"academy awards" news and stories

If you're throwing an Oscar party this year, don't forget the Moet & Chandon. The Champagne house is the exclusive Champagne of the 81st Academy Awards for the first time.

Of course, Moet isn't a suggestion for any of the five menus Epicurious.com developed for each of the Best Picture nominees, but even if you do one of those, the Champagne will make a nice aperitif.

Happy Awards-watching!

For over ten years now, Wolfgang Puck has been serving the stars at the Governor's Ball - also known as the official "after party" for the Academy Awards, where all the nominees congregate to look glamorous, talk to the press and eat dinner. Not all of the secrets of the Oscar ceremony itself, like what the stage is going to look like, are revealed ahead of time and the menu for the Ball was clearly a bit hush-hush to start. Fortunately, little by little, information leaked out.

The Ball is not going to be a sit-down affair, but an elegant/casual cocktail-type of party, an the overriding theme this year will be "Oscar goes organic." The food, in addition to being organic and/or humanely raised will be small or bite-sized, and will include favorites (and Puck standbys) like sushi, grilled Kobe beef, Spicy Tuna Tartare in a Sesame Miso Cone, Smoked Salmon Oscars with French Farm-Raised Osetra Caviar and Roasted Pumpkin Squash Ravioli with White Truffles. And, of course, there will be plenty of champagne and chocolate Oscar statuettes to go around.

Click past the jump for a preview of the whole menu.

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The Academy Awards are just three days away, and I'm sure a number of you are hosting Oscar parties. If nothing else, it gives you good reason to get friends and family together to enjoy some delicious food and drinks - what could be better than that? Over the next few days we're going to take a look at some dishes that you may be able to serve to your guests, Oscar-style, while waiting to find out who wins Best Picture.

I came across this article written by Wolfgang Puck, world-class chef and owner of Spago's plus many other restaurants around the country. Since he has been serving up dishes to the stars since the 1970's (at his restaurants, as well as at the award shows themselves), I decided there was no better way to kick start our own little Oscar party than by spotlighting one of his recipes.

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Roll out the red carpet, check the TV listings for Joan Rivers and, most importantly, don’t forget the snacks – it’s time to get ready for the 78th Academy Awards! Planning a menu can be difficult. First of all, the show takes a long time and when you're hosting a party that takes several hours, you'll probably need a lot of food. I think that popcorn, parmesan or microwaved, is a movie must-have and you can never go wrong with veggies and hummus. On the other hand, you might want to get into the spirit of Hollywood by having a movie themed menu at your party. This year's best picture nominees - Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, Crash and Munich - are not really huge inspirations in the food department. If there were more foodies in the Academy, maybe they would have nominated Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, since there are definitely Hollywood-types that would do anything for chocolate. At it stands, though, the options look like barbecue, lamb and apple pie from Brokeback Mountain and brisket and stuffed cabbage from Munich. I can't say that I recall seeing any food in Good Night and Good Luck at all. Fortunately, the staff at Allrecipes.com has put together an extensive set of menus from each movie.

As for me, I'll be giving a nod to Wallace and Gromit and noshing on cheese and crackers. And maybe I'll take a tip from the Seattle Times and have some really snarky snacks, like "Japanese food for Memoirs of a Geisha, but in honor of the ethnically inaccurate cast, it has to be made by Chinese people."

Wolfgang Puck has been the chef in charge of coordinating the menu at the official post-Academy Awards dinner for over ten years. Every year he tempts the taste buds of Hollywood's elite and never fails to impress. The dinner is served to more than 1600 guests, and coordinating the staffing necessary to serve that number of people simultaneously  - hundreds of personnel in the dining room and kitchen - almost requires more skill than putting together an award-winning menu.

The menu will feature chicken and black truffle risotto, smoked salmon pizzas and, of course, gold dusted chocolate Oscars made from Valrhona chocolate in custom molds. Other foods will be shaped as Oscars to bring fun and a unifying theme to the evening, like Oscar crackers as appetizers and pastry Oscars with the main course. Pastry chef Sherry Yard has created an "Asian-inspired Zen fantasy" dessert, in a black and white chocolate opera cake enhanced with coconut filling, a pineapple sour cream ice cream cone and a sprinkle of pineapple and passion fruit.

[Photo from Sky.com]

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