VeganMoFo: Radio Days

Hey look, i’m doing a good movie for once! Radio Days has a teeny Seth Green in it, and if you’re thinking i’m cheating by doing three movies in a row with Seth Green in them, I say you’re not the boss of me!

Radio Days is a story about a young boy (Joe) and his Jewish-American family living in Rockaway Beach in the late 1930’s, and the radio programs they love. The story is narrated by adult Joe (aka Woody Allen) and intermingles stories about famous radio stars at the time.

I’m really not sure how I first saw this movie, I know I was very young and I don’t think it was on tv so maybe we rented it because we ran out of new horror movies to watch. To me, the scene I immediately think of when I think of this movie is Ruthie dancing to Carmen Miranda. I’m also pretty fond of the part where Sally, the cigarette/coat check girl who’s trying to break into the biz, witnesses a mob hit and the hit man takes her to his mom’s house so he can get more bullets to kill her with, and they talk about where he’s going to dump her body while his mom feeds Sally.

Starring Mia Farrow (Rosemary’s Baby, The Great Gatsby), Julie Kavner (Rhoda, Marge and her family on The Simpsons), Michael Tucker (LA Law, Tracey Takes On), Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride, Clueless), and Dianne Wiest (Law & Order, Parenthood). Dianne was also in Footloose with Kevin Bacon, thus our chain is complete.

It’s depression menu time! Luckily, depression-era food is pretty easy to veganize as meat and dairy were the expensive things that people were going without.

Entree: You’ve heard of Great Depression Cooking with Clara, right? Well, the first thing I thought of when putting together this menu was her recipe for pasta and peas (video). She does add parmesan cheese at the very end, but other than that the recipe is totally vegan. I normally don’t want to link to anything that isn’t 100% vegan, but I love Clara’s videos and you can make your own vegan parmesan.
Side: Hot water cornbread!
Dessert: I’m sure you’re thinking of wacky cake, but that’s obvious so let’s go with mock apple pie. I’ve never made one, but Ritz crackers are accidentally vegan (and if you still don’t want to eat them, many health food companies make the same kind of cracker, like Tree of Life).