Because of Winn-Dixie film with Southern food

Image: gritsandpinecones.com

Starring Anna Sophia Robb, Jeff Daniels & Dave Matthews

Rating 8/10

Film

Opal (Robb) is the 10 year old daughter of a small town Preacher man, Mr. Buloni or ‘The Preacher’ (Daniels). They’ve just moved to yet another small town. This time it’s Naomi, Florida, a super-small town where Opal struggles to find a friend.

When she  goes to the store (Winn-Dixie) she finds a rascally dog, terrorising the Winn-Dixie staff and claims him as her own. But when she takes him home, Preacher-man isn’t impressed. But Opal bats her beautiful brown eyes and the dog stays much to the horror of their trailer park owner, Mr Alfred.

But Winn-Dixie stays and helps Opal make friends with the townsfolk including Pet Store worker, Otis (Matthews), Miss Franny Block (Eva Marie Saint) and Gloria Dump (Cicely Tyson). Everything seems happy and lovely until a huge storm hits the town and Winn-Dixie runs away. Poor Opal gets really upset because her mum had left her and her dadda and she blames Preacher-man for her leaving. He tells her that he tried really hard to keep her around but she left anyway.
There’s a cool party where Otis plays his guitar and Opal and the Preacher return to wait for their doggy. When Otis starts playing another song on his guitar, they hear a voice, a howl and it’s Winn-Dixie returned! Everyone is happy and starts singing along with the dog’s howls. Good times! 

Review

If you’re looking for a lovely, humorous movie about family, friends and community (with a cute dog thrown in), you’ve come to the right place. This is a perfect family movie with lots of laugh-out-loud moments, a few ‘shed those tears’ moments but above all it will leave you with a nice, warm feeling in your tum-tum.

It’s no Oscar winner but a heart-warming movie that gets back to old-fashioned values in the best way possible. The performances of the humans are pretty good, with Robb doing a fine job as the beautiful Opal. I always love Jeff Daniels, he always give a solid performance. But the best part about this movie is the animals including a cutie pie piglet, a Cockatoo (not a parrot, Otis!) – Aussie, Aussie, Aussie and a rather funny bear who stars in a crazy flashback.

We were so lucky to be invited to our friends house to eat these authentic Southern dishes (thanks Tammy) with our friends from the great South (Alabama, Texas, Florida). They cooked up a storm and we ate like we were sitting around on a large verandah in ‘bama (when really we were freezing out little bottoms off in Australia). So I totally recommend that you do the same. The fried chicken and biscuits were especially delish, not to mention the banana pud! YUM!

Food

Southern food is so delicious, so you could really cook up a range of tasty dishes to match this film. But today, I’ve chosen one dish that can act as a snack on it’s own or part of a full on Southern feast. Your choice! Check out this Easy Southern Cheddar Biscuits recipe from Grits and Pinecones blog.

Note: Thanks to Sharon from Grits and Pinecones for permission to feature her fab image and link to her amazing recipe.

Because of Winn-Dixie trivia

• Budget – $14 million
• This film is based on Kate DiCamillio’s book, Because of Winn-Dixie and I have it on good authority that it’s even better than the movie. Give it a read!
• Four dogs were used to play Winn-Dixie and to make sure they were comfortable with Robb, they brought her in a while before shooting started and she gave them treats and probably loads of cuddles.
• The dogs were of the Picardy Shepherd breed (if you wanna bag yourself a Winn-Dixie dog, go for these!)
• Filmed in Louisiana.

More great film and food matches to try:

• Frankenstein movie matched with super-adventurous dishes
• Muppets Most Wanted film paired with Muppet-y snacks
• The Butler movie matched with Civil Rights-inspired recipes