Eat Your Art Out

Food Improv: Where the Performing Arts Meet the Culinary Arts 
To benefit Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater programs and financial aid.
Thursday June 28
6-9pm
Wadsworth Mansion at Long Hill Estate
Individual $75 & Couples $125
Tickets available at the door or online. 

A Tasting Style Event featuring 
Cold Stone Creamery of Middletown
Eli Cannon's Tap Room
Esca
A Little Imagination Cakes
It's Only Natural Restaurant
Klekolo World Coffee
Mattabasset Canoe Club
Miya Sushi
New England Emporium
NoRA Cupcakes
The Riverhouse at Goodspeed
Thomas Hooker Brewery
Tschudin

Special thanks to our Special Event Producer Sponsors Citizens Bank and CT Rental 

Eye on Dining - A Gaslight Movie Dinner

In conjunction with the Summer Film Series honoring Ingrid Bergman, hosted by Wesleyan's Center for Film Studies, several downtown restaurants are offering "CineFare" or Pre-Fix menus before each Wednesday night showing, from 5:00 PM to 7:30 PM (show time is at 8:00 PM). Though little information is provided regarding exactly what menu choices are available, as a Middletown dining scene aficionado I feel compelled to suggest a dining experience for each screening, related in someway (I may have to stretch it a bit!) to the theme, setting, or plot of the movie.

Tomorrow’s film showing is Gaslight, a mystery-thriller in which Bergman stars as a young opera singer sent to Italy to study after her world-famous aunt, also an opera singer, is murdered during a failed jewelry robbery. She marries and returns to her aunt’s vacant home in London, only to endure several strange occurrences and the eventual resolution of her aunt’s thereunto unsolved murder.

In Middletown, of course, it is not a hard feat to find Italian cuisine. This week’s featured movie menu can be found at Tuscany Grill, a CineFare participating restaurant, offering an Italian-American fusion befitting of the movie’s dual settings in both Italy and England. It’s dark, sleek atmosphere makes Tuscany Grill the perfect place to sneak in and hide out, especially if one is an undercover jewel thief. Just be sure to keep a look out for Scotland Yard.

Gaslight-Inspired Dinner Menu
Tuscany Grill

Appetizer
EGGPLANT TOWER (of London) - layered with roasted peppers, seasoned spinach, Asiago and mozzarella cheeses, in a plum tomato sauce

The sweetness of the roasted peppers and salty, gooey cheeses compliment the mild flavor of the eggplant perfectly.

Salad
TUSCAN CAESAR with GRILLED SHRIMP - with marinated tomatoes, calamata olives and garlic croutons

Though caesar salad aficionados would claim that adding tomatoes evokes this classic salad’s title, Tuscan cuisine is much more Mediterranean than its counterparts from the north, which is why the addition of the savory olives and charred grilled shrimp to this salad makes it truly a “Tuscany grill.”

Entrée
BROCCOLI “Rob” & HOUSEMADE CHICKEN SAUSAGE - sautéed in virgin olive oil, Marsala wine and garlic with white beans and plum tomatoes tossed with orecchiette.

Creamy, mild white beans and orcchiette and fresh plum tomatoes balance the spicy chicken sausage and strong broccoli flavors in this very original dish. Ok, I replaced the “rabe” in “broccoli rabe.” You didn’t think these things just fall into my lap, did you?

Tuscany Grill is located at 120 College Street, Middletown.
For reservations call: (860) 346-7096.


Stay tuned for next week's movie menu for The Bells of St. Mary's!

A Casablanca Dining Experience in Middletown

In conjunction with the Summer Film Series honoring Ingrid Bergman, hosted by Wesleyan's Center for Film Studies, several downtown restaurants are offering "CineFare" or Pre-Fix menus before each Wednesday night showing, from 5:00 PM to 7:30 PM (show time is at 8:00 PM). Though little information is provided regarding exactly what menu choices are available, as a Middletown dining scene aficionado I feel compelled to suggest a dining experience for each screening, related in someway (I may have to stretch it a bit!) to the theme, setting, or plot of the movie.

Tonight's showing of Casablanca begs for French and Moroccan-inspired cuisine, which (luckily for me!) can easily be found at the Tavern at the Armory, a CineFare participating business.

The Tavern is located at the Inn at Middletown, 70 Main Street.
Call for reservations: (860) 854-8323.

Casablanca-Inspired Dinner Menu
Tavern at the Armory

Appetizer
Grilled Olive Oil Brushed Flatbread - with kalamata olive tapenade and roasted red pepper hummus

Moroccan cuisine is heavily influenced by its Mediterranean neighbors. The grilled multigrain flatbread and hummus provide a delicious nuttiness, and the subtle saltiness of the olive tapenade is the perfect accompaniment. This appetizer is huge (two hungry movie-goers may not even finish it!), delicious, and truly Mediterranean.

Entrée
Garam Masala Lamb Loin Chops - with chick pea and tomato salad, pomegranate-cumin glaze and cilantro-mint yogurt.

Staple spices in Moroccan cuisine, cumin and cilantro are bold flavors that compliment the country’s preferred meat, lamb, in this filling dish. The chickpea and tomato salad, also typical of Morocco, adds a sweet and refreshing element.

Dessert
Crème-Brulee Cheesecake
To finish the meal with a French twist, this creamy, light cheesecake has a sweet, crispy crème-brulee crust that would make a saint of even the most corrupt of Vichy French officials!

Wine Pairing: Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot go perfectly with lamb, and will stand up nicely to the entrée’s spices.

For extra cool points (and I use the term "cool" here loosely), wear a fedora and trenchcoat (men) or white gloves (women) and eat hurriedly, as if afraid of being caught. And I bet, if you ask really nicely (and tip equally as nicely), you can coerce the bartender into saying, as you walk in... "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world..."

Stay tuned for next week’s downtown dining menu for the screening of Gaslight!