Cinema with Comestible Accompaniments: Dragnet

A safe place for lovers of movies and pun-based food recipes with a fondness for TBS's Dinner and A Movie.  Oh yeah, and all the classic Dinner and A Movie recipes will be veganized. 

The Movie
Dragnet (1987)
Leonard Maltin Review:  **1/2 D: Tom Mankiewicz.  Dan Aykroyd, Tom Hanks, Christopher Plummer, Harry Morgan, Alexandra Paul, Jack O'Halloran, Elizabeth Ashley, Dabney Coleman, Kathleen Freeman.  Aykroyd is a comic reincarnation of Jack Webb, playing Sgt. Joe Friday's dense but dedicated nephew in this parody.  Hanks is fun as his freewheeling new partner, with Morgan, Webb's onetime sidekick, now promoted to captain of the L.A.P.D.  Starts out quite funny, then goes flat...but the punchline is a howl.  Aykroyd co-scripted with Mankiewicz and Alan Zweibel.

Spoiler Alert:  There may be spoilers peppered though the movie portion of this post, consider yourself warned.

First, let's take a look at the title theme because it is so painfully and beautifully 80's.


"Just the facts, ma'am." -Joe Friday

Dragnet, originally an American radio series started in 1949, that portrayed the cases of a Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners.  (Wikipedia never lies)  For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a radio series, it's like a podcast that streams live by using radio waves to carry information like sound.
This classic buddy cop comedy is filled with intrigue, car chases, girls in bikinis, a virgin in a white dress, an evil group raining havoc on the city of Los Angeles, but at the heart it, it's about friendship...and the defense of pornography?

"Friday, these animals were trapped and stunned and roped and crated and shipped.  Dropped into cages.  You think they were out in the wild, forming lines, jockeying for position saying, 'Take me.  Take me.  I wanna live on the damn cement'?"  - Pep

At the beginning of the movie, we get the strong impression that Pep Streebek, Joe Friday's new partner, might be a vegan/vegetarian concerned with animal rights issues.  First, he argues with Joe that dragging an animal out of its natural habitat and trapping it in a cage to live in a zoo for the rest of its existence is animal cruelty, both valid and true.  Then, he lectures Joe on his unhealthy chili dog habit whilst eating a mixture of fruit and lettuce with chopsticks.  However, halfway through the movie he kills a 30 foot anaconda with a handful of hallucinogenic drugs and asks Granny Monday if she's ever eaten a chili dog off the back of a motorcycle.  Is this a commentary on the fickle nature of hipster youths or just inconsistency?

Enid Borden (Kathleen Freeman) has the best lines in this movie:
"That goddamned pus-faced little pimp stick!"
"Useless scum lapping shit bag!"
"...so there's nothing you can do about it, you slimy little jizz bucket!"
"That miserable little bag of puke!"

Peter Leeds, Kathleen Freeman (above), and Harry Morgan (M*A*S*H) were all cast members of various earlier "Dragnet" shows. (IMDB)

"Look out!  Moppets!"  -Joe Friday
What happened to movies with car chases that destroy fruit carts or hit piles of stuffed animals?  I googled moppet and it means a small endearingly sweet child.  I'm so glad they didn't hit any of them.

"Surf's up, beach boy, but not for you.  You'll be hanging ten downtown." -Joe Friday

"Well, Emil...I guess it's just you and me...and...your balls and this drawer." -Pep

"Kill the good!  Kill the good!  Kill the good!  Kill the good!" - P.A.G.A.N. (People Against Goodness and Normalcy, aka the bad guys)

Connie Swail's house (shown above) was used as Ray Peterson's home in The'Burbs (1989).  It was later used as Susan Mayer's house in the television series Desperate Housewives (2004).  (IMDB)

"Now, if you'll both excuse me.  I'm afraid the second-highest duty calls." -Reverend Whirley 
This is a poop joke...right?

It is stated that one of the Bait Mate April's favorite movies is The Sound of Music (1965), which featured Christopher Plummer (Reverend Whirley). (IMDB)

"Granny, have you ever eaten a chili dog off the back of a motorcycle?" -Pep

"Reverend, you have balls as big as church bells." -Jerry Caesar

The photograph of Captain Gannon's wife behind his desk is the same photograph as Colonel Potter's wife in M*A*S*H (1972).  Both parts were played by Harry Morgan. (IMDB)

"You know, in spite of every logical instinct I've ever had in my life, I consider you a friend, a real friend." -Pep

This movie was the second time Tom Hanks and Dabney Coleman worked together.  The first time was The Man With One Red Shoe (1985).  (IMDB) 

"Muzz, you weren't even born with the sense God gave the common dog.  Don't you know that's my partner?" -Joe Friday

"Just close your eyes and think of Christmas." -Joe Friday

The Recipe
Just the Facts, Tofu Ham

To veganize this recipe, I had to mashup an Isa Chandra Moskowitz recipe with the Claud Mann recipe.  If you would like to make the inspirational Sweet and Smoky Glazed Tofu Ham, you can find it here or pick up The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook at your local bookstore.  Actually, you should pick up three copies, one for travelling with, one to keep in your kitchen, and one for paging through while you're in the bathroom.  It's a good read and has lots of pictures, but I shouldn't have to explain myself.

Ingredients:

• 1 12 oz. block of tofu

For the marinade:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup 
• 6 oz. stout beer (for help finding vegan stout try here or here)
• 2 tbsp liquid smoke
• 1/4 packed brown sugar
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp smoked paprika

For the tofu ham:

• 1/2 cup of each: chopped onion, carrots, and celery
• 6 oz. stout beer
• 1 tsp sage
• 1 orange, thinly sliced 
• Whole cloves (a bunch of them)

For the glaze:

• 3 tbsp orange or apricot marmalade
• 1/2 cup marsala or sherry
• 1 tbsp dry mustard
• 6 tbsp pure maple syrup
• The will to serve (hot) and to protect (your reputation in the kitchen)

 1.  In a shallow dish or gallon size zipper bag, whisk together all the marinade ingredients.  Place the block of tofu in the marinade, turn to coat, and marinade in the refrigerator for at least 4 hour, and up to overnight.

2.  Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

3.  Toss the vegetable and sage around in the beer.  (This kind of makes no sense, but I wanted an even coating of sage on the veggies.)

 4.  In the square pan I set aside for brownies and mac-n-cheese (9x9?), arrange the orange slices in an even layer.  Place the marinated tofu in the center.

5.  Lightly score the top of the tofu with a sharp knife in a latticework design, about 1/4 inch deep.  Press the whole cloves into the intersections of the cuts.

6.  Add the vegetables around the sides of the tofu and drizzle some of the leftover marinade over everything.

7.  Bake for an hour.

8.  Mix together the Marsala, marmalade, dry mustard, and maple syrup.

9.  After the tofu has baked for 1 hour, brush the Marsala mixture over the surface of the tofu.  Bake an additional 30 minutes, basting the tofu  with the Marsala mixture every 5 minutes.

10.  Allow the tofu to cool for about 5 minutes before slicing to serve.

10.  You've finished your work, what do you see...just a tofu ham?... Well, that's not all I see.  Mister--I see the good people of this city lined up with arms akimbo waiting to try an honest piece of bean curd grown by thousands of proud soy farmers working hard to produce a leaner, more healthful soy product.













Tara's review: "It was delish.  Good texture, opposite of bland...I think if I were to change anything, it would be less citrus."

Happy VeganMoFo!

Cinema with Comestible Accompaniments: Serendipity

A safe place for lovers of movies and pun-based food recipes with a fondness for TBS's Dinner and A Movie.  Oh yeah, and all the classic Dinner and A Movie recipes will be veganized. 

The Movie
Serendipity (2001)
Leonard Maltin Review:  *** D: Peter Chelsom.  John Cusack, Kate Beckinsale, Jeremy Piven, Molly Shannon, Eugene Levy, John Corbett, Bridget Moynahan, Lucy Gordon.  A chance meeting in N.Y.C. leads to a romantic evening for Cusack and Beckinsale, but she chooses to leave it to fate to decide if they should ever see each other again.  Several years later, on the eve of his wedding, Cusack decides he simply must find her.  Endearing romantic comedy with appealing stars and wonderful support from Piven and Levy.  Buck Henry appears unbilled.

Spoiler Alert:  There may be spoilers peppered though the movie portion of this post, consider yourself warned.

Keep in mind this movie came out in theaters a month after 9/11.  Before it was released, they digitally removed the World Trade Center towers from the skyline.  (Never Forget.)  What better movie for our United States in a time of great sorrow and need then a John Cusack rom-com.  Eugene Levy took a break from making American Pie sequels, John Corbett and Bridget Moynahan took a break from Sex and the City playing three-dimensional characters that get cheated on to playing two-dimensional characters that get dumped in a feature film (always the cheatee, never the cheater), and Molly Shannon shows up to wrap you in a warm blanket of friendship.    We all need more Molly Shannon in our lives.

"Our hero, Jonathan goes out in search of black gloves and in a perfect act of "serendipiocity" or "serendipaciousness," he runs into a beautiful, attractive English girl with a boyfriend." - Jonathan

Classic meet cute, Christmas shopping is at its peak in a crowded Bloomingdale's in Manhattan and two people grab the same pair of black cashmere (not vegan!) gloves.  Apologetically trying to hand the gloves to the other person, when the unbilled Buck Henry shows up and takes the gloves.  To get the gloves back, they fabricate a story about Cusack's trans-gendered future girlfriend, which is a plot to a movie I would like watch.

After a magical night of frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity 3 and ice skating, they part ways but not without releasing their name and numbers into the universe for the other to find if they were destined to be together.  Flawless plan.  Jonathan's contact info goes on the back of a five dollar bill and Sara's on the inside of a first edition Love in the Time of Cholera. 

Flash forward a few years later which at some point Piven states it's been seven years, Jonathan is a few days away from marrying the lovely Halley and Sara has just been proposed to by Lars and about to join him on tour to support his weird Viking murdering music career.

Let's go over the signs that bring them together after seven years.  Jonathan is doing his ESPN job thingy at the golf range when he hears a man page 'Sara Lawson' and waits to see her approach the desk (which begs the question, does this happen every time he hears the name Sara because it's a fairly common name).  Turns out it's not her.  After work he goes to get his hair cut before the wedding, but it's Lauren's day off and a girl named Sara is replacing her.  He runs out sans haircut.  While in a cab, he hears a bike messenger singing Hall & Oates' Sara Smile.  With the fates working overtime to bring him and Sara back together and rekindle their irrefutable connection he runs to his best friend Dean (Piven) at the New York Times for help. 

Sara, on the other hand, sees a Cool Hand Luke poster and buys two tickets to NYC for her and her friend, Eve (Shannon), for Eve's Birthday but mostly completely selfish reasons. 

"Let's just pray he's a bald fascist who picks his nose and wipes it under the car seat." -Sara

The search begins...

"Kids your age.  Pimple-faced college dropouts who have made unhealthy sums of money forming internet companies that create no concrete products, provide no viable services and still manage to generate profits for all of its lazy, day-trading, son-of-a-bitch shareholders.  Meanwhile, as a tortured member of the disenfranchised proletariat, you find some altruistic need to protect these digital plantation owners?" - Dean  (FYI, this movie came out almost 3 years before Facebook was founded and 6 years before the first iPhone was released.  He's referring to the dot-com bubble from 1995-2001 for which I know very little, but what a lovely Piven rant.)

They eventually find their respective five dollar bill and book.  Dean uses his New York Times resources to find Sara's address while Sara just calls information.  This is about the time in the movie where things stop making sense for me.

First, Sara runs into the ballroom where presumably Jonathan is marrying Halley yelling "Stop!"  Who does that?

Thankfully, the only person there is a hotel employee packing up the chairs, who's exposition informs us that Jonathan and Halley called off the wedding, so that Jonathan could walk around the city thoughtfully reading his own obituary written by his best friend.  

After Jonathan's obit stroll, he ends up at the ice skating rink from before and sits a bench where he finds a jacket (Sara's jacket, but he doesn't know that yet).  He walks to the center of the ice and sits down.  (I always thought at this point he would ask the people ice skating around him if they had lost a jacket, but he doesn't.  Not that it would serve the story, it just bothers me.  What's he going to do with a woman's jacket?  He doesn't even have a fiance anymore.)  It starts snowing, so obviously he decides to lay down in the middle of the ice using the jacket he found on a park bench as a pillow under his head.  Then this happens...

A second black cashmere glove hovers in the air above him and lands right on his chest.  

And I'm suppose to believe she threw it from the edge of the rink.  She's at least 10 feet away and it's snowing.  Did she ball up the glove?  Did she stand above him, drop it and then run back?


The Recipe
When Life Hands You Lemons...Make Lemon Risotto
(for original recipe click here)

As fate would have it, here's a tasty little treat courtesy of the incomparable Claud Mann.

(also pictured sauteed shishito peppers)

• 6-8 cups "homemade" vegetable stock (I used store bought because I'm lazy)
• 5 tbsp coconut oil (or vegan non-hydrogenated margarine like Miyoko VeganButter)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 shallot, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups Italian short grain rice, such as Arborio, Carnaroli or Vialone Nano
• 1 lemon juiced (2-3 tbsp) and its zest (2 lemons if you're feeling extra zesty)
• 5-6 stalks asparagus, rough ends discarded, cut into 1-inch-ish pieces (optional)
• 2 tbsp fresh herbs (optional, but strongly suggested)
• sea salt, as needed

 1.  Bring the stock to a simmer.  (I like to pour it into a microwave safe measuring vessel or bowl 2 cups at a time and heat it up in the microwave so I don't have to clean another pot.)

 2.  In a large, heavy bottom saucepan over medium heat, combine 3 tbsp of the coconut oil, olive oil, and shallot.  Sweat the shallot without browning for 5 minutes, stirring often with a flat edged wooden spoon until the onion becomes translucent.  Add the garlic, saute another 3 minutes.

 3.  Add the asparagus and cook until tender.

 4.  Add the rice and stir well to moisten the rice grains thoroughly with the oil in the pan.  Continue toasting the rice 2-3 minutes, stirring often.

5.  Add the wine and stir until evaporated, and then begin adding the hot stock to the rice one half cup at a time, all the while stirring and scraping the bottom and sides of the pan with the wooden spoon.  Allow each addition of the stock to be absorbed by the rice before adding more hot stock.

6.  After 20-22 minutes, begin testing the rice for doneness.  When it feels creamy, not yet completely tender and still is slightly firm in the center (but not crunchy), remove it from the heat.

7.  Stir in the remaining coconut oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and fresh herbs.  (Life had handed my two lemons on this particular day so I juiced a second one and I don't regret a thing.)  Season to taste with sea salt.  

Happy New Year!

Cinema with Comestible Accompaniments: Heathers

A safe place for lovers of movies and pun-based food recipes with a fondness for TBS's Dinner and A Movie.  Oh yeah, and all the classic Dinner and A Movie recipes will be veganized. 

From 1995 to 2011, TBS provided recipes to compliment the movies they aired on a show hosted by Paul Gilmartin, Claud Mann (the chef), and what AV Club calls "a succession of female hosts" Annabelle Gurwitch being my favorite.


With two cookbooks and the vast internet, I plan on veganizing every Dinner and a Movie recipe I can get my hands on because this show deserves to live on in my cold dark vegan heart.

The Movie

Heathers (1989)
Leonard Maltin Review:  **1/2 D: Michael Lehmann.  Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walker, Penelope Milford, Glenn Shadix, Lance Fenton.  Sharp, somewhat smug satire of high school social strata, with Ryder in a terrific performance as a girl who hangs out with the school's bitch-queens but doesn't feel quite comfortable about their reign of terror.  Outrageous black humor works at first, but isn't sustained; uneven script goes far astray.  Slater is commanding in his Jack Nicholson-esque performance.  Feature debut for director Lehmann and writer Daniel Waters, with many virtues as well as flaws. [R]

Spoiler Alert:  There may be spoilers peppered though the movie portion of this post, consider yourself warned.

The movie that answers the age old question: Are we going to prom or to hell?

Corn nuts...  

High school was hard for most of us, but for Veronica, her "teen angst bullshit has a body count."  (That sounds like the beginning to the trailer, right?)  I remember thinking people in high school talked the way they did in this movie.  Needless to say, I was very disappointed.  (Side note: Dawson's Creek came out when I was in high school and none of my friends used half as many SAT words.  That was very disappointing as well.  I still want to marry Pacey, though.)

"...bulimia is so '87"

This movie has a special place in my heart (which is why I started with it) because it validated my disdain for the popular crowd and at the time I first saw it I wanted to be Winona Ryder.  She was fresh off of Beetlejuice playing strip croquet with a pre-baboon heart Christian Slater.  What's not to love?  The movie is visually stunning as well.  All the Heathers are color coded, presumably not to mix them up, but the use of color definitely adds to the story.  First, we have Heather Chandler (Kim Walker) in red (power color), the Regina George of the group.  Then there is Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty) in green... with jealously?  which is established during the croquet game at the beginning of the movie and later when she gains possession of the red scrunchie.  Heather McNamara (Lisanne Falk) in yellow, the weakest in the group, only because she's the realest person in the group who has real people feelings when people around her start dying.  Veronica (Winona Ryder) wears lots of blacks and blues and she happens to be the one to introduce all the death and mayhem that follows.

"I gotta motor"

Both the Veronica and J.D. character have weird relationships with their fathers.  Veronica's dad will throw out a rhetorical question as to why he does something and Veronica responds with, "...because you're an idiot."  J.D. and his father, however, have this banter where they switch roles and J.D. refers to his dad as son.  I'm struggling right now to think of a teen movie where the parent is shown as anything other than to create a conflict or completely pointless.

"...that the answers can be found in the MTV video games."  

 Something I just recently noticed is that Veronica uses a monocle throughout the movie and they never call attention to it.  I need to get myself a monocle.

Another observation is Heather Chandler's coffee table contains a Cliffs Notes for The Bell Jar and Info Magazine with the cover article being "The Fall of the American Teen" which helps J.D. concocted the suicide idea.

My favorite character, hands down, is Martha 'Dumptruck' Dunnstock with her Big Fun t-shirt and her plans to rent some new releases and pop some popcorn with Veronica on prom night.  That would have made a great spin off or sequel.

My favorite scene is the Heather Duke funeral-dream sequence where everyone is wearing 3-D glasses and white gowns.  This just help to prove that the 80's were superior in every way.

More quotes I love:
"Our love is God. Let's go get a slushie." - J.D.

"Chaos is what killed the dinosaur, darling." - J.D.

"I don't patronize bunny rabbits." - Veronica's Dad

"If you were happy every day of your life, you wouldn't be a human being you would be a game show host." - Veronica

Trivia:

• Heathers was filmed in 32 days in July and August of 1988.  
• The Veronica role was originally intended for Jennifer Connelly, who turned it down. 
• Justine Bateman was also considered for the lead.  
• Brad Pitt auditioned for the role of J.D. but was considered "too nice."  Thelma and Louise era Brad Pitt... he was too nice.  Actually, Ocean 1000 era Brad Pitt still too nice.
• Westerberg High was named after Paul Westerberg from The Replacements, Winona's favorite band at the time.
• Ich Luge is German for "I'm Lying" - the bullet J.D. tells Veronica they are using for Kurt and Ram.
• Ram - if you are a fan of the movie Summer School, he also plays a jock in that movie.  The actor's name is Patrick Labyorteaux.
• Something I learned from listening to the podcast Sweet Teen Club, the version of Que Sera, Sera in the movie is not the Doris Day version because she wouldn't let her vocals be used on any project that used profanity. 
• Soon there will be a TV series on TVLand based on Heathers.  (Here's an article on Jezebel which is where I get all my news.)
• Heathers: An oral history (courtesy of Entertainment Weekly)

The Recipe
Heathers 'Killer Pasta w/ Oregano'
(for original recipe click here)

For Pasta:
(I used the pasta recipe from Vegan Dad here)
2 cups flour (1 cup all purpose and 1 cup semolina)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp fresh oregano, finely chopped
about 1/2 cup water
1 tbsp olive oil (optional)

For Sauce:
1 yellow onion, diced
1 lb ripe plum tomatoes
4 cloves garlic
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/3 cup dry red wine
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 fist full of fresh oregano and basil (optional)
1 copy of Moby Dick
Mineral Water
Big Red Scrunchie
(The original recipe had cheese in the sauce, I took it out, get over it.  Just add extra scrunchies.)

 I advise following the Vegan Dad recipe for the pasta as I am a fresh pasta novice and used a humorously tiny rolling pin to roll out my pasta which took forever.  I added the fresh oregano when combining the flours and salt.















The drying the pasta on the kitchen cabinet doors trick courtesy of the Vegan Dad blog.

Preheat over to 350F.

Combine the red wine, olive oil and tomato paste.
(My first attempt at this recipe I forgot to pick up wine and used balsamic vinegar instead.  Turned out pretty good.)

Cut the tomatoes in half and arrange on a cookie sheet cut side up. 

Drizzle the wine mixture over the tomatoes then top with the diced onions, garlic, salt and pepper.  Bake for 30 minutes.

Post oven photo.

Put everything on the pan into the blender, minus the parchment paper.  (What did we do before parchment paper?)  When the sauce looks nice and smooth, add a fistful of oregano and/or basil and give it a few quick pulses to just roughly chop the herbs up.  

And there you have it Veronica's favorite dinner Spaghetti with lots of oregano.  Can you tell which one is from the movie and which one I made?  Probably.


The next movie will be announce shortly.  I was going to do The 'Burbs, but Netflix rudely removed it from streaming.