A viewable feast: Windmill Cafe offers intimate movie nights
Santa Cruz Sentinel - 10/16/2012
By Bonnie Horgos
Like many epicures, Windmill Cafe owners Michael Sigmon and Mary Apra adore eating, watching movies and watching movies about eating.
"It had been sort of a dream of Michael's when we took over this cafe," Apra said. "We thought it'd be really fun to merge our love of food and film."
So they did. The Windmill Cafe owners started offering monthly movie nights at their cozy Eastside venue in February. The eatery's next night pairing culinary films with inspired dishes will be Oct. 27, with the 2007 Pixar hit "Ratatouille."
The first movie night was the romantic Mexican film "Like Water for Chocolate." Since then, they've also played "Tampopo," "Babette's Feast," "Eat Drink Man Woman," "The Scent of Green Papaya" and "Titanic," a 10-course black-tie affair.
The dishes Sigmon creates (Apra works the front, Sigmon the kitchen) aren't exact replications of dishes in the films, but interpretations strongly inspired by certain scenes.
"I take a dish, emulate it, then put a spin on it," Sigmon said. "You get the experience of what's going on in the film."
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