At The Movies

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Family Feasts

Set at Thanksgiving, "What's Cooking?" celebrates
American cultural diversity.

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NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

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L.A. in 1994, when she was promot-
ing her first feature film, Bhaji on the
Beach, another story of identity and
eats. (Bhaji is a popular Indian food in
the U.K., similar to vegetable tempura.)
In between screenings, she wandered
the streets and was astounded to dis-
cover a city that was vastly different
from the L.A. she'd seen in Hollywood
films. "I saw storefronts with Hebrew
and Korean signs," she says. "I saw
billboards in Spanish and people read-
ing the Forwerts."
The clincher was the Thanksgiving

urinder Chadha was having
one of those surreal multi-
cultural moments you get
in Los Angeles.
The Punjabi Brit was munching a
bagel at Nate 'n' Al's when two elderly
Jews walked in and ordered Chinese
chicken salad. "I just thought that was
hysterical," says Chadha, whose charm-
ing film What's Cooking? centers on four
families — Jewish,
black, Vietnamese and
Latino — all celebrating
Thanksgiving on the
same block in L.A.
"This Jewish deli was
selling something
called 'a Chinese chick-
en salad,' which you
never see anywhere but
California, and these
elderly Jews were clear-
ly relishing it."
Not surprisingly, the
Jewish family in What's
Cooking? eats Chinese
Ruth Seelig (Lainie Kazan), center, gets help with the
chicken salad along
Thanksgiving turkey from her daughter Rachel (Kyra Sedgwick),
with the turkey. (And,
of course, kugel.) Fare right, and Rachel's lover; Carla (Julianna Margulies),
on the other
Thanksgiving tables
dinners she attended with her French-
includes pho, tamales and macaroni
Japanese-American husband-to-be —
and cheese — all devoured between
notably the one with sushi at his mom's
family crises.
house. Chadha asked for the Tabasco
While most U.S. films expose the
and decided she wanted to make a film
conflict in diversity, Chadha's comedy-
about this kind of America.
drama is celebratory "I wanted to make
Chadha's films depict the rich duali-
a classic American family movie, but I
ty of the diaspora, because she grew
wanted to people it with Americans we
up in one herself. Until the age of 3,
hardly ever see onscreen," says the
she lived in British colonial Africa;
director, a jovial former BBC radio
after Kenya achieved independence,
journalist who reports her age as "sort-
her father searched for work in
of-30s, late-ish."
London, only to be laughed out of a
"If you choose to see it that way, it's
branch of Barclay's bank because he
quite a subversive film. Using food as
wore a beard and turban.
the metaphor, you discern that every-
Her family ultimately found safe
thing can be accommodated on the
haven in the colorful, West London
Thanksgiving table in the same way
neighborhood of Southall, "a fantastic
that culturally anyone can be called an
place that was to the Punjabi commu-
American."
nity what Fairfax was to L.A. Jews,"
What's Cooking? began simmering
Chadha says.
for Chadha during her first trip to
At home, she ate Baal and chapati,
read teen-zines and complained when
Naomi Pfefferman is entertainment
her grandmother made her turn off
editor at the Jewish Journal of Greater
the telly for evening prayers.
Los Angeles.