Food for Thought

British food writer Nigel Slater started cooking at a young age as a way of fighting his stepmother tooth and nail for the attention of his father -- namely, by conniving in myriad ways to steal her secret recipe for lemon meringue pie. He didn't much like either one of...

By Susan Froyd

November 17, 2011

Audio By Carbonatix

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British food writer Nigel Slater started cooking at a young age as a way of fighting his stepmother tooth and nail for the attention of his father -- namely, by conniving in myriad ways to steal her secret recipe for lemon meringue pie. He didn't much like either one of them, he says, but the penchant for whipping up well-prepared dishes stuck and later became the grist for his prize-winning autobiography, Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger, a musing over the connections between food and feelings in his life.

The BBC then dramatized the memoir, resulting in the movie Toast, which features the appealing Freddie Highmore as young Nigel and Helena Bonham Carter as the stepmother, as well as a period-perfect Dusty Springfield soundtrack. The film has been showing at the Boedecker Theater at the Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut Street in Boulder, this week in conjunction with the LGBT-friendly Bent Lens Cinema series. Tonight's 7 p.m. screening is the last one; future films from Bent Lens include the modern Israeli musical Mary Lou on November 23, 25 and 27. Admission is $10; get information and tickets at http://thedairy.org.
Nov. 15-17; Nov. 19-20, 2011

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Susan Froyd started writing for Westword as the "Thrills" editor in 1992 and never quite left the fold. These days she still freelances for the paper in addition to walking her dogs, enjoying cheap ethnic food and reading voraciously. Sometimes she writes poetry.

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