Culinary Muse

More helpings of Ratatouille!

One day and counting.  Here are a few appetizers to keep you satiated until tomorrow's opening of Ratatouille:

EMILE'S WORKOUT

EMILE'S MAGIC TRICK

NINE MINUTE PREVIEW

THE OFFICIAL YOU TUBE CHANNEL for many more previews!

Ratatouille by our Guest Reviewer

If you were at Chez Panisse last night wondering how to get a bottle of Perrier or at the Laundry savoring your dinner of small plates I am sorry but you missed the food event of the year. Saturday night found me at the Northgate Theater (a location perhaps not previously known to foodies) in Marin for the Sneak Preview of Pixar's Ratatouille. The story of Remy, a sleek blue rat with the soul of a gourmet combined with the talent of a Bernard Loiseau, and his partnership with a scullery worker by the name of Linguine. Linguine is a young man with a need to express his soul and heart through food. But, alas, he has not the ability or talent.
From the first frames of Remy's family of scurrying rats to the flood that leads Remy to the sewers of Paris to the last credits, Remy is a rat not a Mickey Mouse. Still I liked him, he is nothing if not French. His French shrug is a wonderful answer to Linguine's question 'can you cook?' It says perhaps a little 'not much'. Then more 'well you know I am not bad, in fact even superb'. Then the last reading of this most Gallic of movements "together we will form a partnership that will set the Paris food scene alight." All that in a shoulder shrug from a rat.
This movie is loaded with emotion and movement. The color and look of the actors (characters), of course the food, the muted color and textures of Paris in the early morning, afternoon and night are beyond anything I have seen on a screen up to now. The food looks as though it has been prepared by Philippe or Traci. Rich onion soup, ripe red grapes, smelly Fougeru and Tourr'ee de l'Aubler cheeses, Sauce Ravigote that you can taste, and bread up until last night I had found only in Paris.
For any foodie who has been exposed to a food critic the scene near the end where Remy prepares his specialty for Paris food critic Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O'Toole), who is known across Paris as the "Grim Eater", is worth the price of admission. I have a hard time remembering any actor responding to food with such expression. Well maybe Nicky Henson in the Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones. For those of you who may have missed that 1976 film the scene of Tom seducing Nellie while eating a chicken leg should not to be missed.
Forget what you thought you knew about rats, the Paris sewers or French chefs. If you are seriously into food (if you read this site you must be) you will want to see this film. For those of you at the Laundry or CP last night it's not too late. The film opens around the Bay Area on June 29th.
Click here to see the trailer.

WELCOME RATATOUILLE!

Your Culinary Muse film critic will be attending a sneak preview of what promises to be the Cinematic Food if not the Food Event of the year. I am, of course, speaking of the sneak preview of the film RATATOUILLE! (rat-a-too-ee).  The Ratatouille review will be published Sunday morning in time for breakfast coffee and croissants.

THE FULL PLATE

Somewhere between grocery shopping, speed scratch cooking and prepared foods lives the world of 'assemble and cook' meals. Here is how it works: they develop the recipes for a dish (usually the main course), you choose which ones you want to purchase, they do the full prep (chopping, slicing, dicing) of raw materials, you measure, gather and assemble the materials, at their location, following their recipe and then you take the fully prepped meal home to cook yourself. I never considered it seriously for my household. After all, was meal planning, grocery shopping and prepping really such a big deal? I guess it is. Because for one week I could answer the question 'what's for dinner?' without a second thought. I didn't realize how this daily task gnawed away at me. And I only have to think about dinner for two. What must this be like for busy families where both parents are working? Exhausting. Who solved the problem I didn't know I had? THE FULL PLATE in Montclair (Oakland). I was contacted by their PR firm to see if I would like to give their concept a try as their guest. After checking out their website and the April menu I settled on the following four dishes to prepare in their 'Quick Fix In-Store' session: