Soul Kitchen

Directed by Fatih Akın
Corazón International



Soul Kitchen is a lot like cotton candy—sweet but, ultimately, not very satisfying. Like many festival favorites, the plot of this independent German film revolves around a cast of lovably quirky characters who get themselves eye-deep into trouble.

Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos), a German of Greek descent, has a lot of stuff on his plate. He’s the proprietor of Soul Kitchen, a struggling eatery in a rundown section of Hamburg. The tax people, led by Frau Schuster (Catrin Striebeck), are knocking at his door. His ne’er-do-well brother, Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu), seeks employment at the restaurant wanting “to go through the motions” of working so that he can make parole. Neumann (Wotan Wilke Möhring), a shady real estate agent, is sniffing around in hopes of acquiring the property. An uninsured Zinos makes the mistake of trying to move a heavy dishwasher by himself and gets a herniated disk for his trouble. On top of all this, Zinos is pining away for his girlfriend, Nadine (Pheline Roggan), who has hightailed it to Shanghai.

Attempting to revamp the restaurant’s simple cuisine, he hires the temperamental Shayn (Birol Ünel), a culinary snob who lost his last job for pulling a knife on a paying customer who asked for hot gazpacho. Things start looking up for Zinos when Shayn’s gourmet creations take off with the hip crowd. Eager to reunite with Nadine, Zinos makes plans to move to Shanghai, leaving Illias to manage the place. Illias gambles the restaurant away to Neumann. And poor Zinos discovers that Nadine has been cheating on him and aggravates his back injury on the same day. Zinos burns down his apartment in a fit of painkiller-induced pique. Homeless, loveless, jobless, and broke, Zinos has to figure out a way to get his restaurant back.

The script, co-written by the director and the leading man, is chock full of sly jokes and the dialogue is genuinely inspired. The filmmaker wisely decided not to let the food upstage the story. The problem is that the characters, with the exception of Zinos, are mere stereotypical sketches. Too much of the plot rests on contrivance—the romance between Illias and the surly waitress Lucia (Anna Bederke), for example—and things wrap up a little too neatly at the end. I never could root for the burgeoning relationship between Zinos and Anna (Dorka Gryllus), the physiotherapist who treats his back injury; the two don’t spend enough time onscreen together for me to care.

Full of whimsy, Soul Kitchen is definitely a film I would watch again. I can also see how it won the Special Jury Prize and the Young Cinema Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. It should enjoy a respectable run on the art-house circuit when it’s released in the States later this summer; however, the film is much too flawed to ever make any “best of” list, and it definitely isn’t Fatih Akin’s best work.

Review by Ebony Edwards-Ellis

Hungry Town: A Culinary History of New Orleans, the City Where Food Is Almost Everything

By Tom Fitzmorris
Stewart, Tabori, & Chang

I’ve had a long and passionate love affair with New Orleans, though I’ve never been there. In fifth grade, I did my state report on Louisiana, and as a bored teenager in a Los Angeles suburb where everything was bright, shiny, and new, I’d dream of spending my days in the historic French Quarter, hanging out in smoky jazz bars and eating poor boy sandwiches at cramped lunch counters. I idealized the city even further when a childhood friend became a teenage runaway, hitchhiking her way to New Orleans with her much older boyfriend, both of them squatting in abandoned houses and panhandling in the streets. For some reason, that sounded like a beat novel I wanted to be a part of, as opposed to the nightmare it actually was.

Like everyone else, I watched with a heavy heart as one of our nation’s finest cities, so completely unlike any other place because of its history, demographics, and genetic makeup, disappeared off the face of the map, under sludge and murky water. I knew New Orleans would recover—it had to—but I was worried it would never be what it once was, that it would turn into a sad caricature of itself. If the premise of Tom Fitzmorris’ book Hungry Town is correct, no matter what happens, New Orleans will never be lost as long as its food culture survives and thrives, breathing life into the incessantly struggling city.

Fitzmorris’s thesis is actually quite simple: Food saved New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Now, I know many won’t believe that. I also know that recommending this book to lovers of food, regional cooking, or the city of New Orleans itself wouldn’t be fair. Truth be told, there are many who won’t understand the purpose of this book. Many will not like the author’s obsessive details or encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s food and restaurants. They'll think he's pompous, self-important, and crazy to think that it was the poor boy or red beans and rice or simple gumbo that saved the city—and that’s fair. But for those of us who know the power of food, its ability to bring people together, to calm the nerves and the soul, and quiet the hunger, we can believe that Fitzmorris is right in every way.

The author is a lifelong New Orleanian who’s been critiquing the city’s food, writing about it in various formats, and discussing it endlessly on his radio show for over thirty years. It all started in the late 1970s, when he began publishing a newsletter called The New Orleans MENU, which lives on today on his website nomenu. It would be an understatement to say that Fitzmorris is a fanatic, a man completely obsessed with his city’s food culture, its Creole and Cajun cuisine, and its restaurants; Hungry Town is the embodiment of this fanaticism.

After Hurricane Katrina, the author was forced to stay away from his beloved city for longer than he ever had before: about two weeks. While away, he received word that some of the city’s restaurants were reopening, using bottled water and small burners to feed the crowds that braved the storm. Fitzmorris began calling chefs and friends in the area, each day adding to a list on his website that featured all the eateries that were opening their doors. Just two weeks after the hurricane blew the lid off of New Orleans, twenty-two restaurants were open for service. It is because of this and similar compelling evidence that Fitzmorris believes that food saved New Orleans and that its slow-coming rebirth is beginning in the kitchen.

Interwoven with recipes for delicious New Orleans treats, menus from some of the city’s oldest restaurants, timelines, and a rundown of every major player in the New Orleans food scene, is the story of how Fitzmorris' love affair with his city’s food began. I thought Hungry Town was a beautiful ode to a great city and its wonderful food, but I know it’s not for everyone. This summer, I will be traveling by train to New Orleans and I’ll be using Hungry Town as my restaurant guide, which I think is a testament to how informative Fitzmorris' book is and how alluring a beignet and a cafe au lait can be.

Review by Tina Vasquez

Ham: An Obsession with the Hindquarter

By Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough
Stewart, Tabori, & Chang Inc

Finally, a cookbook with some pizazz! Ham: An Obsession with the Hindquarter was written by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, food lovers, life partners, and exactly the kind of people who could breathe life into the sometimes stale world of food writing.

The recipes featured in Ham are solid, easy to follow, and delicious, but I was pleasantly surprised by how witty and well-written the book was. Along with the recipes, readers are treated to informative pig/ham-related tidbits sprinkled throughout, testers’ notes for many of the recipes, and personal stories from the writers. It was this last bit that I was particularly fond of.

I’ve never laughed out loud reading a cookbook, but after following the couple’s attempt to make their own dry-cured ham at home I couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it. If it’s done incorrectly and consumed, it can result in “respiratory failure and paralysis,” but even when the ham is drying properly, it goes through a period where it is regularly “dripping ugly bits of mucousy sludge.” Obviously, dry curing your own ham isn’t a good idea, but checking out this cookbook is. Follow Weinstein and Scarbrough on their endearing journey as they reveal all you ever wanted to know–and in some cases, some things you didn’t want to know–about that porky, fatty thing people all over the world call ham.

I already know this is one of those cookbooks I will go back to time and time again for family get-togethers, dinner parties, and plain ol’ good eatin’. I’m not one to spend a tremendous amount of money on meat when grocery shopping, but I couldn’t have done this book justice without trying one of the duo’s recipes for fresh ham. Thankfully, the book appeared on my doorstep just around Easter, which provided good reason to schlep a massive ham home from the local Mexican market. Which, by the way, was the only non-Whole Foods-like market around to have fresh ham; different than the variety you see at grocery stores around April that are pre-cooked. The recipe called for a ten pounder, which would reportedly feed “six teenage boys, sixteen adults, or twenty-six ‘twentysomething’ models,” so I knew my bone-in twelve pounder would be enough for my voracious family.

The roasted fresh ham with a maple-spice glaze was ridiculously delicious and so unlike the bizarre, overly sweet orange juice-glazed and pineapple-ringed monstrosity I grew up eating when my grandpa did all of the holiday cooking. No, this was crispy-skinned, moist, and had the perfect amount of sweetness thanks to a sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove, and nutmeg rub down and a good basting of Grade A maple syrup.

All of the other recipes I tested revolved around prosciutto, that salty, fatty, delicious Italian ham that Weinstein and Scarbrough managed to work into everything from pizza to quesadillas–and I loved it all. Some of my favorites were the pizza with dry-cured ham and artichokes. Stubborn as I am, I refused to use store-bought dough as the recipe called for, but I think the dish was better for it because good lord, everyone needs to eat a homemade pizza laced with fatty Italian ham and artichokes.

When testing recipes on my parents, as I often do, my mom would always complain that I never used enough meat; the woman loved her some meat. She seemed excited to hear that I was testing recipes from a book devoted to pork, one of her favorite animals (to eat). One of the last meals I ever cooked for my mom before she died unexpectedly in early May was Ham's recipe for chive and cheddar ham biscuits with honey mustard. I threw some cheese on her biscuit for good measure because if there’s anything she loved more than meat, it was cheese. Needless to say she loved it and I love that a silly cookbook provided one of our last moments together as mother and daughter. Life–and food–is funny like that sometimes.

Review by Tina Vasquez

Cook the Books

By Jessica Conant-Park and Susan Conant
Berkley Publishing Group

Cook the Books is part of a series of mystery books (Gourmet Girl Mysteries) by mother-daughter writing team Jessica Conant-Park and Susan Conant.

Chloe is a graduate student in her mid twenties, who lives by herself and has a passion for food. She has an incredibly gorgeous best friend named Adrianna, who is married to a goofy but honest and lovable free-spirited (broke) man named Owen. They have a delightful little bundle of joy named Patrick, who happens to melt Chloe’s heart so much that she overspends and ends up in debt because she just can’t resist buying him all the expensive toys and clothes she sets her eyes on; he’s that adorable. Then there’s Josh, her ex-boyfriend, a chef, who left a year before for a better job in Hawaii and left her behind.

Did you get all this? If you didn’t it’s okay because once you start reading the novel, this will be retold in pretty much every chapter. Do you want to know what else is constantly repeated? The word “Josh.” It comes up in every other sentence. Of course there’s more to the novel: there’s murder, there’s cooking, and there’s a villain (or many?). More importantly, at the end Josh returns to make everything alright (because he’s perfect). But don’t worry, I haven’t spoiled the end; you can guess that one by the end of the fourth chapter.

The story itself is pretty bland but its biggest sin is mainly that it’s not very relatable. Chloe is supposed to be young, bright and independent, and yet she appears to be everything but. Why am I supposed to care about this character? She has no true interests other than her godson, the lives of other cooks and her ex-boyfriend. It probably doesn’t help that the novel is written with a significant amount of dialogue, which, for the most part, is heavily contrived. For example, Chloe’s employer, a serious man in his mid-thirties has just met new mommy Adrianna and all three of them are sitting down for dinner, his treat:

“And Adrianna,“ he said to my friend, “you especially should eat a lot, since you probably have no time to eat while taking care of a tiny baby, huh?”

This was not meant to be funny, or sarcastic (or creepy) but rather to portray what a great guy Chloe’s employer is! The entire novel is written in this type of dialogue, which aside from being annoyingly predictable, becomes overly repetitive.

Cook the Books is filled with bad cliches and references. The murder that sets motion to the core of the storyline leads to Chloe’s view to the “dark” side of cooking, the cutthroat competitive world of chefs. It’s in fact the same world described by so many other chefs, except that in this case, it’s overly dramatic.

The book cover includes a review blurb promising "snappy dialogue, puzzling murder and mouthwatering menus," which I guess is what fueled my disappointment, as I did believe it. In contrast to other mystery novels that portray unlikely heroines, Cook the Books didn’t hit the mark, It has no sparkle and the heroine lacks a sense of self and definition. It was difficult to really care. It could have been light, fun reading, if only it had been half as long. If I was to recommend the book, it I would assume pre-teens might not mind it, but I don’t know how memorable it would be.

There are some recipes added at the end of the book, which only adds to my confusion as to who the target group for this book is supposed to be. The recipes are courtesy of other authors and chefs. Some are easy enough to follow and make (the Baked Tomato Nests), and some (like the Grilled Ohio Lamb Steak) are meant for the serious cooks who strives to entertain. The Baked Tomato Nests are a cute and fast idea, and in fact, the recipe jumped out at me from one of the actual chapters of the novel, so there was a nice connection there. However, overall the recipes were not very innovative, and in a way, that echoes my overall impression of the book.

To put it simply: it didn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth, it needed spice (cayenne, Habanero, or even just plain old pepper)—it was just too bland.

Review by Jessica Sánchez

Amor y Tacos: Modern Mexican Tacos, Margaritas, and Antojitos

By Deborah Schneider
Stewart, Tabori & Chang

I have an exciting announcement to make: I’ve never enjoyed a cookbook as thoroughly as I have Deborah Schneider’s Amor y Tacos. I grew up eating Mexican food nearly every day, and as an adult, I still make homemade Mexican food the way my father taught me at least two times a week—not the gloppy, heavy Americanized stuff full of cheddar cheese and sour cream, but simple, hearty, good-for-you-food that’s easy to make and even easier on your budget. This is exactly why I’ve fallen madly in love with Schneider’s cookbook; though a majority of the dishes require a bit of prep work, the meals come together quickly in the end and she effortlessly showcases affordable, accessible, and delicious modern Mexican food.

Another reason to love Amor y Tacos: Schneider focuses heavily on Mexican street food, which is the best food Mexico has to offer and just so happens to be a personal obsession of mine. I went crazy testing recipes from this book; I wanted to make everything in it, but I’m going to try to show some restraint and just talk about a few of the dishes, all of which were from the Antojitos (think appetizers), Tacos, and Salsa chapters.

Generally, I try to stay away from fast food, but I’ve somehow convinced myself that eating outrageously unhealthy food is okay—as long as I’ve made it in my own kitchen and kept a close eye on the amount of salt, fat, and other worrisome cooking essentials that quickly make "good" food “bad.” Admittedly, not all of the street food featured in the book is good for you or what some would refer to as “authentic Mexican.” This is because, like all culinary cultures, there’s a lot of borrowing, and if it’s a dish genuinely served on the streets of Mexico, it’s good (and authentic) enough for me.

All of this is just to say that the first recipe I tackled was for something seemingly American and ridiculously bad for you: Schneider’s Mexican Hot Dog with Chipotle Ketchup, otherwise known as the Perro Caliente. In short: a bacon wrapped hot dog encased in a bun that’s been slathered with garlic mayo and griddled. All of this fatty goodness gets topped with pickled jalapenos, pico de gallo salsa (diced Roma tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and lime juice), and a tart, spicy ketchup spiked with chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. I feel the need to point out that I will never again be able to eat a hot dog unless it’s topped with pico de gallo; it’s a marriage made in heaven. It’s that little bit of crunchy, juicy freshness that cuts through the fat and makes a hot dog more than just a hot dog.

Another standout was the Shrimp Taco Dorado, and like all of the tacos in Schneider’s book, what really makes them pop are the interesting salsas she chooses to accompany them. Pico de gallo is pretty customary for tacos, but Schneider’s shrimp tacos also get topped with guacamole that’s spiked with mangoes, tequila, and goat cheese, as well as mango habanero salsa, chipotle salsa, and a few cilantro sprigs. To me, it’s these simple, easy, yet slightly labor intensive accompaniments that really elevate the tacos to something special.

I wouldn’t be doing the book justice if I didn’t mention the Carne Asada Taco Vampiro. It’s never really explained why this super taco gets called a vampire, but who cares when you’re sinking your teeth into what is essentially a quesadilla wrapped around juicy grilled carne asada and topped with guacamole, chipotle salsa, pico de gallo, cotixa cheese, and a sprinkling of the ever ubiquitous cilantro? Seriously, life doesn’t get any better than that.

Review by Tina Vasquez

Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes

By Elizabeth Bard
Little, Brown and Company

While the memoir fad is nothing new, Elizabeth Bard’s new book confirms the emergence of a memoir subgenre to contend with: the memoir with recipes. In May 2009, the New York Times proclaimed these books as the brainchild of the “money-making imagination of the publishing industry.” Certainly, a spate of globe-spanning titles have followed, many born from blogs. However, the story of the American in Paris has long been a favored literary subject. It has sparked writers’ imaginations from Henry James to Anais Nin to Elaine Dundy to David Sedaris. Elizabeth Bard’s adventures in Paris have a more chick-lit feel to them than even Nin or Dundy, and have a liberal sprinkling of Julia Child and Peter Mayle throughout. In this recipe-infused book, Bard navigates a long-distance relationship with a French archivist, decides to move to Paris, and eventually gets married and builds her writing career.

At first, Elizabeth Bard’s life seems impossibly charmed, complete with buying the perfect apartment on the increasingly trendy Rue Oberkampf and negotiating cultural differences that seem more endearing and eye-opening than frustrating. However, what sets Bard’s writing apart from others of her nascent genre is her thoughtfulness and realism. She paints a very true and convincing portrait of herself as a driven, New York striver, bent on academic, artistic, and financial success at an early age and agonizing over why it has not yet arrived. While she is highly educated, she does not come from a place of easy breezy privilege, and in between recipes inspired by fresh finds at her Parisian market, Bard contemplates her family and personal history.

As much as it documents her courtship, relationship, and marriage to Gwendal, a digital archivist and entrepreneur, Lunch in Paris is about Bard’s acclimatization to a Parisian pace of life and ultimately, self-acceptance. Bard finds her stride by finally finding a peaceful balance between her Parisian and New York lives and selves. While this revelation is not particularly groundbreaking and her feminist-tinged reflections stay in safe mainstream territory, Lunch in Paris satisfies readers with a good story, intelligent and heartfelt reflections, and mouth-watering recipes. It’s not clear if these recipes have been kitchen tested the way one would for a professional cookbook, but they serve as solid guidelines for readers interested to add a French twist to their cooking.

While it may not become part of the Americans in Paris literary cannon, Lunch in Paris is a satisfying, straightforward read that feels like a good friend telling you a particularly tasty—and truthful—story.

Review by Eleanor Whitney

French Feasts: 299 Traditional Recipes for Family Meals & Gatherings

By Stéphane Reynaud
Stewart, Tabori, & Chang

In my humble opinion, French food is where it’s at. This is a cuisine responsible for the five mother sauces, a cuisine that wholeheartedly embraces flaky pastry, a cuisine that loves cream, cheese, and butter! Needless to say, I was incredibly excited to review French Feasts, and when it arrived, I was shocked to find a massive tome of a cookbook on my front porch. This is a serious book, so large it comes with a built-in bookmark. I’m happy to report that the recipes didn’t disappoint, and that the book itself is perhaps the most charming cookbook I’ve ever encountered.

Thumbing through a French cookbook that includes 299 recipes laid out over 400 pages is no easy feat. I didn’t know where to start, so I started at the most obvious place: the beginning. I curled up in bed with a highlighter and post-its and got to work looking over the book’s ten core sections: Charcuterie Anything Goes; Long Live Offal; A Dozen Eggs; What Lovely Vegetables; Moo, Bah, Oink; Poultry; Game Galore; Fish & Shellfish; A Bit of Cheese to Finish my Bread; and Sweet, Sweeter, Saccharine.

This loving opus to French food details the types of elaborate meals many French families share around their table; it even speaks fondly of what I like to refer to as “the nasty bits.” The first few chapters piqued my morbid curiosity. As an omnivore, I appreciate cultures that respect the animals they slaughter enough to make use of all their parts. That being said, I can’t bring myself to eat many of these slippery, slimy things. Perhaps I’m not very adventurous, but offal (entrails and internal organs) will never be my thing. So, as much fun as it was to read about making pig's head sausage in red wine, calf’s liver with lemon, and beef tongue in medeira sauce, I don’t think I’ll be feasting on any of those things anytime soon.

I knew I couldn’t test every recipe, so instead I focused on those that had ingredients that were affordable and easy to come by, as well as dishes that could seamlessly fit into my regular rotation of meals. I can’t recommend any dessert recipes quite yet, as I haven’t had the nerve to tackle them—not because they seem difficult, but because I’m afraid of what I might do if left alone with dozens of Chantilly cream pastries.

French Feasts takes a pretty straightforward, almost comically simple approach to food that we’ve all been told is difficult to prepare. I can clearly picture movie scenes where someone is anxiously checking their soufflé, only to find that it’s deflated in the oven. My cheese soufflé, as instructed by French Feasts, turned out perfectly. It really was like digging into a cheesy, ethereal cloud.

Next up, and one of my all time favorites, French onion soup. Despite my long-standing love of onions, I’d actually never made this soup at home. French Feasts’ version was ridiculously simple, though it was actually called “onion soup for digestion.” It only called for seven ingredients, including olive oil, salt, and pepper. Though it pained me to purchase Gruyere cheese at fifteen bucks a pound, I found a lovely woman at the farmer’s market who cut me a deal on a decent sized hunk. The soup was earthy and cheesy, and the caramelized onions were out of this world; it was basically heaven in a bowl.

Other standouts included hard-boiled eggs topped with homemade mayo all atop mixed greens, my first ever Niçoise salad (so briny, so salty, so complex, so delicious), and emulsion of creamed cauliflower that I now use in place of mashed potatoes.

Aside from the killer recipes, I have to take a second to gush about how charming this cookbook is. It’s in French and English and features drool-worthy color photographs and profiles of French food figures, such as butchers and bakers (no candlestick makers). There are also endearing illustrations and ingredient lists that include things like Basque country fandango CDs. This really is a cookbook that I will go back to over the years and explore over and over again… if all the butter doesn’t kill me first.

Review by Tina Vasquez