Schultze Gets The Blues...(or how I love to spend an evening)

One of my favourite things to do is combining four of my favourite things (well, five if I count Mike)- beer, food, MOVIES and dressing up. So -starting again in some sort of order that makes sense- this means watching a movie (at home), cooking the foods that pertain to that movie- and obviously having beers that fit in as well- and wearing outfits that also fit the theme.

Here are some of the memorable ones:


TAMPOPO An insane Japanese movie about noodles, squishy peaches and "how NOT to eat spaghetti". It's also where I first discovered the delights of a Japanese rice omelet.

MEAL Udon noodle bowls with pork, rice omelet, quail eggs, oshinko (Japanese pickled vegetables), eel.

BEERS Hitachino Red Rice Ale, Kikusakari Kurakagami Daiginjo sake.

OUTFIT Kimono from Japan, given to me by Toshiyuki Kiuchi, maker of Hitachino Nest beers. Strange Japanese wooden shoes that almost made me fall over. Various and sundry bits in my hair.


SOUND OF MUSIC "How do you solve a problem like Maria?"

MEAL Weisswurst, home-made spaetzl (so simple if one has the magic spaetzl maker),braised red cabbage.

BEERS Einbecker Ur-bock Dunkel, Schneider Weisse, Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen

OUTFIT Why, lederhosen of course (purchased for $10 on E-Bay).


BABETTE'S FEAST

MEAL Turtle soup (of course!). (One can buy frozen turtle meat at Eastern Market Seafood) Sauteed frogs legs. Roasted Cornish hens.

BEERS I'm having trouble remembering exactly. It's a Danish movie with the menu being classic French. I doubt we drank Carlsberg, and if memory serves me correctly I think we drank Belgian beer and champagne.


YES NURSE, NO NURSE (JA ZUSTER, NEE ZUSTER)

Be warned- only watch this movie if you love extremely insane movie experiences and singing.

FOOD Hate to be boring, but due to the lack of any recognizable Dutch dishes, we opted for the German theme again. One can never get enough weisswurst and spaetzl.

OUTFIT Okay, efforts to obtain Dutch clogs and this hat failed, so I opted for the NURSE thing. And, as a side note, I really had a hard time finding a nurse uniform! Nurses wear scrubs mostly, and I wanted to be "authentic" in white dress and nurse's hat. I found one in a costume shop eventually.


ESCANABA IN DA MOONLIGHT

FOOD Why, Cornish pasties of course, home-made, with lots of rutabaga. Mike says they are the best he’s ever had. (And no, we didn't eat a buck, because we didn't have one. Got some in the freezer right now though, and need to make something good with it.)

BEER Anything/everything from Bell’s, and homebrew.

OUTFIT Mike’s turn to shine in his hand-made Remnar shirt.


(The titular) SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES

FOOD, BEER & OUTFIT- a repeat of Sound of Music, although this time we drank Mike's rauchbier. Mmmm. This movie is a little sad, but fabulous!


SOUTH PACIFIC "I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair"

FOOD Coconut shrimp, fish, fish and more fish, salad greens with ginger dressing. Coconut mango ice cream.

BEERS Hitachino Red Rice Ale, Hitachino White Ale, Mike's helles.

OUTFIT A great vintage Hawaiian mu-mu and a headpiece I made that has a bird in it.


CHANG: A DRAMA OF THE WILDERNESS

This was one of the strangest, yet most wonderful movies I have ever seen. I was lucky enough to see this at the Detroit Film Theatre with live accompaniment by Boston’s Alloy Orchestra. I went alone, and simply had to repeat the movie experience for Mike, accompanied by food and beer of course.

FOOD Tom Kha Gai, pad Thai with fried tofu, chicken in red curry. There’s an Asian grocery store in Dearborn Heights that has many necessary things for Asian cooking, whether it’s Chinese, Japanese, Thai or Korean. I love this store!

BEER Chang Lager from Thailand just because, but we quickly switched to Mike’s pils and some commercial saison.

OUFIT Thai sarong (found a great green and gold one at the thrift store) with various hair decorations. Efforts to find a traditional Thai “chada” headdress failed (but I’m not done looking yet).