The Talented Mr. Ripley: Hell’s Belles – Mezcal Negroni Cocktail Recipe 🥁🥁🥁🥁1/2

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The Talented Mr. Ripley: Hell’s Belles – Mezcal Negroni Cocktail Recipe 🥁🥁🥁🥁1/2

This 1999 flick still packs a wallop. Matt Damon as we seldom see him, a nerdy misfit, “the inverse of The Great Gatsby, a social outsider who beats the wealthy at their own game.” Stir in a fabulous, radiant Jennifer Paltrow and a stunningly handsome Jude Law, who seems born to play the part of an indolent playboy, and we have a luscious and lethal cocktail, a would be menage a trois that sours before it is even poured.

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Letters to Juliet: Tuscan Bruschetta Recipe 🥁🥁🥁🥁

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In 2010 I found an undiscovered gem. The plot is a gentle drive down rambling country roads, not the roller coaster ride with stomach dropping thrills or tortuous twists we’ve come to expect too often. Its destination is not unexpected, but just as sweet nonetheless, and it recalls something from another era, a sense of grace.

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Three Coins in the Fountain: Roman Pasta (Cacio e Pepe) Recipe 🥁🥁🥁🥁

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Three Coins in the Fountain: Roman Pasta (Cacio e Pepe) Recipe 🥁🥁🥁🥁

Forget the dark adventures that dance across our current screens and return to a place of light, air, and happiness.  Beautiful Italy, three tug-at-your-heart romances, and a classic Oscar winning song sung by none other than an uncredited Frank Sinatra.  You could not hope for breezier way to usher in soon to be summer.

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Lost in Space: Oreo Icebox Cake 🥁 🥁 🥁 1/2

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Lost in Space: Oreo Icebox Cake 🥁 🥁 🥁 1/2

Sure, it’s cheesy, a cinematic stew of Han Solo, Indiana Jones, look alike monsters from Jurassic World, bits of Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, sprinkles of Doogie Howser, M.D., and even MacGyver. But it also affirms Faith, Family, Forgiveness and Redemption without ever explicitly mentioning religion per se.  This is Netflix, after all. 

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The Guns of Navarone: Greek Moussaka Recipe 🥁🥁🥁🥁1/2

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The Guns of Navarone: Greek Moussaka Recipe 🥁🥁🥁🥁1/2

This critical and box office success has as much action as the Bond or the Furious franchises, and it was all done 6 decades ago.  Along the way, in between evading trigger-happy Nazis, a hull-crushing storm at sea, and a dizzying climb up a sheer black wall made extra dangerous by the storm, the characters have time for some pretty insightful ruminations on the ethics of war.

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Red River: Cowboy Coffee and Chuck Wagon Recipes: 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

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Red River: Cowboy Coffee and Chuck Wagon Recipes: 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

In his first Western Director Howard Hawks captures the Wild West in a profound way. It’s not shootouts at the OK corral, but a desperate Texas cattle baron who will do whatever it takes to survive. If that means branding over a neighbor’s cows, shooting gunslingers who dispute his right to the land, or even horsewhipping his own cowboys and threatening to hang deserters, then so be it.

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