Ratatouille and Perspective

Man, two posts in two days?  There must be some serious fun going on here in Provo :-)  (This post had to wait because I didn't get the pictures from it until today, but I wanted to tell a little bit about my date on Friday and some thoughts that it sparked in me.)

On Friday morning, I didn't really have any plans for Friday night.  I knew that we were going to have the massive St. Patty's Day party the following day, so I figured Rebecca and I could just hang out with each other at her apartment, or something (yes, I can be found there just about every night--that's the trap of an amazing girlfriend!)  I had been invited to another party too, so I figured I'd be pretty busy.  Friday afternoon, my roommate invited us on a double date with him and his girlfriend.  They were planning to watch Ratatouille and make the dish that gave the movie its name.  It sounded like a really clever idea, so we decided to join in!

The movie Ratatouille is about a rat, Remy, that has an amazing sense of smell.  While his family thinks that this is a fantastic way for them to avoid poison in their food, He prefers to use his abilities to do something that is uniquely human; cooking!  He ends up in Paris at the restaurant of his hero, Chef Gusteau.  Gusteau has a motto that Remy loves, because it gives him hope of becoming a chef: "Anyone can cook."  A kid, Linguini, is also at the restaurant, working as a garbage boy.  He can't cook AT ALL.  However, he and Remy work out a deal where it looks like he is cooking amazing food, when in reality it is Remy.  So, Remy cooks amazing food and Linguini ends up becoming the head chef of the restaurant.  However, a critic, Anton Ego, decides that he will review Gusteau's, which he had previously dismissed as a quality restaurant.  More on this later....

  

Ratatouille was originally a French peasant dish, which was made with essentially whatever the French were growing in their garden.  This typically included eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, and peppers.  All of us were a little apprehensive about the whole thing.  We had never made Ratatouille before, or even eaten eggplant!  It turns out that it tastes a little like a sweet cucumber at the beginning, but then has a way bitter aftertaste.  

As you can see, we were busy slicing everything from green peppers (Rebecca) to onions (me).  We then layered all of our vegetables over a tomato sauce, covered the whole thing with olive oil and spices, and then stuck it in the oven for the next 45 minutes.  In the meantime, we started Ratatouille the movie :-)

  Anton Ego comes to the restaurant at precisely the worst time.  Linguini has finally told everyone about Remy, and the entire staff has quit.  Remy's rat friends step up to help run the restaurant, and they actually do a good job Linguini ends up being the waiter for the night, complete with roller skates to get to the tables faster.  Remy finally decides to serve Ego Ratatouille, which is pretty incredible considering the humble origins of the dish.  However, when Ego tastes the Ratatouille, he immediately loves it and quickly finishes the dish.  What happened to make him like it so much?  When he first comes in, Ego asks the waiter for some "perspective" for his meal.  He wants something that will not be there merely to sustain him.  He wants food that will help him see the bigger picture.  When he takes his first bite of the Ratatouille, he experiences a flashback to his childhood, when he would come home and his mother would serve him Ratatouille for lunch.  It is this "perspective" that he experiences when tasting the Ratatouille that makes the dish amazing, and in his criticism, he gives a reflection of the insight that he gained while eating the Ratatouille.

Rebecca, me, Michael, and Kasee

Our Ratatouille smelled so good while it was cooking,  We pulled it out, and started to eat it.  I have to say, I really enjoyed it!  I think we, being the Americans that we are, would probably put some salami in there to give it a little more substance, but we actually finished almost the entire thing between the four of us.  We ate it while we finished the movie, concluding a really enjoyable date.  

Our finished product!

  The next day, I was feeling rather proud of us for having made such a "classy" dish for college students, and was thinking about the date.  I was also thinking about this past week, which was a little rough, and realized that I needed to follow Ego's example and have a little "perspective" for dinner.  Even though things may seem like the worst thing in the world at the time, two days later we can sit there, and realize that they aren't really that big a deal.  In the grand scheme of things it will all work itself out, and life will move on.  I had a couple of people remind me of that recently.  Unfortunately, it took me a while to listen to them, and for that I am really sorry.  Here's to Ratatouille and perspective!