What to Eat & Watch This Valentine's Day
Aka Dinner and A Movie on TBS
Happy almost Valentine’s Day my munchers and crunchers,
In normal times, the swift approach of this baseless holiday may have caused us anxiety, forcing some to uniquely show love through generic stuffed things or sweet things or pretty things. Others may have felt doom, knowing they have to spend some random day alone, but that this day means something more than other days spent alone.
This year, luckily, is different. Romance was guillotined months ago, and, guess what? we’re all alone, even if we are with someone all the time!
So finally, after probably a thousand years of pretending like February 14th means something - we can finally let go and do what we do every night: eat something and watch something, together or alone.
Look, I’m not a monster, ok? I do “love love” as my Bachelor contestant application clearly stated. I just love the type of love that also comes with the freedom to eat too much and sit comatose on a couch. The type of love that Paul and Annabelle had on TBS’s cooking and movie cometary show “Dinner and a Movie” - which really should be getting a reboot right about now.
So in the spirit of eating your feelings, I’ve worked with a few people I love very much to suggest the perfect dinner and a movie combination for your mood.
Enjoy it alone. Enjoy it with your best friend who can be your soul mate (and that is fucking romance)! Enjoy it with your partner who you see too much but you also get really mad at when they make any other dinner plans that don’t include you. Whatever you do, just take this Valentine’s weekend to make something delicious and watch something great - even if it’s Kraft’s pink candy-flavored mac & cheese and old episodes of Dog Whisperer with Ceaser Milan.
For Decadence and Family Drama
Eat Drink Man Woman
Shanghai Style Braised Pork Belly
If Ang Lee’s 1994 family dramedy Eat Drink Man Woman isn’t the perfect representation of eating your feelings, I really don’t know what is. A dad who shows love for his four grown daughters through cooking elaborate meals (instead of talking to them, of course), a series of multi-generational love triangles, and so many 90s turtlenecks - you really can’t ask for more. The cooking sequences are a sensual lap dance - watchin dishes like a clay pot chicken, above, that you have to smash to get to, or hundreds of tiny dumplings be made is enough to make you reach out to try to touch, ultimately getting slapped away when all that leftover food gets smashed into Tupperware (I actually shrieked).
You are not alone in wishing you could taste these forbidden dishes. When the film debuted, a Chinese restaurant called Shun Lee West in the Upper West Side, tried recreating dishes from the film, resulting in this beautiful time-capsule of a New York Times film review.
Yea, ok Bob - we’re going with Ron and his cellular phone over having to hear you wax poetic about your “optibuds” over dumplings.
Shun Lee West is sadly closed but you can order take out from Shun Lee Palace on West 55th. Please report back if they still have the Ang Lee menu…
In the meantime, try your skills at a Shanghai Style Braised Pork Belly - it sounds more complicated than it is (though I haven’t personally tried yet), but anything in a slow cooker seems doable these days. Just, please, for the love of food, don’t let it die in a Tupperware coffin.
For Murder and Meatsauce
Goodfellas
Bobby Flay’s All Day Lasagna
I was one of those people who had never seen Goodfellas. People would gasp, dates would boast that they could show me the way, so it became a sort of political choice to not see it. Then this year happened and good content became more valuable than my pride. And I have to say - it’s good, ok? And it makes me hungry - for money, for 80’s style living room decor, and for meat sauce.
If nothing else, watch the prison cooking scene on Youtube and get inspired to cook all damn day in the prison of your home. My favorite meat sauce is from Bobby Flay, and it can go on anything - pasta, parm, or my favorite recipe for lasagna that takes almost forever - but time is all we got!
For Sex and Soup
Tampopo
Home Made Spicy Miso Ramen
I saw Tampopo when I was a teenager and I think it has shaped both my love of food and my sexual kinks. The synopsis of the 1985 Comedy/Western is “Two Japanese milk-truck drivers help a restaurant owner learn how to cook great noodles”. All I remember is the pure eroticism of making ramen noodles and this scene below where a couple passes a raw egg yolk back and forth between their mouths for an exceedingly long time. This movie is my love language and if it grosses you out then I guess we will never tongue a raw egg together.
Oh, yea. Make this spicy miso ramen before you watch so you can sweat even more. It’s very easy, but the ingredients may take some sourcing. If you happen to be in Mexico City, all you need will be a Mikasa, the Japanese grocery store of my dreams.
For Living in a Simulation
The Matrix
Cast Iron Steak
“Now more than ever” we are all “living” in a simulation - so lean into it, babe! Get out of your goo bath, put on that party trenchcoat you haven’t worn for a year, and do a delightful rewatch of all The Matrix movies, back to back, while perfecting your steak skills. If you use a cast-iron skillet, lots of butter, and a good cut of Rib Eye - you can’t go wrong. Not that it’s real, anyway!
For Revenge and Pie
Heartburn
Key Lime Pie
Nora Efron. Meryl Streep. Jack Nicholson getting pied. Need I say more? If you love rom coms and revenge and food-based comedy you will love Heartburn, which is based on Nora’s book that made her famous, which is based on her real-life heartbreak with world-class journalist and asshole Carl Bernstein.
I’m a big fan of this key lime pie which is incredibly easy and will taste even better in the face of your cheating lover.
For a Crab in a Top Hat
Simply Irresistible
Pepper Crab
If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times: watch this simply because it’s horrible and has a magic crab in a top hat. And if you live somewhere you can get fresh crab, make this black pepper crab so you don’t feel like Sarah Michelle Geller stole another perfectly good night away from you.
