Haute Cuisine

I had planned on watching something else from NetFlix, but accidentally clicked on Haute Cuisine - so be it! Catherine Frot plays chef Hortense Laborie who spent 2 years cooking for the President of France in the late '90s. In real life, the chef's name is Daniele Delpeuch - the actress is on the left above and the real life chef is on the left. I am not sure why they chose not to use her real name.  Yes, this was beautifully filmed. You'll want to go to Antarctica after you see the shore line scenes. I loved the peek into the professional French kitchens and all the talk about food preparations. It was refreshing that they demonstrated that these dishes are not easy to make and require a lot of practice. I think reality cooking shows would have us thinking you just roll out eatable masterpieces all willy-nilly. Something else that I thought was interesting was the Hortense character wasn't without blame; she did over step her boundaries and she did step on toes in an impolite sort of way.

When the moved ended I felt like something was missing - we never really got to know Hortense. She went to Antarctica to cook because she was mad? How did she hurt her leg? Did she ever date? Who was taking care of her farm? Did she think she could take train rides to buy cepe and no one would ask? I found a very interesting article on Daniele Delpeuch that answers several of those questions. Dang, now I want to eat something with truffle in it.