Two words that put the horrors into me and my partner. I have friends that insist a weekly date night becomes a necessary evil once you have children, but we don’t, as yet. Notwithstanding this, and as I mentioned in a previous blog, I’m on the hunt for new activities to keep me out of trouble this lockdown.
Before we entered this new normal, one of our shared passions was travel. We loved nothing better than exploring the culture, music and cuisine of an unknown place. It’s something that E lovingly passed down to me. So, given that we can’t currently travel, I thought, why not bring the travel to us?
On our daily walk, we hatched a plan. Each week we will pick a place: a country; a region; a continent; whatever takes our fancy. We will have a home-cooked meal celebrating food from the selected place, followed by a film inspired by or set in the same location. The only rules are: no fish/celery (at Vince’s behest), neither of us can have seen the movie before and we have to be brave and include at least one item on the menu we wouldn’t normally prepare and eat at home. And there you have it, dinner and movie, lockdown style.
For our inaugural week, we decided the theme should be the USA, as this seemed both easy and wholly appropriate. After toying with whether to go down the TexMex, Soul Food or cowboy food route, we settled on a menu inspired by our childhood and holidays.
Buffalo chicken wings and ice cold beer immediately transports me back to working for Royal Caribbean aboard the beautiful Oasis of the Seas. Every Wednesday, the ship would host a “Crew Appreciation Evening” where all departments were welcome to join for free beer and wings. For variety, I’d love to swap out some of the wings for cauliflower florets for a vegan twist.
Our main course had to be hotdogs. We both had fond memories of those jumbo bad boys from family trips to Florida. Now let me tell you a secret: the trick to a great hotdog is nothing to do with the bun or meat; it’s all about the toppings. We created our own selection bar with crispy bacon bits, relish, macaroni cheese, chopped onion, mustard, ketchup and grated Cheddar. Really the combinations are endless; you could feasibly chuck any leftovers a top your hotdog and make it delicious. Chilli con carne dog? Sauerkraut and smoked cheese? Linda McCartney veggie-dogs and mushrooms? Ok, ok – I’ll stop!
After a long debate with E about what film we should screen, (she hilariously suggested An American Werewolf in London…yep), we settled on Tony Kaye’s American History X. It was quite a heavy watch of a Thursday evening but I couldn’t believe how relevant it still is 23 years on. It’s available on Netflix and worth a watch if you haven’t seen it before.
Our evening finished with a slice of good old-fashioned apple pie. It’s long been known between the de-la-Haye Girls that E is the baker. Whilst we both love to potter in the kitchen, anytime something sweet has to be made it never goes well in my hands. But, dear reader, I’m delighted to report that I may have broken the curse! It might not have been the prettiest pie but the bottom wasn’t burnt and the filling tasted good. Better than good actually; it was delicious.
It’s such simple idea but we both really got into it, listening to Johnny Cash all day and feeling like we’d escaped for just a moment. Next week we are going to Japan. Recommendations for food and films are most welcome! ~L.