TRAVERSE CITY — Flicks and food is a classic combination.
This year's Traverse City Film Festival features a smorgasbord of cuisine-inspired cinema. Here's where to eat locally like you're in the movies:
Movie: "Iranian Cookbook"
Show time: 3 p.m. on Wednesday at Milliken Auditorium
Food for thought: This documentary follows six Iranian housewives as they ready meals during Ramadan. The film tells the story of the food they prepare and the role gender plays in the household.
Food for dinner: Nabiel Musleh of Zakey Middle Eastern Cuisine in Traverse City said Ramadan calls for fasting between sun up and sunset. It's typical to break the fast with a soup, which is easy on the empty stomach. Lentil soups are popular, as are those with vegetables and other ingredients, he said.
"Those are the very famous soups that every mother prepares to break fast," Musleh said.
Families might also eat meals with hummus, lamb shank or stuffed grape leaves, all of which are available at the eatery's East Front Street Traverse City location. For those unfamiliar with the cuisine, Musleh's recommendations include the lamb shawarma, marinated with spices, or cucumber yogurt salad or shish kabob.
Movie: "Mid-August Lunch"
Show time: 3 p.m. Thursday at Lars Hockstad, 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Milliken Auditorium
Food for thought: An Italian comedy whose "scenes of food preparation are mouthwatering," according to a New York Times reviewer. Middle-aged Gianni lives in Rome but is late with his rent. He strikes an unusual deal with his apartment manager to take in and care for the manager's mother and aunt for several days in exchange for debt forgiveness. Gianni's own mother moves lives there, too. There's arguments about the type of pasta to be served and fish purchased for a holiday feast.
Food for lunch: For a meal full of Italian flavors, try Tuscan Bistro, on South West Bay Shore Drive in Traverse City. Open seven days a week, this restaurant offers pasta favorites such as cavatelli with wild mushroom ragu using pasta made on site. The portions are available in half-sizes for a lunch-appropriate meal. For a fish or seafood option, there's a spaghetti with scallops, baby clams, mussels, squid and shrimp in a light tomato broth.
A Salute to Cuban Film
Food for thought: The film festival pulled together a handful of Cuban films to screen — from the baseball documentary "Dreaming in Blue," showing at noon Saturday at the Old Town Playhouse, to "Viva Cuba!," at the playhouse at noon Thursday.
Food for dinner: While Traverse City's Cuban-themed Café Habana is no longer, the adjacent Blue Tractor Cook Shop on South Union Street serves a popular Cuban burger. A popular item on the menu, the burger is topped with smoked pulled pork, bread and butter pickles, mayo, mustard and jack cheese.
At Red Mesa Grill on U.S. 31 North in Traverse City, the Cuban black bean cakes come as appetizers or entrees.
Movie: "The Happy Poet"
Show time: Noon Friday at Lars Hockstad
Food for thought: A poet wants to turn a hot dog cart into an organic, veggie-loving health food stand, but he struggles to find customers to support the venture.
Food for dinner: Traverse City's health-conscious crowd has long supported Oryana Natural Foods Market. The market also features the Lake Street Café. The East 10th Street site is in the middle of a city neighborhood and adjacent to a bike trail. The café is a result of an expansion and in response to customer's desire for more "grab-and-go" salads, sandwiches and soups, said Sandi McArthur, education and outreach coordinator. The well-windowed eatery attracts neighborhood residents, bicyclists and other hungry folks with its emphasis on fresh and local ingredients. The wide ranging sandwich options will satisfy most diets, including vegans and those with gluten allergies.
And, yes, they have plenty of tofu, including a peanut tofu wrap.
Movie: "Strawberry and Chocolate"
Show time: 6 p.m. Saturday at City Opera House
Food for thought: Part of the film festival's salute to Cuban filmmaking, this film introduces a "gay intellectual dissident" and a student at an ice cream shop in Havana.
Food for dessert: Just as everyone has a favorite movie, most also have a favorite ice cream shop. In this town, there's plenty to choose from. A mighty popular scoop is at Moomers Homemade Ice Cream, which won a "Good Morning America" poll for best ice cream store in the country. The farm-based shop on North Long Lake Road in Traverse City will bring some of its ice cream to the Open Space to serve during the nightly outdoor movies. Co-owner Jon Plummer said "Cherries Moobiliee," butter pecan, chocolate peanut butter and coconut almond delight are among the most-requested flavors. He's thinking of adding a kid-friendly flavor to the Open Space menu, like blue moon for the screening of "Finding Nemo."
If you're at the Moomers shop and looking for chocolate or strawberry, you're in the right place.
"We actually have like a chocolate shelf in our freezer," Plummer said. "Chocolate is kind of its own category."
Movie: "Mary Poppins"
Show time: Dusk on Sunday, Aug. 1, at the Open Space
Food for thought: London nanny Mary Poppins brings the fun and the singalong tunes when she swoops in to care for the Banks children.
Food for dinner: Recreate the film's tea party, without the gravity-defying antics, at The Flying Bowl. Keith Bonner's family restaurant on Chartwell Drive in Traverse City offers about 50 kinds of teas, including black, white, green and oolong varieties. Among the most popular are those from local tea purveyor Light of Day. An earl grey cream and a "happy spleen green" are among favorites. Bonner's recommendations for iced tea include the refreshing Georgia peach and the white cherry mint tea. The eatery offers soups and sandwiches, salads and desserts.
Movie: "The Apostles"
Show time: 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday at the State Theatre
Food for thought: A bunch of short films will be shown during this time slot. The eight-minute film "The Apostles" takes a look at Jesus and his apostles after the Last Supper as they try to split the dinner bill.
Bread and wine: This area is rich with bakers and winemakers. Bay Bread Co. on Randolph Street in Traverse City bakes 40-some kinds of loaves, from dark grains to ciabatta to sweet breads. Owner Stacey Wilcox said the bakery staff loves to help people find the perfect loaf for their supper — or sandwich, or dessert, or whatever.
If you don't make it down to the bakery, where they also serve sandwiches, soups and salads, you just might get a little Bay Bread, anyway.
"Most of the downtown restaurants, you're eating our bread. Because they believe in local; they believe in fresh; and we give them fresh baked bread every day," Wilcox said.
The Blue Goat wine shop on East Front Street in Traverse City stocks a bottle to fit your drinking pleasure. Manager Dennis Carol suggested a few local, affordable, summer-appropriate table wines such as Left Foot Charley's pinot grigio and Riesling MD (medium dry).
Sparkling wines are "not just for weddings or toasting anymore," Carol said, and L. Mawby's Fizz is a sweet choice. From Two Lads Winery, Carol suggested the cabernet franc or the pinot grigio.
All those selections are "good with food, good on a deck on a hot summer day or a boat," he said.
We'll add good-with-a-movie to that list.
