Baking & the Big Screen: Tiramisu & No Reservations
As I’m roughly a year and a half in with this series, I’m starting to run out of obvious movie + food connections, so it’s going to be getting really creative here going forward. For instance, with this month’s movie, I thought I struck gold when I saw a shot focusing on tiramisu. Then after some research, I realized that tiramisu is very famously a no-bake dessert. Unless, of course, you decide to make your own ladyfingers. Which is exactly what I did, because I’m a crazy person. It also turns out that it is hard to take pictures of tiramisu. Or maybe that’s a me issue. But either way, a B movie with some huge stars in it seems to be the theme of my food-based films, so it’s good to keep the trend going.
No Reservations
Starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Abigail Breslin, Patricia Clarkson
Director: Scott Hicks
Released in 2007
Available to watch on HBO Max
I discovered a slight problem with waiting a while between watching the movie and writing this. I don’t really remember a ton about it. Despite having people like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart in the cast, nothing stood out. It followed basically the exact trajectory you’d expect from reading a three-sentence summary of it. High-strung chef ends up having to take on her niece after an accident and soon, a young hot-shot chef comes in and shakes up the place. They clash but there’s a ton of romantic tension - or at least they want us to think there is. And of course, there is a dust up with roughly 20 minutes left in the movie but you know it’s going to end up in some version of okay when it’s all said and done.
It’s also extremely hard to write anything about a movie that’s just fine. I don’t really have any complaints, but I also don’t have a ton of praise. The script is fine, and has a few really dumb lines at times, but what romantic comedy doesn’t? The actors do the best with what they have, which isn’t shocking considering how many great performers there are on the roster. It was cute. Full stop. If you are looking for a nice little romantic comedy and enjoy the kitchens in Nancy Meyers’ movies, this will probably be right up your alley too.
Earlier on in the movie, the camera panned quickly over a handful of desserts that I figured I’d have to pause and zoom in on in order to guess as to what it was. But luckily for me, in the last half of the film, there was not only a clear shot of a tiramisu, they actually briefly discuss it. To make it as homemade as possible, I found recipes for mascarpone cheese and ladyfingers online and started with that. I definitely failed at the ladyfingers, as when I actually assembled the tiramisu the following day and had to dip it in a coffee + liqueur mixture, they basically ended up dissolving into mush. Luckily, I discovered that freezing the dessert turned it into what tasted like an incredible tiramisu ice cream, and suddenly, I don’t even care what happened to those cookies, and I may even replicate the mistakes next time to end up at this result again.