Sunday, September 24, 2006

Food Reference Website

If you're looking for food trivia, food history, recipes, or almost anything about food, then visit Foodreference.com. Frankly, it is one of the worse looking and poorly designed sites that I have seen for some time. Still, there's loads of information there if you are patient enough to weed through the clutter.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Food Timeline

If you are interested in food history surf over to the Food Timeline. You can learn anything from common foods in 16th century England to the recipe for Dr Suess' green eggs and ham to "discovery" of the new flat iron steak (see below). Have fun!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

"Chef!" - British comedy series

Last Christmas I treated myself to a new copy of the three-season "Chef!" comedy series. I had not even heard of the series until a few weeks earlier so it was quite a surprised at how good it was. Well, at least the first two seasons were. Even with a really shaky third season, I think that it was worth the approximately $50 that I paid for it. If you are apprehensive about buying the whole series, you can purchase individual seasons for about $20 each on Amazon.com.

I was never a huge fan of British comedy, but this series may have changed my mind. The dialog, while witty and hilarious, is fast-paced and was sometimes hard for me to comprehend. After a lot of rewinding and replaying I realized that it was best to give "Chef!" my full attention while watching it. No folding clothes, decluttering, filing or whatever I usually do when watching TV.

Nonetheless, if you like food and cooking, you should not be disappointed with "Chef!"

Monday, September 18, 2006

Food Movie List

One of my favorite food-related activities is collecting and watching food movies. So far, I have a modest collection of about 10 movies. My definition of a food movie is: A movie in which the central theme is about or revolves around the consumption and/or preparation of food.

Movies that I own that satisfy my definition include the following:

Babbette's Feast (Wow, what a feast!)
Big Night (One of my favorites)
The Chinese Feast (Terrible story/plot, but good food sequences)
Dinner Rush
Eat Drink Man Woman
(Very good)
Like Water for Chocolate (A little discomforting at times)
Mostly Martha (Love it)
Supermarket Woman (By the same director of Tampopo - Most of the same actors too)
Tampopo (My absolute favorite food movie by far)
Tortilla Soup (An American remake of Eat Drink Man Woman except with Mexican cuisine)


Food Movies that I Don't Own and Haven't Yet Seen

Chocolat
No Reservations (An American remake of Mostly Martha)

Movies That I Own That May Qualify as Food Movies

American Adobo (How many "issues" can one movie deal with?)
The Scent of Green Papaya (Wonderful movie but it may be hard to find)
Sideways (A wine movie really)
Soul Food
(Not really about food although Sunday dinner plays a central role)
Spanglish (This could have been a good movie - then Adam Sandler showed up)
A Walk in the Clouds (Another wine movie. Keanu Reeves could act back then either)
What's Cooking (Another movie with too many issues. See American Adobo)

Imposters: Movies that Sound Like They Are Food Movies

Catfish in Black Bean Sauce (Perhaps the worse movie I have ever seen)
Diner
Mystic Pizza

Does anyone have any movies to add? Let me know.