Baking & the Big Screen: Baguettes & Kiki's Delivery Service
I know many people, including my father, does not view baking as a summer hobby. Why heat up the house when you’re already having to pay to cool it? But for me, the comfort of joy that comes from baking means it will be an activity I enjoy all year round. And this month, I wanted to find a movie that brought me that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from eating something I made from scratch, fresh from the oven. Thankfully, I managed to stumble into an area of movies I’ve never ventured into: Studio Ghibli films. And luckily for me, one in particular, Kiki’s Delivery Service, partially took place in a bakery. I got to see the most adorable cartoon versions of an incredibly common movie image: someone walking with a bag of food or groceries with a baguette sticking out of it. I’m not as experienced with bread as I’d like, so this turned out to be a perfect combo of comfort food: warm bread and a delightful, animated movie.
Kiki’s Delivery Service
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Kappei Yamaguchi
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Released in 1989
Available to watch on HBO Max
For an introduction to Studio Ghibli, this movie was incredibly cute. It was everything I wanted it to be. Kiki is a young witch who embarks on her journey to learn skills and provide a nearby town with a local witch if needed. There is a snarky but absolutely precious talking cat as her familiar and we follow them as they get used to this new town and figure out their place in the world away from home. There are a few relationships along the way, including the couple who owns the aforementioned bakery and a local boy who is fascinated by the concept of flying. While Kiki tries to figure out how she can best serve her community, she stumbles into an opportunity to use her broom flying abilities as a messenger around town.
There isn’t a ton of character growth or plot development in this movie, so when it ended, I felt like it was just sort of missing something. There needed to be a bit more of an evident conclusion, something that Kiki could achieve or learn from. Instead, it kind of felt like she had stayed pretty stagnant. Maybe some of her relationships had evolved, but when it came to her playing an active role in things, she just seemed a bit stagnant. Thankfully, that actually doesn’t detract from the overall film too much since it is happiness in a film. Even when she’s having some rough moments, we get to be entranced by the whimsical animation and delightful score. This may not be the best cartoon I’ve seen in the last six months or so, but it made me excited to see what else this studio has to offer in terms of visual comfort food.
Somehow, it had never occurred to me to make baguettes. I don’t know why. Maybe I err more on the side of sweets than savory, but with a recipe this easy, I don’t know how it took me this long. Despite not even kind of being a bread expert, I was able to fumble my way through it. The recipe I chose only had four ingredients (yeast, flour, salt and water) and was not overly time consuming, since the majority of the process is the dough rising and proofing. The flavor and consistency could not have been better from these giant breadsticks, but they didn’t quite puff up in the final proof to be the more rounded, open baguettes we’ve come to know and love. I can’t recommend it enough, though, because you can impress everyone with your bread making ability, and they have no idea how simple it was to make.