Wow, summer has just FLOWN by! I'm going to have to post a whole bunch of stuff to catch up. This is from back in early July!!
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| My Ratatouille--in a bowl, not like Remy's rebel dish, sliced, but he satisfied Ego! |
"Ratatouille. It's like a stew, right? Why do they call it that? If you're gonna name a food, you should give it a name that sounds delicious. Ratatouille doesn't sound delicious. It sounds like "rat" and "patootie." Rat-patootie, which does not sound delicious."--Linguini, a bit tipsy, and not really knowing much about cooking
If you've never seen the movie, you should. It's truly one of our favorites. It's all about how anyone can cook. We love all Pixar films, and when you add in a rat (we've had multiple rats as pets, even one who surprised us with an entire litter!), a chef, a clever plot, one of my favorite dishes as a key climactic event, and you've got a Hansen family favorite.
When my sister and brother in law were living in L.A., they got all kinds of fun stuff in the mail and the daily papers to promote the Oscar nominated films. You never knew who was in the Academy, so they just blanketed the region with stuff. One of the cool things was this little promotional menu for Chef Gustaeu's restaurant featuring recipes from the film. Owen wanted to cook little Remy's ratatouille recipe for his cooking project at his school. It's one of the fun things they do there as part of their school day.
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| Here he is serving up his ratatouille for his classmates to sample. |
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| I ran out of school to make it there and back to see & taste! Kira was happy to sample! |
So I had a bunch of zucchini from the CSA to use up, still those lovely scapes and some other stuff in the fridge, so I pulled together a make-shift Ratatouille. (No farm eggplants yet [can't wait]). This is kind of a garbage ratatouille. But then again, as they say in the movie, it is a "peasant dish," right?
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| Yum, all sauteed up in the pan nice and soft, then add the olives and tomatoes and parsley. |
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| Make sure you use good Kalamata Olives. Finish w/olive oil as you serve! |
Here's my favorite scene in the movie, when Collette tells Linguini how it is in a restaurant kitchen: you can't be Mommy! (I think it's like that when I'm cooking lots of stuff, too! Get out of my way!)
My brother posted on Facebook:
ReplyDelete"Anyone can cook, NOT anyone can cook well." First of all, kudos to Chef Lee for using proper grammar! ;)
I wonder about this statement, both my brother's and Chef Gusteau's. I mean, in the film the idea is that they need to be open their minds to accepting that it is Remy the rat and not Linguini who is the remarkable chef. But I agree that not all people are great cooks. But I do think that many people just aren't exposed to the basics of cooking, and just give up on it. And yet there are some folks who may just never enjoy it.
My brother-in-law cracks me up quite often. I was shocked that my sister didn't own a copy of the The Joy of Cooking, and Todd said, well, it is called the "joy" of cooking? but I don't think he gives her enough credit. or maybe he knows her better than I think I do...