Oscars dinner

At some point in here I got sick and behind and just didn't feel up to dealing with it, so I slacked off on the rest of the Oscar movie reviews. I'm a bad poster, and now it's far enough past that I think I may not finish out the list.

That being said, I'm totally going to post about the dinner we had. Here's the menu:

• Whiplash: Whiplash cocktail 
• Boyhood: Queso and chips 
• The Imitation Game: Tea & sandwiches 
• Selma: Grits with slow-cooked collard greens 
• The Theory of Everything: Curried potatoes and peas 
• American Sniper: Whiskey pulled pork 
• Birdman: Drunken chicken and barley pilaf 
• The Grand Budapest Hotel: Courtesans de chocolat 

Whiplash

Whiplash was a kick -- a real old fashioned booze cocktail. We altered the recipe a bit -- we used the rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, orange liqueur, and tequila (we couldn't get mezcal), and bitters, but we left out the spicy stuff. Instead, we used a bit of blood orange rind for garnish, because... well, citrus went well and if you've seen the movie, you'll know why a bit of "blood" seemed appropriate.

Boyhood

Boyhood I apparently don't have a picture for. It came together a bit late in the process -- we didn't put it on the schedule as we should have. That said, we did get it done. We made queso because that's what he and his girlfriend eat one night in Austin at an all night diner, contemplating their next steps in life.  We used the recipe for queso off this website. That gave us a lovely queso blanco dip. We used chihuahua cheese and hatch green chiles from our stash -- super good. We had roasted cauliflower just to round out the menu (and acknowledge the painful amount of whiteness in this year's Oscars) and it was discovered that the queso was fabulous on top of the cauliflower. Just saying. 

The Imitation Game

In honor of the sheer number of cups of tea and sandwiches consumed (even though Turing wasn't a fan) we had a good British Breakfast tea and tea sandwiches -- cucumber and butter, watercress and butter, and curried egg salad. These were surprisingly fun and tasty. I'd totally make tea sandwiches again, even though I wasn't expecting to like them all that much. We got ideas for fillings from this article on Food Network. 

Selma

There's really only one recognizable meal in the movie (aside from coffee and sandwiches) and that's where everyone's eating breakfast before a strategy meeting, and grits were part of that. We wanted something a bit different, though, and that's when we found this recipe for slow-cooked greens and grits. Note that the original recipe is vegan -- we used a bit of cream and butter, because we aren't vegan and creamed cashews would be a bad idea for me given my nut issues. Based on an Ethiopean dish, it was really fantastic. I can't recommend it highly enough. 

The Theory of Everything

There's a scene in The Theory of Everything where Jane (Felicity Jones) explains Stephen's work to a new acquaintance using a pea and a potato from their dinner. It seemed appropriate, then, to use peas and potatoes. My friend Cheyenne offered to make curried peas and potatoes, as she is the Mistress of Curry. It was absolutely delicious, but I couldn't begin to tell you what all was in it, as I am not even the Gofer of Curry. If you're really curious, let me know and I'll ask her. That said, really awesome. She's totally going to be making this again, perhaps with meat, but she may not realize it yet. :) 

American Sniper

So, we all kinda hated this movie, even as we saw what Bradley Cooper was trying to do with it. I think for me the movie is summed up in the scene with the rubber baby doll that they substituted for the babies who were supposed to play Chris Kyle's newborn daughter, who were unable to be there on the day they were scheduled to shoot the scene. The baby they substituted was obviously fake, and though the actors did their best... it was kind of horribly distracting because it was so obviously false. That said, the closest they came to eating was holding a barbeque, so we gave it a main dish of whiskey pulled pork, whiskey being the only other thing obviously consumed during the film. It did not want to get done -- not my favorite dish. It said 8 hrs on low, but it sort of fibbed, and ended up being 8 hrs on low and 2 hours on high. And it still wasn't entirely tender! Argh. That said, the flavor was good. I'd make it again though with longer to cook, or at a higher temp. 

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

This was a huge year for drinking in films. Birdman is one of those drinking films -- the only things consumed were alcohol of some brown variety, vodka, and a leg of chicken on the stage. We therefore went for drunken chicken, a really amazing and really drunken recipe based on a South African dish. For the people who said it turned out dry, I can't explain it -- maybe they didn't marinate it long enough? We left it overnight, and it turned out fantastic, with a wine sauce and the barley pilaf with apricots and prunes and almonds. So very, very good. Will totally make again. 

The Grand Budapest Hotel

So, these were towers of iced cream puffs filled with chocolate custard cream, held together with buttercream icing, and topped with a chocolate covered espresso bean. The recipe for this came from a 3-minute Wes Anderson film in which he shows how the signature dish from the bakery in the film, the one M. Gustave uses to make friends in prison. The ones in the movie were a bit less Seussian in appearance, but given that it was my first time making cream puffs and that they were completely amazing to eat, I'll take that hit. I enjoyed making these tremendously, and they've ignited an interest in French pastry for me. With that in mind, who knows what next year will bring!