Date Night Friday - Star Trek and Dinner

On a recent Friday evening, I lured Paul to Covent Garden with the promise of nerdiness. The new Star Trek film, in fact.

Ever since we moved to the UK we have been talking about going to see a movie on Leicester Square - where all the premiers are held - but somehow we never had. But I was convinced that Star Trek would be worth seeing on the big screen and it would put us in the perfect position for dinner afterwards.

It was definitely worth the ticket price! I'm not a hard-core Trek fan. Most of my viewing of ToS has been in the context of university film and television lectures (humanism, check; fear of communism, check; zeitgeist, check) so I have seen episodes, but I don't really know the mythology. I just thought this was a well-made movie. The liberties they took with changing events to fit a prequel were explained well, and the "younger selves" all did a very good job of getting the look and mannerisms of their original series counterparts.

But Winona Rider as Spock's mother? Really? Am I that old? How did that happen and who do I complain to?

I've realised in recent years that I don't like suspense. That visceral feeling from movies when you don't know what is behind the door or what is coming up behind them and knowing (thank you very much JK Rowling) that sometimes the heroes don't survive... it's for the birds. So this was all very comforting. I KNEW that Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov were going to live to fight another day, so I was able to relax and enjoy the ride.

And after a very enjoyable couple of hours, we emerged blinking into the light to search for dinner. We decided to gamble on there being a table at Mon Plaisir. It was only when we were seated that I realised that it was almost exactly 3 years since we'd arrived in England - and therefore almost exactly 3 years since we first went to Mon Plaisir - and also that we were seated at the same table as that evening 3 years before. Serendipity.

Paul started, in his traditional way, with onion soup. I started with roast tomatoes, crisp Bayonne ham and roquefort icecream. Other than the fact that the tomatoes were cherry tomatoes on the vine, leading to the ever-amusing cherry tomato roulette (will it explode? will it slice? will it burn my mouth? will it shoot off the plate and land in that woman's champagne glass?) this was a perfect starter. The sweet roasted tomatoes mixed with the sweet and salty cheesy icecream and the crispy salty ham in a perfect combination of flavours and textures.

Then again, dictated by tradition as well as inclination, we had the cote de boeuf, with bearnaise. It was superb. The bearnaise at Mon Plaisir is occasionally insipid, but this was perfectly seasoned. The lovely rich beef only needed some tiny haricots vert and a bunch of watercress to make a magnificent dish.

Paul had a glass of cognac instead of dessert, but I'd seen all these little clipseal jars being carried past on triangular slates and knew I had to have what was in them. It was Cappuccino Lèger Vanille Café, Madeleine Tiède au Miel - coffee and vanilla mousse with a warm honey madeleine. It wasn't very successful. It was way too large a portion, the mousse layers had too much gelatine in them and the madeleine was a bit tough. Excellent flavours, not so good textures. But such a gorgeous presentation that I would do it again in a moment.

Sausage and Peppers

When people discuss the best food movies of all time, the same names come up time and again: Tampopo, Babette's Feast, Eat Drink Man Woman. And nothing at all wrong with any of those. But they are not my choice. For me, the best food film ever made is Dinner Rush. It really staggers me that Bob Giraldi could go from making films for Pat Benatar and Michael Jackson, construct this work of near perfection, and then fade back into making films for Pat Benatar, Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie. The story is good, the performances are great and the cinematography - especially in the blackout scene where the kitchen is lit by the gas flames from the stoves - is brilliant. But the absolutely best bit is when the soux chef, Duncan, comes in to cook a simple dish of sausage and peppers for Louis Cropa (played by Danny Aiello) - the owner and current chef's father.

Now, we'd eaten many a sausage before seeing this movie, and had done a fair bit of experimenting with them in cooking. But Dinner Rush had a big impact on the way we do them. If you google "sausage and peppers" you will find countless recipes for similar dishes. It is clearly a staple of Italian American cooking - but for an Australian and a South African there was a degree of novelty.

The method we've pretty much settled on is this:
Heat a heavy-based saute pan and add quite a lot of good olive oil. Cut fresh Italian sausage (the sort flavoured with fennel and chilli) into large chunks and throw them into the hot oil. While they are browning really well, add an onion, peeled and sliced, and let it take a bit of colour. Add peppers, cut into 8ths (we usually do it with red peppers, but if we can get one of those "traffic light" packs, use that) and saute until it all begins to soften. Add quite a lot of sliced garlic. Sometimes we add a little balsamic at this stage, but most usually we go nuts with dried oregano and marjoram. Then add either a tin of chopped tomatoes, or a good slosh of passata, and simmer until thick. We'll either eat it just like this, or use it as a sauce for pasta. We think it is better if you add the drained pasta to the pan and toss it around for a few minutes, so the juices all soak in.