah, they’re all on my iPod). His song “Litost” by The Ambassadors was recently featured on the hit TV show One Tree Hill.

The house that the couple enters toward the end of the video is one that LH resident and homebuilder Mark Dann is building at 9805 Larchcrest in Lake Highlands. (Yes, Mark reports, it IS for sale and has come a long way in construction since the filming over Christmas break.) Dan recruited his sister McCallan’s boyfriend, Nathaniel Brown, to direct and create the video, and Nate enlisted his own sister, Abbey, to play the blond girlfriend.

You can watch the video here and download the song to iTunes here.

Can’t jet off to New York City to catch a genuine Broadway production? Artists of Christian Talent will bring Broadway to you this month as the youth of Lake Highlands United Methodist Church present Crazy For You.

Based on the 1930 Gershwin musical Girl Crazy, the ACT show features some of George and Ira’s most memorable songs including “I Got Rhythm,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” and “Embraceable You.”

Crazy For You is the story of Bobby Child, the wealthy son of a banking family, whose dream in life is to dance. Dejected after a failed audition in the Big Apple, he travels to the Wild West to foreclose on a dilapidated theater but decides instead to put on a show to win the love of Polly, the owner’s daughter. Along the way, the boy meets girl story becomes comically complicated by mistaken identities and crossed paths, but – in typical Gershwin fashion – love prevails.

Performances will be held at LHUMC at 7:30pm February 17, 23, 24 and 25, with a Sunday matinee February 19th at 2pm. The church is located at 9015 Plano Road. Advance tickets are $8 for all ages by emailing Paige Fugate here or (when available) are $10 at the door.

Registration begins today for the 9^th Annual Hoops in the Highlands Basketball Tournament to be held Saturday, March 24th. The popular 3-on-3 basketball tournament draws competitors in 1st thru 8th grades from schools all over the Metroplex and raises money for Lake Highlands Junior High and its feeder elementary schools: Lake Highlands, Northlake, Wallace and White Rock.

Besides the athletic competition, Hoops in the Highlands features a party atmosphere with live music, carnival-style food and a Fun Zone for younger kids. In previous years, performers from LHHS, including the Wildcat Wranglers, have entertained the crowds.

Registration forms are available online here and are due March 3rd. The entry fee is $64 per team (typically 4 players) and the fun will take place at Highland Oaks Church of Christ, 10805 Walnut Hill at Plano Road.

If you’d like to become a sponsor or volunteer at the event, email Event Chair Katie Fuerst here.

Lake Highlands High School 2003 grad Meredith Davis is turning 27 soon, and she has a pretty ambitious birthday wish – clean, safe water for every child on earth. Same old, Mere. No goal too big.

Meredith, who now lives and works in New York City, recently spent time volunteering there at a fundraising ball for a group called charity: water. She learned that millions of people don’t live to see their fifth birthdays because they lack access to clean, safe water. For her Valentine’s Day birthday, she’s inviting friends and family to skip mailing her a card or a gift, opt out of buying her a birthday drink or meal, and donate $27 to charity: water. Every penny raised will go directly to fund clean water projects in developing nations.

If you’d like to give, click here to make an online donation and wish Meredith a happy 27^th. In return, charity: water will report back on the specific projects your money funded somewhere around the globe.

“My goal is to raise $540 by my birthday,” says Meredith, “giving clean water to 27 people, representing each blessed year.”

The holiday that must not be named is next week. You want to buy sparkling wine. But sparkling wine, being sparkling wine, is expensive and confusing.

Not to worry. I am on the job, as always, looking out for everyone caught between bubbly’s rock and hard place. The Bertrand ($15, sample) is sparkling wine from France that isn’t made in Champagne, which is why it’s one-third the price of entry-level Champagne. Better yet, it has much more than one-third of the quality, and is a tremendous value.

It’s made using the same method as Champagne, and it uses more or less the same grapes (including pinot noir, which is not common in sparkling wine made in France outside of Champagne). That’s one reason why it delivers so much value; its grapes are grown in the Limoux region in the Languedoc, where land is a fraction of the price of Champagne.

This is not as simple a wine as its price would indicate; the pinot noir gives it an edge that others don’t have. Look for very crisp apple fruit and an impressively long finish (lemon zest, maybe?). And you can impress everyone with your bubbly knowledge: If the wine says Cremant on the label, as this does, that means it’s sparkling wine made in the traditional method but not in Champagne. Highly recommended, and sure to impress whoever needs impressing next week.

Big Mama’s Chicken and Waffle at Forest Audelia is closed temporarily, it seems, based on a handwritten sign on the window.

Big Mama’s is located in a sketchy area (see Dallas Police reports), but those big fat waffles were worth the risk and the hassle — line is usually long and they only take cash.

Anyway, rumor is that they suffered a kitchen fire and had to close. I haven’t actually been able to reach Mama or anyone else, but here’s wishing the little drive through a speedy recovery.

A compelling story about an unraveling marriage, the complexities of contemporary Iran, and the damage wrought by divorce, writer-director Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation is a stunning film that is equally intimate, moving, and free of affectation. It’s wrapped in a gritty realness that is disarming and engrossing. That it’s been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and earned a score of festival honors is no surprise — movies as genuine and fearless as this one are a rare breed.

The story focuses on Nader and Simin (Peyman Moadi and Leila Hatami), a middle-class married couple living in Tehran, with their 11-year-old daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi, the director’s daughter); and Nader’s father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. The fact that their marriage is in a tailspin is made evident in the movie’s opening sequence, where Nader and Simin bicker in front of a divorce judge (who is heard but not seen on camera, giving the scene an interview/documentary feel). Simin wants their daughter raised abroad, away from the turmoil engulfing Iran, something to which Nader initially agreed upon; now, he is unwilling to leave his father behind. Compromise seems unlikely.

Unable to break the impasse, Simin moves to her mother’s home and sues for divorce. In need of a caregiver to look after his father, Nader hires young mother Razieh (Sareh Bayat), who keeps the job a secret from her hot-tempered husband, Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini), a strict Muslim who would never allow her to work in a man’s household without the wife present.

The job begins badly and steadily gets worse. On the first day, the elderly man wets himself and the deeply devout Razieh worries that it might be a sin to help him change his clothes. The next day, he slips out of the apartment and she is forced to chase him — a dangerous activity, given that she is four months pregnant. On day three, Nader and Termeh arrive home and find the old man alone and unconscious on the floor with one hand tied to the bed.

Nader is understandably upset, and when Razieh returns he confronts her about her treatment of his father, as well as some missing money. He ejects from his home; under circumstances that aren’t shown, she falls on the stairs and later miscarries. Nader is accused of murder, and in turn charges Razieh with theft and assault. The unfortunate situation is made even uglier by the deceit and selfishness of the people involved and, as is often the case, it’s the children who suffer.

If it had been produced by a major Western studio, the story no doubt would have devolved into high melodrama with a tidy ending. Iranian cinema is simple and to the point, as well as patient and observant, and Farhadi manages to avoid compromising his carefully crafted and very human tale or his deeply flawed and wholly believeable characters.

Unlike many other well-known Iraniam filmmakers, he’s also perfectly willing to confront and openly question the stifling socio-religious bureacracy that Iranians must often wade through. It’s a subtle but bold move, especially at a time with so much tension between Iran and much of the rest of the world, and woth so many other Iranian filmmakers in prison or living in exile.

Religion factors into A Separation a great deal, but Farhadi allows the nature of deeply held beliefs rather than their rhetoric to drive the narrative. The result is a story with a broad reach, one that could take place just about anywhere and involve almost anyone.

Whether your young dancer aspires to become a Highlandette or just wants to have a day of fun and meet some new friends, this is the week to register for the annual Dancing with the ‘Dettes event. This year’s dance clinic will be held Monday, February 20^th in the LHHS gyms and dance studio (it’s a school holiday), giving your girl a chance to experience the life of a Lake Highlands drill team member on her own home turf.

The clinic is open to kids in Kindergarten through 8^th grade, and they’ll need to wear comfortable clothes and dance or tennis shoes. Pizza and drinks will be provided for the all-day event (they’ll need their strength to dance from 9am to 3pm), and all participants receive a matching t-shirt. The final 30 minutes will be a Parent Show Off, allowing family and friends to see what the kids have learned.

Registration forms are available online here, and the price is $55 if you sign up by this Friday (you can register after Feb. 10 or at the door, but you’ll pay $65).

Best of all, dancers get to take the stage at the big 50^th Anniversary Highlandette Revue April 20 & 21 in their own special number. Sell-out crowds are expected for the big show as ‘Dette alums gather from all over the country to reminisce and meet the current line, so this will be a special year. Break a leg!