This month I'm hosting Food 'n' Flix, a blogging challenge which is based on recreating dishes inspired by different movies. Whether it's cooking a meal that actually appears in the film, or making something loosely based on the theme or plot or location where the film is set, the possibilities are almost endless. I've taken part a few times and made food from the Hunger Games, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Delicatessen, Practical Magic and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
I'm now guest-hosting the challenge for the first time and the movie I have chosen is a classic: When Harry Met Sally. Read on (or scroll down) for details about how you can take part; but first here are my reasons for choosing the film.
It's the story of how a friendship over many years turns into love - but to many people, When Harry Met Sally means just one thing - the "I'll have what she's having" scene. It's the most memorable moment in the film, and comes about because Harry (Billy Crystal) insists he's never been with a woman who has faked an orgasm and that he would be able to tell - so Sally sets out to prove him wrong. She very loudly fakes an orgasm in the middle of a deli (Katz's in NYC). When she's finished, a woman at the next table tells the waiter "I'll have what she's having!".
The themes of food, eating and restaurants occur again and again in the film, even at the very beginning, when Harry and Sally car share on a trip to New York, Harry offers Sally a grape and she says "No, I don't like to eat between meals" - this is just the first indication of her rigorous and rather picky attitude to food. Not long after, we see them in a restaurant, and Sally - without pausing for breath - orders "Chef's salad with oil and vinegar on the side and apple pie a la mode, but I'd like the pie heated and I don't want ice cream on the top I want it on the side and I want strawberry and vanilla if you have it and if not then no ice cream, whipped cream, but only if it's real, if it's out of a can then nothing, just the pie but then not heated." She is certainly a woman who knows what she wants!
Later when they are travelling on a plane Sally is just as specific when it comes to how she wants her drink served: "Here's what I want, regular tomato juice filled up to about three quarters then with a splash of bloody mary mix, just a splash, then a little piece of lime on the side."
The restaurant culture is also very important in the film; as Sally's friend Marie points out, "Restaurants are to people in the 80s what theatre was to people in the 60s".
Food is such an important element of the film that it even features again at the very end; [spoiler alert!] Harry and Sally are married and looking back on their time together, telling an unknown interviewer about their wedding day. Sally says their wedding cake was a "tiered coconut cake with a rich chocolate sauce on the side" - of course it was on the side!
I didn't fancy making a coconut wedding cake for the Food 'n' Flix challenge so instead I decided to go back to Sally's apple pie a la mode. I'd love to see what this film has inspired you to cook - whether it's a meal from the film itself, something typically New York, or whatever you think Sally might have been eating in the deli in that scene. While another customer says "I'll have what she's having," you never really see what Sally is eating - so what do you think she might have ordered? Do you have a recipe that makes you almost orgasmic?!
Sprite Apple Pie
This recipe was inspired by the Coca-Cola Cookbook that I bought when I was in America.
To serve 1-2 you need:
100g plain flour
100g marg
50g caster sugar for the pastry
handful of butterscotch drops (optional)
2 apples
100ml Sprite
50g caster sugar for the apples
double cream to serve
MIx the flour and marg until you have breadcrumbs (using your hands is easiest for this) then mix in the sugar.
I bought these butterscotch drops when I was in America and added a handful to the pastry crust. You can also put them inside the pie, but I forgot.
Knead the dough
I bought this apple mould in the Lakeland sale a while ago but hadn't used it yet. I'd forgotten that it was a plastic mould so I couldn't use it in the oven, just to shape the pie before it was cooked.
Roll out the pastry and press into the mould. You can use a pyrex dish or make this freehand.
Stew the apples with some sugar and Sprite until the apples have softened
Fill the pastry case with the apples
Close the pastry mould - or place your pastry lid on top of your base.
Cook in the oven for about 20 minutes
Serve with double cream. I doubt Sally would have been happy with this - she seems the kind of person who would want a very neat triangular slice of pie - but it does have whipped cream (the real kind!) on the side.
Here's how you can take part in the Food 'n' Flix challenge:
You can draw inspiration from a town or a setting...from a memory or a reference...from a color or a building. I see food in everything - usually where others do not. Sometimes you have to draw inspiration from the tiniest of a spark. What we head into the kitchen to make inspired by a film does not have to come directly from the screen." ~Heather (creator of food 'n flix)
1. Watch the chosen film for the month. Buy it, rent it, borrow it...that matters not. Just set aside a couple of hours a month to sit back, relax, and be inspired! If you've seen it before, that's okay...watch it again.
2. During the movie...take note (mentally or physically- whatever works for you) of what inspires you.
3. Cook or Bake up some food that was inspired by the movie. How did it make you feel...did it invoke memories...or longing...or did you see something in the film you just had to have? ...and take photos.
4. Blog about it! Talk a bit about the movie...how, what, why it inspired. Did you enjoy the movie... Your take on it and your food. Doesn't have to be long...just share w/ us in a blog post your thoughts and your dish.
5. Include a link back to the CURRENT HOST (that is, me) and Food 'n Flix somewhere in your post. Either the current FLICK post or the main page or this page. Grab the logo and use it if you'd like.
6. Send in your current entry by the 28th of August and then watch for a roundup at the hosting site at the end of the submission period. Please email your submission to caroline@carolinemakes.net. If you'd like to tweet me @Caroline_Makes I will retweet all the ones that I see, but please do not treat this as a method of submitting your entry as I can't guarantee I will see it.
7. You must post during the month of the chosen film. And please, PLEASE do not link up if you don't even mention the chosen film in your post. We're watching the movies and cooking/baking from them...so tell us your inspiration for your dish!
8. HAVE FUN!
