for love and food

If you are a fan of chick flicks and of food, then you may have wondered how to celebrate those favorite movie moments with the foods they feature, or something relatively close. Cookbook author and film fan Richard Sargent has also wondered, and he went to the kitchen to start testing recipes. What he ended up with is The Ultimate Chick Flick Cookbook, filled with over 60 recipes based on classic films, popular rom coms, and quote-along favorites. And each movie comes with not only a recipe for an appetizer, dinner, or dessert, it also comes with a cocktail recipe, to help get the party started.

I mean, who doesn’t want to throw a dinner party and start it off with some Blue String Soup, like in Bridget Jones’s Diary? Or you could go with “Slippery Little Suckers,” an escargot and mushroom dip, as an homage to the first time Julia Roberts’s character in Pretty Woman tries snails. If you’re a fan of Dirty Dancing, you can go with Baby’s Leftover Pot Roast savory sliders (with the I Carried a Watermelon cocktail), or if you like Crazy Rich Asians, then you could start with Ah Ma’s steamed dumplings made with ground chicken.

For the main dish, you can go with the Businesswoman’s Special avocado chicken burger and fries from Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion or The Devil Wears Prada’s Interesting Choice, a corn chowder with Jarlsberg biscuits. Or you could choose Funny Girl’s Filet de Boeuf, Sauce Bordelaise, a steak with fondant potatoes. If you’re extra hungry, you could watch Waiting to Exhale and eat some It’s Just Leftovers, a full meal with fried chicken, collard greens, potato salad, candied yams, and cornbread, with Gloria’s Peach Cobbler cocktail on the side. But if you want to celebrate a fake engagement to your gay best friend, you can pick the Dionne Warwick and recreate the hilarious restaurant scene from My Best Friend’s Wedding with whole fresh lobster, coleslaw, and corn on the cob.

And you can’t forget dessert. There is the Cuppa Cuppa Sorta, a take on Truvy’s cake from Steel Magnolias or a Lonely Chicago Pie of chocolate and blackberry cream from Waitress. There’s a Brewski Beer Cheesecake for fans of Barbie, the Wild Night (a Snickers ice cream cake) for fans of Thelma & Louise, and the Bend and Snap(s), brandy snaps with cherry cherry dip, to celebrate Legally Blonde. And fans of Clueless will know that you should always have something baking when a boy comes over, so there is the Aww, Honey, You Baked, a chocolate chip cookie dough log with toppings.

The recipes range from fairly simple to rather time-consuming, if you’re going for the full friend chicken dinner from Waiting to Exhale or the Paper Bag Picnic from Love Story that features peanut butter sandwiches on homemade bread. You can mix and match movies, or pick a theme like Girl Can’t Cook, and use the appetizer from Bridget Jones’s Diary, the dinner from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and dessert from Clueless. And Sargent includes ideas for drinking games too.

I was excited about The Ultimate Chick Flick Cookbook. I love cookbooks, and I am a big fan of many of these movies. I thought this cookbook was clever and fun. There are photos of all the recipes and all the cocktails, making everything look delicious. However, I did have an issue with some of his recipe names. I realize that they’re all related to something from the films and they’re meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but there are a couple that make the dishes sound completely unappealing. I think a little editing would have helped. Otherwise, it’s a kitschy cookbook with fun ideas, and I think fans of these movies will enjoy Sargent’s playful approach to enjoying tasty dishes with your favorite chick flicks.

An electronic copy of The Ultimate Chick Flick Cookbook was provided by Pacific and Court, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.