Friday Follies: Eat Sex Man Woman

Friday Follies [n., pl.] postings on Fridays about fashion and food in film from guest bloggers with impeccable taste.

The idea of good food makes me think of sex. I love truffled cheeses, and when I tried to explain to a dear friend the effect they have on me—“It’s like leaning in close to a man who has exquisitely delicious breath, and inhaling his air”—said friend retorted, “Oh! You HAVE to write about this!” And so I do.

I have always tended to log supremely tasty food in my brain in erotic terms. Luckily for me, I discovered early enough the work of Juzo Itami. He’s a Japanese filmmaker who was apparently offed by the Yakuza, although not before he left behind a substantive body of completely perverted, magical work. I remember watching a clip from his film Tampopo (1985) sometime in the ’80s, on MTV. I was still a teenager then, and it really blew my mind! It featured two eager lovers, somewhere in the back of a Tokyo kitchen, erotically experimenting with food. They broke an egg and kept passing it back and forth in their mouths, trying to keep the yolk intact in the process. The exercise is beautifully documented on film. It instantly became my favorite erotic food maneuver. I never dared spring it onto any of my own real lovers, but therefore it stood, a pinnacle of food-fetish achievement.—Sorina Diaconescu

For the previous Friday Follies, click HERE.

Winter Vegetables

Although it was raining on Sunday morning, it was crazy busy at the Larchmont Farmer’s Market but with all the incredible winter vegetables on offer, you can see why. I’ll share a few photos of my haul. I stocked up on carrots, celery root, purple broccoli, onions and red potatoes.

Can we pause for a moment to talk about how gorgeous and gnarled celery root is?

 I remembered seeing a recipe for a savory Winter Vegetable Cobbler from a book called The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever on the Chronicle Books website, and so inspired, I cobbled together (did I really just pun? I hate that) a makeshift version with some of my farmer’s market finds. I thinly sliced up celery root, potatoes, carrots and chopped some onions, and then simmered them in chicken stock for 10 minutes. 

Then I made a half recipe of the cobbler dough from the original recipe, adding in some cracked black pepper. The vegetables went into an 8 x 10 cast iron roasting dish, and I poured some chicken stock mixed with a little cornstarch and a few pats of butter. [Note on butter pats, I scaled waaaay back on the stick of butter the recipe called for, but I'm sure it is all the better as originally written.] Then I placed the dough over the veggies, and baked at 375 for about 45 minutes. It tasted honest, hearty and healthy—see above note on butter. Which is probably why I caught my husband scarfing minis of Nestlé Crunch in the kitchen later.

Pot of Pesto

The lovely Zinzi of Coffee and Oranges gave me a beautiful little jar of homemade pesto. There is no gesture quite so wonderful as a homemade edible gift, and Zinzi’s vibrant green, fresh pesto is not only festive but delicious. For lunch today, we spooned it over burrata atop thick slices of chewy French bread, and sliced up some FraMani salametto to nibble on alongside, which has a nice complementary garlicky flavor. Thank you, Zinzi!

TOP FIVE FOODIE FLICKS

1. GOODFELLAS, 1990

I love mob movies, and they never disappoint when it comes to food scenes. Like all good mafia flicks (The Godfather, with Clemenza teaching Michael how to make sauce right after killing Paulie – “You see, you start out with a little bit of oil…;” The Pope of Greenwich Village, Paulie tells Jimmy, “your ‘moo-zerrella’s’ tough sometimes”), Goodfellas also has an unforgettable food scene involving a guy named Paulie. In this case, Paulie’s using a razor to slice garlic “so thin that it used to liquefy in the pan with just a little oil.” We also get a good recipe for meatballs with veal, beef and pork and watch as the prisoners get lobster delivery and fry up steaks. And even as the feds are closing in, a strung-out Henry Hill barks “keep an eye on the sauce and watch the helicopters.” Priorities, I tell you.

To see remaining foodie favorite flicks click “read more” below….