Of Red Carpets, and Cooking

My films are finished! There’ll be more on them here later (including their online premiere), so check back. I might even try to find time to cut a trailer for the first one soon.

Being somewhat insane, I’ve decided on the (sort of) spur of the moment to have a (tongue in cheek) red carpet premiere of the films this weekend. I’ve a confirmed list of 20 hungry guests coming (mostly friends who are filmmakers, writers, actors, journalists, educators and other related professions), and I’ve promised to prepare them lots of food and drink. (Well, the films are very short.) It is already late in the day and I’ve been procrastinating instead of starting my prep. As usual.

Anyway, I’ve decided to plan a few long-prep centerpieces, and will improvise all the other dishes based on whim, the Farmer’s market offerings later, and how many of the tasty figs (two types), peppers (three types) and tomatoes (three types) I harvest from the garden this evening. I love making rapid decisions about newly harvested tasty produce, sometimes just working a light touch so as to let their taste and freshness do the main work in the dish. So for the more complex dishes, I’m sitting with a cup of tea and looking at some old favourite recipes and a few new ones, in some of my favourite cookbooks. This includes Annie Somerville’s Fields of Greens, Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Vegetables, and Jessica B. Harris’ The Welcome Table. I’ve even broken out Nancy Silverton’s Breads from the La Brea Bakery, on the off chance that I might make an interesting bread as a accompaniment. (I had the pleasure of making Nancy’s acquaintance not too long ago, and now I have her voice in my head when I read her book. I toyed with the idea of inviting her too, but frankly I think I’d be a bit too stressed – I’m maybe baking several things and she is pretty much a God of baking.)

Well, I’d better stop blogging and get to it, bettern’t I Lots of shopping, chopping, and lopping to do.

-cvj