Let’s start with the movies.

So, for me and my family movies were a big part of our lives. We have about 500 of them collected over the years from your classics like the three stooges to the toy story and everything in between. Not as much now but when I was younger every Sunday, we would go rent the newest movies (Yes there where video stores in my youth) or chose from our smallest collection. Each week we would each get a turn to pick. I was at the age where Hannah Montana and those things were big and my parents were getting tired of watching the same movie genre, so they introduced new movies and some in this list were them. 

Yes, many of these are book adaptations but I never read them. But they are on my list of books to read.

This list consists of some romantic movies and some realistic representation of the food industry. 

Movies 

1. No Reservation

This movie is more about a romantic movie but still revolves around cooking and being a chef. The main character is an executive chef in this fancy restaurant in NY and here sous chef is ready to pop (she’s pregnant) and the main character’s sister is coming for a visit with her daughter when all of a sudden her sister dies in a car crash and she is left raising her niece and still maintaining her job and keeping her niece alive. In the meantime, the restaurant hires a chef to replace her, whilst she is coping with the loss of her sister and her new life. This chef has a much more different way of running a kitchen in a more fun a relaxing way. You can guess where the rest of the story leads to. I need to leave some mysteries if you decide to watch it. 

I chose this movie because It was one of the many me and my mom would watch together when my dad needed to work late or was out of town on work conferences or training and it was a girls night because my dad is not a big fan of these types of movies

1. Letters to Juliet 

This one is also a girl’s night/weekend movie for me and my mom.

Where we follow Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) and her fiancé take their honeymoon before the wedding because he is in the middle of opening his own restaurant. So, they set off to Verona Italy where the famous Romeo and Juliet balcony is set to be in Shakespeare’s plays. In Verona, there is a wall where women of all ages come with broken hearts and write notes to Juliet in hopes of a response. Whilst in Verona her fiancé is busy sourcing products for his restaurant. One day she stayed in the square and just observed women from all ages and cultures pass by and at the end of the day she notices a woman collecting all the letters in a basket and leaving. Before she chases after this woman, she found a letter hidden in a loose stone in the wall form 53 years ago. When she finally reached this lady, she was sorting them to other women who write back to these ladies. So, she takes it on to write back to this letter. The letter recipients decided to come to Italy and find her first love again and Sophie embarked on this journey with her and her nephew.  Can’t tell you everything then there would be no mystery.

This movie is not so much on food but more on travel and made me fall in love with Italy altogether. I also enjoy Shakespeare from time to time.

1. Julie & Julia 

Julie & Julia is the story of the famous Julia chilled and how she came to writing the famous book Mastering the Art of French cooking and this modern woman named Julie who takes it upon herself to make every receipt in the book mastering the art of the French cooking and blogging her triumph and failures.

This movie made my list because Julia’s child was one of the most talked-about women “chef” that was not afraid to take a class of only men and the industry to be male and the women were put in a box of home cooks. When she lived in Paris with her military husband, she would eat at all these wonderful restaurants and she always wondered how to make these dishes so she enrolled in the famous Cordon Bleu. Where she worked harder than any of the men there and kicked their butts. Then once back in the USA she took her wisdom and broadcasted to the nation to learn with her using her already popular book.

1. Eat Pray Love

This movie made me fall in love with travelling especially Italy and Rome. 

This follows Liz a journalist that goes through divorce and heartbreak. Where she re-self discovers herself through food, meditation and love from newfound friends and lovers. She starts her journey in Rome where calories don’t count. During this time, she meets wonderful friends who teach her the way of living like Italians and she shares the American tradition of thanksgiving to them. 

Then she sets off to India to a Buddhist temple resort where she reflects on her mind and she makes more friends in the most unlikely people. After her reflection and her mind is at peace with some things in her past that she needed to let go she sets off for Bali where she focuses more on the balance of her mind and body together from this very old man named Ketut. She also makes friends with the local medicine healer and her daughter. Who are going through their own struggles but still help her.

1. Chef

Chef is an oh so common reality in the industry, with chefs longing for change from the textbook traditional. Don’t get me wrong to be able to modernize and put your own personal twist to dishes you must master the basics. 

This movie follows a chef who struggles to make changes in the restaurant that he works in because of a stubborn owner who thinks that the menu is perfect the way it is. But, he needs a major overhaul which leads to a bad critic review and leads the chef to quit his employment and start a Cuban food truck and take a cross country road trip with his son and Sous Chef that followed from the restaurant. They stop in major cities in the USA that are playing a big role in the culinary industry like New Orleans and Miami. 

This movie follows the growing industry of Food Trucks in the USA that is not just the typical hot dogs, hamburgers and fries. Now the Food Truck scene is great you can now get Koran food to fresh Hawaiian Poke. You can also get breakfast and dessert-themed Trucks.

1. Burn

Now this movie has been said to be accurate to this intense industry. I believe that it is because it touches so many true facts about this industry. There is lots of swearing but that is just how it is in the kitchen. It also follows the struggle of being this great chef, not just the struggles of producing great dishes but the struggle with drugs, alcohol and even a life-work balance. 

This movie follows a once very popular chef in France and how alcohol and drugs plummeted his career but after a year in the USA shucking oysters and getting.  Now he’s back from his hiatus and is hungry for his star so he asks for help from some old friends in France that are in London. He poached the best in the city had to offer to build his team. He was trained by the old school way of running a kitchen with the screaming, yelling, naming and throwing things at you. Times have changed a bit from that old school frame of mind. 

1. The 100-foot journey

The journey is a story of two cultures coming to appreciate and respect each other on a personal and cultural level. A family from India on the road to finding a new place to call home after their home is destroyed by extremists. 

They ended up in the countryside of France where there is a Michelin star restaurant across the street from where they have settled in.  back in India, they ran a successful business in the restaurant industry so they make it their mission to bring their culture to the people of their new home. 

This movie also touches the subjects of love, fame and love of food.

Tv show’s

As a chilled, the food network played a big part from top chef to diner drive-ins and dive and many more like Around the World in 80 Plates with chef Curtis Stone.  

And today there are many tv shows on Netflix and other streaming places. 

Hope you enjoyed