Julie and Julia, dealing as it does with food, required a lot of artistry. Not, as one might expect, of the mashed-potato-sundae, corn-syrup-painted-raw-turkey varietal, either: this was real food, top quality, that the actors had to eat. Says writer-director Nora Ephron, who tasted everything, in the New York Times, "I wanted that sole to look to the audience the way it had looked to Julia when it caused her famous epiphany," about cooking for life.

The stylist, Susan Spungen (Martha Stewart's former food editor, so no stranger to perfection) and a host of other stylists, share some trade secrets, from catering to the vegetarian character actor who went meat-eating Method on set, to the trials of crafting mock meat for those veggies more committed to their lifestyle. Of course there are practical concerns, too: apparently J&J called for mock lobster-boiling, created through illusion and the auspices of a vigilant animal-cruelty monitor.

There are plenty of great food movies: Big Night; Babette's Feast; Eat, Drink, Man, Woman; Like Water for Chocolate and Willy Wonka usually rank pretty high for hungry cinephiles, while even those who deplored Marie Antoinette as an extended music video can appreciate the glory of the skyscrapers of Laduree macarons. There are some - Chocolat, No Reservations - that fail, in my opinion, to make anything remotely appetizing.

Here are a few of my favorites:

A Night at the Opera Specifically, the steerage dinner scene. This involves mountains of spaghetti which, as a little kid, basically seemed like nirvana to me. Nuff said.

Fried Green Tomatoes Everything looks really good at the Whistle Stop, especially the FGT. Hell, they can even make barbecued abusive redneck tasty.

A Christmas in Connecticut. You know the part where Barbara Stanwyck goes to Felix's restaurant downstairs and he has some kind of 1940s Hungarian buffet? That always appealed to me. There's a very similar resto in The Babe Ruth Story but the ambiance is somewhat lacking.

Naughty Marietta. A dark horse, yes. But the scene where they go to the little restaurant and have fresh bread and shrimp with garlic? Delish.

Cold Comfort Farm. Both the tea room's offerings and the country fare at the end of the wedding are scrumptious-looking; I have a weakness for cream cakes.

Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) The scene where Roxane's maid gets that huge bag of fresh pastries to distract her was extremely distracting to those of us who had to watch it in French class the period before lunch.

Your turn.

Film Food, Ready For Its ‘Bon Appetit' [NY Times]

So, yes, obviously this is a contrived and cutesy concept for a piece - not that there's anything wrong with that. Various business types weigh in with executive strategies and toss jargon around in a kitchen context.

With a vision firmly carved out, the next task is what business leaders would call engaging key stakeholders and identifying their performance expectations. That means figuring out who are the most important people to you at the Thanksgiving table and asking what they really want from the day and from you, the host.“Your goal as the leader here is to grasp what other people actually expect of you versus what you think they expect of you,” he said. “Often, what people expect is less than what you thought.”

You get the idea: let's just say, the conceit gets old pretty fast. Style aside, it doesn't seem like a template like this is seriously going to change anyone's attitude — certainly not a day before Thanksgiving. And the draconian breakdown the piece jokingly suggests sounds kinda Gulag-like- everyone might do his share, but no one's happy. Besides, anyone compulsive enough to run a holiday meal like this already has it in hand and in any case, doesn't really seem like a personality type who'd be open to delegating.

And the truth is, the inequality of Thanksgiving labor is one of the horrible traditions of the holiday. Sometimes it's a question of space — a literal too-many cooks situation. Sometimes people's cooking styles don't mesh. A few are willing but incompetent. Occasionally good cooks are stressful kitchen companions. Some people are just really lazy and feel they've earned the right to do nothing but pig out. And then there are the kitchen martyrs who insist on full glory. As anyone who's helmed the meal knows, very rare is the kitchen helper who can slip in unobtrusively, stirring and chopping like a well-trained line cook, ceding full creative control to a tacitly-acknowledged chef de cuisine. More often, as a cook, you turn around to find some hippie blithely crumbling frankincense into a carefully-seasoned bowl of stuffing, or a well-meaning relative pestering you to know where mixing bowls are. Delegating requires trust, and in a family situation, not everyone has earned it.

Besides, why, in these financially troubled times, would anyone model herself on a bastion of capitalist industry? It's obviously A) hard and B) unrewarding. (The temptation to make some horrible gravy bailout joke is almost overwhelming.) So stick to the plan: you work, you shirk, everyone eats. Rinse — the same person who always gets stuck with dishes, that is — and repeat.

The C.E.O. of Thanksgiving Dinner [New York Times]
[Image via My Recipes]

There was recently an anthology released, Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant (based on a terrific Laurie Colwin essay of the same name) composed entirely of essays on the pleasures of eating alone: the opportunities for iconoclastic experimentation and self-pampering. One assumes that virtuous French-woman-style lifestyle plans involve much of this sort of "because I'm worth it" behavior, and there's certainly something appealing about the fantasy of being the sort of woman who pours herself a glass of wine, whips up creme brulee for one and dines solo by candlelight because she enjoys her own company so much!

For most of us, eating alone falls somewhere between this twee self-catering and the cliche of the lonely diner eating cold Chinese food or a cup of Ramen. In some ways, the whole "eating alone" phenomenon seems to make it a bigger deal than it needs to be — like you need to face the reality of a single existence and embrace it! Haven't people always cooked for themselves? Then too, it's not like most of us live in French villages or near great butchers: it can be hard to get just that one exquisite chicken breast or single fresh roll, not to mention pricey. I for one have never been so sensitive that it made me cry when I saw a recipe listing quantities for four — I can do basic division if needed and don't require my own, special recipes. Besides, when I cook four portions of a meal, it's not because I couldn't figure our how to make less or because I'm in denial and expect a bunch of phantom guests, but rather because if I'm going to the trouble, I want to get several days' worth of meals out of my work.

I guess in the old days, single working girls weren't thought to eat much — those retro Helen Gurley Brown types were probably thought to either smoke their meals or let a date pick up the tab, and in a lot of ways "cooking for one" seems to be code for "women" — single women who like and appreciate good food. Or, alternatively, older people who, I guess the thinking goes, can't figure out how to cook for less than a whole family. And that's nice, but I think we can handle it. And you know, those days I have a bowl of cold cereal for dinner, it's not out of some deep self-loathing or lack of self-esteem. I do it because I can, and it's easy, and it's a luxury you don't have when you're cooking for other people. Oh, and it's really easy to measure a single serving.

Cooking for One? That Means You Can Have Your Steak And Freeze It, Too. [Washington Post]

Earlier: Why Takeout Is Evil And Other Stuff To Feel Guilty About