East-side Sushi: Challenging Traditions

I love a good foody movie. Yummy!  But this festival favorite transcends the usual foody fare with its timely themes.

“East-side Sushi” shows a Mexican-American family making their own way in Oakland, California.  They don’t get any handouts (despite what the corporate media would have us believe).  The little family works hard at two jobs just to eke out a living.  Working long hours is killing the old man, but he has no choice. The company keeps lowering his pay and increasing his hours.  At 4 a.m. every morning, Juana drags her sleeping daughter (Kaya Jade Aguirra)  along as she and her father do food prep for their fruit cart.  Juana’s (Diana Elizabeth Torres) integrity is apparent as she selects the best fruit. She offers a quality product, rather than skimping by using bottled lemon juice just to make a little more profit.

What I especially love about this film is how writer/director Anthony Lucero uses Juana’s actions to drive the story.  When Juana happens on to a sushi restaurant looking for help, she impulsively applies. She has grown bored of working prep for Mexican restaurants and making the same old tacos. She is ready for a new challenge.  She is hired because she can carry a fifty pound bag of rice, but she soon proves herself with her expert knife skills.  She has never even had sushi, but she quickly adapts to the new culture.

At home, her father (Rodrigo Duarte Clark) keeps insisting that she get a normal job working at a Mexican restaurant and do what’s best for her daughter.  She reminds him that she always does what is best for the family.  She goes on, “Sometimes I think you are happy with working and never succeeding.”  Her father has been taught to stay in his place.

It is her own skill, moxie, determination, la fuerza, and talent that allow her to rise above her "place" in the restaurant world. She studies independently - learning the Japanese names of the various kinds of sushi and following sushi making tutorials online.  It is only when she can’t figure out how to make the sushi rice stick, that she asks a sympathetic sushi chef for advice.   She experiments on her unsuspecting family (who are mystified by this strange foreign food – raw fish!), making innovations that her family will enjoy.

She finally finds the strength to stand up to the discrimination at the restaurant and demand the promotion she deserves – to be hired as a sushi chef.  “I’m trying to have an opportunity like everyone else. I deserve an opportunity like everyone else. You know, behind every great restaurant there are great Latinos in the back, in the kitchen, hidden, preparing the food, making you look good.  Well, I don’t want to be in the back anymore."

She calls them on their excuse that “it is tradition” that only Japanese are sushi chefs - when two of the chefs are Chinese and Korean.  She calls them on their sexist traditions. “Sure you say women can’t be sushi chefs because their hands are too warm - that their perfume affects the taste of the food” - while one of the male chefs smells like an ash tray.

When Juana challenges racist and sexist traditions by pursuing her dream and standing up for herself, she is an inspiration to everyone around her: the Japanese hostess, the Latino prep cook, her wide-eyed daughter, her traditional father, and eventually even her boss. The result is a delicious blending of two culinary cultures at, "East-side Sushi."

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal 

www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

"The Hundred-Foot Journey" to Foody Paradise

From a young age, Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) was schooled in the art of savoring traditional Indian cooking by his mother. She taught him that food has a soul that holds cherished memories. When his family loses their restaurant and his beloved teacher in a political riot, the Kadams flee India for France. Papa Kadam (Om Puri) sees it as a sign when their brakes give out outside of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val. A kind stranger, Marguerite, (Charlotte Le Bon) tows them to the village and shares the bounties of her garden with the hungry migrants. They can taste the soul in the local produce. Ignoring the protests of his frustrated children, Papa Kadam immediately sets up an Indian restaurant featuring his talented son as head cook.

“The Hundred-Foot Journey” across the street leads to Madame Mallory’s (Helen Mirren) acclaimed French restaurant (where Marguerite also works as a sous-chef). Their rivalry escalates to all-out war. Despite being on opposite sides of the warring factions, Hassan and Marguerite can’t deny their common passion for food. They put great care into their cooking. Food is more than nourishment, it is love: comforting, healing, and sensual. Sharing it bonds families and communities. It can even bridge cultures. But they get so caught up in the competition for fame and success, that they lose track of love.

This film is a foody’s feel good paradise. But it has more to say. It touches on our fear of outsiders and celebrates what immigrants bring to their host country. It shows how people from different cultures can find common ground.

curry omelette

In an interview about the film, executive producer Oprah Winfrey expanded, "Food blends cultures and allows us to have just a little peek into someone else's life... It is about a hundred foot divide between cultures." Winfrey chose the book on which the film is based as a "favorite summer read" in 2010. She said, "It’s about human beings coming to understand other human beings and more importantly, after you get to experience or step into somebody else’s shoes or see them for a real human being, how you understand that you’re really more alike than you are different.”

Partaking of this sweet confection, we get a chance to savor the pleasures we all enjoy: lush vibrant landscapes, delectable cuisine, funny family quirks, and the thrill of a first kiss. The very act of sharing cultural traditions removes the barriers that separate us.

Movie blessings!
Jana Segal
reelinspiration.blogspot.com

On the Wrong End of the FOOD CHAIN

I have attended the Arizona International Film Festival for ten years now. I've seen it grow into a world class festival by screening excellent independent films from Tucson and around the world. After watching several fascinating films in 2014, my ever-inquisitive fiancée, Dan Stormont, insisted that we get passes again this year. Thursday we attended the opening night screening of the enthusiastically received local documentary, "Many Bones, One Heart" (by Leslie Ann Epperson) about Tucson's All Souls Procession. Leslie really does Tucson proud! We have already gotten our money's worth in the first weekend of this two week fest.

Dan and I attend numerous films and lectures on the importance of creating a sustainable food system as research for Dan's blog on THE PINEAPPLE PROJECT (a humanitarian project to get agricultural information, such as what grows best in their area, to subsistence farmers so they can be more successful.) So we were glad to see the documentary Food Chains on the festival program.

We were deeply moved by this powerful documentary on how our farm workers are treated in this country. We were shocked to see how little things have changed since 1960 when CBS aired Edward R Murrow's documentary, Harvest of Shame. In this country that Murrow calls "the best fed country in the world," the people who harvest our food are working a brutal 13 hour day, and still aren't making enough to adequately feed and house their families.

This movie shows the courageous efforts of a group of farm workers who are rallying support for "Fair Food." This organization is standing up to grocery store chains demanding that they pay enough to provide workers a living wage and refuse to buy produce from farmers who abuse their workers. What struck me was how easy it would be to correct this problem. If we pay just one cent (one cent!) more per pound for fruits and vegetables, it would double the pay of farm workers from $10,000 to a living wage of $20,000 a year. We just need to create more awareness of the problem. Food Chains does an admirable job explaining one of the most important humanitarian issues of our time. Watch this film to see how you can help. This is doable, folks!  This is one problem we can solve. 

We want to thank the Arizona International Film Festival for creating more awareness. 

Please, help us get the word out by sharing this with your friends! 

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal 

Dan was inspired to write about it on his blog too! 

"We used to own our slaves. Now we just rent them."

by Dan Stormont

www.thepineappleproject.org

On the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, CBS News aired a documentary by Edward R Murrow entitled Harvest of Shame.

It documented the plight of a crew of migrant farm workers in the United States as they worked their way up the east coast from Florida to New Jersey. It showed in painful detail the long hours, hard working conditions, desolate housing, lack of education, and meager incomes earned by the farm workers brought in to harvest the crops. They often went hungry while harvesting the food that graced American families' Thanksgiving tables.

The documentary also addressed some of the causes of the farm workers' situation, like farmers who were being squeezed themselves by the large food producers and distributors who were controlling the price of crops. Farm workers had difficulty organizing to demand better working conditions. The law was rarely on the side of the farm workers. As Murrow noted, "The people you have seen have the strength to harvest your fruit and vegetables. They do not have the strength to influence legislation. Maybe we do."

Nearly 55 years later, things must be better right? In some ways they have improved slightly and there have been some gains (often followed by comparable losses). However, as the recent documentary Food Chains demonstrates, many farm workers are toiling in the fields for long hours while still not earning enough to own a home, save for the future, and care for their children. Far too many are still going hungry while picking the produce we eat. The big food producers, wholesalers, and retailers are still controlling the markets and exploiting farmers and farm workers alike.

Nothing is more important than a sustainable food chain. We all rely on it. But, right now, the food we buy at the supermarket is being harvested by people who are earning below poverty wages. Surely, we can afford one cent more per pound of produce to improve the lives of the people who harvest our food? That's how much it would cost to double the wages of farm workers..one cent a pound.

Seek Food Chains out. Watch it. Think about what it is saying and about the human stories being told. Then, take action! Don't buy food at stores that refuse to pay enough for farm workers to make a living. Demand action from your representatives. This isn't politics...it's just humanity. And it is ensuring a viable, sustainable food chain for all of us!

Savoring "The Lunchbox"

“The Lunchbox” is a breakthrough film for India because it steers clear of the usual showstopper musical numbers and emoting melodrama popular in Bollywood productions. Instead, it delivers a taste of bitter-sweet “slice of life,” spiced with pinches of humor. Multiple layers are delivered in the tiffin lunchbox.

Director/Writer Ritesh Batra started off doing research for a documentary on the Babbawala, the 125 year-old tradition of delivering tiffin lunches from homes and restaurants to the work place. The lunchboxes represent the countless generic Mumbia workers who cram onto trains to commute to their jobs every day. In fact, the lunchboxes make the same commute. Famous for its efficiency, it is said that only one in a million lunchboxes is ever lost. That story is told in, “The Lunchbox.”

Ila (Nimrat Kaur), a lonely housewife, takes her auntie’s advice and recipe (shouted down from the apartment above) to win her husband’s love by sending a very special meal in his lunchbox. When it comes back empty, Ila anxiously awaits his return. When he says that it was OK, that the cauliflower was very good; she realizes that someone else has eaten the meal and sends a note thanking the stranger for the compliment of “licking it clean.” She also sends along her husband’s favorite dish. The lunchbox is delivered to Saajan (Irrfan Khan), a grouchy widower, who only wants to be left alone until his imminent retirement. He uses the excuse of going to lunch to avoid teaching his eager protégé (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). The lunchbox is returned empty with a note saying only that there was too much salt. Auntie (the voice of Bharatic Achekar) isn’t having any of his rudeness, and sends down a basket full of hot chilis to include in the next day’s lunch.

Auntie’s little lesson succeeds in teaching him empathy for others. To relieve his burning mouth, Saajan buys a banana from a street vendor and notices that other employees can only afford a banana for lunch. When he sees that his pesky protégé only has a banana and apple for lunch, he ends up sharing his precious lunch with him.

Is it a miracle or just an error that the lunchbox was delivered to the wrong address? It is certainly a miracle that these two lonely people, lost in the modern world, connect over a good meal and details of their lives scribbled on scraps of paper. The director sets up hints of a miracle with magic realistic flourishes - like the fly that connects their two worlds. In the scene transition, the director cuts from Saajan swatting the pesky fly in the marketplace to Ila swatting one at home.

This same device is used with ceiling fans. Ila tells how Auntie’s husband had been in a coma for 15 years. One day he woke up and started staring at the oriental ceiling fan. Ever since he has stared at that fan all day, every day. He wakes up in the morning and stares at the fan. One day the power goes off causing the fan to stop and uncle’s heart slowed down. Auntie believes it is the fan that keeps him alive, so she has a generator installed that day. As Saajan reads about it, the power goes off at work and all the ceiling fans stop. It is a shared metaphor for being trapped in a meaningless existence. “Uncle Deshpande stares at his fan. My husband stares at his phone as if nothing else exists. Maybe nothing else does.” Saajan writes back that things have changed since her uncle was a worker. “Everyone works so they can have what everyone else does. If Mr. Deshpande woke up and went to work these days, he would go back to his ceiling fan.” 

The rush-hour commute represents how people are too busy working to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Their motivation flashes by on billboards – like the billboard that honors those who excel at the university. But if you pause to look closer, you will see that the honorees don’t look happy. Everyday, the lunchboxes commute like the workers. This lunchtime ritual is the highlight of their day when workers get a taste of home or at least of the old ways. The miraculous appearance of that special lunch nudges Saajan out of his solitude. His protégé’s expression of pleasure for the wonderful lunches teaches Saajan to appreciate them too. During the crowded train commute, the protégé finds a way to enjoy more time with his girlfriend by cutting the vegetables for their dinner.

When things become unbearable with her distant husband, Ila writes Saajan about moving to a place her daughter heard of in school. She shares her fantasy with Saajan. “In Bhutan everyone is happy. They don’t have Gross Domestic Product, only Gross National Happiness.” Saajan tells his protégé that he is thinking of going to Bhutan, rather than the retirement town of Nasik. His protégé responds that he has only been to Saudi Arabia, but, “Sometimes the wrong train will get you to the right station.”

This time the wrong train delivered “The Lunchbox” to the right station. And it was delicious. 

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal 

www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

"Chef" and "St. Vincent" Serving Up Saintly Fare

So many films, so little time. While I was compiling my list of the most inspiring films of 2014, I discovered that I had neglected to review any comedies. (Really, can you blame me with redundant studio offerings such as, “Dumb and Dumber to” and “Horrible Bosses 2?”) Where were the all the humorous independent films? Skimming through the movies of 2014, I uncovered two charming indie comedies that were barely blips on my radar: Jon Favreau’s, “Chef,” and Theodore Melfi’s, “St. Vincent."

I had mixed feelings about seeing, “St. Vincent,” because the movie poster made it seem sorta cheesy and cheap. Perhaps the marketing team thought pictures of the stars would sell it. Perhaps they didn't want to give too much away. To tell the truth, I have been struggling with the same problem. How do you promote a simple story without giving away all the comic surprises? The trailer shows Bill Murray as a hedonistic, anti-social grouch who his tired, stressed-out neighbor (Melissa McCarthy) hires to babysit her son (Jaeden Lieberher). As we watch Vincent’s inappropriate, selfish behavior we can’t help wondering how he ever earned the title, “St. Vincent.” The movie doesn't make excuses for Vincent’s bad behavior. (Though he has heard, “It is what it is,” in response to his misfortunes one too many times.) But through the boy’s eyes we discover the good in him as well. (It's not hard to like one of Bill Murray's richest performances. I think he should have been nominated for an Oscar for this one.)  Somehow this old curmudgeon brings out the good (however begrudging) in others. Perhaps his calling as a saint is to bring out the humanity in others.

I had a similar problem with, “Chef” - how to serve what is fresh about the chef’s creation without making it seem like serving leftovers? How about a small sample to whet your appetite? Somehow in his quest for success, Chef Casper (Jon Favreau) has lost his passion for food and life. The restaurant owner forces him to cook his safe, signature dishes for a famous food critic. When the critic pans the uninspired meal, the chef completely loses it. The confrontation goes viral on YouTube. He sets off to rediscover his passion and creativity by opening a food truck. The leisurely cross-country trip gives him a chance to finally be a father to his son (Emjay Anthony).

It's easy to chuckle at the bumbling antics of these flawed men, but what really chokes you up is how much father (or father figure) and son really need each other.

Movie blessings!
Jana Segal
reelinspiration.blogspot.com