My dear friend, Ruth, and I are positively girlie giddish about watching the 82nd Academy Awards show on Sunday, March 7 (and every year).  We watch all the movies we can during the 12 months prior (thank you, Netflix), so we are usually very familiar with all of the Best Picture and Best Actor/Actress nominees.

We plan our own festive Academy Awards affair with friends and neighbors (mostly the ladies) so we can relax and ogle all the beautiful outfits, jewelry, hairstyles and make-up of the silver screen’s glitterati. 

Because my husband thinks the Academy Awards are irrelevant, he has never joined us to watch one of the red carpet pre-pre shows, pre-show, show, and post show festivities. But he always hangs around to eat with us. He knows we pattern our gustatory experiences after Master Chef Wolfgang Puck’s annual menu.

Wolfgang’s Academy Awards dinner menu is always divine.  This year I heard he is serving:

Academy Awards Dinner Appetizers
Buffet-style Kobe beef mini-cheeseburgers, assorted pizzas, tempura shrimp, possibly sushi, crab, and oysters with various dipping sauces.

Academy Awards Dinner First Course
Crispy potato galette, smoked salmon, dill cream and baby greens.

Academy Awards Dinner Main Course
Organic chicken pot pie with black truffles and root vegetables.

Academy Awards Dinner Dessert
24-carat gold wrapped chocolate Oscar statuettes (a Wolfie tradition).

Academy Awards Dinner Moët Glamour Cocktail
¼  ounce vanilla liqueur
1-1/2 ounce passion fruit juice
4 oz Moët & Chandon Imperial champagne
Mint sprig, for garnish
While our Academy Awards repast won’t be quite as elaborate at Wolfgang Puck’s Academy Awards dinner, we will have some similar tastes, although many will be derived primarily from the freezer case (ours is an “assigned potluck” after all):

Academy Awards Party Appetizers
Baby Sirloin Burgers with Cheddar Cheese & Remoulade
Vegetable Spring Rolls with Chinese Hot Mustard
Pizza with Smoked Salmon & Caviar

Academy Awards Party Main Courses
Chicken Pot Pie  
Slow Braised Short Ribs

Academy Awards Party Dessert
Molten Lava Chocolate Cake

Not bad. Ruth and I and our friends will have a wonderful time at our Academy Awards party (sans the dress-up glamour; we’re strictly casual with no high heels allowed). I hope you will take a moment to enjoy the frivolity of the moment.  For no matter what my husband thinks, we still do need escapism.

Happy Cookbooking,

Matilda