I've made more than my share of dishes inspired by movies/tv shows/books over the last decade. (banana bread and apricot jam inspired by Jane Austen Book Club, No bake cheesecake inspired by the movie Elvira Mistress of the Dark, Blueberry Muffins inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer just to name a few.)
When I started, it was something I thought no one else was doing. A gimmick all my own. I was both delighted and saddened to learn after awhile, that not only was I not alone, it was much more common than I thought. Don't get me wrong, I loved the idea of sharing my wild thoughts with a group of people who were just as into the kitchenry-fandom as I was. But, it became harder and harder to keep up with the neverending demand to one-up-oneself with each passing dish. Finally, I gave in the dish-towel. Packed up my rolling pins and covered my casserole dish.
This morning, I made a sweet -onion loaf and found myself out of habit it would seem, taking a photo of it next to a copy of the Complete Novels of Jane Austen. Not that I had set out this morning to make anything inspired by anything, it just happened when I was passing by the bookcase, the sight of the large volume grabbed my mind. Instantly, the image of the cameo on the cover made me think of onions. And before I knew it, I had a quick batter in the oven. As the scent of caramelizing onions filled my kitchen I found myself waxing poetically about the nostalgia of some of those recipes. How they had challenged me to think outside of the box on so many occasions and the lessons learned from every success and every failure. And trust me, I admit there were as many failures as there were successes. I find myself currently torn with the idea of going back towards the oven door's light and creating a fresh batch of "inspired by" dishes for this magazine; or just leaving the whole thing to cool once more.
This in turn, had me thinking of Bridget Jones's Diary. In particular the scene where Bridget is trying to make a fancy meal for her friends to celebrate her promotion and birthday. She gets it all wrong in the most glorious of ways. But she also learns a bit about herself, her friends, family and the men in her life. One large life lesson that is boiled down -no pun intended- to a single moment. Food has always played such a massive role in people's life lessons, from something as simple as just learning a new recipe; to the sort of information that is learned through the course of the meal with the people around you. My sweet-onion loaf was eaten alone on a brutally cold February morning, the lesson I believe being that habits die hard.
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