Forrest Gump
30 years after its release (omg I’m OLD), Forrest Gump still holds up. Parts may not necessarily be as PC as they were once thought to be, but it’s still an A+ film that deserved all six of its Academy Award wins. That doesn’t even …
30 years after its release (omg I’m OLD), Forrest Gump still holds up. Parts may not necessarily be as PC as they were once thought to be, but it’s still an A+ film that deserved all six of its Academy Award wins. That doesn’t even …
I grew up in Florida. We had a boat. And let me just put it in writing: I DO NOT. GO. IN. THE OCEAN. It is dark, and there are sharks in there. See: Jaws.
Oddly though, this film has become a comfort movie for me– when it’s late at night and I’m far, far away from any large body of water, I turn it on and usually pass out within an hour. Maybe it’s a nostalgia thing? Released in June of 1975, Jaws was the first summer blockbuster and quickly became the highest-grossing picture up to that time. It was also Spielberg’s first in a long, long, LONG line of incredibly successful films. Who’d have thought that a movie about a shark that has almost no screen time would be such a hit? But that was part of the magic of Jaws. Fin teases, a two note theme courtesy of John Williams, and super simple shark POV’s were very effectively utilized to instill a FEAR (all caps emphasized) of the terrifying unknown. And let’s acknowledge the stellar performances– Roy Schieder as the well meaning police chief of Amity Island/Shark City, Richard Dreyfuss as nerdy and dry-witted marine biologist Hooper, and, of course, the incredible Robert Shaw as grizzled shark hunter Quint (whose monologue still gives me chills. pretty sure he was shitfaced drunk during filming).
I’m not sure it’s possible to come up with a menu as genius as Jaws, but here is my attempt: a post-July 4 meal that has all the seafood and gore you could want in a Jaws themed lunch/dinner. Just be aware, if you’re planning to eat this whole thing solo– you’re probably gonna need a bigger boat.
Shoooow me the way to go home. I'm tired and I wanna go to bed. I had a little drink about an hour ago, and it went straight to my head. ... is what you'll be singing after a few of these cocktails. But there's nothing like a margarita/granita while you're lounging out at sea. Even if it's morbid as all hell. Start with your fresh and delicious homeade limeade! In a small sauce pot, simmer 3/4 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved. Set aside to come to room temperature. In the meantime, juice your limes. When your simple syrup is cooled, add to your juice and lime zest-- top off with the remaining 1 1/2 cup of water and mix. Don't strain your limeade, unless you're a some kind of city kid and can't take your pulp. Now, in one small baking dish mix your blood orange soda (a little extra O2 might just save your life) and pomegranate juice. Pour your limeade into a medium baking dish. Add tequila and triple sec to the limeade and stir. Place in freezer and chill-- every hour for the next 3-4 hours, mix your granitas with a fork to create a slushy consistency. When you're ready to serve, swipe a lime wedge around the rim of your glass. Coat with sea salt. Tilting the glass, fill with about 1/3 cup of the blood orange mixture. Then, add your limeade tequila mixture-- you want to keep the two colors separate but close and at an angle. Serve, with additional lime fin wedges. Here's to swimmin' with bow-legged women...? I mean ok. I do love a good lobster roll, as does everyone in the northeast of the US-- this sandwich, however, happens to have lobster, shrimp AND crab. It's no holiday roast, but I'm pretty sure our favorite great white shark would be ok with that. Just one more reminder, these are bigass sandwiches. A traditional lobster roll will have about 3.5oz of meat, and these have about 5/6oz. So you're either gonna have to take it slow or grow your own set of jaws THIS BIG. WARNING: YOUR KITCHEN MAY SMELL A BIT CHUMMY AFTER THIS SO PREPARE TO SEAL AWAY YOUR DISCARDED SHELLS IN SOME ZIPLOCS WITH LEMON SLICES. Bring about 4 qts of water, 2 tbsp sea salt, old bay and 1/2 the lemon to a soft boil in a medium pot. Add the lobster tail and crab leg and count down a minute. Next, add the shrimp and continue to cook uncovered for 3 minutes longer. You'll notice the shells start to get pink/red as the seafood cooks. Once your time is up, remove the shrimp first, followed by the crab and lobster with a slotted spoon. Transfer to a bowl of cold water. Throw the lemon in with and allow to come to room temperature (about five minutes). Now, time to retrieve your chum meat! The shrimp is easy-- just shell those suckers and call it a day. For the lobster, cut along the top part of the shell down to the base fans. Watch out for sharp edges and use heavy duty kitchen scissors so you don't bloody up the place (we already made a cocktail for that). The crab will be the trickiest. If you have the tools, use them to get the meat free from the shell; but you can also just use a hammer to crush the shell around the meat as cleanly as possible-- just be careful because you don't want tiny bits of shell in your chum rolls or you'll end up with a broken tooth. Once you have your meat free, cut your larger pieces into roughly 1/2 inch chunks and refrigerate while you make your sauce. Next, combine ingredients 4-11. Refrigerate the sauce as well. Finally, lightly butter the insides, tops and sides of your brioche buns. Toast in an oven preheated to 375 for about 5 minutes. When ready to eat, toss your shellfish in your mayo mixture (it's ok if you have a little sauce leftover, you don't want to overdo it) and pile your sammiches high with chum. YUM. Get to it, you eating machines. You can play with the shell fish ratios if you like-- more shrimp is just more budget friendly. The first time you see Jaws's veteran shark hunter Quint he's scraping his brittle fingernails down a chalkboard and munching on saltines. So here are some of those, seasoned and baked with butter and the ocean-y-est of all seasonings, Old Bay. It's a super simple recipe, but oh so good-- plus they kinda look like shark teeth/fins! Get those ingredients together, and preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Melt your butter and your old bay/paprika. If you want to commit to aesthetics, feel free to break your crackers in half diagonally. Place your saltines salted side down on a sil pat lined baking sheet. Brush with your seasoned butter mix and try not to lick your fingers. Bake for 4-5 mins, keeping an eye on your crackers in case they don't burn. Serve with sammiches, or munch in the background while looking down on the general public. You know the famous dolly zoom "Jaws Effect" shot where Brody sees little Alex Kintner get ET UP? Here is a a dessert that also requires a lot of push pull. It's also a perfectly portable treat for a day at the beach. Just be careful-- you might need some great white capacity teeth for optimum chewage. Start by prepping a medium glass baking pan with a thick coat of butter-- set aside. Now for your taffy ingredients: In a small saucepan, add the sugar, cornstarch, corn syrup, water, butter, and salt. Affix a candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan, and heat over medium. Cook, without stirring, until the mixture hits 250 degrees. Immediately remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Poor into the greased pan, swirl in several drops of food coloring, and allow to cool for about 10-15 mins-- it should still be warm/hot, but easily handled. Also OOOOO pretty. Butter your hands liberally, and begin to pull and stretch the taffy until it lightens in color and you feel like you're getting a workout. Maybe you even get a little dizzy... It'll be easier if you butter your hands as you go-- all in the push pull process will take about 15 mins. When you're ready, cut wax paper into 3x3 inch squares and pull the taffy into a 1/2 inch thick rope. Using kitchen scissors, cut taffy into 1 inch length pieces. Sprinkle with sea salt, and wrap in your wax paper-- twisting the ends. So easy, even the dummass mayor of Amity Island could do it.Blood in the Water (Blood Orange and Limeade Marg)
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Great White Chum Sandwiches
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Old Bay Saltines
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Sea Salt Saltwater Taffy
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Remember when Dennis Quaid and Lea Thompson starred in Jaws 3 and a thirty-five-foot shark becomes trapped in a SeaWorld theme park IN 3D????
Yah, that happened. Hollywood…
But also seriously, Bruce the Great White was supposed to be 25 feet long? FLORIDA SHARKS GROW UP TO 40 FEET. 40 FEET OF DEATH AND TEETH AND LIFELESS EYES. BLACK EYES. LIKE A DOLLS EYES.
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I’m now back in Los Angeles after an almost 6 month hiatus in my home state of Florida– and yes, it’s often as weird there as the internet says. However, now that I’m back to my regular life on the West Coast, I’m finding that …
I read somewhere that Michael Keaton ad libbed 90% of his lines as Betelgeuse/Beetlejuice. That’s insane to me, because I consider it to be one of his best performances (it’s also his favorite role). And, the movie itself is still one of the funniest dark comedies I’ve seen. Morbid and scary, yes– but disgustingly hilarious.
For those of you unfamiliar with Beetlejuice, a) I lament your youth, and b) know that this is one of director Tim Burton’s first big films before he became a franchise unto himself. The plot follows a young husband and wife trying to acclimate to their status as (SPOILER) “recently deceased”, while an obnoxious New York couple and melancholy daughter move into their bucolic home. Enter Betelgeuse– a demented, perverted, and delightfully mischievous ghost who promises to help evict the New Yorkers but is secretly hellbent on “exorcizing the living” en masse. Ghoulish shenanigans ensue.
Fans of Burton will notice that his trademark aesthetic is in full force in Beetlejuice– and what better way to heighten the absurdity of ghosts and the afterlife than by using a cartoony color palette, abstract art, and schlocky stop-motion sandworms from Saturn? Visual parallels to Burton’s other movies (Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas) abound, and rewatching it now I feel like I’m discovering strategically placed Easter eggs.
And just a quick love letter to some of the cast. Obviously there’s Keaton in the title role, but there’s Catherine O’Hara (flaky Delia Deetz is like a young Moira Rose amiright?), studly Alec Baldwin, sickly sweet Geena Davis, and lastly 16-yr old Winona Ryder– a late 80’s/90’s film and fashion darling who became my teenage hero. Clearly I, too, considered myself strange and unusual (though I didn’t do goth nearly as well as Lydia Deetz).
So, here is a finger food menu for Beetlejuice that may or may not gross you out while you eat it. But hey, appropriate right? Now let’s all turn on some Harry Belafonte and say it together– Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, BEETLEJUICE.
This "little death" margarita-adjacent cocktail features what some might consider a slightly off-putting key ingredient (though it's delicious, I promise!)-- perfect for the Ghost with the Most. Let's turn on the juice and see what shakes loose! Using your lime wedge, moisten the rim of your glass. Scatter kosher salt on a plate, and place the glass in the salt, turning gently to collect as much as possible. Then, add remaining ingredients to glass and add ice! Guys, the Moradita cocktail was invented at Gotham Bar in NYC. Burton/Batman, the connections are too good! The Deetzes love their Chinese takeout. Sorry though, Delia-- I'm serving up Cantonese instead of Sichuan in a dish that pays (morbid?) homage to Charles's bird watching hobby. Wing anyone? Assemble your marinade ingredients in a bowl and mix thouroughly until brown sugar dissolved. Pour into a ziploc bag and add your chicken wings-- seal tightly and refrigerate for an hour. Preheat your oven to 425. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spritz with canola oil-- be careful to lift the edges of foil to create a "rim", otherwise, your sauce will spread and bake into the baking sheet and it'll be a whole 'nother level of mess. Remove wings from the marinade, reserving the rest of the sauce for basting. Bake for roughly 35-40 minutes, turning twice ten minutes in and then twenty minutes in. Your wing exterior should be crisp and bubbly by this time, but if you like a bit of extra char, you can broil them for another minute (just keep an eye or they will burn!). Finish with a sprinkling of sliced scallions and devour. If you are not good with spice, feel free to half the amount of chili oil. These wings can be served at room temperature-- just wrap them in aluminum foil and keep them warm until ready to eat. Let's start with your Calypso sauce! Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Cut your bell pepper into 1-inch chunks-- you should end up with about a cup and a half of bell pepper. Then, cut your habanero pepper in half. PRO TIP: wear gloves and/or use a sharp knife to remove the white pith and seeds. Otherwise your fingers will be on fire for a number of hours and you'll go through an inordinate amount of baking soda and milk to repair the damage. Toss your bell pepper and habanero with a bit of canola oil and salt and pepper on a foil lined tray. Roast until slightly charred and softened, about 20 minutes. Next, assemble the remaining sauce ingredients: cumin, ginger, scallion, garlic, lime, cilantro, oil, soy sauce, and honey. In a small immersion blender, mix all ingredients together into a rough puree-- add a splash of water to help loosen the ingredients. You should end up with a spicy (depending on your habanero selection) red pepper salsa that'll make you sing DAAAAAAAAY-O. Divide your Calypso sauce into two small-ish bowls and store, covered, at room temperature until ready to serve (but no longer than a couple of hours). Now it's time to assemble your marinade. Mix all remaining ingredients excluding the shrimp-- set aside until 10 minutes prior to cooking shrimp. In the meantime, pat your shrimp dry. If you are super investing in preventing shrimp curl whilst these little dudes cook, utilize this technique. Marinate for about 10 minutes, but no longer or the acids in the sauce will begin to cook the shrimp. Heat a griddle pan to medium high. Remove shrimp from the marinade and place them immediately on the pan, cooking for about 1 minute per side. Remove from heat, and set gently into bowls containing your Calypso sauce, tails outward. Consume rapidly before they ATTACK. Ok it's a little Halloween-y but you know that scene where Beetlejuice pulls a bloated, severed finger out of his pocket right after you see two corpses slowly crumbling to dust? I dunno, something about it made me crave gooey pale green stuffed phyllo fingers. What? Preheat your oven to 400, and assemble your ingredients! In a sautee pan, lightly caramelize onions and garlic in a spritz of olive oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. In a small mixing bowl, combine onions, garlic, spinach, artichoke hearts, and dairy until fully incorporated. Unfurl your phyllo dough and separate five sheets from the pack, keeping them together. Cut these sheet batches in half, creating roughly 6x6 inch squares. Llightly brush in between each layer to help the sheet squares stick together. Using a spoon, dish out 1/4 cup of the spinach/artichoke mixture onto the phyllo (see below for placement). Wrap the spinach artichoke mixture inside the phyllo like a burrito-- fold the tops and bottoms in toward the center, and then roll horizontally into a tight cigar/finger shape. Spray with additional oil to prevent each "finger" from drying out while you repeat with the remaining ingredients. Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for roughly 25-30 minutes until phyllo crust is golden brown. Allow to cool for five minutes before handling. Carefully tie your scallion slivers close to the bottom of each "finger", being careful not to tie tightly or the phyllo will crumble more than the Maitlands-- the scallions aren't imperative, but they do help the fingers hold their shape and add a little "bling", so to speak. From black and white flannel, to black and white striped outfits, to black and white striped snakes/worms-- the contrasting color scheme is quintessentially Tim Burton and all over this movie. So here is a black and white cookie that the Deetzes might have loved (being from NYC), but for the fact that the base cookie itself is inspired by Beetlejuice's favorite Zagnut candy bar. Peanut butter, coconut, and chocolate, oh my! Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (recognize a pattern here? You can make allll this food at the same temp YAY CONVENIENCE!). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat (sil pad). Add your flour, baking soda and salt, stirring with a fork to combine until a dough forms. Using a spoon, drop 1 1/2 inch balls onto a cookie sheet and press into 1/2 inch thick cookie shapes (these cookies don't spread when they bake). You should end up with half a dozen cookies, about 3 inches in diameter. Bake for 10 minutes or until the cookies turn barely golden brown at the edges and feel lightly dry. They will be very soft. Let cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, and then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to finish cooling. Meanwhile, make your icing-- combine confectioners sugar, 2 tbsp milk, corn syrup, vanilla, and salt and whisk until smooth. Your icing should still be opaque, but should not be as thick as toothpaste. If need be, add or subtract powdered sugar and/or milk to get the right consistency (be aware humidity can have a big impact). Pour half of your icing into another bowl, and add your cocoa powder and another splash of milk. Stir full to create your dark chocolate icing. Using the back of a spoon. spread half of each cookie with white icing. Place on a parchment paper line plate and refrigerate for about an hour until set. Repeat on the other half of your cookie with dark icing, allowing for another hour to set. Served chilled, and beware of sandworms!Beet-lejuice Moradita
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Cantonese Chili Wings
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Calypso Shrimp Attack
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Spinach Artichoke "Fingers"
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Black & White Zagnut Cookies
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Next, add peanut butter, coconut oil, egg, vanilla, and sugar to a medium mixing bowl. Using a hand beater (or a stand mixer if you're feeling ambitious), combine until smooth.
Will the long awaited Beetlejuice 2 ever happen? Only time will tell, and we may be all serving as civil servants in the afterlife by then (especially given how 2020 has been going/went).
In the meantime tho, for the true fans, come relive childhood with me and watch the opening for the late 80s Beetlejuice animated series:
For more menus, check out my movie directory here!