As someone who takes film very seriously and whose netflix recomended lists are limited to the categories “Violent Foreign Dramas”, “Critically-acclaimed Dark Sci-Fi & Fantasy” and “Military and War Action,” (seriously) I am hesitant to admit on the internet that I actually went and saw EAT PRAY LOVE..and liked it. There, I said it, I liked it. It was sappy at times (insert other generic chick flick criticism) but it did pretty good job with the whole looking for love and trying to find yourself (obviously if your a male reading this, you have already barfed on yourself). Anyways, low expectations can often produce surprising results.

My mother was absolutely thrilled when I told her that I liked it, since she often criticizes me for “being de-sensitized by all those war movies.” Julia Roberts does some praying and a lot of loving, but honestly I was disappointed with the amount of eating. She’s in Rome for a good solid thirty minutes of the movie and seems to be enjoying the food very much with her new chic and cute Italian friends. There’s some good close-ups of fried artichokes, a five minute lecture to her weight-conscious friend about the necessity of eating pizza and a girl-on-pasta vignette that seriously made me want spaghetti bolognaise. Which brings me to the recipe portion of the evening. It’s rainy and gross here in Brooklyn, so I just wanted a warm, comforting meal at home. i.e. no extra trips to the store and use what I’ve got.

Thank god, an organic canned plum tomato impulse buy occurred last week and there was some fresh basil lying around. So, I basically just threw some garlic and olive oil in a pan, added the tomatoes, simmered for a while and voila…Sunday dinner. A seriously delicious sauce, which is what generally happens when you mix garlic, tomatoes and basic so I can’t really take that much credit for this one.

Tomato and Basil Pasta Sauce

Serves 1

You will need:

4 cloves garlic, chopped

10 leaves fresh basil

4 tbs olive oil

flaky sea salt (Maldon makes the world go round)

6 canned whole plum tomatoes

Method:

Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan and add the chopped garlic, saute for a few minutes until it softens. Add all the other ingredients and cover. Simmer for about 15 minutes and serve over pasta.

I also got a fantastic bottle of wine you should know about. Somehow I got it into my head (as I have many times before)  that I was just gonna bite the bullet and get a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape (usually around 35 bucks). Well, I chickened out and realized that there will be plenty of times in my life for Châteauneuf-du-Pape but this is not one of those times. However on the shelf below the chat-pape was a lovely-looking bottle of Cotes du Rhone for a lot less. It’s dry as hell (which is what I like) and has a really nice berry flavor without being too sweet.