Meal and a Movie: Love Actually

Photo credit: http://www.imdb.com/

My final two holiday meal and a movie features this year are comedy-love-dramas out of England and star Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. Both Bridget Jones's Diary and Love Actually tell stories we relate to about flawed humans who occasionally figure things out. Hopeful messages are vital to decent holiday movies. (There are other similarities: both movies references Titanic, a flick I've never seen, and both suggest that thin women should have large-thigh-paranoia but that is an issue for another posting.)

Love Actually opens to a montage of airport reunions. And I immediately start bawling. I pretty much bawl through the entire movie. I bawl as the varied couples part and reunite. I bawl over the friendships and misunderstandings. The only non-tissue moments take place in Wisconsin (as a hapless and unattractive Brit realizes that anyone with a cute British accent can get lucky in America) and on the dodgy end of London (complete with refrains of Old King Wenceslaus and a nativity scene with lobsters). No matter, I cry during those scenes as well. Love Actually is my annual emotion cleanse, which is why we watch it every New Year's Eve.

Love is sometimes messy, awkward, occasionally ugly. On the ugly end we might simply endure it, or give it to someone who cannot accept it. On the beautiful end, we embrace it and learn Portuguese or the drums or date Claudia Schiffer.

New Year's Eve is also the night T and I celebrate our wedding anniversary. This year equals ten and we'll cuddle up to a celebratory dinner of First Lobster canapes (crisp phyllo dough crackers topped with butter-cream cheese-lemon zest, lobster meat, and caviar), Dodgy Dogs (chicken and apple wieners battered in tempura and deep-fried), tenderloin with Wisconsin beer reduction, and the Prime Minister's favorite chocolate biscuits. Happy New Year to all!

Chocolate Biscuits
Makes 4 dozen1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
11 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pearl sugar and Pop Rocks

Sift together flour, cocoa, and baking powder.

Use paddle attachment on standup mixer to beat butter, oil, and sugar until light and fluffy; add egg, vanilla, and salt and continue beating until smooth. Hand beat sifted flour into mixture until well incorporated. Chill 30 minutes.

Roll teaspoon-sized balls and place on greased baking sheet; flatten with bottom of glass and top each cookie with a bit of pearl sugar and pop rocks. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven 5 to 7 minutes. Cool on rack.

Recipe based on Anne's Chocolate Biscuits recipe from Cindy Pawleyn's Big Small Bites.