Dinner and a movie

Dinner and a Movie The fourth in a series of at home food and movie pairings.

Cinema Cat & Gourmet Gracie

and the docu-series

SALT FAT ACID HEAT

One House Bakery is chock full of overall deliciousness and nourishment for body and soul. Hailing from Canada, Chef Hannalee and family bring international flair to their daily specials and seasonal celebrations. The delicate art of European bread-making is mastered with the award winning baguettes, a variety of breads and an impressive array of tarts, cookies, cupcakes, crostatas, croissants and cakes.

The extensive online/take out/delivery menu includes pantry items such as freshly butchered meats, dairy, produce, pot pies, soups, sauces, dips and jams. In addition to the flaky french pastries, daily family dinners are offered. Recent selections have included pork tamales in ancho chili sauce, biscuits and sausage gravy with fried green tomatoes, BBQ chicken with arugula peach salad, and bacon/cheddar pierogies. Daily updates can be found on Facebook and Instagram. Kids meals are also available.

My absolute favorite lunch is the creamy tomato soup with a braised pork, grilled “Holey Cow” cheese sandwich. I’ll definitely have what she’s having! And, don’t miss the homemade polenta with roasted mushrooms. Local secret: fresh scrumptious donuts offered each Saturday—order early!

One House Bakery is a labor of love with the generous intention of serving our community. Ingredients are organic with no chemicals/dyes, locally sourced or made in-house whenever possible. You can’t go wrong with One House—it will warm your heart!

918 1st Street, Benicia, 707.361.5919 onehousebakery.com Closed Mondays & Tuesdays

Our Two Minute Movie Review this month is not about a movie, but a 4-part docu-series, a must see for foodies and avid cooks of all stripes. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking, brings something we weren’t sure was possible – a fresh perspective on the fundamentals of cooking.

James Beard Award winning Chef Samin Nosrat, a California native, earned her chops (pun intended!) at Cal Berkeley, Chez Panisse, and around the world while immersing herself in the history and nuance of cooking’s key components.

Despite the series’ title, the first episode is devoted to fat, and Nosrat travels to Italy, of course, to learn about olive oil. While she studies the intricacies of this indispensable constituent of so many dishes, we are simultaneously treated to a visual feast – Liguria, Tuscany, magic light. She speaks near-fluent Italian and charms the locals who take her, and us, into their specialized spheres, their beautifully simple and profound understanding of something most of us toss off as routine, or even pedestrian.

And so it goes to Japan for salt – 4000 different kinds! – and Mexico for the dimension (yes, dimension!) of acid, giving us a sour edge, or citrus or fermentation, and finally back home to Berkeley for heat, the sizzle, the splatter, the crackle of transformation.

Chef Nosrat is down-to-earth and delightful. She is a participatory learner too, which makes fun viewing for her willing students (us). As she would say, “So good!” Netflix, 4 episodes of +/- 45min each 8 out of 10 whiskers www.cinemacat-tdp.blogspot.com

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513 1st Street, Benicia • (707) 747-9300

We’ve come a long way... maybe?

Christina Strawbridge

In 2020, much attention has been given to the 100 year milestone of the 19th Amendment guaranteeing a women’s right to vote. The term for the movement was called Women’s Suffrage.

The Feminist Movement in the ‘70s sought equal rights and opportunities in the workplace along with greater personal freedoms for women. The term used was Women’s Lib.

In 2017, the #MeToo movement was born with Women’s Marches held around the world bringing attention to reporting sexual abuse and sexual harassment in the workplace. The movement encouraged women to speak out and know they would be supported by their “sisters.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the legal crusader for gender equality and women's rights that ultimately led to her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her departure has left us with an enormous void. She was the first Jewish woman and only the second woman to serve on the Court. She became known as the Notorious RBG and her career as fiery liberal justice was popularized by a book, movie, documentary and even an opera. Her pop culture status has inspired her image on everything from a bobblehead doll, to t-shirts, to children's coloring books and even Halloween costumes and socks. The diminutive super-hero justice set herself apart on the Court with her many collars that were worn to make a statement. She had a dissenting necklace to show condemnation, a yellow jabot to channel approval, and a Stella & Dot necklace that resembled spiky armor to show disapproval. Her favorite and most notable was the simple white lace jabot from Cape Town, South Africa.

These two RBG quotes have personal meaning to me. "My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent." "I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman's equality with a man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling."

My own mother was before her time in acknowledging that women could and should be independent. By her example, I learned the significance of being your own person. She would often remind me to stand up for what I wanted because no one else would do it for me.

I believe that if my mom were still alive, she would be proud of my accomplishments, knowing that I achieved them as my own person.

In 2016, I ran for City Council. That same year, as I stood in line to vote at the Senior Center polling location, I was approached by a woman and her three little girls. She expressed her excitement at seeing women like me on the ballot and said that she brought her daughters with her so that they could witness her vote. She wanted to impress upon them the importance of voting and show them that, one day, they could run for office, too. With the absence of Justice Ginsburg, we must lift each other up, continue the fight for equality, and strive to be our own persons. This is the RBG Movement.