Film & Food


I feel like I've neglected blogging about movies lately, so I'll blog about two I saw this week.

As you know, I'm not a big fan of musicals, but sometimes I get the urge to watch one. I'm also not a big fan of Rita Hayworth. The reason I decided to watch this film was because Lauren Bacall was originally going to make her debut in it, as one of the "cover girls" but passed on the role because it was small & non-speaking.


Rita Hayworth plays Rusty Parker, an aspiring singer/dancer who works at Gene Kelly's nightclub in Brooklyn. She gets an opportunity to be the Cover Girl (Columbia 1944) on Vanity Fair and from there, things turn interesting, especially since Rusty is in love with Gene Kelly's Danny McGuire, and her newfound fame is making him feel unimportant & insecure. It is weird seeing Gene Kelly before his later success but I can see his talent & appeal already. And I actually liked Rita in this movie. She was sweet, beautiful and was pretty impressive in the dancing department. My favourite number was with Rita, Gene and Phil Silvers called "Make Way For Tomorrow" and foreshadows Gene's "Singin' In The Rain" number in the same movie. 

If you want to smile & just want something fluffy and not too deep, this is a good film to watch.

The other film I saw was Jiro Dreams Of Sushi (Corner Store Entertainment 2011) which was very good. Not only because I happen to love sushi. Jiro-san is 85 years old and still goes into work EVERY DAY! He has been studying his craft for over 75 years. Yes, that's right, he started working at 10 years old. He was abandoned by his parents as a child and had to take care of himself. It's quite unbelievable. Not only are there some luscious shots of food throughout this film, there are also some great quotes. I wish I had written them down. Jiro-san made some comment about how parents nowadays make it too easy for their kids to not try their best or grow up but it was so funny how he said it. And in one scene, his son, Yoshikazu-san, who is 50 years old and still waiting for his turn to be the owner of the business, tells his apprentice that he put too much wasabi in the sushi that it's making him cry. Now I know, too much wasabi means the Chef isn't really thinking about how his patrons will feel eating it. Aha. And so you can drool over the fish, here's a scene from the film where Jiro-san is making a meal for a party visiting his restaurant. About 20 pieces of sushi for around $300. Honestly, I wouldn't have a problem paying that. You can see the care & respect that has gone into picking the fish, making the ingredients. I don't think you can really put a price tag on that.

I had Birthday Dinner #2 this week, at a new restaurant called Bestellen. The reason why I picked it is because one of the Chefs was the former Executive Chef at Mercatto, which is a restaurant that served pretty consistent Italian food, in my opinion AND he was runner-up on the 1st season of Top Chef Canada. So I knew that food had to be good! And it was. The cocktails were fab (G2 couldn't drink red wine because of still being sick, and now I'M sick, unfortunately - BOO!), the Grilled Duck Hearts with Pearl Onion & Bacon (the daily special) were yummy, the Pappardelle with Suckling Pig Ragu, Arugula & Parmesan was perfectly al dente, the 10 ounce Beef Tenderloin was soft as butter (and the Duck Fat Roasted Potatoes were nice & crispy and not oily at all) and the Carrot Cake had a delicious sauce that reminded us of the Sticky Toffee Sauce at Beast (both SO good, btw). I want to go back for their Suckling Pig Dinner which you order ahead of time for parties of 8. G2 said we'd only really need 4 people, given our appetites. True.


Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and I had plans to make something Irish but was too sick & had no energy. Ended up eating lots of my leftover soup from Thursday's Dinner (still some left over today but I'm throwing the rest out). I decided to make an easy Irish sweet, Irish Potato Candy. The pictures made it look very potato-like, but maybe mine is not so much.

Anyway, they are cream cheese, salted butter, icing sugar & toasted coconut all mixed together & then rolled into cocoa powder. They were okay. The cream cheese/butter combination was a little too rich for me. I also had a shot of Jameson yesterday.


Off to bed!