Cherry pie in memory of special agent Cooper

cherry pie inspired by Twin Peaks

There are some films you just can’t watch without craving for specific  food or drink:

1. To start with, I can’t watch ‘ Sideways’ without a glass of pinot noir…Simply cannot be done!

2. ‘Waitress’  without any pie and trying to banish the urge to bake.

3. Whenever I watch ‘Moonstruck’  I have to make eggs fried in toast…( ideally with champagne on the side ) aah.

4. After a little session with ‘Goodfellas’ you have to make a perfect tomato sauce (cooked for hours, in the meantime taking care of ‘the business’).

5. Julie and Julia and Something’s Gotta Give make me want to go to Paris and dine at any bistro (but preferably Cafe de Flore).

6. All films directed by Eric Rohmer make me want to dine in the garden with lots of wine.

One gloomy morning I was thinking about owls not being what they seem, which led me to an unexpected desire to watch ‘Twin Peaks’. After two hours of watching the pilot, which is just an introduction, I couldn’t  stop thinking about  cherry pie and coffee. Special agent Cooper was right – it’s a perfect combination. I felt like pulling out of my pocket  tape recorder (as you  do) and record a message : ‘Diane, remind me of buying cherries’. If you have never watched Twin Peaks, you don’t know what you are missing. You can watch a short extract here.

If you watched anything with David Lynch’ stamp on it, you will never forget about it. Some scenes or ideas will always stay in your mind or subconscious.

Examples:

1. Whenever someone around me uses the inhaler, even though I know it’s not the mask with a tank full of amyl nitrate, I still feel like saying ‘baby wants to fuck’, although only people familiar with Blue Velvet would get the reference.

2. Once Boyfriend, two of my friends and myself went to the countryside. Everything around us was picturesque and serene with little cottages covered with  wisteria, little pretty fences and immaculate gardens. My friends were walking behind me and I heard the girl  saying how pretty and serene it was and her boyfriend responding: ‘yeah honey, but you just have to remember that behind the pretty fences and walls you probably have husbands beating up their wives and molesting their children, wives drinking to oblivion and cheating on their husbands and all sort of secret activity going on’. And that only could be said by someone raised on Lynch’s work. As he once said himself: ‘I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath.’

I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_lynch.html#JxGs9GbSDqUJZPUb.99@’

I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_lynch.html#JxGs9GbSDqUJZPUb.99

I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_lynch.html#JxGs9GbSDqUJZPUb.99

I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_lynch.html#JxGs9GbSDqUJZPUb.99

3. Once, many years ago, I was woken up by someone buzzing the intercom at 4am. I was still not conscious, no one ever rung at that time, but my first thought was ‘someone is calling to say that Dick Laurent is dead’. If you watched Lost Highway you know why.  If you haven’t, watch the scene here.

I actually told David Lynch about it when I met him at one of the film festivals and it made him chuckle and say: ‘that’s a good one’. And trust me, it’s not so easy to make the man laugh. He is so in his own world most of the time you see him, you feel fearful to even disturb him. I’m actually surprised he looks so good when you think of the sugar intake and all the smoking…

Anyway, I made that cherry pie. And so should you.

cherry pie

Cherry Pie

For the dough:

300g flour

150g cold butter

1 egg

1-2 spoons of ice cold water

For the filling:

400-500g cherries

1/2 cup xylitol ( better than sugar when your health is concerned)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1-2 teaspoon corn flour

1 teaspoon orange zest

1. Place cherries in medium saucepan and place over heat. Cover. After the cherries lose considerable juice, which may take a few minutes, add xylitol, cinnamon and orange zest.  Boil over low heat until it thickens a bit. Add corn flour, mix well until it thickens even more. Take of the heat and let it cool.

2. Put flour and butter into the food processor, pulse it till it forms crumbles. Add egg and cold water, pulse it again until it’s all mixed together. Take it out, form a ball and wrap it in  foil and leave it for 20 minutes to chill. In the meantime chill out with coffee (and if you like living on the edge, make it Irish coffee).

3. Take the dough ball out, take 2/3 of it,roll it out and transform it into a tart dish (buttered of course. Dish that is).

4. Stab it with a fork (so the air won’t come out and puff it up) and pre-bake it for 20 minutes (180C).

5. Fill the dish with cherries. Roll the remaining part of a dough, cut it into stripes and make lacy thingy on top. Brush it with milk if you want it pretty and shiny but it doesn’t matter really, you are going to eat it all as soon as it is out of the oven anyway.

6. Bake til golden. Serve it with coffee.

And at the end, a few examples of films which make me want to throw a dinner party:

Babette’s feast

Home for Holidays

Marie Antoinette

Julie & Julia

Julie & Julia

 

 

Dangerous Liaisons