More Food Porn, Please!!!

Yeah, I went to the theater to see Julia & Julie before I went to see QT’s Missplled Nastees—so fucking sue me.

And after rereading this entry of Ivanlandia, I realized that, no, I have not gotten the name of Nora Ephron’s movie correct.
It’s supposed to be Julie & Julia, but I prefer to call it Julia & Julie.
C’mon, who’s more important to us food fans?
Who should be listed first:
Julia Child or Julie Powell?
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.




Julia & Julie (2009)
Written and directed by Nora Ephron
Based on the books “Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen” by Julie Powell
And "My Life in France" by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme
Director of Photography: Stephen Goldblatt
Production Designer: Mark Ricker
Editor: Richard Marks

Although there isn’t enough food porn displayed in this flick in my opinion—it’s still a fantastical foodie’s delight.

First some gripes:
I would have much rather had more sumptuously filmed scenes of plates of food being prepared and served in glorious Technicolor close-ups than some of the subplots and heavy-handed Republican bashing—
for example,
It would have been nice to have those 10 minutes spent on the (entertaining, I’ll admit, and certainly character enhancing) subplot about Julia Child’s taller sister
being spent on the preparation of the boned duck—called “deboned duck” in the flick, I assume (making an ass of you and me?), because someone at the studio was worried us dummy audiences wouldn’t get it.
OR
When Julie’s boss says (something like), “At least I’m not a Republican,” how come he couldn’t say something less divisive, but similar in tone and spirit, like, “Look, I may be a Republican, but I’m not an asshole” ?

Harumph! Somebody’s pushing an agenda in a very unsubtle manner!



Be that as it may,
As an amateur home chef (yeah, I’m a foodie—wanna make something of it?),
I found Julia & Julie quite inspirational (even if I spent the whole evening typing the names in the "wrong" order), and Meryl Streep’s performance to be a marvel.
And I also thought Stanley Tucci was great, too.
(And reviewers have been too harsh on Amy Adams: it’s an essentially thankless expository role, one that underutilizes her talents, but she does it well.)
I laughed, I cried, I drooled over some incredible dishes.

But keep in mind, Julia & Julie is a fantasy.
Sure, it’s based on two non-fiction books, but the movie wouldn’t be out of place as a double-feature with Amélie —or, of course, Like Water for Chocolate.


And that’s not necessarily a bad thing!
More “true” stories adapted to film need to adopt the Magical Realism Mystery Tour approach.
Jazz things up a bit, y’know?
It also helps skip over the boring, mundane stuff that might interfere with a filmmaker’s trajectory—like Julie Powell’s affair. (Heh-heh…)

Julia & Julie also follows my (and others) belief that biopics should only cover a specific area of time in the person’s life: that time which truly defines their life, work and/or accomplishments, the time most indicative of whom they are.
When a biopic chooses to tell/telescope a person’s whole life into a movie, from birth to death: snooze city!

Good biopics include:
Movies like the classic Patton (which only covers the general’s WWII years), Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (covering the years Wood spent making Bride of the Monster and Plan Nine From Outer Space)
and
Hope and Glory (John Boorman’s autobiography of his WWII years as a pre-teen)


Meanwhile,
Naked Lunch doesn’t try and cover Burroughs’ entire life, just those New York and Africa years.
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: the book Naked Lunch is not supposed to be an autobiography, but let’s face it, the movie of Naked Lunch sort of is a biopic.)

Amadeus focuses on Mozart’s conflict with Salieri, not necessarily the great composer’s entire life.

(Clint Eastwood’s worthy Bird can be an exception to this rule because it takes the morphine dream approach, sort of like Sergio Leone’s director's cut of Once Upon a Time in America.)



Meanwhile, J&J gets beau coup bonus points
for there being a poster of Roger Corman’s “Attack of the Crab Monsters”
(one of the favorite films of The National Film Board of Ivanlandia,
and the subject of a forthcoming mega-post)
displayed prominently in Amy Adam’s living room;
as well as for its use of Dan Akroyd’s blood-splattered spoof of Julia Child’s TV show on the old SNL.

Regarding that “Attack of the Crab Monsters” poster:
Why is it there?
Was its placement the decision of the director, or of the production designer?
Or did a lowly PA manage to sneak it in, putting it up totally expecting everyone to hate it, but that nobody really even noticed?
Or could Nora Ephron be a fan of the movie?
Random accident?
I needs to know!




However (getting back to food porn), the flick really needed to show more of how a boned duck is prepared: it’s a completely insane process that is, frankly, quite daunting.

Frankly I hope the DVD has outtakes and supplemental materials regarding this, because the food porn that’s in Julia & Julie is quite fantastic, even the simple dishes.

And now it's time for...
An Ivanlandia Bonus Recipe!!!

After seeing Julia & Julie, The Missus and I went to the market. She comes up to me with some fish fillets. The package says “Basa Fillet.”

I’m completely unfamiliar with the fish—and honestly, my initial reaction was to whine and growl and say, “WHAAA?!?”

—but Meryl Streep’s delightful imitation of Dan Akroyd’s delightful imitation of Julia Child’s warbling tremolo sprang into my head:
“Go AHHHhhead!
WHHHhat’s to be WOR-ried about?
It’s JUST fishhhHHH!”

Right you are, oh inspirational Ghost of Julia Child!


After some on-line R&D (did you know the basa is a kind of Vietnamese catfish?),
I combined various recipes and figured out a way to cook them:
First I mixed together some spices—

Spices: Salt, pepper, parsley, a dash of ginger, a dash of Old Bay

Then I poured out some Panko flakes in a plate.

Now, you’re supposed to dry fresh fish, and although the basa fillets were moist—not dripping or anything—I didn’t dry them:
I wanted to use the fish’s moisture to adhere the flakes to it; I didn’t want to make a thick batter (like something with milk, flour and/or eggs) that would get heavy and overpower the fish.

(As much as I love thick-crusted fried food, that sort of batter-frying should really only be used on cheap cuts—why hide the flavor of a good piece of flesh, whether fish, fowl, beef, pork, long pig or dog, under a thick crust?)

I sprinkled the spices over both sides of the fillets, then pressed them into the plate of Panko flakes, making sure there was a thin coating across all the fish.

Meanwhile I put a frying pan on medium high heat and added
3 tablespoons of butter
1 heaping tablespoon of minced garlic (in garlic oil)



Once the butter and garlic was melted and sizzling, I added the fish, pushing the excess butter-garlic around the fillets. Occasionally, I rotated the pan to make sure the heat was even.

As the fish sizzled, I added some more spices on top, leaving a little to add to the fillets after I flipped them.

Once the edges of the fillets had turned white, it was time to flip.

After I flipped the fish, I sprinkled the last of spices on the cooked side.

Let it cook for about 3 minutes, but the best way to tell it’s done is if your fork goes through the fish easily.

Once my fork easily penetrated the fillets, I turned the heat off, but didn’t take the fillets out of the pan or moved the pan off the burner, letting the ambient heat work a little more on the fish (for about 2 or 3 minutes, as I finished plating the rest of our meal, a salad and some breadsticks I made by thinly slicing some tandoori nan flatbread and twice-toasting them in the toaster oven).

Plate the fish, sprinkle with lemon. Eat.

DEE-LISH!


(And the day after that, I made Korean scallion pancakes with shrimp; substituting the Korean staple of kim-chi with celery, bell pepper, a dash of hot crushed red pepper and mushrooms—
make sure everything is chopped well—
also DEE-LISH!)

So, as Saint Child might say,

"Bon appétit!"