I will be participating in an evening of great food and cinema, acting as host for a really terrific event, part of the theatre’s Epicure Revue series. The evening consists of food, in this case Italian, prepared by chefs from restaurants in the area, and a showing of the film, Big Night. If you haven’t seen what I feel is perhaps one of the best “food movies” of all times, now is your chance – and on the big screen! The 1966 release starring Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub, Minnie Driver, Ian Holm, and Isabella Rosselini (among others) is about two Italian immigrant brothers who own a failing restaurant on the New Jersey Shore.
Set in the ’50s, it’s nostalgic (including music by the incomparable Louis Prima), bittersweet, and totally engrossing. Roger Ebert had this to say about Big Night: “…one of the great food movies, and yet it is so much more. It is about food not as a subject but as a language – the language by which one can speak to gods, can create, can seduce, can aspire to perfection. There is a moment in the movie when a timpano is sliced open, and the audience sighs with simple delight.”
Taking part in the evening with me will be Chef Carmine Accogli, whose restaurant The Big Ragu stages Big Night parties. He’s ebullient, extremely knowledgable (about food in general and Italian food specifically), and an absolute delight. My job as host, interviewing him, will be very, very easy. Carmine is bringing “timpano meatballs” with him. Local eateries also in attendance will be The Chocolateria with chocolate biscotti, and Barque, bringing smoked bay scallops with a jalapeño pesto sauce. Mildred’s Temple Kitchen will also be bringing something. I will have copies of my novels there for sale, and while they don’t feature much about food in the plots, they do make great summer reads.
Tickets are $10 for members and seniors; $12 for non-members.
I’m really stoked to be a part of this event. It sounds like great fun. Read more about the evening by clicking HERE.
Be there or be square!
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