food porn

DVD of the Week: Kings of Pastry

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This documentary chronicles the physically grueling and emotionally draining three-day competition for the MOF, the highest designation for French pastry chefs. Amid impossibly towering sugar sculptures and delectable cream puffs and layer cakes, we see the essential cores of competition – aspiration, ambition, perseverance, commitment, desperation, heartbreak and victory. Kings of Pastry is directed by the brilliant documentarians Chris Hegedus and DA Pennebaker (The War Room).

It has earned a spot on my list of 10 Food Porn Movies.

This year’s Oscar dinner

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Every year, The Movie Gourmet watches the Oscars while enjoying a meal inspired by the Best Picture nominees. You can read more at Oscar Dinner.

Planning this year’s Oscar Dinner proved challenging (despite being a great year for movie Food Porn).  Fortunately I received some great suggestions from my readers.

Here is my menu for Oscar Dinner 2011.

COCKTAILS AND STARTERS

First, the pièce de résistance:  Severed Hand Ice Sculpture for 127 Hours and Winter’s Bone.

We will be floating the ice sculpture in an Appletini Punch for The Social Network. I read that, after seeing the film, Mark Zuckerberg made the Appletini the official cocktail of Facebook.

Pistachios from Inception. It looks like the guys are sharing a bowlful of pistachios while assembling the team in Mombasa.

Beer Nuts from The Fighter.  Amy Adams’ bar looks like a beer nut kind of place.  I am told by a New Englander that the Eklund-Ward clan would be drinking Narragansett, but I can’t find ‘Gansetts in California, so a MGD or PBR will have to do.

Tortilla Roll Ups from Toy Story 3. This is inspired by the all-time funniest movie scene involving a tortilla: Mr. Potato Head executes a prison escape by putting his facial features on a tortilla that can slide under a door.

DINNER

Cowboy beans from True Grit. Obvious and right out of the movie.

Steak and Organic Roast Vegetable Salad served with a Petite Syrah from The Kids Are All Right. The Mark Ruffalo character serves steak (he mists it with truffle oil)  while hosting the family at his house.  Earlier, he brings a bottle of Petite Syrah to dinner, which impresses the Annette Bening character (before she drinks too much of it too fast).  We see organic strawberries from his restaurant’s garden, but I can see his menu featuring a nice salad of roasted veggies.

DESSERT

Coffee from Inception.  From the Parisian cafe scene.

Sheet cake from Black Swan. (We will not vomit it back up.)

English toffees for The King’s Speech.  They’re English and we will have difficulty speaking when we are chewing them.

(I decided not to skin my own squirrel for Winter’s Bone and not to recycle my urine for 127 Hours.)

I need some help with this year's Oscar Dinner

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Every year, The Movie Gourmet watches the Oscars while enjoying a meal inspired by the Best Picture nominees.  For example, last year’s highlight was Grandma Ethel’s Brisket for A Serious Man. We also had airplane bottles of liquor for Up in the Air, fastfood chicken for Precious and Middle Eastern fare for The Hurt Locker.  I particularly relished having prawns for District 9; (“prawn” is the South African slur for the aliens).  You get the idea and you can read more at Oscar Dinner.

But this year, the elements of my Oscar Dinner are not so obvious (despite being a great year for movie Food Porn). Now, I do know what I’m going to serve for True Grit, Black Swan, Toy Story 3, Inception, The Social Network and The Kids Are All Right.

But I’m stumped on 127 Hours The King’s Speech and The Fighter.  I need to find food and/or beverages found in these movies or inspired by the movies (typical of the movie’s setting, a pun on the movie, etc.)  Any ideas?  I welcome your suggestions.

Mid-August Lunch

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This is a wry Italian comedy about a contemporary Roman bachelor in his 50s who is saddled with housing his mother AND the mothers of three friends in his ordinary apartment during a getaway weekend. The old gals relish his attention and the freshly caught fish, the baked eggplant and, especially, the macaroni casserole. Here are recipes from the movie.  Starring and written and directed by Gianni Di Gregorio.  Made my list of Food Porn Movies.

2010 in Movies: The Year of Food Porn

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To conclude my 2010 in Movies series, here’s another very fun trend:  2010 brought us more food-centric films than any year in memory: I Am Love (Io sono l’amore), Mid-August Lunch, The Kings of Pastry, Today’s Special, A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle House and Soul Kitchen.  The Movie Gourmet approves of this trend.

You can get the idea here from I Am Love‘s trailer.  Check out the plate of glazed prawns about 58 seconds into the trailer.

Here’s my list of 10 Food Porn Movies.

Food Porn

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Glazed prawns from I Am Love

I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on the recent post updating my 10 Most Memorable Food Scenes – the movie food scenes that are the most amusing, shocking, etc.  But what about the most tantalizing food movies?  They are on a completely different list:   10 Food Porn Movies.

Nobody will be surprised that I’ve included Babette’s Feast or Eat Drink Man Woman.  But I also feature four 2010 films.  Visit the 10 Food Porn Movies for the other picks, trailers, images and even a link to some recipes.

Kings of Pastry

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This documentary  chronicles the physically grueling and emotionally draining three-day competition for the MOF, the highest designation for French pastry chefs.  Amid impossibly towering sugar sculptures and delectable cream puffs and layer cakes, we see the essential cores of competition – aspiration, ambition, perseverance, commitment, desperation, heartbreak and victory. Kings of Pastry is directed by the brilliant documentarians Chris Hegedus and DA Pennebaker (The War Room).

It has earned a spot on my list of 10 Food Porn Movies.

Soul Kitchen

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Soul Kitchen is an intermittently funny German romp that tries to find its way between clever humor and broad farce.  It’s mildly entertaining but way overrated by critics because it’s a change of pace by trendy Director Fatih Akin (Head-On, Edge of Heaven).