Every once in a great while I get to go to a movie without children. Really, truly a whole movie without potty breaks! Me, and about 100 other mostly women in the over 60 crowd, out on the town with their girlfriends, snuggled in tightly to our dusty seats and sticky armrests, we leaned back and listened to the hum of the previews and some old man with the black lung coughing behind me, and after 15 minutes of watching a bad - ah, killer - stepfather and the world ending in 2012, finally got to watch a truly charming movie about an American legend and a blogger. Of course I was hooked.
Julie and Julia is a great movie. I laughed multiple times and even got a bit teary in parts, no small feat for me anyway. Unlike most of the audience members sitting around me, my only real remembrance of Julia Child is from Dan Ankroyd's depiction of her on Saturday Night Live. A treat we got to see again in the movie. I won't bore with details regarding plot here since I'm sure most know what the movie is about, other than to say it revolves around the lives of two women in two different time periods with exactly the same problem: Finding purpose and meaning in their lives. The separate plots weave together effortlessly, with real laughter and real moments of sweet emotion. Nora Ephron is in top form here, no doubt taken from an excellent memoir that I hope to be reading soon, Julie and Julia - My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell.
From hence forth, Meryl Streep is Julia Child. Fantastic acting. I felt inspired to cook after watching this show even though most of the dishes both Julie and Julia prepared were with meat! Duck even. Good grief she de-boned a duck! I could only survive in France on cheese I guess. Cheese...ah... blessed cheese, sounds good to me! Food is a uniting force isn't it? It is the glue that holds family together; friends together even. It's the jelly on the peanut butter sandwich. Speaking of food, at the beginning of the movie, the main character Julie is preparing and enthusiastically eating some bruchetta on wonderfully butter encrusted, toasted bread. It looked so fantastic I kept thinking and salivating about it the entire movie, plotting and wondering if I had all the ingredients to make this when I got home.
And believe it or not the stars aligned and I DID, right down to the multi-colored tomatoes and basil growing in my garden!
Bruchetta-Lula style
5 perfectly ripe tomatoes (yellow and red)
1 glove crushed garlic
1/2 red onion, chopped
salt to taste
A drizzle of olive oil
A handful of chopped fresh basil
Mix together and put on sliced asiago bread that's been toasted on both sides with olive oil and lots of butter in a pan.
You know that toast they give you with a baked potato at Sizzler? This toast is totally better than that!!
I ate like four of these and panted for more. If you're looking for a great end of summer treat this, like this movie, is perfect for an empty stomach in search of something satisfying. Bon appetit!
4 comments:
Yummy!
Fiona :)
Dang it, Lula! It's almost 10 o'clock! It's cruel to make me crave food at this late hour. You're lucky I'm too lazy to stride indignantly over to your house, bang on the door and demand bruchetta.
(On a side note, would you believe I actually won this book from Goodreads? You can borrow it if you'd like!)
Must remember to eat first if I ever go see that movie.
Bruscetta is love!
I can't believe you went and saw this movie w/o me! Now who am I going to drag to it?! :)
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