academy awards | you and mie

Did you watch the Oscars last night? We went to our friends’ party and it was so fun! I enjoyed seeing the winners announced, but my favorite part was the food as I mentioned in the last post. So here are our 2 dishes revealed!

Please tell me that someone out there has seen “The Help.” No one at the party had seen it! So the joke fell a little flat. Don’t worry, I left out the special ingredient.

I used this recipe which I think is the one they used to make the actual pies in the movie! It came out pretty good, I think, though I’m not sure what it was supposed to taste like. It looked like a big fudgy brownie in a pie crust, but it was actually quite soft (not dense, like a brownie). I’m not a huge chocolate pie fan, so I probably won’t make this again, but if you’re into chocolate pie, I’d recommend it! It’s not the prettiest looking thing, but I do think it looks like the one they had in the movie, so points for authenticity! 🙂

This one was Hideko’s idea. We haven’t even seen The Artist, but we couldn’t resist making The tArtist. I considered doing a black and white chocolate tart (since the movie is in black and white), but a fruit tart seemed so much yummier. Plus I was already making the chocolate pie. I used this recipe from Paula Deen. It was easy to make, SUPER yummy and the presentation is pretty impressive, if I don’t say so myself! I’m definitely going to make this again!

We didn’t win for best dish, but we certainly had a delicious meal last night and tried two new great recipes. Next year I’ll try to start my planning earlier and might even ask for your help for ideas.

The other contest for the night was to predict the winners for all the categories. I didn’t realize The Artist was a favorite for so many of the major awards! I’m tempted to see it just because it won so much, but I’m really not so sure I’d like it. I’m into some artsy stuff, but silent? I dunno bout that . . .

We don’t get out to see movies in the theater very often, but in a last ditch effort to see as many Best Picture nominated movies we watched 4 movies in the last week or so! In total we watched 5 of the nine nominated! We saw The Decendants, Hugo, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help, and Moneyball. Not bad!

Did you watch the Academy Awards? Any surprise wins for you? What were your favorite movies of last year?

Tonight is Oscar Night!

Every year, friends of ours throw an Oscar Party. Before the show we fill out ballots to predict who will win each category and as the night progresses, the hosts keep track of how many correct answers each guest has. At the end of the night the person with the most correct predictions wins a prize. I take it pretty seriously and try to get as many right as possible by 1) watching as many movies as I can and then 2) doing research on the rest, especially the categories I have no clue about (like short film animated and short film live or sound mixing and sound editing).

But the other really fun challenge is that everyone has to bring a dish to the party that is inspired by a movie, actor, director, etc. that is up for an Oscar. It could be a play off a name, or something from the story line, anything really, as long as it’s related to a nominee. At the end of the night, all of the guests vote on their favorite dish and there is a winner/prize for that too! I’m proud to say that we’ve won twice!

I love thinking up all the ways we can turn movie titles or actors’ names into yummy dishes. I love trying to think of the best way to present it and I also take the time to make little name cards using movie poster fonts and/or graphics to make the connection really clear. I love it. I’m such a nerd.

We’ve attended the party the last 3 years and here are our past food entries. I regret not taking pictures of our dishes each year. I had to ask my friend to send these to me. I’m so glad she had them!

2009

H and I were a little obsessed with Wall-E that year. We loved the movie. We also love deviled eggs and meatballs, so this was perfect for us. I tried to make the meatballs in the shape of cubes and they were supposed to resemble the cubes of trash that Wall-E was building towers of at the beginning of the movie. Unfortunately, they barely look like cubes but this dish won the food contest!! The D’EVEled Egg dish was Hideko’s idea. She even made 3 little Eves out of eggs!! The middle one looks evil cuz it’s deviled!!

2010

Did I mention we like meatballs? At one point, we thought we might bring meatballs every year and just try to find a way to make it fit. 🙂

2011

We just bought the calamari at a restaurant instead of making it ourselves. It was pretty good! This picture is of a half eaten plate 🙂 The Black Flan (which came with a bottle of Natalie Port-wine) was just a regular flan recipe with black food coloring. It tasted good, but I’m sure it was hard for some people to get past the color. But this dish won!

If you’re curious about the nominees for this year, you can find them here. Usually we think about our dishes in the weeks leading up to the party but this year we didn’t get to see many movies and we didn’t have time to even think about our dishes till yesterday. We’ve decided what we’re going to make and bought all of the ingredients, but I’m not going to reveal the dishes until after the party. Don’t want anyone stealing our idea! 🙂 I’m totally kidding. I like the dishes we’re going to make but I can’t say they’re totally creative. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else showed up with one or both of the same dishes. We’ll have to wait and see! I’ll be sure to take pictures too.

So what do you think we’re going to make? Anyone else going to an Oscar viewing party? What/who do you think is going to win??