Ratatouille

This movie made me fall in love with France all over again. The France where making crepes is serious business. Where you grow your own herbs even if it's only in a pot the size of a baby food jar. Where you take time to savour what's been served to you.

France has allowed me to taste the sweetest cherry tomatoes straight off the vine. It's given me the chance to pick wild blackberries till my hands were stained and my children's faces were freckled purple. My neighbours will gladly spend hours talking about the best way to feed strawberry plants. They'll plant onions and garlic and share the surplus with me and my family. My friends from Paris will take the time to teach me how to make jam and tarts and rich thick soups. It's as if every woman in France has a gene that enables them to know from birth how to can vegetables and grow basil.

The best part is that when you get around to enjoying the savours and tastes of French cooking, you get to taste love. There is no other way to describe it. That's why this movie is so good. It in it's beautiful images and hysterical characters, it's an hommage to this love. An hommage as well to a simple dish called ratatouille. One that even I can make now with the courgettes and peppers from my neighbour, tomatoes from Provence, and basil from my own garden.