My life as a movie: ‘Eat Drink Man Woman’
- My life as a movie -
By Pennie Azarcon-dela Cruz, Executive Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine
REMEMBER that old saw about making sure you’re not hungry when you go shopping? Well, my corollary to that is, never never watch “Eat Drink Man Woman” when you haven’t had a meal.
The first time I caught this Ang Lee movie on late TV was way past dinner, so that by the end of the opening scene where this longtime widower is shown filleting fish, blanching vegetables, chopping squid, delicately twisting siomao wrappers and deep frying the Peking duck that he had just blown up like a balloon, I felt like licking the TV screen, drooling desperately for some Chinese food.
How can you resist such a tempting premise? You know that the deft slicing, chopping and kneading of meat, vegetables and dough are a prelude to something even better. Like the isolated notes on a music sheet, you just know there’s a symphony waiting to float out into the air once those notes are strung together on an instrument. The promise of several sumptuous dishes are evident behind all that steam and sizzle and in the furrowed brow concentration that the aging Chinese chef invests on his kitchen labor.
