HOLLYWOOD — Tinseltown is abuzz. Wolfgang Puck is preparing another award-winning menu for the Governor's Ball; seamstresses at Versace and Chanel are working overtime; and ballots marked with Xs are pouring into the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences at an alarming rate.

Best Picture ... Best Original Screenplay ... Best Use of Food in a Film ...

Whoops! The academy has forgotten our favorite category — again!

Don't they know that a great food scene is often the most powerful moment of a movie? In many Academy Award-winning films, it's the scene we remember most.

How about Barbra Streisand rushing up the stairs, her arms laden with groceries, her heart bursting with joy, because the love of her life, Robert Redford, is waiting in her apartment and she's going to make him dinner in 1973's The Way We Were? Or Katharine Hepburn carrying Henry Fonda's monolithic mocha birthday cake — all 80 candles blazing — in the tear-jerking homage to old love, 1981's On Golden Pond?

In the company of these powerful images, words pale, music fades, even the most creative costuming becomes a blur.

So today we are announcing our own awards, The Sautéed Celluloids. And one of these days, just like the newly back-to-work screenwriters, our awards might get a little respect.

And the awards go to ...

From the sublime to the ridiculous, 2007 was a mind-boggling year for food in the movies because what a character didn't eat was often as telling as what he scarfed down.

The Coen Brothers didn't exactly have their cold-blooded-but-multi-nominated killer, played by Javier Bardem, take time out from his killing spree to even swallow in No Country for Old Men. And, although I could have given There will be Blood an award for "Steak and Potatoes Run Amok" for Daniel Day-Lewis' mastery of eating and killing, all that blood just didn't make the final cut. And even though I searched far and wide for a recipe for the "finger food" served in Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, there was all that business about the availability of ingredients ...

So, without further ado, here are this year's runners-up:

Crime May Not Pay but the Perpetrator's Petal Cake is Priceless: Eastern Promises

This elegant establishment may serve the most stunning Russian fare in the City of Fog, with a succession of dishes rivaling any hi-res, four-color layout in Gourmet magazine, even though the twinkly blue-eyed proprietor, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is really the head of the notorious Vory v Zakone, the Russian Mafia. This mild-mannered monster is as fastidious decorating a delicate rose-petal cake for a 100th birthday party as he is masterminding a cover-up with a high body count. So maybe we understand why our duplicitous hero Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) keeps his fork to himself.

Should a Pregnant Teen Really Be Eating All That (or Thank Goodness It's Only a Movie): Juno

The suspiciously nutritious super-sized SunnyD is about the only remotely healthful item to pass through the lips of Juno, a pregnant 16-year-old with a level head on her shoulders — except, perhaps, in her choice of food groups to nourish the "thing" (her word, not mine). Even though the slang-slinging pubescent brags to her best friend that her solicitous stepmom won't let her eat red M & Ms or stand in front of the microwave, Juno is still a typical teen, piling Coke, fries and chips onto her lunch tray.

And the winners are ...

Best Food Scene: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Waking up from a coma with "locked-in syndrome" — which leaves him paralyzed and unable to communicate — the legendarily virile, vibrant Jean-Dominique Bauby summons his memory and his imagination to recreate a world he had once loved. Desperate to keep his spirits buoyant, he fantasizes a Tom Jones-style bacchanal at Le Gran Duc restaurant in Paris: while brown liquid nutrients slush into his feeding tube, what he's tasting and offering his lovely companion — in a seduction scene that should win an Oscar — is a bite of an exquisite oyster on a halfshell with a sip of Champagne, a taste of perfectly grilled sole with a squeeze of lemon and a glass of chablis, and a magnificent steak with Bernaise sauce, accompanied by a plate of perfectly prepared pommes frites. And, mais non, to finish, an assortment of ripe, runny cheese, an enormous soufflé and a slow sip of sweet wine.

This scene takes the concept of survival of the fittest to a whole new level.

Best Food Film of 2007: Ratatouille

What's a cook's biggest nightmare? A rat in the kitchen. What's the most preposterous scenario for a five-star restaurant in Paris? A skinny blue rat being named the best chef in the City of Lights by a crusty food critic named Ego.

Coin a Horatio Alger motto for cuisinier-wannabes of all ages: "Anyone can cook." Show how a lowly rodent escapes a life scavenging garbage, survives a death-defying cyclone of sewer water and arbitrarily ends up at the door of a five-star restaurant, recently fallen into disrepute because of a snotty reviewer. Have him restore the establishment to its former glory, restore the son of the dearly departed founding chef to his rightful place and get the crusty critic to admit the error of his ways and delight in the fact that a true artist can come from anywhere.

The icing on the gateau: The filmmakers recreated an authentic restaurant kitchen — because today many kids and their parents know the real thing — and hired celebrity chef Thomas Keller (of Napa's French Laundry) to create the most sublime vegetable sculpture ever to grace the silver screen (or your dinner table, if you have an entire day to prepare it).

So, boo to those who think a shiny purple eggplant is not art and that animated films shouldn't be nominated for Best Picture. Bravo and bon appétit!

Best Use of Food in a Film: The Bucket List

Director Rob Reiner, who loves serving up great food scenes — remember When Harry Met Sally? — tells this story about how two radically different men change each other's lives after each is given three to six months to live by his oncologist.

Writer Josh Zackheim chose to reveal the protagonists' personalities by pitting Edward (Jack Nicholson) — a demonically demanding multimillionaire who orders anything he wants to eat and will travel anywhere in the world to get it — against Carter (Morgan Freeman), a poor mechanic who hasn't ventured an inch away from his soul-food roots in Baldwin Hills, Calif.

"Edward was a person who had to have the best of everything," Zacheim said in a phone interview in Los Angeles, "so he shows up with the most expensive coffee in the world" even if he doesn't really know what it is. Carter — who reads six books a week and has a photographic memory — does know what it is, but he isn't saying.

When Edward offers Carter a cup of Kopi Luwak, the most expensive coffee in the world, Carter just shrugs. "No thanks," he says. "I'm more of an instant-coffee man."

On a trip the two take around the world to complete their "bucket list" — the things they want to do before they kick the bucket — Edward introduces his new friend to black-walnut ice cream in Hong Kong and Champagne, caviar and oysters on the halfshell at Le Chevre d'Or on the French Riviera. Carter experiences some of the best food in the world while Edward experiences the joy of giving pleasure to a stranger.

When their trip is cut short because Carter almost succumbs to a piece of forbidden fruit Edward dangles in front of him, the mild-mannered father of three arrives home to a noisy and bountiful family dinner. At the same time, across town in his elegant but empty mansion, Edward struggles to open a frozen dinner.

As Carter is dying in the hospital, Edward rushes to his friend's side, where Carter reveals that Kopi Luwak is made from coffee berries that have passed through the digestive tract of the Asian palm civet — coming out undigested. Realizing the absurdity of it all, they laugh 'til they cry — fulfilling the last item on their bucket list.

Note: There was no Kopi Luwak served in the making of this film. Prop master Eugene McCarthy tried to order it, but there was nary a drop to be found. There was real beluga caviar on the set, though, which disappeared after the first few takes — necessitating food stylist Chris Oliver's hurried phone calls for replenishment to the tune of $6,000. Freeman and Nicholson reportedly smacked their lips over every bite ...


This is the dish that inspired Ratatouille's food critic Ego to abandon his wicked ways and embrace the rat in the kitchen. It is an artful and elegant variation on a traditional Provençal ratatouille.

A byaldi is a layered vegetable dish. This one — developed by French Laundry chef-owner Thomas Keller — rests on a layer of piperade, a Basque specialty of sweet peppers and tomatoes cooked in olive oil.

CONFIT BYALDI
(Serves 4)

For the piperade:
1/2 red pepper, seeds and ribs removed
1/2 yellow pepper, seeds and ribs removed
1/2 orange pepper, seeds and ribs removed
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup finely diced yellow onion
3 tomatoes (about 4 ounces each), peeled, seeded, and finely diced, juices reserved
1 sprig thyme
1 sprig flat-leaf parsley
1/2 bay leaf
Kosher salt
For the vegetables:
1 zucchini (4 to 5 ounces) sliced in 1/16-inch rounds
1 Japanese eggplant, (4 to 5 ounces) sliced into 1/16-inch rounds
1 yellow squash (4 to 5 ounces) sliced into 1/16-inch rounds
4 Roma tomatoes, sliced into 1/16-inch rounds
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/8 teaspoon thyme leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the vinaigrette:
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
Assorted fresh herbs (thyme flowers, chervil, thyme)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the piperade: Set the oven at 450 degrees. Place pepper halves on a foil-lined sheet, cut side down. Roast until skin loosens, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let rest until cool enough to handle. Peel and chop finely.

Combine oil, garlic and onion in medium skillet over low heat until very soft but not browned, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, their juices, thyme, parsley and bay leaf. Simmer over low heat until very soft and very little liquid remains, about 10 minutes; do not brown. Add peppers and simmer to soften them. Season to taste with salt and discard herbs. Reserve 1 tablespoon of mixture and spread remainder in bottom of an 8-inch ovenproof skillet.

For the vegetables: Set oven at 275 degrees. In center of pan, arrange 8 alternating slices of vegetables, 2 each of zucchini, eggplant, squash and tomatoes, over piperade, overlapping in a circle so that 1/4 inch of each slice is exposed. Repeat until pan is filled; overlapping vegetables in a close spiral that lets slices mound slightly in center (all vegetables may not be needed).

Mix garlic, oil and thyme leaves in bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle over vegetables. Cover pan with foil and crimp edges to seal well. Bake until vegetables are tender when tested with a paring knife, about 2 hours. Uncover and bake for 30 minutes more. (Lightly cover with foil if it starts to brown.) If there is excess liquid in pan, place over medium heat on stove until reduced. At this point the dish may be cooled, covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days. When ready to serve, reheat in 350-degree oven until warm.

For the vinaigrette: Combine reserved piperade, oil, vinegar, herbs and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl.

To serve: Heat broiler and place byaldi underneath until lightly browned. Slice in quarters and very carefully lift onto plate with offset spatula. Turn spatula 90 degrees, guiding byaldi into fan shape. Drizzle vinaigrette around plate. Serve hot.

(Recipe adapted from Thomas Keller, The French Laundry, Yountville, Calif.)

Also as seen in the film Ratatouille:

SIMPLE ROAST CHICKEN
(Serves 2 to 4)

One free-range chicken (2 to 3 pounds)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme (optional)
3 sage fresh leaves (optional)
Fresh unsalted butter for finishing

Set the oven at 450 degrees. Rinse chicken, and then dry it very well with paper towels, inside and out. Salt and pepper cavity, then truss the bird. Rain salt over the chicken so that it will result in a crisp, flavorful skin.

Place chicken in a large sauté or roasting pan and put in hot oven. Roast until done, about an hour. Remove from oven and add thyme and sage, if using, to the pan. Baste chicken with juices and let rest for 15 minutes on cutting board.

Slather chicken with butter. Serve with mustard on the side and a simple green salad.

(Adapted from Bouchon by Thomas Keller, Artisan Books, 2004)