This week on Movie Monday, I showed Sweeney Todd… and made meat pies to feed everyone.

This worked out better in conception than in execution, I think.

I found an interesting-sounding recipe for chicken-and-Stilton pies, and tried it with no real conception of what Stilton tastes like. In my personal opinion, it made the pies too sour; I would have been better off with gorgonzola, or feta, or no cheese at all. That aside, they were… okay. You can't go too far wrong with chicken and scallions and walnuts and green beans and thyme in a flaky pie crust. At least they looked good and smelled delicious. And people seemed to like 'em; I suspect that other people just like Stilton more than I do. Which tends to be true for most cheeses, and is certainly true of blue cheese and feta as well.

The pie crust, on the other hand… well, I just don't think I was cut out to make pie crusts. I don't think I have the patience or the deftness. I spent three hours Sunday night coming to terms with this. It doesn't help that there seem to be more "don'ts" than "dos" when it comes to pie crusts: Don't add too much water, they'll be gluey. Don't short them on water, or they'll be crumbly. Don't knead them too much, they'll become glutinous instead of flaky. Don't neglect to knead them, or the ingredients won't mix. If they're too warm, they'll stick to the rolling pin. If they're too cold, they'll crack. If you don't use flour on the rolling pin, they'll come apart. If you use too much, they'll pick it up and become too floury. And on and on.

And as insidian pointed out, unlike with most foods, there's no way to fix a pie crust once it's gone wrong — once there's too much water, or you've kneaded it too much, or floured it too much, it's already too late.

So I baked a test pie with my existing crust Monday evening, and decided there was no way I could feed the dry, heavy, crumbly results to people. So Cass ran out and bought pre-made crusts, and once Sid and off_coloratura arrived, we created a pie assembly line and smacked 'em all together pretty fast and shoved 'em in the oven, all while singing "More hot pies! More hot! More pies!" and various other bits and pieces of the musical. Which was great fun. I do enjoy assembly-line group cooking.

So that's one more thing I've tried making and eating, and it was interesting. But I won't be trying it again any time real soon.

That aside… Sweeney Todd didn't hold up too well for me the second time through. (Granted, I missed half of it because I was futzing with the pies and making a salad and finishing up dessert, but I was around for all the scenes I really wanted to see again.) I was completely unfamiliar with the production the first time I saw the Tim Burton movie, and the film left me kind of cold — it looks exactly like everything else Tim Burtony, and the fact that he's using Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp again doesn't help — but some of the songs stuck with me a bit, and I wanted to hear all the songs Burton scrapped, so I bought the Len Cariou/Angela Lansbury Broadway CD set, and listened to it a few times… and a few more times… and a few MORE times… and became stupid-addicted to it. (I'm listening to it again right now.) Which made me want to see the film again, to see how Burton had handled a bunch of specific scenes.

It seemed like one of the big criticisms of Burton's Sweeney Todd, especially from people who loved the show, is that neither Depp nor Bonham-Carter can sing. The first time through the film, I didn't get that at all, but then, I was concentrating largely on getting all the lyrics. Hearing them again, in comparison with a couple of Broadway belters singing their hearts out… yeah, they sound anemic, and half-committed, and not always on time or in key. And Burton takes SO much energy out of the show, first by turning Sweeney Todd down so far that when he isn't singing, he's pretty much Off, and second by taking the crowd and the background singers out altogether, especially during "God, That's Good!" which is just Bonham-Carter flittering around singing in her little-bird voice, without the crowd response.

Anyway. I was kind of indifferent to the film the first time around. The second time, I was actually disappointed. I was happier with the pies. Even if they were only made out of chicken.