Ghostbusters

“Listen! Do you smell something?”

– Dr. Ray Stanz

The Setup

With the new Ghostbusters movie coming out, we had no choice but to revisit the classic 1984 film by the same name. We accompanied the movie with an appropriately spooky meal.

The Food

The Ghostbusters need to be knowledgeable about all things ghosts and that includes all of the forms, colors, and textures they can come in. For this post we put ourselves in the mind of the everyday Ghostbuster to see what ghostly textures and colors we could come up with.

We started off the meal with some molecular gastronomy in the form of crostini with a home-made oil and chili pepper foam. The foam wasn’t as fluffy as we had hoped it would be, as we wanted it to look like a little ghost on top of the crostini. However, it bubbled and slimed as it oozed out onto the crostini, so thinking in a pinch we changed the theme to slime, very much like the slime in the movie. The foam is reminiscent of ectoplasm, covering the crostini in a spooky film. Despite the slime-like nature, these turned out to be absolutely delicious and we topped them off with some basil and balsamic pearls for additional texture and flavor.

For our entreé, we made an asparagus soup with a poached egg, floating ethereally in the midst of the spooky green soup. It took us the better part of a carton of eggs to get that perfect poached egg, but it was worth it. We added a splash of lemon olive oil to the soup for a little extra flavor that really rounded out the entire dish. Serve with some crispy bread on the side (we know we are doubling up the bread for this meal, but you have to trust us) to sop up all of the delicious green goodness.

For dessert, we made passion fruit coconut cream panna cotta. Taking inspiration from the Marshmallo Man and all of the goop in the film, it was appropriate that It was white and gelatinous, covered in the yellow slimy innards of a passionfruit. This little dish was something else. A wonderful coconut flavor with just a hint of kaffir lime with the tangy passion fruit puncturing the sweetness. A wonderful dish that will continue on in our ghostly dreams.

The Drinks

What is spookier than dry ice? Trick question, nothing is spookier than dry ice, especially when it’s causing a fog to bubble up through The Green Beast, a drink composed of absinthe, water, simple syrup, and lime juice. We had a great time with these, as you can see by the photos, but you definitely have to be cautious when handling dry ice. We were careful not touch it directly for fear of being taken by the ethereal components inside, as well as being careful not to breath it in because it could inhabit our insides and that just doesn’t sound like a good time. As far as the drink goes? Pretty good! The absinthe has a wonderful anise, or licorice, flavor and the addition of the dry ice gave the drink a little bit of a fizz. A wonderful and mood-appropriate cocktail for Ghostbusters.

The Rules

We struggled a little bit coming up with these rules being that none of us were that familiar with movie but we felt like we ended on a good ghostbustery selection.

1. Drink for NYC grounding shots.
2. Drink whenever someone says “Ghostbusters.”
3. Drink whenever you see a new ghost.

The Movie

We’re not really sure how Ghostbusters got to be so popular. The movie itself is fine. We’d go so far as to call it entirely watchable. Some parts are even funny! But for the most part, Ghostbusters is an entirely forgettable movie and we will fully admit that we weren’t around during its heyday, and movies and comedies have changed a lot since then, but we just didn’t understand the fervor around it. When it comes down to it, the theme song seems to be the most prominent pop culture moment from the film.

On the topic of the theme song, it really doesn’t even play much of a role in the film. We expected it to have a “Danger Zone” in Top Gun  kind of presence, where it is played at least once per scene and it becomes something to look forward to. Instead, the movie is just bookended with snippets of it. What a disappointment.

Also disappointing: Bill Murray. He performed his signature jaded and mopey mix, but with no substance on top of it. We don’t necessarily blame Bill Murray, as his character was pretty poorly written, with no backstory, motivations, or personality of any kind, other than a proclivity towards womanizing. He barely had much of an arc and it was hardly a performance we could get behind. Hardly memorable and unfortunately missed the mark with us.

We do understand that Ghostbusters was an important moment for the genre because it was the highest budget action-comedy of the time and was wildly successful, helping kick-start the genre, so we can appreciate it for that. And for all of our complaining, we did have a pretty fun time watching it, for the most part. But we probably won’t be watching it again anytime soon.

The Reviews

Andre – Like a ghost, no real substance. I had a few chuckles while I was watching it but once I was done with it my interest in Ghostbusters faded pretty quickly. There were no scenes that stood out to me as very memorable or especially funny, which is not great.

Leanna – I don’t believe in ghosts. Honestly, this movie was so forgettable I’m really struggling to find the right words to describe it right now. I really despised their treatment of female characters, and it just wasn’t fun watching Bill Murray at his worst. I don’t understand why so many people are up in arms about the remake/reboot/sequel/whatever it is because to me the bar seems pretty low for it to do the franchise justice.

Ben – 55%. With the release of Ghostbusters coming up, the property has been in the media enough that it has filtered through to the podcasts I listen to, and hearing those that grew up around the movie talk about it with such glowing praise and nostalgia, I was bummed that I wasn’t able to see that in the original film. The characters weren’t memorable, Ernie Hudson seems to be shoehorned in just so that the movie wouldn’t be entirely white, the humor was hit or miss, and ultimately the story that tied the whole thing together was flimsy at best. I have to assume that growing up in the 90s as opposed to the 80s most likely plays into part of the reason the movie didn’t click for me. By the time I was watching comedies like this it wasn’t the first time something on that scale had been attempted. I can only assume that Ghostbusters wrote the book on the topic, where others perfected the idea. Ghostbusters was The Velvet Underground of Action Comedies.