Re: Die Hard # 5?
A French Laundry connection to the movie.
sacbee.com - The online division of The Sacramento Bee
This story is taken from Sacbee / Entertainment - Sacticket / Dining.
Stew-la-la: 'Ratatouille' highlights classic dish
By Mike Dunne - Bee Food Editor
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, July 11, 2007
The release of the Pixar Animation movie "Ratatouille" couldn't have come at a better time.
Summer is ratatouille's season. The film takes its title from a simple, wholesome and classic French dish. Ratatouille is nothing if not a corner of the summer vegetable garden transformed into a light stew.
That would be the corner planted with eggplant, zucchini, onions, sweet peppers and tomatoes, the foundation of the traditional ratatouille.
In the movie, ostensibly for children but with themes, action and wit that appeal to adults, ratatouille actually plays a minor if pivotal role.
The story is more about the culinary aspirations of Remy, a country rat who lands in Paris and seizes his opportunity to cook in a highly regarded restaurant, a venue where rats generally are detested.
The ratatouille in "Ratatouille," prepared to seduce the appetite of the cadaverous restaurant critic Anton Ego, is an unusually intricate and pretty interpretation.
In the precise cutting and artful layering of the vegetables, it's the kind of ratatouille you would expect to find on a plate at California's most esteemed restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville in the Napa Valley.
Indeed, Thomas Keller, owner-chef at The French Laundry, was one of the movie's culinary coaches.
For one, during a two-day internship at The French Laundry, Keller directed "Ratatouille" producer Brad Lewis in how the kitchen of a Michelin three-star restaurant is organized and operates.
"He called The French Laundry to see if he could come up and do some research on what goes on in a fine-dining kitchen. He needed a reference point," Keller said in a phone interview.
Keller said his most significant contribution to the film, however, was his complicated take on ratatouille, upon which the movie's animated version was based. "I did a modern version of ratatouille," Keller said.
In the film's credits, Keller also is acknowledged for his contribution as the voice of a restaurant guest who arrogantly complains that he's tired of the same old foie gras and challenges the chef to prepare him something new. Keller now has a Screen Actors Guild credit to pin to his apron.
At The French Laundry, as at most restaurants and in most homes, ratatouille is more supporting player than star, performing off to the side. But there are exceptions. At his San Francisco restaurant Fleur de Lys, owner-chef Hubert Keller -- no relation to Thomas Keller -- has sealed ratatouille in a crispy filo crust to be served as a main course on his vegetarian tasting menu. And for a large party at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic one year, he filled 800 eggshells with ratatouille for a dramatic and amusing appetizer.
For the most part, however, ratatouille is a homey dish presented without flair. Its origin often is credited to the farmhouses of Provence in the south of France, where home cooks would gather ripe vegetables from their garden to compose into an herb-accented stew.
But while ratatouille is straightforward, it isn't without controversy. While one chef will say that making ratatouille is "simple," another will claim that its preparation is "particularly long and difficult."
The most common point of contention is whether the vegetables that go into ratatouille should be simply stewed together or saut