Valeria Out Loud

Eat, Drink & Watch!

These are not in any particular order.. just listed them as they came to mind.

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RATATOUILLE

Ok, well, this is on the top of my food movie list actually. I quote this movie almost on a daily basis.

It’s a sweet story about a rat, Remy, who differs from his rat pack. He is a sophisticated mouse with a distinct palate. He comes across a human, Linguine, that is a bumbling, talentless janitor at a former highly acclaimed restaurant. Linguine has been tasked with cooking a specific dish he had inadvertantly screwed up, but that Remy happened to have fixed. Being that rats aren’t welcome in the kitchen, they figure to combine their talents to become one great chef. The rat maneuvers the human’s actions to cook by pulling his hair under his toke. It all turns to nothing when everyone discovers that the rat is the chef…except there is a sweet twist ending.

My favorite quotes of the movie:

“Shut up, and eat your garbage.”
“I don’t ‘like’ food; I LOVE it. If I don’t love it, I don’t swallow.” (Actually, this is my yelp quote!)
“Ack! Don’t just hork it down!”
“Anyone can cook… but only the fearless can be great.”

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MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING

This movie still kills me. Being first generation, Italian not Greek, I relate to it tremendously; every scene I laugh thinking that it is just like me and my family! This movie isn’t technically about food, but it has a lot of food references.

It’s about a first generation Greek girl, Nia, who starts off in the movie as the ugly duckling. She then falls for a very handsome, sexy man, an all American, Ian. Nia comes out of her ugly duckling shell developing into a decent looking swan. She and Ian date, actually they have an amazing love affair. They get engaged, but her parents don’t necessarily approve when they find out. Nia has this crazy Greek family, that goes along with this whole engagement and wedding, but not without bumps along the way, and, he on the other hand, has two pieces of toast for parents.

There is a scene in the movie I think is so relevant to how I was, food related, as a kid. Well, there are two scenes, but the one I am referring to is the one where Nia is in elementary school. She is sitting at a lunch table across from a table of all American girls. Well, Nia is starting to eat her lunch, and one girl says..”what’s that?”, all giggling away. Nia responds, “It’s mousaka.”, and the girl replies “Moose caca?”, giggling like a terd as she eats her white bread sandwich..etc. Well, I had sort of this same thing happen to me when I was young, in like 3rd or 4th grade. I used to eat Nutella sandwiches as a kid. My Mom would make the sandwich with a slice of muffaleta cut in half and an awesome thick layer of Nutella in between the bread. I’d eat it in like 2 seconds. Everyone else around me was eating sandwiches made of Wonderbread or the school lunch. Well, one day someone asked me what I was eating, and even though I wasn’t made to feel bad about it like Nia was, I felt like an outsider cause they questioned it. Other than another Italian girl in my class, no one knew what Nutella was. I mean, I am Italian, we eat Nutella. Nowadays…everyone knows what it is.

And the other scene, when the Aunt hears that Nia’s fiance is a vegetarian. She says loudly and confused, “What do you mean he eats no meat? That’s ok, I’ll make him lamb.” Ha! Like that isn’t meat!? That still cracks me up!

The photo I am using is a joke between my husband and I, this is a quote we most often use from any movie. Don’t know why this cracked us up like it did, but even finding that picture I belted out laughter.

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BIG NIGHT

Big Night is set in the 1950’s. It is about two Italian immigrant brothers, Secondo-the business manager, and, Primo-the culinary perfectionist. Tony Shaloub and Stanley Tucci are amazing in their roles. Truly. They are owners of a failing restaurant, Paradise. They are super stubborn and striving to keep it afloat but no one is eating there. Unlike the mediocre Italian restaurant nearby, Pascal’s, that is raking in the money. Secondo decides to ask the owner, Pascal, for a loan. The owner is reluctant, and smarmy, and offers him a job at his own restaurant, but Secondo declines. Pascal, in turn, decides to give them some help by having Louis Prima, the famous jazz celebrity, dine at their restaurant during his next stop in town. Secondo and Primo immediately begin working on the ‘big night’. They spend all their money, prepare amazing food, and invite everyone they could, including media. The night was a flop, though, they waited for hours and ended up eating the food…as they were set up by Pascal, and Louis Prima was never invited. The film shows preparing food in such a significant light. And the ending to the film seems fit.

My favorite quotes of the movie:

“To eat good food is to be close to God.”
“RAPE! RAPE!… The rape of cuisine.”

One of my favorite quotes of the movie is “Bite your teeth into the ass of life.”, cause this is something my Dad would totally say.

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JULIE AND JULIA

Definitely a girls movie!

This is a true story of Julie Powell, a NYC girl who just feels she needs motivation to do something after seeing all her friends successes. She decides to cook and blog about all 524 recipes of Julia Childs. Great idea btw! The story is wonderful with how they coincide these two women’s lives. Two women from two different decades living different lives, but somehow they brought Julia Child’s real life story to life though Julia Powell’s; so well written. Julia Child, whom we all know, was such a force educating Americans with French/American cuisine. She is my favorite woman’s crusader! And she was tall! (I’m a heightest <–and that is a joke, sort of.) Surprisingly, though, I knew about Julia Child before this movie, she is a Boston gal after all, and I’d see her roaming Harvard Square often in her old age, the story was so fresh and new. The way that Meryl Streep played her character was so powerful. And Stanley Tucci, the way he played her husband, it was just perfect. *lovestruck* I loved seeing their love story played out on the big screen. So exquisite. The movie was a touch long, but the story pulled through and kept integrity. You should check it out if you haven’t!

During a trip to France, in 2011, I began eating boeuf bourguignon every meal that I could. I have always liked beef stews and am always trying new things, but eating a traditional boeuf bourguignon in France was out of this world ..awesome. After 7 days of eating it everywhere, I was becoming quite the connoisseur, and chubby. But to make it myself was, for some reason, overwhelming. My Mom makes amazing stews, not me! Where do I start?!? But I remembered this movie. So, one day, I went out and bought all the ingredients needed to make boeuf bourguignon, Julia’s recipe. And it tasted truly amazing! The whole time I was prepping, all I could think of was Julie Powell’s character. Such a sweet movie. I want to see it now.

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JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI

In November 2012, I referenced Jiro Dreams of Sushi in a post, My Obsession with Sushi.

This documentary is about Jiro Ono, an 85-year-old Japanese man, who owns a world-renowned sushi restaurant in Tokyo. This restaurant is housed in a basement of an office building, and you need about 3 months of advance notice for a reservation; and a reservation can’t be more than 6 or 8 people! Jiro is getting older, and would like to leave his business in the hands of his eldest son, as his other son tried to work with him, but ended up opening his own sushi restaurant. His eldest son has some major huge shoes to fill, and Jiro is not sure he wants to retire just yet. The documentary highlights Jiro’s sentiment, affection, and profound respect for his craft, creating the perfect sushi..is his obsession. The man lives and breathes all things sushi.

Such a fantastic movie.

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WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Gene Wilder is one of those actors from my childhood where just hearing his name makes me smile. I grew up, alongside my Dad, watching almost every movie Gene Wilder has ever made.

Willy Wonka, an eccentric chocolatier, for the first time, opens the doors of his chocolate factory to 5 lucky people through a lottery system within his chocolate bars. The five winners get an in-depth tour, where one will leave the ultimate prize winner with a lifetime supply of chocolate. But little do these winners know there is fine print they didn’t read. There are 4 very greedy children that have the worst luck..one falls in a river of chocolate, one is zapped into little televised pieces, one lands in the golden eggs trash, and one eats the gum she wasn’t supposed to and turns blue and grows into a giant blueberry! But not Charlie. Charlie is a good kid and ends up the ultimate winner. This story is awesome, and though I liked the newer version, there is something magical about the 71 version.

The colors and candy in almost every scene was a thrill as a child. What kid doesn’t want to go to a candy factory? I so wanted, and still want!, to eat the candy tea cups, lick the entrance’s wall paper and swim in that chocolate river!

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DELICATESSEN

This is a dark comedy about a landlord, who is also the butcher of a delicatessen in his apartment building, and his tenants. They are surviving through a serious famine or post apocalypse. Food seems very scarce, but the butcher has the delicacies they want. “There is something odd about this butcher!”, is all I could say from the start of the movie. And there TOTALLY is! The landlord needs a new maintenance man for his building, as his mysteriously has disappeared. He hires on a new man, who also becomes his tenant. The new tenant is a sweet man, perplexed by all the apartment rules, and he ends up falling in love with the landlord’s daughter who lives above. The landlord is not so happy about this, as he had other plans for the new guy.

Well, needless to say we find out how the butcher prepares his delicacies! It’s not a movie that makes you want to eat afterward, but still a food related movie!