Chef, a 2014 Delicious Movie

I love cooking, I love good food, I love good eating. Even if I consider that I can eat almost anything, I hugely appreciate something really well prepared. Cooking is an art, but not all cooks are artists, and not all artists are built for everyone’s taste. Like Anthony Bourdain, of whom I’m a very big fan, I appreciate more the craftsmanship of cooking, than the artistry. The movie Chef, created by Jon Favreau in 2013, and timidly released in 2014, is not a comedy in the classic sense, but it is very positive and joyous. Watching this movie proved to be a real feast. It’s a pity it wasn’t adapted from a book, but it’s not too late for someone to write a book about it. I’ve read the book made on “Rain Man” before watching the movie, and I liked it a lot. Why I mentioned a book? Because of the food recipes. You will continuously salivate during the movie, and I’m sure you’ll start immediately searching about anything related with the food you’ll see.

Chef – Jon Favreau, Sofía Vergara and Emjay Anthony

A little sophistication does a lot of good to the palate, believe me. I’m not going now to detail or to even spoil the story in the movie, but it will be more or less obvious after you watch the trailer at the end of the post. Anyway, it’s about a divorced “chef” played by Favreau, who works in a French styled restaurant in Los Angeles, owned by a guy played by Dustin Hoffman. One day, a famous food blogger and in the same time the most respected food critic in town, announces his visit to the “Gauloise”, in order to review “Chef Casper’s” food and cooking. After that, the chef’s life took a new turn, and you will judge for yourself after watching.

Chef – Jon Favreau, Jon Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, and Roy Choi, the food consultant

It is acted admirably by all the members of the cast, even by Bobby Cannavale who looked like having a continuous hangover in all the scenes he appeared in, and by Scarlett Johannson, who just appeared, without visible efforts: Jon Favreau as “Chef Carl Casper”, John Leguizamo as “Martin”, Carl’s friend and sous-chef, Bobby Cannavale as “Tony”, another friend and line-chef at Gauloise, Emjay Anthony as “Percy”, Casper’s wonderful son, having exactly the same age as his character, just ten years old, imagine, Scarlett Johansson as “Molly”, the “little hot waitress”, Dustin Hoffman as “Riva”, Gauloise Restaurant’s owner, Sofía Vergara as “Inez”, Percy’s mother, and Carl’s former wife, Oliver Platt as “Ramsey Michel”, the “food critic”, Robert Downey Jr. as “Marvin”, Inez’s ex-husband, an entrepreneur, Nili Fuller as “Marvin’s Assistant”, and mostly appreciated, a real life musician, Jose Caridad Hernandez, alias “Perico”, as Percy’s grandfather from Miami, obviously Sofía Vergara character’s father.

Chef – Jon Favreau, Jon Leguizamo, Aaron Franklin, owner of one of the most famous BBQ Joints in the world, and Emjay Anthony

In the movie, a few real locations were featured, and one of them is Franklin BBQ, in Austin, one of the best BBQ Joints in the world, owned by Aaron Franklin. President Obama went there and paid for all the orders after him in the line. The locale was also featured in Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Season 8, Episode 9, “Austin”.

Roy Choi, a Korean Chef was hired as a food consultant, and the recipe of “Cubanos”, the Cuban Sandwiches made in the movie with slices of “Mojo Marinated Pork Shoulder” (skillfully prepared by Leguizamo), boiled ham, cucumber pickles, Emmental cheese, hot mustard, and butter, was his original combination. It was by far, my favorite recipe in here. By the way, to marinate the “Mojo Pork”, you need a 2.5 kilograms chunk of pork shoulder, which you put in a resealable plastic bag, together with a marinade (olive oil, chopped coriander, lime juice, orange juice, finely grated orange zest, chopped mint leaves, minced garlic cloves, minced oregano, and cumin), salt and black pepper. You have to keep it to refrigerate overnight. Next day, you take it out of the bag, fold it under itself, tie it with string to form a roll, season it all over with salt and pepper, and cook it on a rack for thirty minutes in a Celsius 220° preheated oven. It will lightly brown. After that, you turn off the heat to 160° and keep it for another one and a half hours. Take it out, cut the strings, and the rest is logical. Of course you don’t need it specially for the sandwich, that was just an idea for the movie. You’ll also see this replaced in the “Cubano”, with the barbequed pork bought in Austin from Aaron Franklin.

You know why I haven’t classically presented the recipes, in a row, with precise ingredients quantities lists and precise instructions? It’s because you can use your imagination and adapt them to your taste. I found somewhere suggested to replace the “Mojo Pork” in the “Cubano”, with store roasted pork, which will also suite you, but the craftsmanship and the artistry will be eventually lost.

I hope you liked it, and I’m seriously curious about what you think.

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