Every year, we watch the Oscars while enjoying a meal inspired by the Best Picture nominees. For example, we had sushi for Lost in Translation, cowboy campfire beans for Brokeback Mountain and Grandma Ethel’s Brisket for A Serious Man – you get the idea. The high point has been the Severed Hands Ice Sculpture in 2011 for 127 Hours and Winter’s Bone. Here’s last year’s menu, centered on the diner scene from Hell or High Water.
This year’s dinner is really breakfast because so many of the Oscar-nominated movies depict the morning meal. The most memorable, of course, is in Phantom Thread, where Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) gives a comically elaborate breakfast order to waitress Alma (Vicky Kneps): Welsh rarebit with a poached egg, bacon, scones, butter, cream, jam, a pot of Lapsang souchong tea. [Pause] And some sausages.
So here is this year’s menu:
Bacon, scones, butter, jam. And some sausages from Phantom Thread.
Fried eggs from Darkest Hour: Early in the film, Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman) is shown breakfasting in bed. Our eyes are drawn to the glass of whisky and the glass of champagne, but he’s got eggs on the tray, too.
Scrambled eggs from Lady Bird: In one of the many scenes around the McPherson kitchen table, Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig) and her mom (Laurie Metcalf) bicker about who is fixing Lady Bird’s breakfast.
Hardboiled eggs from The Shape of Water: In an act of interspecies kindness, Elisa (Sally Hawkins) feeds that starkest of breakfast food to a grateful Amphibian Man.
Froot Loops and milk from Get Out: As the terror builds, we see Rose (Allison Williams) eating dry Froot Loops, chased by a glass of milk.
Peach from Call Me by Your Name: Not having access to the apple pie in American Pie, Elio (Timothee Chalamet) makes the peach unforgettable.
Rice Krispies and Froot Loops from Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: Teenage son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) is splattered with soggy Rice Krispies by his Mom (Frances McDormand) and, at one point, he’s called Froot Loop Boy.
Tea from Dunkirk (and Darkest Hour): Essential to fortifying oneself against the threatened Nazi invasion.
Lemonade from The Post: Not your more common breakfast drink, but it was such an adorable moment when Ben and Toni Bradlee’s daughter earned a wad of cash by selling lemonade to a captive audience – the editors and reporters frantically studying the Pentagon Papers on the Bradlee’s living room rug.
No mushrooms?