The Souvenir Menu – A movie, cooking demo and good food
Imagine being in a theatre watching a movie where the actors are eating a great looking pizza, slices so beautiful that you can smell them.
That happened to me over the weekend at a screening of ‘Eat, Prey, Love’, but people were actually eating fragrant freshly made Pizzas Margherita while Julia Roberts was indulging in the same thing at a restaurant in Naples.
With a large professional kitchen in house, Gold Class Cinema at the Domain can do the food / movie tie-in pretty easily, but an added bonus is that Chef Kacey Cummings is also passionate about the quality. Before the movie started he demonstrated how their kitchen makes the signature Neapolitan pizza from scratch; making the dough, rolling it out, adding sauce, slices of fresh tomato, and finally topping it with fresh mozzarella and basil leaves.
He followed up with an exotic Balinese fruit salad with mangos, pineapple, banana, basil and Tahitian vanilla syrup. Not a typical spread, but one that could definitely be appreciated with the movie.
In ‘Eat, Prey, Love’, love was complicated and painful (repeatedly), prayer was complicated and trying (and required bug spray), but eating, even at its simplest was beautiful.
The back story for the book and movie involves a deal cut by the author with her publisher to travel for a year after a painful divorce and subsequent failed relationship. She travels to Italy, India and Bali.
My favorite part and the best tie-in for food was Italy. The movie was filled with postcard scenes of the Roman Hills, the Vatican and the Piazza Navona, but also many of the little restaurants I remember being everywhere on quiet side streets.
The author discovers “dolce far niente”, the Italian secret to the sweet life while doing nothing, which involves eating food so beautiful that I may buy the DVD just to see the food again.
There were scenes with platters of Carciofi alla Giudea– (Roman / Jewish) fried baby artichokes, cantaloupe served with prosciutto, bowls of beautiful, simple spaghetti, and an asparagus spear being drizzled with olive oil that made my jaw drop. The food itself was
reason enough to want to go back.
We enjoyed the screening with a cold bottle of Prosecco and finished with beignets served with raspberry and chocolate dipping sauces - our corner of la dolce vita for the night.
Popular with patrons, Gold Class plans to continue the food / movie tie-ins where possible – I’m hoping for lots of movies with good food in them soon.
In addition to the movie tie-ins, Gold Class has a good standard menu of appetizers, entrees and desserts, and they also have a large menu of beers, fine wine and cocktails.
By Richard Arebalo
Austin Times Staff
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