And The Food and Film Contest Winner Is...

A couple of weeks ago I posted a contest with the incredible opportunity to win a Dual Membership to the Denver Film Society. If you have ever watched a movie that had food in it at some point you had a very good chance at winning. The entries ranged from a vague reference to the convenience-store-kayaking/ extreme-cheddar-Doritos-eating scene in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, to several wonderfully detailed accounts of how much a film can mean to us as individuals, and how food played a role in that. And while I have to admit that I have a special place on my DVD shelf for the original Harold and Kumar (for being the first and only great Asian-American slapstick comedy), the latter is more what I was looking for.

What it came down to was choosing between three entries that I thought were all worthy. The first was from Andrea of the local blog Fork Fingers Chopsticks. Her blog if you haven't read it before is full of amazing and unique recipes, beautiful photography and good writing. It is a rare combination in a recipe blog, and I feel lucky to have her blogging away right here in our own town. She wrote eloquently about the Singaporean film Be With Me and inspired me to pick it up from my favorite movie store, the Denver Public Library.

The second was a description of Jack Nicholson's classic diner scene from Five Easy Pieces. If you haven't seen it, I embedded the clip below because it is so damn hilarious. Thanks to Stacia, and I agree that we all have wanted to let our inner-Nicholson out at a restaurant before.

The third and winning entry was from a husband and wife pair and came via email. It was an exhaustive list of food-related films and why each was either so funny, inspirational, classic, erotic, nostalgic or personal. One of my favorites from the list was remembering Paul Sorvino in Goodfellas slicing garlic paper-thin (so it would liquefy in the oil, of course) for a made-from-scratch, mouth-watering Mafioso prison meal.

It was a very good system.

Congratulations to John and his wife who clearly have a love of film and an amazing capacity to recall the food-related moments. And of course thanks for all the entries and for taking the time to check in and read this blog from time to time. Happy New Year.