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Longing Comfort

Watching The Door made me want to look up Hungarian recipes. Helen Mirren was amazing as per usual - no surprise. She makes the character of Emerenc come alive - this is a person who sucks up all the air in a room while being a maid. She is regal and proves that her station in life simply does not define her. She is a great cook too judging by the elaborate spreads she produces all the time. That made me curious about the cuisine I know little about. There are a few different dishes I have on my list to try. This was an interesting and unexpected reaction to a serious, thought-provoking movie. The women separated by class and socio-economic status come to love and respect each other. Magda betrays Emerenc in a way that is deeply personal. The world outside would not judge her harshly for her actions and yet she would find it hard to forgive herself. 

Chicken paprikash played a very minor and insignificant role in the whole thing and yet I found myself reading up recipes soon after the last scene. Thoughts about the story itself returned to me a few days later and I wanted to learn more about Magda Szabó's life and writing, about the book itself. The value of a good movie is to me is all the thoughts that come to mind after watching it. In this case that was food which over the weekend translated somehow to cooking a Bengali dish that I had not had since childhood. The scene where Magda visits Emerenc at her flat one night and asks for dinner was a deeply moving one. She truly relishes the meal she is served and Emerenc looks absolutely fulfilled in the act of serving the meal. It made me miss the comfort of food in its most basic and authentic form. 

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