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

Here they are:

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 film Love at First Bite, the romantic comedy 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. 🙆‍♀️ However, I dare say they taste the same (even if we’ll never know! 😅).

But first of all, we need to start from the beginning, and that is from the film:

TODAY’S FILM: Love at First Bite (Kiss the Cook)

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

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

For those who haven’t read the first article of this series yet and don’t know who Lucius is, I’ll tell you right away: he is the main person responsible for these reviews with recipes, the mastermind behind 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 First Bite? I’m sure you are!

THE PLOT:

To boost sales of their publishing house, a publisher proposes to a famous food blogger with 1.5 million followers to publish a recipe book. However, only after does the publisher realize that the blogger’s recipes, beautiful to look at, colorful, and funny, have a small defect: they are poorly cooked. In short, they are beautiful, but all show. The publisher establishes the doctrine that in order to be published in a book, the recipes must be “elevated to gourmet recipes” and imposes the essential collaboration with a chef, who happens to be his beloved nephew. The nephew, in turn, aspires to write his own recipe book dedicated to his mother’s recipes. The chef-nephew is going through a difficult time and needs to “rediscover the desire to be happy” after the disappointments collected working for an incompetent restaurateur and previously as the owner of a farm-to-table restaurant, which unfortunately failed after an unfair and ruthless review from a narcissistic food critic. Naturally, the entire story will end in the best possible 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 vengeful and opportunistic critic. A crisis that will be resolved happily, drawing the necessary strength from it to become better and live happily ever after.

Some of my thoughts on the plot:

Compared to the standard of romantic films, this Love at First Bite is rich in food for thought, containing many details to raise existential doubts upon and to smile a little. I’ve chosen a few, not all (because there were too many!):

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

– The food blogger, if she wants to see her book published, will necessarily have to improve her cooking skills. I like to point out that she actually had no intention of publishing a book. It is entirely the publisher’s decision; he decides to contact her («Kacey Cooke, apparently you are about to write a cookbook»), after having chosen her based on the high number of followers, potential book buyers.

– The chef-nephew-of-the-publisher aspires to write his own recipe book, including his mother’s recipes, which he keeps written in a notebook he is very protective of. Mom’s recipes written in notebooks are a must in romantic comedies. This particular one has little drawings and borders and flowers, more like a twelve-year-old’s diary than a cookbook!

– The egocentric and ruthless critic guess who he has/had a story with? Just like mom’s recipes, food critics, and exes who throw spanners in the works are recurring figures in this cinematic 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 first aired on TV8 on May 31, 2022 (a detail provided by Lucius, whose database I trust blindly), and I have no doubt I watched it on TV that day, with my mother-in-law.

I have already told you, in the first recipe of this series, about the connection I have with this cinematic genre, and the reasons why I often associate these romantic comedies 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 suffering from Alzheimer’s.

The film, within this genre – that is, the Z-series TV romance – is a nice movie. It’s full of colors, full of flowers, there are flowers everywhere, even in the blogger’s always floral and colorful dresses, and it’s a film full of smiles, so many smiles, almost every shot has 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, fragile, mother-in-law (almost a centenarian at that time) had received and appreciated, smiling back.

If you are caring for someone with Alzheimer’s or another cognitive illness, I sincerely recommend this film. In my experience, it’s a nice film that spread smiles and received them in return.

Knowing that a film, even if banal and certainly not an auteur film, can offer an hour of serenity to those who unfortunately live in their own world, is consoling. And it is also, let’s tell 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 recent days, specifically to write this review and extract the recipe. I re-watched it from the computer, no longer on TV, not next to my mother-in-law, who is now free, no longer observing her in the meantime and smiling at her reactions. In short, I watched it with more attention. And I noticed details that two years ago I hadn’t considered important.

I have reached a Solomonic conclusion: this film should be watched without audio! 😃

Yes. The dialogues, unfortunately, are a compendium of clichés and commonplaces, and absurdly absurd details. It’s a mishmash of nonsense. Starting with the story-within-a-story of the two friends (she’s a bookseller and he’s a bartender), supporting characters of the narrative. Two adults who behave like two pre-adolescents and who would deserve a separate review. 😀 But I’ll skip over them, I already have enough material with just 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 can’t cook and has never “cooked anything this good”. She panics, wondering “who wants to buy my recipes?”, and suddenly has an epic doubt: what if the followers “try the recipes and find out I’m a fraud?”.

Well, did it really take just a simple omelet to realize she couldn’t cook? But above all: then it’s 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 kindly reassures her: “It took me years at culinary school to learn how to make an omelet so fluffy, it takes time and practice”.

Right, years of culinary school to learn how to make an omelet.

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 something she does, and she wonders, or rather asks the chef what a farm visit has to do with a cookbook (ehhh, a million-dollar question). And then she is surprised to know that the person running the farm “really lives here?” (living on a farm, an absurd thing, unthinkable). Not to mention the tomatoes, oh yes, she has 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 could have been made by a three-year-old. But then I wonder: how is it possible she’s never seen “beautiful” tomatoes (which are actually normal)? I wonder how awfully ugly the tomatoes she’s used to and has always used in her recipes must be! 😄

4) But in any case, who cares, she doesn’t eat tomatoes anyway! Nope, she doesn’t eat them because she doesn’t like them! But then all of a sudden, after a nanosecond, she likes them, that is, after he makes her taste a slice of tomato seasoned with dill instead of the usual basil, and then also a “revisited caprese”, that is, arranged in a tower (wow, what an invention!).

And I’ve been trying to get my kids to eat tomatoes all my life! Why didn’t I ever know that dill works these miracles?, and a (revisited) caprese too?? 😂

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

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

But then, reflecting on it, I say maybe it’s really so. Maybe it’s true that the average American doesn’t know. After reading some articles from The Obsidian Mirror blog (and especially this article), I’m becoming convinced that food for Americans is truly an unknown topic. One day or another, I’ll have to make a trip to the States to see this truth for myself!

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 now and then he comes out with phrases taken from a book of quotes. Like these:

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

«Great stories are born from experiences and memories, so you must look inside yourself and find your story».

Sensitive and inspired chef, 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 saffron, it completely changes the smokiness of the gouda».

Excuse me?? 😳 What did he say?

I mean… does smoked gouda with saffron exist?

Enlighten me!

I could go on with other quotes or facts that seem improbable. Like 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 checked! 😂). But most importantly: do you communicate the date written on a notebook over the phone, then… et voilà, 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 chuckles I had under my breath while rewatching this adorable film, in the end, I was moved during the finale. Seriously.

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

THE RECIPE I DERIVED FROM THE FILM: Two-Tone Scones with Raspberries and Blueberries

Replicating these two-tone scones was quite an endeavor. I tried them three times, without managing to achieve the pink and blue hues that are prominently displayed in the film’s scones.

Although they are not the film’s main recipe (the main recipe would be the chocolate caponata, which you’ll find here tomorrow 😉), I chose the scones precisely because they are colorful (but perhaps I should have thought it over better! 😃).

I wanted a colorful recipe that would resonate 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 tasty recipe that could be easily replicated by everyone with little effort and with satisfaction in taste.

And at least I achieved that; we liked them! We devoured them all for breakfast!