Well I just got back from watching the movie Ratatouille and it was such a surreal experience because we were literally the ONLY people in the entire cinema! I guess the movie has been out for a couple of weeks already but now I know what it must be like to be a mega celeb with your own cinema.

Ratatouille was the best movie I have seen in a very long time. I loved the story, how lifelike the food, rats and kitchen was and I laughed plenty of times. The stereotyping of the characters was fantastic and I particularly loved the food critic Anton Ego (voice by Peter O’Toole.) I’m sure Ego is how most chefs must view influential food critics!

It was wonderful to feel as if you were behind the scenes into a top Parisian restaurant complete with copper pots and chefs in crisp white hats.

If you haven’t seen it yet then it’s definatly a must watch and is in my opinion equal to Finding Nemo as the best movie Pixar has yet produced. I can’t wait until it comes out on DVD and as Gusteau’s motto goes - Anyone can cook!

Technorati Tags: ratatouille, pixar, movie, review, paris

Image from the Barilla website.

I love Barilla pasta and I love cookbooks, especially FREE cookbooks so I was very happy to find out that Barilla has a free downloadable cookbook available on their website.

Barilla are donating $1 to the Children’s Food Education Foundation for every person who downloads the cookbook and will donate up to $20k. Famous celebs such as Delta Goodrem (singer), Tobie Puttock (celeb chef), Carla Zampatti (designer) and others including a few Socceroo players have contributed.

So get to it! Just click the PDF link up the top right of the page. Pretty much everyone loves pasta and it’s a great quick mid week meal or lunch when you’ve got some jars of tomato sauce and some miscellaneous veggies rolling around the veggie crisper.

I learnt about the free cookbook on the A Self Proclaimed Foodaholic blog.

Technorati Tags: barilla, pasta, cookbook, celebrity

A couple of new food related movies are coming out soon including the much anticipated new Pixar movie, Ratatouille and a new film called No Reservations featuring Catherine Zeta Jones.
No Reservations hasn’t received great reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s been labelled a romantic comedy chick flick so maybe this one is best to wait until it’s out on DVD. Ratatouille however has been very well received by critics in the US and it’s about a rat called Remy in Paris who dreams of becoming a chef. Cute story and great computer animations which is what Pixar is all about so I will be hanging out to see this one!
Some other great food related movies include:
* Like Water for Chocolate (loved the book - has anyone ever tried the receipies in it?)
* Chocolat
* Woman on Top (starring a sultry Penelope Cruz)
* Eat Drink Man Woman (haven’t yet watched it but will have to hire it soon)
* Mostly Martha (now being remade as No Reservations)
* Charlie and the chocolate factory

Technorati Tags: food movies, ratatouille, no reservations, cooking movies