Hyperbolic ruminations on food and film
Another holiday weekend has arrived. Memorial Day weekend last, I drove through six national parks on the way from LA to Chicago with one of my best friends. This weekend? I’ll be marathoning… a Homeland marathon, a Sherlock Marathon and a Downton Abbey marathon. It’s couch potato city with what I am told are the three […]
Read MoreAs those who visit this site regularly are aware, I have a few passions. Um, obsessions, Tom, obsessions… Potato, po-TAH-to, whatever. Earlier this year I wrote of my justice issues, centering around the brilliant, seminal, devastating Chinatown. I promised then to write about another passion… um, Tom, it’s an… that’s enough, you. So today I give you […]
Read MoreWhile we had a wonderful marinara recipe last week, care of my good friend David, can you really have too much spaghetti? I think not. Few things are as enjoyable to me as a great bowl of pasta, and cooking it can be just as wonderful. For instance, check out one of my favorite ‘food […]
Read MoreThere are few things I enjoy or appreciate more than someone cooking for me. Given how much I love to cook, this doesn’t happen often. And to be honest, given how particular I can be, particular being a code word for control freak, it took a while for me to let go and enjoy someone […]
Read MoreSummer is upon us. For many this means an excuse to pick up some books. I pretty much throw books at anyone who breathes. There are few things better than discovering a book so good you find your own world disappearing as you lose yourself in the author’s world. As this happened to me just […]
Read MoreThe best screen comedies all have something in common. Um, they’re funny, Tom. Ok, yes, they are funny. Agreed. But when you think of your favorite screen comedies, I bet they share something else: the movies are nightmares. Things get bad then worse, then worse again. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, […]
Read MoreThe holiday weekend approaches! As I myself am going on holiday (Yellowstone, first time! Apparently it is going to, um, snow) I’m going to do a shorter less dense post with a few recommendations of, hey it’s not rocket science, food and film. First, the food. Savory: I stumbled on this recipe for Pasta with […]
Read MoreWhile my earliest memory as a child was watching a movie, memories of holding a book occur almost immediately after. I grew up surrounded by books, everywhere. Both my parents were huge bibliophiles. It was rare that either didn’t have a book in hand or at least close by. Additionally, Mom was a teacher and taught […]
Read MoreI practice and teach yoga, which is not as weird as it sounds…unless you are as I was before I took a yoga class. Back then I had the idea that yoga was people in a room kind of stretching but mostly burning incense, chanting and smoking the devil’s lettuce. While there might actually be […]
Read MoreIt may be the age-old question but for me the answer to ‘Which came first?’ is simple: The Egg. Not that I don’t love chicken. I’m obsessed with chicken, as some of you know. This obsession started early as we ate a lot of chicken when I was a child. Growing up in The South, we […]
Read More“I’m sure you’ll find this amusing, but I’m afraid of the dark.” Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) in Klute, 1971, dir. Alan J. Pakula Anyone working in movies has influences. I certainly have quite a few. Spielberg and […]
Read MoreSo I’m walking down the street in Paris… It’s pretentious day at On Food And Film… so I’m walking down the street in Paris and I see a movie poster shop. I’ve been obsessed with movie posters my entire life and always have some hanging on my walls. I did when I was 10, I […]
Read MoreAccording to The Internet, which is never wrong, salad dressing probably kinda/sorta came into being about 2000 years ago when the lovely people of Babylonia began to use oil and vinegar to dress lettuce. I’m glad someone started the trend. See, I’m a rabbit: I not only love salad, I love just lettuce. All kinds of […]
Read More“You see, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they’re capable of anything.” Noah Cross We all have archetypes that spur us individually. Our backgrounds, our struggles, our loves, loyalties and rivalries combine to create passions, positive and negative, that charge us. […]
Read MoreI grew up eating wonderful food. Both my parents were excellent cooks. Mom cooked most of the meals, but Dad was also very adept in the kitchen. Mom, in fact, said it was my father who taught her how to cook, after they were married, as she had little desire or use for cooking until […]
Read MoreIs there a better decade for film than the 1970s? Feel free to try to convince me otherwise, but I doubt you’ll have much luck. Taken as a whole, the films of the 70s combine into a dazzling, divergent whole that challenges and delights, devastates and uplifts, while also remaining extremely relevant many years later. […]
Read MoreCertain dishes seem to have no middle ground. They’re either incredibly good or absolutely suck. This is not always true! While every prepared food certainly has great and bad versions, most can also have serviceable versions that do the job. Take the caesar salad. I’ve had a few out of this world caesar salads, like […]
Read MoreLike so many other film nerds, I’ve been a huge fan of soundtracks all my life. I asked for Disney soundtracks as a very young child and the first album I bought with my own money was the score to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. An addiction began that day that unfortunately hasn’t ceased, […]
Read MoreFew things in life are more enjoyable than a good meal with good friends. To sit around a table adorned with food and wine, shared by people with whom you are supremely comfortable, is one of life’s great pleasures. I should know. I am blessed with wonderful friends who prize these times as much as […]
Read MoreCable television entered our house in the early 1970’s. I remember vividly the day it happened because I kept getting punished by Mrs. Flynn in 1st Grade, I was too excited to sit still. Finally I could watch The Flintstones after school at 3:30 on Houston’s Channel 39. The Flintstones!! From the big city! And […]
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