The Smells of Home

Family Movie Night

By Karyn Bowman

This is the week when we walk into the house and it smells good.

It is the smell of favorite holiday dishes cooking, simmering, and baking. As we walk through the door, even if it is the door to our own home, there is something wonderful and comforting about those smells.

It tells us that when life has handed you lemons, you have chosen to make lemon bars or lemon meringue pie or sangria with lemons, green apples, and grapes.

Movies over the years have provided us with so many images of food and drinking.

I think about Eat Drink Man Woman directed by Ang Lee about an Asian family who are about to go through many changes and all of these changes are announced over sumptuous dinners prepared by the father who used to work as a world class chef.

His three daughters live at home but all that changes as each one makes an announcement that forces changes. The movie is a wonderful tour-de-force of emotions that people want or don’t want known. But this movie comes with sub titles, not everyone wants to read at the movies. And it is really meant for adults, context wise.

But if you do get it, make sure to view in the letterbox formatting, it really is better that way.

Image from IMDb.com

There is an American version of this movie called Tortilla Soup. It stars Hector Elizondo as the retired chef. And true to form there are announcements during the weekly suppers. But his three daughters prove to be up for the challenge of growing up, becoming wiser, and learning how to enjoy their father.

There are wonderful moments such as when a pumpkin becomes a soup turine and a suitor tells the father about his connections to Dodgers’ stadium over a bowl tortilla soup. It is the young man’s reaction to the soup that makes the father realize he is ok. Again, this movie is for grown-up. And that is OK, we need movies meant for us.

The kid’s movie I should recommend that is all about food is Ratatoille. Maybe you’ve seen it. It’s the movie about a rat who wants to be a chef. Crazy, I know. If I were to be incredibly non-biased, I would have to say that the bones of this movie is very good although the idea is preposterous to say the least.

But I can’t.

I know this is a good movie but I hate rats. Can’t stand them. I get the willies watching this movie so why would I recommend it?

I can’t, just can’t.

Until next week, see you in the rental aisle.

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The Travel Bug

Family Movie Night

by Karyn Bowman

This past weekend I finally finished a project I have been working on for about six months.

I know some of you are scoffing because you might have some project that has taken much longer to not be completed. Well, I have done that as well.

Lately, I have wanted to start finishing projects. Last year I finally put the final stitches into a needlecraft scene. Then I began cleaning out various hot spots of clutter in my house. But this project was something special.

It is a post with signs of various destinations. One of my friends said it looked exactly like something I would do. Last fall, I found various reclaimed reclaimed wood. Once they were sanded and cleaned of the dust, each one was painted on one side, and a name was written on top. Each sign has a slightly distressed look to it and I cannot wait to see how any of it stands up to a real winter.

While it reminds me of the sign post from the old TV show, M*A*S*H, the idea came from a craft suggestion pasted on Facebook. I choose places that reflect series that I am reading or my children are reading. Two of the signs are of places we have actually visited or lived.

If I had more money, traveling would be my joy. There is too much of the U.S. I have not seen and a part of me wishes to see Australia and/or the continent of Africa. Another part of my heart wishes to see the city of Petra that was carved into the mountain so many years ago.

Movies help aid my wandering desires.

Image from IMDb com

We recently watched Life of Pi and while I have no desire to share a boat with a tiger, I would like to see India. I would like to visit the set of a Bollywood movie just to see one of the spectacular song and dance scenes actually performed. Until then, I will have to settle for the excellent Bride and Prejudice starring  Aishwarya Rai in the Elizabeth Bennett role.

Movies about New York City increase my curiosity about the Big Apple. There is a part of me that wants to walk the Brooklyn Bridge as Miranda did in Sex and the City. I would love to go to the top of the Empire State building but leave the big ape from King Kong behind in the jungle. I would not mind taking in the Museum of Natural History just like in Night at the Museum or strolling through Central Park as happens in countless movies.

Image from IMDb.com

Until I can go, these movies and so many more will have to be my ticket to see lands far away – be it Taiwan in Eat, Drink, Man, Woman or Paris in Hugo or The Adventures of Tin-Tin. As for Africa, perhaps Humphrey Bogart and Kathrine Hepburn will allow me to join them on The African Queen once more. 

Where would you like to travel?

Until next week, see you in the rental aisle

Preparing for the Feast

Family Movie Night

by Karyn Bowman

Next week, many of us will be working in our kitchens, preparing dishes for the big meal.

Some of us are only making one dish to take to a family gathering. If that is me, I am bringing my corn pudding or bread pudding. Perhaps you are bringing pies or biscuits or a fruit dish or the cheese and crackers.

Maybe you are making the whole meal – turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, relish tray, deviled eggs and pies. Pumpkin, apple, mince meat, and pecan. Maybe a French silk or banana cream arrives as well.

In the meantime, how-a-bout watching some movies that are food-based?

Image from IMDb.com

One movie I think about before Thanksgiving is Tortilla Soup. But that is a Mexican soup, you are thinking. I know but there is one scene in which the Hector Elizondo character is cutting open a medium-sized pumpkin, cleaning it out and then carving an intricate design so that the pumpkin can be used as a soup tureen.

The story is about a Los Angeles chef and widower who has lost his ability to smell. His three daughters live at home and are at different stages of life. The one constant is the big meal they share every week with dishes that are wonderful and difficult. These meals have announcements and drama. Promotions and relationships are announced.

I love how Elizondo creates a character that is fierce and loving and gentle. But the food you will see in this movie is incredible.

Image from IMDb.com

What you may not know is that Tortilla Soup is a remake of the Taiwanese movie Eat, Drink, Man, Woman directed by Ang Lee. The story focuses on a chef who has lost his sense of taste. His three daughters live at home and deal with their mercurial father as best they can while juggling work and relationship issues.

Every Sunday, he makes a huge meal that has many dishes. But the daughters notice that they are over spiced and no amount of telling him seems to make a difference. One by one, the girls leave because of different events in their lives. The emotions are right at the surface, always tangible, always intriguing. You will have to read the captions as this movie is not dubbed in English but do not let that turn you away.

Image from IMDb.com

Finally, a movie that I love for the food is Big Night starring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub as Italian brothers who have a restaurant in New York. Shalhoub is a gifted chef who cannot stand cooking for people who only want spaghetti. A competitor tells them he can get the musician Louis Prima to visit their restaurant and it will put them on the map.

So the brothers use the last of their money and prepare a feast, a grand feast. There are many dishes and tastes. It is spectacular. But there is treachery and drama. Love is found and love is lost. The brothers fight and manage and do what they must.

These are wonderful movies to watch and they make one want to learn all of these different style of cuisine. I can almost smell that soup in the pumpkin tureen. While these movies may not be suitable for the youngest members of the family, I find those who are older might enjoy them more.

 What movies about food do you like to watch?

Until next week, see you in the rental aisle.