Foot and Fire

BIG NIGHT (1996) is what I had been looking for: a balance visual exposures of the food and the story. Everyone will love Italian brothers Primo and Secondo who have deep respect for Italian cooking but in crisis as there seems to be a need to compromise it for the business side of it. They need to prepare a dinner party for a guest who will help make their restaurant a success and their American dream come true. There are two scenes that sent me burstinf with laughter. At the beginning, Primo refuses to make the order of the woman. She ordered seafood risotto then she was looking for the seafoods, then she asked whether her order comes with a sides of Spaghetti. Primo explained that they don't go together and so she order spaghetti with meatballs. Primo explained that sometimes the spaghetti wants to be left alone, and the man suggested she order meatballs. Secondo relayed the starchy orders and Primo declined and shouted, she's a criminal. I laughed hard. I ...

10.10.20 TODAY, I GOT Rauram or vietnamese coriander, dill, chives, genovese basil, oregano.  TOMORROW, Rauram will be in a Pho Bo, dill in my tuna sandwich, chives in eggroll, basil in toast, oregano in my olive oil. Hope nothing changes after I sleep. 🤣🤣🤣 10.11.20 10.11.20 PHOTO DIARY of how my garden picks turned out today. Oregano-infused sunflower oil, attempted Pho Bo for the vietnamese coriander, egg roll with chives (no photo), tuna-dill mayo sandwich,  basil is still in the fridge.  THE STORY: Here's our Pho Bo to make you feel that we are in Vietnam, or somewhere just beside Vietnam. The boy shouted that the soup has "tyangaw" while sis chewed the rauram leaves accidentally and grimaced. Oh I liked the peppery and lemony taste of that, i said.  Conclusion after his two bowls: Tita G, it's just batchoy so we never reached Vietnam. I said, well, we may have just reached the Ninoy Aquino Int'l Airport afterall with this one. I smiled, thinkin...

Sweet Bean (2015) is a Japanese film that is a joy to watch as it slowly unfolds before us. I miss this kind of pacing and I thank Director Naomi Kawase for directing it so well that I found one Japanese film that is so filling, not only visually but also story-wise. Of course, it is an intended pun because An is the soul, the sweet bean filling, of the dorayaki, a spongy pancake. This movie invites us to see possibilties beyond our limitations and do our best in our life through the friendship of a teenager with inconsiderate mother, a middle age man who hates Dorayaki and an old woman who makes the perfect An. Almost every scene is a poetry in motion for me. *** Eat Drink Man Woman Eat Drink Man Woman is a 1994 Ang Lee film that gave us a visual treat of some chinese cooking as backdrop to a story that delights us with all the twist. But as much as I loved the long exposure of kitchen techniques at the start, I doubly loved the scene where the father and daughter had fina...

Babette's Feast (1987) is a classic Danish film featuring French dishes after a long wait for that feast to happen. I was not able to snap some lines I liked ( just quoting as I remembered): "No artist is poor." "I will leave forever and will not return. I learned that in this world, there are things that are impossible" he spoke of pursuing his love  Then 25 years after, the man returned and on his way asked "Will the rows of all victories in the past become a sum of defeat now?" While eating in the feast, he declared that we make choices, we risk, we fear but in the end our choices is unimportant because grace is infinite, unconditional." "Righteousness and bliss shall kiss each other." Before leaving again, he said "You are with me every day, I hope you know that, and you will be with me for the rest of my waking hours." In this film, one sees that food can be a vehicle for renewing relationship, asse...