Food and Movies

[hrj]

I wanted to see Miss Potter and the only place it seems to be showing around here is the Embarcadero Theater in SF, so the only reasonable thing to do was BART over first thing in the morning and hit the farmers market in the Ferry Building for breakfast and shopping, then meander up to the theater by noon. Farmers markets are dangerous things, especially when everyone is giving you free samples. My mantra is "buy for no more than two days" because it never fails that whatever culinary impulses I have at any given moment, they'll have shifted after a couple of days and I'll no longer remember why in the world I bought those parsnips and the peculiarly-shaped cucumber. (Truth to tell, after two days, I no longer remember what I have in my fridge and am likely to pick up something fresh.) It also helps if I remember that between the movie and popping up to Macy's to pick up another piece for my china pattern, there's no point in buying anything too perishable or fragile. So none of the gloriously fresh fish, no enticingly ripe but highly squishable tomatoes, any only enough hot-out-of-the-oven baked goods for breakfast (with a cup of Peets looking out over the bay) and dinner. The final haul: some very fresh olive oil, an aged goat cheddar, a wedge of mild blue cheese that caught my fancy, a bunch of variously colored beets, one grapefruit, and a small assortment of Recchiuti chocolates.

With that inspiration, for dinner I whipped up an artichoke & portabello quiche with baked mushoom caps stuffed with tomato, crab (ok, surimi), and a bit of the blue cheese, and the fresh rosemary and olive rolls I got at the bakery this morning, with a dipping sauce of olive oil and balsamic, finished for dessert with a pot of Rouge Bourbon tea from Mariage Frères and one of the chocolates.

Movie Review: As is typical, the trailers for Miss Potter -- a biopic of Edwardian children's book author Beatrix Potter -- gave a skewed notion of the tone of the movie, with its emphasis on Beatrix imagining her drawings coming to life, and smouldering moments between Beatrix and her publisher. While the movie is entertainingly whimsical, it's also a first-rate costume flick and -- within the constraints of the genre -- a reasonably accurate biography. Some of the more fascinating aspects of her life are omitted, no doubt for a more coherent story arc, for example her career as a (necessarily, given the times) amateur mycologist. While she was still unsuccessfully shopping Peter Rabbit around to publishers, one of her scientific papers was presented to the Linnean Society, but all that isn't even hinted at in the movie. But all in all a very enjoyable experience -- rich in little human dramas, tragedies, and triumphs and really really incredible landscapes. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that the title character was played by Renée Zellweger who is becoming one of my favorite actresses, not least for the reason that in a world full of interchangeable cookie-cutter actresses she looks exactly like herself and no one else. And the characters she plays look like themselves and not like forgettably-identical ingenues.

Comments

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Definitely sounds like a positive review. I saw trailers for it, but have no idea when/were it would be playing in Amsterdam, though if I find that out, I'd like to see it. We haven't actually been to a movie in a theatre since moving here.

[(Anonymous)]

I wish you were close enough to cook supper for us occasionally. It sounds yummy. Mom