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earth2table: Billy Bailey Invented the Moonwalk
October 9, 2006

Stu Stein

October 9, 2006
Score! Picture in your mind me doing the chicken dance, spiking an imaginary football and moon-walking all at the same time. Sorry for the bad visuals. (Side note: I and many others believe the origin of Michael Jackson’s moonwalk is a 1955 performance by tap dancer Bill Bailey.)

So why all the theatrics?

In a previous post, I mentioned a lunch with a prospective sommelier/beverage manager. One lunch turned into several. A few persistent e-mails and several phone calls to mutual friends on both our parts and, voila! Cole Danehower is coming on board the Terroir train as what I affectionately call “The Wine Geek and Beverage Guy.” Cole is a teddy bear of a man with an unbelievable palate, amazing knowledge of the Pacific Northwest wine-and-beverage scene, and an articulate, insightful writer. And if that wasn’t enough to have on one’s plate, add publisher and editor of the Oregon Wine Report; co-publisher and wine editor at Northwest Palate magazine; and winery consultant.

I get to cross off one box on my giant, ever changing to-do list. Next on my list of major tasks to attack:

• finish my lease negotiations and sign on the dotted line;

• finish the restaurant and kitchen design;

• finish the Terroir website;

• grab a glass of rosé and a movie!

I had the chance to show a culinary-themed film in the restaurant management class I’m teaching. That prompted me to share with you a brief version of my must-see culinary film list.

I usually don’t like to read my movies, but Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast (MGM, 1988), based on the novel by Isak Dinesen, should be on the top of anyone’s list. James Bowman of the National Review Online summed it up best by saying, “Never has the cinematic potential of food been more gloriously realized.” Big Night (Sony, 1996) is done in the same vein and is a worthy second choice.

The most vivid and mouth-watering cooking scene I ever witnessed is when wiseguy Paul Sorvino slices garlic into translucent strips with a razor blade and drops them into a pan sizzling with olive oil in Goodfellas (Warner Bros., 1990). That movie almost always scores the near the top of the “quotable lines per minute of film” index.

The most disgusting culinary moment in a movie is the “it’s wafer thin” scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life (Universal Studios 1983), which reminds us that gluttony is appropriately listed as one of the seven deadly sins.

The Future of Food (Lily Films, 2004), although very one-sided, is an eye-opening exposé of the corporate control of our food supply and the issues behind genetically modified foods.

And in the “we really need to know where our food comes from” department is Soylent Green (MGM 1973): “It's people, it's peeeoople…" All you Matrix (Warner Bros., 1999)-loving, Generation-X and Generation-Y people out there need to see this one, and the French film Delicatessen (Miramax, 1992), the post-apocalyptic, surrealist black comedy about the landlord of an apartment building who creates cannibalistic meals for his odd tenants.

And the journey continues.

Cheers!

Stu

Posted by Stu Stein on October 9, 2006 | Comments (0)