Heathers (#98)
This year got started with Heathers, a favorite film of mine from 1989. This dark comedy takes a look at high school drama, violence, and the hypocritical aspects of popularity.
I had a few possible options for the meal. Pate is mentioned a few times in the film when they are at Veronica's house. I thought about making some, but ultimately didn't. Another dish that is mentioned a couple times is Veronica's favorite meal: spaghetti with lots of oregano. Also, there are a couple references to slushies and corn nuts. I decided to go with spaghetti for dinner and do slushies and corn nuts for our half-time snack.
I wanted to incorporate the scene where the first Heather drinks drain cleaner, but I struggled for awhile to figure out how. At first, I had thought about making a blue cocktail. I had also considered making a dessert based on it. In the end, I decided to build an activity around it instead.
Before dinner, I had guests pair up. I told them to pair with someone they trust. Then each member of that pair would get a coffee mug and would mix a drink for their partner. I had out a selection of different fruit juices, liquors, and also some weird things like strawberry syrup, soy sauce, hot sauce, and pickle juice. It was up to that person what they decided to make for their partner, whether good or bad. After the drink was made, the other partner made a drink. Neither knew what the other had made until both were done and they traded mugs.
This game of trust ended up being pretty successful. The combinations that people came up with were creative and most everyone enjoyed the drinks that they were given, even the weird ones.
Spaghetti, Lots of Oregano
For dinner, I made a pretty standard spaghetti with marinara sauce. I used all the typical spices that you would use in a spaghetti sauce except that I added a lot more oregano than anyone normally would. Because oregano has a strong flavor, I had to be careful to not make it overpowering. One trick that I used when the dish started to feel a little heavy was to freshen it up with lemon juice. This is a trick I use sometimes and it worked here as well.
I had considered doing a spaghetti sans tomato sauce as oregano would probably pair well with a butter sauce, olive oil sauce, pesto or even a white cheese sauce. The reason I decided to go with a standard marinara sauce is because with the violent nature of this film, I felt a bloody marinara would better capture that mood. What I didn't realize is that the spaghetti is actually shown during Veronica's dream sequence and it is shown sauceless. If I had spotted that sooner, I would have tried to make my spaghetti match it in appearance.
Homemade Slushies
For our designated snack time, I decided to base it on the convenience store stop that happened early on in the film. Slushies were pretty easy to make. I used a blender powerful enough to crush ice and made the slushies by blending 7up, ice, and liquid Cherry KoolAid flavoring. The corn nuts were a lot more work.
BBQ Corn Nuts
So, full disclosure, I had never eaten corn nuts. To make these, I closely followed a recipe I found here. The biggest difference is that I used a different kind of corn. I couldn't find dried hominy so I used dried cuzco instead. It is a similar white corn, but has larger kernels. I can't be certain if these came out correct or not, since I have never eaten them before, but they did seem to match the description.
The first step to making corn nuts is to soak your dried corn. Some recipes I saw said to do this for one hour or one day, but a couple that I found said to do it for three days, and that's what I decided to do. I'm glad that I did, because it wasn't until two days in that I even started to notice a difference. By the third day, the kernels were nice and plump. One thing that I would do differently if I was to try this again is that I would add baking soda to the water. I read somewhere that it makes the kernels softer. Unfortunately, I read this after I had finished the soaking process.
After soaking and before frying, I had to dry the corn. I put the kernels on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels and let them air dry for an hour. Meanwhile, I heated some peanut oil to 350°F. When I was ready to start frying, I did so carefully. The corn reacts violently when put in the oil, and can even pop like popcorn, so caution needs to be taken when frying. I only fried about a cup of corn at a time, lowered them into the oil in a metal strainer, covered with a lid so that it wouldn't splash back at me. I fried each batch for 9 minutes and then moved it to different baking sheet with paper towels to soak up the residual oil.
I seasoned the kernels as they cooled. Because in the movie Heather had BBQ corn nuts, I decided to season mine the same. I looked up what spices are used in BBQ seasoning and noticed that it was many of the same spices I use in a spice blend that I use with chicken. The recipe to that spice blend can be found here. After seasoning with that spice blend, I felt the BBQ flavor wasn't coming through enough. I added cumin, salt, and extra smoked paprika until the BBQ flavor was evident.
In the end, the corn nuts tasted good, but it was difficult to tell if I had done it correctly or not. They were a bit inconsistent. Some kernels came out really hard and crunchy, while others were softer. I feel like if I had used the baking soda trick, they would have been tastier. It's also possible that some were overcooked. Keeping the oil temperature at 350 was hard, so some of them cooked closer to 360 and that might have been too much.
Overall, the evening was a success, but it could have been better.
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