Rata-what?

So… it’s been a while. And yet is it surprising that the only thing to bring me out of my self-instituted silence (based on a flurry of graduation requirements I had to fulfill, which thankfully I did) is a film about a rat that is a foodie?

Basically, the last 4 months have been a whirlwind of activity surrounding the event that I have been striving towards for the past two years — graduating from my Master’s program in Library and Information Science at UCLA. Which I did, on June 16th, 2007, thankfully. Even if the Chair of the department, who was on my Portfolio committee, mind you, called me “GLORIA.” Which, while a beautiful name (with all of its accompanying disco 70s derring-do), unfortunately, does not belong to me.

My name, which people tend to misspell, belong musically only to Bow Wow Wow and Iggy Pop/Kate Pierson, and even then, only in its shortened form.

But anyway, RATATOUILLE! J and I watched this this past weekend and we really enjoyed it. As long as we didn’t think too much about the rat aspect of it.

Our leading theory right now is that the fictional French chef Gusteau that is referenced in the film is actually an animated version of real-life Franco-American chef Michel Richard.

More on Msr. Richard here:

http://www.chefsstory.com/thechefs_michelrichard.html

http://www.citronelledc.com/michel/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032101500.html

It’s really funny because about a week before we saw “Ratatouille,” we were flipping through TV channels late one night and we came across a random PBS cooking show. Turns out, the guest chef was Michel Richard! We had never heard of Msr. Richard until a few months ago, when J’s boss took him and a sales rep out to eat at a restaurant called Maison Richard. Maison Richard happens to be very close to my work, so J’s boss told him to call me and meet them there. I went, it was delicious, and J’s boss told us that Msr. Richard was a very well known chef who still ostensibly owned Maison Richard but had left the West Coast to open up other restaurants. We were like that’s cool, his food is good and the pastries look delicious, even though we were not familiar with his name.

So, last week we see the real Michel Richard on a PBS show late at night called “Chef’s Story.” And we immediately fall in love with him, food-wise. He is a true foodie, talking with excitement about different flavors and textures, and describing all of this with his hands as well as his words. On the show, he talked about his love for American food, even KFC. (He says he loves the crunch! He says it’s delicious! He says it’s what inspired him to try and put crunch in all of his dishes!) And he talked about the fries he makes with clarified butter at Central in DC, which made me a little sad because I had just been in DC last weekend but that was before I had watched the show!!!  So not only did I miss out on the BBQ festival that was happening in DC while I was there, I missed out on going to any of Michel Richard’s DC restaurants!

So now, as you can tell, I’m slightly obsessed by him.

~ by findcandice on July 5, 2007.