Dinner and a Movie

Deep feelings and flavors.

My Saturday night last weekend was so epic in its quiet coziness and deliciousness that I wanted to recommend its components so others could re-create it for themselves.

The newest cookbook addition in my house is Ottolenghi Comfort, which came out this week. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Yotam Ottolenghi’s first cookbook, Plenty, changed my life back when I picked it up in 2010. It transformed the way that I eat at home, and I’ve been a devotee ever since. 

When I flipped through the beautiful pages of Comfort, I was immediately drawn to a recipe for linguine with miso butter, shiitake, and spinach. A spinach and mushroom pasta is the sort of thing that I usually make when I cook: a low-difficulty, high-flavor ratio. But I usually cook without consulting a recipe, and I was interested to see how Ottolenghi’s would step things up. 

As my wife and I cook vegan at home, we subbed out the butter for plant-based butter, but otherwise stuck to the recipe, which was pretty simple: boil linguine; saute mushrooms with miso paste, butter, and garlic; throw it together and add the spinach. I’m obviously oversimplifying it, but at no point did I feel intimidated or outmatched by the recipe. The deep, rich aroma of the shiitake mushrooms and miso paste as the butter emulsified made me feel like a gourmet chef. And then, we brought it to our usual dining spot—in front of the TV—sat down and took our first bites. 

Dear reader, it was the best pasta dish we’ve ever made. Calling this linguine ‘comfort’ food is a massive understatement. It would be like sinking into a plush, king-sized bed at a five star hotel and calling it ‘homey.’ Even though we’d made it in our kitchen in about 40 minutes, it tasted like a dish we’d ordered at a favorite restaurant for a special occasion. Though this meal happened six days ago, I can still taste the umami of the mushrooms and the miso, the slight sharpness from the vinegar, the silkiness of the sauce.

As we ate—slowly, so as not to let the experience end too s oon  —we put on the movie I’d already picked out for the night: The Taste of Things, from 2023. I’d chosen it earlier in the day, based solely on its critical acclaim and the fact that it starred Juliette Binoche, who I’ve loved forever. I’d picked it out before we’d made dinner, not knowing how perfectly the film would pair with it.

The Taste of Things is a quiet, beautiful story about cooking, love, and learning how to appreciate people and food for their inherent qualities. Juliette Binoche plays Eugénie, an extraordinary cook who lives and collaborates with Dodin Bouffant, a celebrated chef, in a country estate in 19th century France. They’re lovers sometimes, but they’re mostly partners in the kitchen who know each other deeply. The film luxuriates in scenes of preparing elaborate dishes, mostly wordlessly. There’s an ease in almost everything they do, and how they are together. 

The last movie I saw by this director, Trần Anh Hùng, was The Scent of Green Papaya from 1993, another beautiful, domestic, romantic film. I mention it especially because there are some wonderful meta layers to the love story of The Taste of Things. I noticed a line in the credits—it’s dedicated to Tran Nu Yên Khé, who, as a young woman, starred in The Scent of Green Papaya. She also designed the costumes in The Taste of Things, and she’s also married to director Trần Anh Hùng. They’ve been collaborators for thirty years. In the film, Eugenie and Dodin have been working together for over twenty years. The actor who plays Dodin is Benoît Magimel, and he and Juliette Binoche used to be married. They’d co-starred in a film together in 1999, fell in love, had a child, split up five years later, and then reunited onscreen for this. I want others to watch this film mainly so I can share the feeling I have knowing this, and watching them in these roles. 

How can I describe the feeling? Having been with my wife Lindsey for seventeen years now, I feel like I understand the contours of a long relationship. Romance, friendship, love—the dynamics between us have emulsified into something complex but not complicated. We wordlessly move our bodies to make room for the other, in the kitchen or on the couch, knowing which drawer to step back from, or which shoulder to lean into. Once again, to call it ‘comfort’ is simply not enough.

Hrishikesh

ps:

The West Wing Weekly Political Film Fest, which I wrote about in my last newsletter, is now available on all podcast apps. Our Patreon subscribers get the episodes a month early and ad-free, but now everyone can hear the first two installments in our ten-part miniseries, with the rest coming weekly.

A film that I scored, Companion, released its first teaser trailer last week. Despite the opening shot of food and the love song playing in the background, this is decidedly a different tone than the one I described above. I’ll be sharing more about the film and the music I composed for it in the future – it comes out in theaters in January 2025.

I contributed an essay to the Dave Eggers project 270 Reasons, about the upcoming election.

A marriage that I admire greatly from afar is that of musician Jon Batiste & author Suleika Jaouad. Recently, I admired it a little more close-up when I moderated a talk with them on stage for the Connecticut Forum. They’re the subjects of the documentary American Symphony, and I particularly enjoyed their Open Door house tour for Architectural Digest.

The newest episode of Song Exploder was with the very charming pop star Troye Sivan. He also has an Open Door house tour that I enjoyed.

(And now you know what Lindsey and I watch most often — house makeovers and home decor videos; it’s only occasionally that a piece of prestige French cinema makes its way in.)