Our "Big Night"

Our editor for Cooking with the Movies, Kristi, lives in Denver, so she is unable to attend the "recipe testing" dinners we host in New York, unfortunately. We would love for her to join us at least one evening soon. In the meantime, to give her a sense of "what she's missing" (and to convince her that we are indeed making good progress toward completing our manuscript on time!), here are some photos of our most recent "big night"--the meal we prepared and presented based on the 1996 award-winning film Big Night. Many viewers consider this their favorite "food" movie of all time.

Setting the scene: it was a lovely evening as our guests began to arrive.

The appetizers included Caponata, Peperoni Arrosti, Focaccia Bread with Rosemary, Melanzane Fritte (Fried Eggplant), and Tre Crostini.

Our guests gathered on our back porch for this sumptuous dinner.

The co-authors serving "il primo"--Garganelli en brodo (a soup).

One of the dishes for "il secondo"--Pollo Arrosto (Baked Chicken).

This is the Timpano, the baked pasta creation for which the film is famous.

We wowed our guests with Maialino allo Spiedo (Roasted Pig).

I must say, by the end of the evening, after having cooked for two days, we were just too "destroyed" to clean up! But the food sure was good. In the words of Primo, “To eat good food is to be close to God.”

Big Night was released September 20, 1996.
Starring Tony Shalhoub as Primo, Stanley Tucci as Secondo, Minnie Driver as Phyllis, Isabella Rossellini as Gabriella, Ian Holm as Pascal, Campbell Scott as Bob, Allison Janney as Ann, Marc Anthony as Christiano, and Liev Schreiber as Leo
Directed by Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott
Written by Stanley Tucci and Joseph TropianoAwards: 1996 Boston Society of Film Critics Awards for Best New Filmmaker (Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott) and Best Screenplay (Stanley Tucci and Joseph Tropiano); 1997 Independent Spirits Award for Best Screenplay (Tucci and Tropiano); 1998 London Critics Circle Film Award for British Supporting Actress of the Year (Minnie Driver); 1996 National Board of Review, U.S.A. Special Recognition Award; National Society of Film Critics Awards, U.S.A. for Best Supporting Actor (Tony Shalhoub); 1996 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best New Director (Tucci and Scott); 1996 Sundance Film Festival Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award (Tucci and Tropiano)

(Thanks to Pete and Shirley Longshore for providing these photographs of the dinner we served.)

The Wedding Banquet

“Although you kids want to be modern, what is a wedding without a banquet?”
--Old Chen

As the name indicates, The Wedding Banquet features a large wedding reception dinner. In traditional Chinese style, the parents of the groom invite hundreds of guests to celebrate the nuptials of their only son. Little do the parents realize that the marriage is a matter of convenience, arranged so that the bride, Wei Wei, can get a green card to remain in the United States, and that their son the groom, Wai Tung, is not only gay but has been living with his partner, Simon, for many years. When the parents arrive from Taiwan to oversee the long-awaited wedding, the young trio are caught in a web of their own making that is at once agonizing and hilarious.

Wai Tung Gao: …we should have moved you out.
Simon: I’ll survive.
Wai Tung Gao: Not if Wei Wei keeps cooking.

Directed by Ang Lee, now known for his highly acclaimed films Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Sense and Sensibility, and The Ice Storm, The Wedding Banquet puts keen emotions, complicated situations, and finely wrought characters on display—not to mention some glorious food! The banquet itself features fresh shrimp and lobster, perfectly steamed, and served on a bed of rice and greens to each guest, plus a four-tier wedding cake. Other scenes show Simon trying to teach Wei Wei how to cook fried eggs, the mother preparing freshly squeezed orange juice, the family eating dinners that include shredded tofu or sushi or breakfasts that combine American and Chinese foods, Simon treating the newlyweds to restaurant meal of General Tao chicken and pan-fried fish at the best Chinese restaurant in Manhattan. Interestingly for non-Chinese viewers, when the bride and groom present themselves to the groom’s parents, his mother feeds the bride a traditional lotus soup (to “help” the couple have a son quickly).

Does anyone enjoy this wedding banquet? We'll leave it to viewers to find out for themselves.

Fun Fact:
In the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock, director Ang Lee makes a cameo appearance in this film, portraying a guest at the wedding banquet.

Released August 4, 1993 in the U.S.A.
Written by Ang Lee and Neil Peng
Directed by Ang Lee
Original title: Xi yan
Starring Winston Chao as Wai Tung Gao, May Chin as Wei Wei, Mitchell Lichtenstein as Simon, Ah Lei Gua as Mrs. Gao, and Sihung Lung as Mr. Gao
Awards: 1992 Asia-Pacific Film Festival Best Film Award; 1993 Berlin International Film Festival Golden Berlin Bear Award; 1993 Deauville Film Festival Critics Award; 1994 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding (Independent) Film; 1993 Golden Horse Film Festival Awards for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Sihung Lung), and Best Supporting Actress (Ah Lei Gua); 1999 New York International Independent Film & Video Festival Director’s Choice Award; 1993 Seattle International Film Festival Golden Space Needle Award for Best Director and Best Film

"Food" Movies without Food

In our search for the greatest “food” movies ever made—or maybe simply for the films featuring the most delicious meals—we came across a number of pictures whose titles hinted at the presence of food yet, when we viewed them, we discovered that they didn’t include food at all. One of these “food” movies without food is Breakfast on Pluto.

Patrick “Kitten” Braden: And the other thing about the Phantom Lady was, Bert, she realized, in the city that never sleeps….
Bertie: What did she realize, Kitten?
Patrick “Kitten” Braden: That all the songs she’d listened to, all the love songs, that they were only songs.
Bertie: What’s wrong with that?
Patrick “Kitten” Braden: Nothing, if you don’t believe in them. But she did, you see. She believed in enchanted evenings, and she believed that a small cloud passed overhead and cried down on a flower bed, and she even believed there was breakfast to be had…
Bertie: Where?
Patrick “Kitten” Braden: On Pluto. The mysterious, icy wastes of Pluto.

Breakfast on Pluto is a funny, moving film about a young Irish man named Patrick who is abandoned on the doorstep of the parish rectory when just an infant. Placed with a foster family, he discovers his transgender identity at a very young age and runs away from home to escape his family’s and neighbors’ disapprobation. A series of “adventures” leads him to have an affair with the lead singer of a rock band, to run afoul of the Irish Republican Army, to work as a magician’s assistant, to flee to London where he is arrested as a terrorist, to befriend a police officer who finds him a job in a peep show, to be “found” and taken in by the father who never admitted his paternity, and—finally—to find the mother who had fled to London to escape the shame of unwed motherhood in Catholic Ireland. But there are only the briefest glimpses of breakfast food in the movie.

Released January 13, 2006
Written by Neil Jordan (writer) and Pat McCabe (novel)
Directed by Neil Jordan
Starring Cillian Murphy as Patrick “Kitten” Braden, Liam Neeson as Father Liam, Ruth Negga as Charlie, Laurence Kinlan as Irwin, Brendan Gleeson as John Joe Kenny, Stephen Rea as Bertie, Gavin Friday as Billy Hatchett, and Eva Birthistle as Eily Bergin
Awards: 2007 Irish Film and Television Awards for Best Actor in a Lead Role in a Feature Film (Cillian Murphy), Best Director (Neil Jordan), Best Hair & Make-Up for Film (Lorraine Glynn and Lynn Johnson), Best Script for Film (Neil Jordan and Pat McCabe); 2006 Ljubljana International Film Festival Audience Award for Neil Jordan; 2005 National Board of Review, U.S.A. Special Recognition Award “For Excellence in Filmmaking”

"Noodle Western" or Uncategorizable?

How can one describe Tampopo? Is it, as some say, the "first noodle western"? A "humorous paean to the joys of food"? An "erotic food movie"? A "spoof of Japanese life"? Actually, it's a little bit of all of those, and more. The main plot concerns the widow Tampopo's desire to run a successful noodle bar, and her efforts to learn how to make the "perfect noodle soup." But there are many subtexts, from the eroticism of sharing food with one's beloved to a samurai-style showdown beneath the highway overpass. It's a wonderfully funny movie, with an incredible number and variety of dishes--several noodle soups, Peking duck, barbecued beef, rice omelets, sole meuniere, even spaghetti! We'll let our readers decide if we have indeed created the "perfect" noodle soup.

Our Absolutely, Positively Last Ever Thanksgiving Meal

Readers of this blog know that we've been working on the meals in the movie What's Cooking? for quite some time now, and that this film features four complete Thanksgiving dinners. FOUR! Well, we are happy to report that we have FINALLY finished all four, the last being the Vietnamese American meal prepared by the Nguyen family.

In celebration, here are some photos of the dinner spread. We invited twelve of our friends to sample the recipes, and they seemed to enjoy every dish--but we must say, they absolutely devoured the spring rolls--all 80 of them!

And now, on to the next movie meal....

Feast Your Eyes on These Pies!

Viewers, beware: just watching the film Waitress will raise your blood-sugar level! The film opens with a mouth-watering montage of incredible homemade pies—peach, apple, cherry, chocolate chip, chocolate pudding, banana and dark chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter chip and white chocolate chip, even pistachio—and then treats moviegoers to the wonderful story of these delectables.

Jenna, a waitress at Joe’s Pie Diner, is the genius behind the diner’s daily pie specials—both the recipes, which she makes up in her head, and the names, such as “Marshmallow Mermaid Pie,” “Falling in Love Chocolate Mousse Pie,” “Peachy Keen Tarts,” “Spanish Dancer Pie,” and “Jenna’s Special Strawberry Chocolate Oasis Pie.” Jenna inherited her pie-making talent from her mother, who created such interesting pies as “The Lonely Chicago Pie,” “Car Radio Pie,” and “Jenna’s First Kiss Pie.” But Jenna is incredibly unhappy in her abusive marriage, and when she suddenly finds herself pregnant, her pie-muse goes into overdrive, calling forth such concoctions as “I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie” or “Kick in the Pants Pie.”

The wonderful thing about the narrative is that Jenna gives a brief description of each vision as she goes along: thus, “Bad Baby Quiche Pie” is a quiche of egg and Brie cheese with a smoked ham center; “I Hate My Husband Pie” has a pudding filling made from bittersweet chocolate drowned in caramel; “Baby Screaming Its Head Off in the Middle of the Night and Ruining My Life Pie” is a New York-style cheesecake, brushed with brandy, with pecans and nutmeg on top; “Earl Murders Me ‘Cause I’m Having an Affair Pie” is made by smashing raspberries and blackberries into a chocolate crust; “I Can’t Have No Affair Because It’s Wrong and I Don’t Want Earl to Kill Me Pie” is a vanilla custard pie with a banana on top, “hold the banana”; and finally “Pregnant, Miserable, Self-Pitying Loser Pie” is lumpy oatmeal with fruitcake mashed in, then flambéed. (This running narrative is fortunate for the viewer who loves to bake, because the DVD edition of the film does not provide any recipes.)

Fortunately, Jenna embodies humor as well as sadness in her pies: there are “Old Joe’s Horny Past Pie,” which she makes for the owner of the pie diner, and “Naughty Pumpkin Pie,” which she makes for her gynecologist/lover. Nevertheless, she has little faith in her own gifts, as this exchange with Joe indicates:

Joe: Nobody makes strawberry chocolate pie the way you do. Wednesday’s my favorite day of the week ‘cause I get to have a slice of it. I think about it as I’m waking up. Could solve all the problems with the world, that pie.
Jenna: You’re making too much of it. It’s just a pie.
Joe: Just a pie? It’s downright expert. A thing of beauty. How each flavor opens itself, one by one, like a chapter in a book. First the flavor of an exotic spice hits you, just a hint of it. And then you’re flooded with chocolate, dark and bittersweet, like an old love affair. And finally, strawberry, the way strawberry was always supposed to taste, but never knew how.

Or as Dr. Pomatter, Jenna’s lover, rhapsodizes about one of her pies: “It’s bliss.” And that’s an accurate thing to say about this fine movie itself, for all turns out well for Jenna (though we won’t give away the happy ending).

Inspiring Facts:
The toddler who appears as Jenna’s daughter, Lulu, in the final scene is Adrienne Shelly’s daughter, Sophie Ostroy. Writer and director Shelly was as inspired in making this film as Jenna was in creating new pies. Shelly’s talent ranged from adding in the simplest plot details (the five-minute date) to portraying Jenna’s friend Dawn on screen to writing the movie’s theme, a lullaby that begins, “Baby, don’t you cry, gonna make a pie. Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle….” Shelly’s murder in her Manhattan office was a stunning loss, not only for her family but for film-goers worldwide; despite this tragedy, Waitress, her final film released after her death, is an optimistic view of the resilience of the human spirit and a testimonial to Shelly’s fundamentally joyful outlook on the human experience. The success of the film has helped fund the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, a non-profit that provides film school scholarships and grants to female filmmakers.

Released May 25, 2007
Starring Keri Russell as Jenna, Nathan Fillion as Dr. Jim Pomatter, Cheryl Hines as Becky, Jeremy Sisto as Earl, Andy Griffith as Old Joe, Adrienne Shelly as Dawn, Eddie Jemison as Ogie, and Lew Temple as Cal
Written and Directed by Adrienne Shelly
Awards: Chlotrudis Award for Best Performance by an Ensemble Cast; Newport Beach Film Festival Audience Award for Feature Film and Feature Film Award for Acting (Nathan Fillion); Sarasota Film Festival Award for Narrative Feature (Adrienne Shelly); Southeastern Film Critics Association Wyatt Award

Another Holiday Meal

A dessert table fit for royalty! This dessert table includes all the delicious desserts served by the Williams family at Thanksgiving in the wonderful film What's Cooking? Here we have Gwennie Robbins’ Fool-Proof Rustic Pie, Blueberry Pie with Graham Cracker Crust, Raspberry Torte, Fruit and Nut Cheese Ball, Moroccan Fruit Compote—and more. A fine finish to a delicious meal--and just a sneak preview of the scrumptious desserts we'll be including in Cooking with the Movies.

To whet your appetite, here's the recipe for Gwennie Robbins' Apple Pie:
1 c. flour
1 stick butter
8 oz. cream cheese
1 c. sugar
juice of ½ lemon
dash or two of ground cinnamon
6 Granny Smith apples

Crust:
Let the butter and cream cheese come to room temperature.
Place the flour, butter, and cream cheese into a bowl and use hands to run together.
Put aside half of the dough for the top of the pie crust.
Press the rest of the dough into an ungreased pie pan.

Filling:
Peel and wedge apples and place into a bowl (Note: blackberries and peaches work beautifully as well. Pour sugar over apples. Add lemon juice. Sprinkle in cinnamon. Combine mixture with hands (hands are always the best!) Pour filling into crust.

Hand roll extra dough into several long strips and crisscross over pie.

Bake at 375°F for 30 to 40 minutes, or until top turns golden brown.

Yield: One pie with 12 healthy slices