Dear ones, welcome back. 😊 Are you ready for the second episode of our new cinematic-culinary series? 😀 For the series Recipes from Romantic Films today I prepared some two-tone scones for you.

These:

To make them, I followed my already tested recipe with the small variation of coloring them. Using natural colors (raspberries and blueberries), as authoritatively advised by the chef in the movie Love at Four Hands, the romantic film that Lucius Etruscus and I chose to review today.

Unlike what happened with the first recipe of this series – where beginner’s luck smiled upon me, allowing me to replicate the recipe faithfully – today’s two-tone scones did not turn out as similar to those in the film. 🙆‍♀️ But I take pride in saying that they are equal in taste (even if we will never know! 😅).

But first, we must start from the beginning, which is the movie:

TODAY’S MOVIE: Love at Four Hands (Kiss the Cook)

For once, I prefer the Italian title of this movie over the original. 🙂 What the “Kiss the Cook” of the English title means… well, I don’t know, but it doesn’t convince me. Even after watching the movie twice and writing a summary with a pen on two whole protocol sheets (yes, I still write summaries on paper! 😅), I continue to prefer the Italian title.

But I am sure I will find the answers to all my doubts in the ‘technical’ review that Lucius is offering us right now on his blog Il Zinefilo, to which I also refer you.

For those who have not yet read the first article of this series and yet don’t know who Lucius is, I’ll tell you right away: he is the main responsible for these reviews with recipes of mine, the mastermind of this semi-serious journey to discover romantic culinary-themed films, with which we will keep you company for a few more weeks.

Are you curious to know the plot of this beautiful Love at Four Hands? I am sure you are!

PLOT:

To increase the business of his publishing house, a publisher proposes to a famous food blogger with 1.5 million followers to publish a recipe book. Only later does the publisher realize that the blogger’s recipes, beautiful to look at, colorful and playful, have a small flaw: they are poorly cooked. In short, beautiful yes, but all appearance. He establishes by himself the dogma that recipes, to be published in a book, must be “elevated to gourmet recipes,” so the publisher imposes on the blogger the essential collaboration with a chef, who happens to be his beloved nephew. Who, coincidentally, aspires to write his own recipe book, dedicated to his mother’s recipes. The nephew-chef is going through a difficult time, he needs to “find the desire to be happy” after the disappointments collected working for an incompetent restaurateur and, previously, as the owner of a zero-mile restaurant, unfortunately bankrupt after the unjust critique of an unscrupulous egocentric food critic. Naturally, the whole story will end in the best way, after the chef and the blogger visit farms, pick vegetables and flowers, select photographs, prepare tastings, and face the inevitable moment of crisis caused by the vindictive and opportunistic critic. A crisis that will be resolved happily, indeed drawing the necessary strength to become better and to live the rest of life happily ever after.

Some of my observations on the plot:

Compared to the standard of romantic films, this Love at Four Hands is rich in points of reflection, contains many details on which to have Hamletian doubts, and on which to smile a little. I have chosen some, not all (because there were too many!):

– The blogger’s recipes are poorly cooked. And despite that, she has 1.5 million followers, which then becomes 1.6 million in the book’s blurb. Everyone admires her recipes, but apparently, none of the one and a half million followers have yet noticed that they are inedible.

– The food blogger, if she wants to see the book published, will necessarily have to improve her cooking skills. I like to emphasize that she actually had no intention of publishing a book at all. It’s all a decision of the publisher, it’s he who decides to contact her («Kacey Cooke, apparently you’re about to write a cookbook»), after choosing her at a table by virtue of the high number of followers, potential buyers of the book.

– The chef-nephew-of-the-publisher aspires to write his own recipe book, including his mom’s recipes, which he keeps written in a notebook he is very jealous of. Mom’s recipes written in notebooks are a must in romantic films. This one, in particular, is decorated with doodles and borders and flowers, more than a notebook it looks like a diary of a twelve-year-old!

– The egocentric and unscrupulous critic guess with whom he has/had a story? Just like mom’s recipes, even the food critics, as well as the exes who put a spoke in the wheel, are recurring figures in this film genre. Sometimes I think a little more imagination wouldn’t hurt. 😄

WHAT I THOUGHT OF THIS FILM THE FIRST TIME I SAW IT:

The film is on Prime Video, but it premiered on TV8 on May 31, 2022 (detail provided by Lucius, whose database I trust blindly), and I have no doubts that I watched it on tv on that very day, together with my mother-in-law.

I have already told you, in the first recipe of this series, about the bond I have with this film genre, and the reasons why I often associate these romantic films with the memory of my mother-in-law and when I watched them with her.

I remember well that I liked this film at the time, I watched it with pleasure, sitting next to her. It was the perfect film to show an elderly person, and suffering from Alzheimer’s.

The film, within this genre – that is, the Z series tv-romance – is a nice film. It is full of colors, full of flowers, there are flowers everywhere, even in the blogger’s always flowery and colorful clothes, and it’s a film full of smiles, many smiles, almost in every shot a smile. The smiling faces of the protagonists, the colorful settings, the happy atmosphere it conveys is what I liked most about the film. And that my dear, frail, mother-in-law (almost centenarian at that moment) had received and appreciated, smiling in return.

If you are caring for someone suffering from Alzheimer’s or another cognitive disease, I wholeheartedly recommend this film. From my experience, it’s a nice film that has spread smiles and received them in return.

Knowing that a film, albeit banal and certainly not an auteur, can give an hour of serenity to those who unfortunately live in a world of their own is consoling to me. And it is also, let’s say this truth, a small break in the long and difficult day of the caregiver. 🌸

WHAT I THINK NOW OF THIS FILM (AFTER WATCHING IT A SECOND TIME):

I re-watched the film in the past few days, purposely to write this review and to extract the recipe. I re-watched it from the pc, no longer on tv, no longer next to my mother-in-law, now free, no longer watching her in the meantime and smiling at her reactions. In short, I watched it more attentively. And I noticed details that two years ago I had not considered important.

I came to a Solomonic conclusion: this film should be watched without audio! 😃

Yes indeed. The dialogues, unfortunately, are a compendium of clichés and absurdly absurd details. It is a melange of nonsense. Starting with the story-within-the-story of the two friends (she is a bookseller and he is a bartender), secondary characters in the narrative. Two adults behaving like two pre-adolescents who would deserve a separate review. 😀 But I will skip them, I already have enough material even just with the two main protagonists!

Some examples:

1) The food blogger with 1.5 million followers tastes a bite of a (normal) omelet cooked by the chef and suddenly realizes she doesn’t know how to cook and has never “cooked anything so good.” She panics, wondering “who will want to buy my recipes?”, and suddenly has an epochal doubt: what if the followers “try the recipes and discover that I am a fraud?”.

Well, but really did it take a simple omelet to realize she doesn’t know how to cook? But above all: then it is really true that not even one of the million and a half followers has ever tried to cook one of her recipes and never communicated it to her in a comment on Instagram!

2) But the chef sweetly reassures her: “It took me years in cooking school to learn to make an omelette so fluffy, it takes time and practice.”

Right, years of cooking school to learn to make an omelette.

3) He takes her to visit a farm and pick vegetables from the garden. She is ecstatic, she has never seen a garden in her life, because “pulling carrots from the ground” is not for her, and she wonders, indeed asks the chef what visiting a farm has to do with a recipe book (ehhh, a million-dollar question). And then she is surprised to learn that the person running the farm “really lives here?” (living on a farm, an absurd, unthinkable thing). Not to mention the tomatoes, oh yes, she’s never seen “such beautiful tomatoes.”

In short, in a few sentences said one after the other, we have a concentration of statements and questions that a three-year-old child could have made. But then I wonder: how come she’s never seen “beautiful” tomatoes (which in reality are normal)? Who knows how ugly ugly ugly the tomatoes she’s used to and has always used in her recipes are! 😄

4) But in any case, who cares, because she doesn’t eat tomatoes! Oh no, she doesn’t eat them because she doesn’t like them! But then suddenly after a nanosecond, she likes them, that is after he lets her taste a slice of tomato seasoned with dill instead of the banal basil, and then also a “revisited caprese,” that is arranged in a tower (wow what an invention!).

And I who have been trying for a lifetime to make my kids eat tomatoes! Why have I never known that dill does these miracles?, and a (revisited) caprese too?? 😂

5) The food blogger, always strong with her 1.5 million followers, who bases all her cooking on colors and publishes only colorful recipes, doesn’t know that foods can be decorated with flowers, doesn’t know that edible flowers exist, and doesn’t know that certain foods color. And then, after learning all of this, what iconic phrases does she say? These: “If only people knew that there are natural dyes! Why not tell them? People need to know! We can include it in the book!”

It is the discovery of the century, people must know these truths.

But then, reflecting on it, I am led to say that maybe it is really like that. Maybe it is indeed true that the average American doesn’t know. After reading some articles on The Obsidian Mirror blog (and in particular this article) I am convincing myself that food for Americans is truly a little-known topic. One day or another, I will have to make a trip to the States to test this truth with my own hands!

6) The chef, well, I like him, you can’t help but like him. He has the face of a good boy from a good family and a heart of gold. But every two out of three he comes out with phrases taken from a book of quotes. Like these:

«Every recipe needs its own balance, every ingredient should complement the other and at the same time highlight it».

«The great stories come from experiences and memories, so you have to look inside yourself and find your story».

Sensitive and inspired cook, philosopher, psychoanalyst, almost a know-it-all.

But the most incomprehensible, for me, pronounced by the chef (by the way, his name is Gavin, Gavin Bloom) is this one:

«It’s the saffron, it completely changes the smoke of the gouda».

Excuse me?? 😳 What did he say?

That is… does smoked gouda with saffron exist?

Enlighten me!

I could continue with other citations or facts that seem implausible. Like, for example, the copyright for the chef’s notebook, which the publisher obtains in five minutes over the phone using a date written on the notebook (but the date isn’t there, I’ve checked! 😂). But above all: do you communicate on the phone the date written on a notebook, after which… et voila here comes the copyright??? Oh but right, the film is set in America, where anything is possible!

But I want to conclude with a very romantic quote: “Without you, this book would be like a cake without sugar”.

Ahhhh love, love!

Anyway, despite the under-the-mustache giggles I had while watching this adorable film again, in the end, at the finale, I was moved. Seriously.

But now let’s talk about the recipe, because I need to sweeten the tears! 😍

THE RECIPE I GOT FROM THE MOVIE: Two-Tone Scones with Raspberries and Blueberries

Replicating these two-tone scones was a bit of a feat. I tried them three times without managing to get the pink and blue colors that are prominently featured in the movie scones.

Although they are not the main recipe of the film (the main recipe would be the caponata with cocoa, which you will find tomorrow on these same screens by clicking on the link), I chose the scones precisely because they were colorful (but I should have thought about it more, given the strange color I got! 😃).

I wanted a colorful recipe that would be in tune with the floral and colorful spirit of the protagonist: Kacey Cooke is The Colorful Cook, and her book is titled The Colorful Cookbook because the recipes are dedicated to the colors of the rainbow. But I also wanted it to be a recipe with good flavor and that could be easily replicated by everyone with little effort and satisfaction in taste.

At least I achieved satisfaction; we liked them! We finished them all for breakfast!