See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Eat Not Evil (#99)

Our February film this year was "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. In this classic comedy, the duo play a blind man and a deaf man who are the sole witnesses to a murder, as well as the primary suspects. Hilarity ensues as they try to evade police and prove their innocence.

This is a film that I had watched as a child and remembered really enjoying, but I couldn't remember very many details about it. I was a little nervous going into this that the comedy might not have aged well, especially since the comedy is based around disabilities. Having rewatched it now, I can say that none of the comedy around their disabilities felt inappropriate or distasteful. The jokes weren't making fun of them or their disabilities, but rather the awkward and complicated situations they found themselves in. This is not to say that all of the comedy holds up. There are a bit of inappropriate sexual jokes and actions that made us uncomfortable and were unnecessary to the plot and probably would have been best left out. There is also a few topless scenes if you are sensitive to that sort of thing.

While planning for dinner, I did a bit of research and couldn't find any dinner scenes in the film. I did however find a scene where the cops joke about sending the main characters to Riker's Island and tease that they will love the food there. As they say, "They make the greatest kidney fricassee with pineapple jello." I decided that this would be the basis for our meal.

I didn't love the idea of doing a jello for dessert, because I have done stuff like that so many times. Instead, I planned on just doing the kidney fricassee and doing ice cream cones for dessert, because there are a couple scenes where they eat soft serve vanilla ice cream. Later, it occurred to me that the real idea being presented here is that they would be eating a fancy meal. There was a time when jello was considered pretty elegant and jello salad was frequently served as a side dish and not a dessert. So that became my new plan, to make kidney fricassee with a side of jello salad.

Blind Pictionary Game

Before dinner, I wanted to have a fun game or activity tied to the film. I could have gone with a lip reading game like I have seen on Jimmy Fallon where one person wears headphones that are blasting loud music and they have to try to read their teammates lips. but I really wanted to create a partner game where one person could play the blind person and one the deaf. Blindness is easy to do with blindfolds. Deafness is harder to recreate, but could be added by not allowing the blind person to speak. Games like this, would inherently be trust based games. There are lots of ways that I could have gone with this.

At first, I had thought about doing a blind dart board game where I would buy a sticky dart board made for suction darts or a dart gun that shoots suction darts. Had I gone with that game, someone would have worn a blind fold and been spun around a few times to disorient themselves. Then, the deaf partner would give them instructions like "Left" "Right" "Higher" and such to direct the blind person on which way they should throw or shoot their dart. Had I gone that route, it would have fit the movie very well as there actually is a scene with the blind man playing darts.

In the end, I decided to do a blind pictionary style game. Players played in teams. The "blind" player draws a word from a stack of paper. Each paper has the name of a simple object that everyone would be familiar with but that wouldn't necessarily be easy to draw, especially if blindfolded. I used words like bicycle, bunny, and chandelier. I wanted objects that wouldn't be too hard to draw normally but use different shapes, so that it can be tricky to draw blind-folded.

The "blind" player then puts on a blindfold and has to draw their object. To add the "deaf" element to the game, the drawer is not allowed to speak. This prevents them from answering any questions or giving any hints to their partner. The drawer continues to draw until their partner correctly guesses what they are drawing or the team gives up. The goal is to be the first team to win the round. Then the players swap roles.

My guests seemed to have a lot of fun playing the game. Some were far better than others, but most everyone did a good job. If I was to redo this, I would probably change the game up. There are lot of examples in the movie where the deaf character guides the blind one. That dynamic would have been really fun. If I hadn't done the dart game, I could have done something like "Blind Mario Kart" where the "blind" players have to race in Mario Kart while the deaf players guide them. Their is a scene like this in the film, so it would be a great correlation. If you wanted to be more accurate, you could have the "deaf" player control the gas and breaks while the "blind" player steers. This is what the characters in the movie did during their chase scene.

Faux Kidney Fricassee

I've never cooked kidney before, so I did a lot of research before attempting this dish. The main thing that I learned is that kidneys filter out toxins and as a result can be vile if not properly cleaned. Also, the diet of the animal can greatly affect the taste of the kidney. A good quality kidney, prepared correctly would be tender and delicious. I acquired some kidneys online from a farmer and did my best to prepare them properly, but after I began pan frying them, they started to smell pretty foul. Based on the research I had done, that told me that there were still impurities. I ended up tossing the batch and there wasn't time to try again, so I made a change to the recipe and replaced the kidney with mushroom.

Ingredients:

olive oil

16 oz sliced mushrooms

8 oz diced onion or shallots

1 tsp or more of garlic powder

750 mL sauvignon blanc or a similar white wine

8 tbsp or less of dijon mustard

2 cups heavy cream

cornstarch (optional)

salt & pepper

Buttered noodles ingredients:

    bowtie pasta

    butter

    salt

    parsley

Directions:

1. Using a deep frying pan or saute pan, pan fry mushrooms in olive oil with the onion and garlic. You could use minced garlic instead of garlic powder. You could also substitute the onions with onion powder. If I was to cook this again, I would probably do that, but I didn't love the crunch of the onions in this dish.
2. Once you have a good color to your mushrooms and your onions look transparent, add the wine and let it reduce by half. This would be a good time to start heating some water for your pasta.
3. Once wine has reduced, add cream, dijon mustard, and let simmer while the sauce thickens. Taste and season appropriately. I had trouble getting my sauce to thicken, so I ended up having to add some cornstarch. Taste and season appropriately. I found the dijon flavor to be overpowering. I ended up adding salt and white pepper to season. White pepper's flavor is very different than black pepper and I thought it would take some of the punch out of the dijon. If I cook this again, I would probably half as much dijon and twice as much garlic.
4. While you are waiting for the sauce to thicken, you should finish your pasta. I used bowtie pasta and cooked an entire box. I chose bowtie pasta because it's shape holds sauces well and also it is one of the fancier looking pastas, so it seemed fitting for this fancy dish. After the pasta was cooked and drained, I stirred in butter, kosher salt, and fresh parsley.
5. Serve mushroom sauce over noodles with bread or a roll to soak up the excess sauce. Pairs well with a pinot noir or similar red wine.

Pineapple & Orange Jello Salad

I took a lot of creative liberties with this dish, but I think it paid off. The film only mentioned pineapple jello. My first spin on that was deciding to make this as jello salad and not a jello mold. I also knew that jello salad used to be a common side dish, so that became my goal here as well. I didn't want my dish to be overly sweet and dessert like if I could get away with just making it a side. Lastly, I decided that pineapple by itself would be a pretty plain flavor, so I decided to make this jello with both pineapple and madarin oranges.

Ingredients:

20 oz canned crushed pineapples in pineapple juice

15 oz canned mandarin oranges in light syrup

2 cups water

3 oz pineapple jello mix

3 oz orange jello mix

3 cups mini marshmallows

Directions:

1. Drain oranges and put them in a large heat resistant bowl. Add the pineapple too. The pineapple doesn't need to be drained since it is in its own juices.
2. Boil water in a pot.
3. Once water has a strong boil, remove from heat and add both jello packs. Stir until the powder is completely dissolved.
4. Pour hot jello liquid over fruit and stir until well mixed.
5. Let the jello cool a bit at room temperature. Once it has cooled, stir in the marshmallows. They will float to the top, but stirring helps them soften and absorb some of the liquid.
6. Refrigerate until it is time to serve. Could take 4 hours or more to solidify. Before serving, stir the now solid jello so that the fruit and marshmallows are mixed throughout. The dish should be served as a fruit side.

Overall, this dish wasn't perfect, but it did fit the film well. When we got to the part of the film where they made reference to the kidney fricassee and pineapple jello, there was wave of recognition from the group. If I was to redo the fricassee, I would use less dijon and more garlic. The fruit jello I felt was perfect the way that it was. If you wanted something creamier, like you would find with a potato salad or macaroni salad, you can mix it with cool whip.

Vanilla Ice Cream Cones

The only dessert featured in this film is ice cream cones. There are actually two ice cream scenes. In both, they are eating vanilla soft serve ice cream on sugar cones. I decided to make my own vanilla ice cream and I chose waffle cones over sugar due to their strength and flavor.

Ingredients:

1 (14oz) can of condensed milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

dash of salt

2 cups heavy whipping cream

Directions:

1. Put a metal mixing bowl in the freezer about an hour before you plan to make your ice cream.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together condensed milk, vanilla, and salt until thoroughly combined. If you do not have condensed milk, you can substitute by dissolving 3/4 cup of sugar in 1 cup of whole milk that has been warmed on the stove.
3. Using the chilled bowl and an electric mixer with whisk attachment, whisk the heavy cream on high until it forms stiff peaks. The goal is to make a whipped cream. Do not over whisk or you risk forming a butter instead of a whipped cream. Chilling the bowl helps prevent this from happening too easily.
4. With a spatula, fold the vanilla milk combination into your cream until well mixed.
5. Pour mixture into a freezable container, cover, and freeze.

We ate the ice cream with waffle cones, chocolate syrup, and sprinkles. A guest decided to put the chocolate syrup inside the cone before the ice cream and I have to say that it was a brilliant idea. It was very tasty while being less messy.

Overall, I think movie night was a success. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. The movie was very funny. The food fit the theme, even with the mushroom/kidney substitution. The jello was a tasty snack and not overly sweet. The ice cream was actually the biggest hit, despite it being one of the simplest things that I made. If I was to redo this, I would change my game and how I season the fricassee, but otherwise, I wouldn't change a thing.