… make a cinema-meal for a slightly more authentic film night?
#3
Friday film night plan
You know that thing where you’re told you can’t have something and then that thing becomes the thing you most want even if that thing is something you have never had before?
For me now, that thing is hot dogs as part of my cinema-going nostalgia.
I have never had hot dogs at a cinema.
My first cinema-association thoughts were, surprisingly, not popcorn but a hot dog meal with the hot dog served in a paper boat and sides of chips and mushy peas. I’m not sure that the mushy peas are a cinema hot dog “thing” but I’m going to stick with those initial thoughts.
YouTube provided me with an incredibly easy origami boat instructional video, though I feel mildly disappointed I don’t have cheery red and white striped paper boats. The only sturdy paper I had at home was black.
It has taken me three supermarket visits over two weeks to secure a pack of fresh (I say “fresh” in the loosest sense) hot dog sausages. I made the mistake of reading the ingredients on tins and jars of hot dog sausages when contemplating a plan B for the refrigerated “sausages” and I couldn’t quite bring myself to buy them. I haven’t dared look at the refrigerated, vacuum-packed hot dog sausage ingredients though. There are some things, in this case my vision of perfect hot dogs not being proper sausages, that can be unnecessarily ruined by close scrutiny of ingredients.
My goal for our Friday film night is a DVD that we are both interested in watching (this could take a while to agree), a hot dog with loads of fried onions, ketchup and bright yellow American mustard decoratively swirled across the sausages and proper soft, white hot dog buns, all served in a paper boat, with sides of mushy peas (I bought a can of mushy peas, which to my surprise consist only of marrow fat peas, mushed and ready to heat and eat) and a big portion of chips, from the freezer for extra fast food authenticity.
The Friday film night
This was a very good idea, the extra effort to not just cook an ordinary meal, making the whole dinner and film into a bit of an event. Well, as close as I think we could get while in lockdown at home.
I upped the stakes and made newspaper cones for the chips. I think chips from now on should always be served in ludicrously easy-to-make paper cones. I watched a YouTube video but didn’t have pretty paper (three sheets of newspaper instead), a shaped edger or glue (two staples instead), but I still think my cones were fabulous.
As for the meal, easy peasy. I cut open a bag of frozen chips, spread them out on a baking tray, put them in the oven, waited a bit and, erm, well – chips. Put them in a bowl, added salt and vinegar, poured them into my beautiful paper cone. Voila again.
Similar process with the hot dogs. Cut open a bag, put them into hot water, waited four minutes. Hot dog buns, cut open a bag … mushy peas, pulled open a can …
Yeah, you get the picture. The onions, however, were a little more fancy as I sauteed four medium-sized onions in vegetable oil on low heat for an hour, then drained them through kitchen towel. If you’re going to make a hot dog, at least get the onions exactly how you like them.
Tinned mushy peas, incidentally, a revelation. They were great.
I enjoyed presenting our cinema meal, complete with ginger beer in a plastic cup with a (metal) straw. The hot dog was exceptionally good and, actually, it was an all-round enjoyable and memorable film night with minimal washing-up (a huge plus for Chris, my partner and head washer-upper). I like to think we will have more film nights like this.
As for the film, it didn’t take as long as expected to choose something we both wanted to see. We watched My Life as a Dog (directed by, chortle, Lasse Hallström). It is not a cheery film but it is not as dark or depressing as the subject matter suggests it could be and is overall an excellent film set in 1959 Sweden about puberty and childhood loss of a parent.