The Sandlot

 

School is out, swimming pools are open, and the summer heat has settled in so it's time to honor the season with a film that embraces it all.  The Sandlot follows Scotty Smalls, a new kid, as he befriends a group of baseball-loving boys and ends up having the greatest summer of his life.

 Scotty's mom captures the sentiment of the summer well when she tells him,  

"I want you to get out into the fresh air and make some friends.
Run around, scrape your knees, get dirty.
Climb trees, hop fences.
Get into trouble, for crying out loud.
Not too much, but some. You have my permission."

A lot of the movies that I end up doing pairings for have a nostalgic element for me.  The Sandlot is definitely one of those movies that pulls at my heartstrings every time I watch it.  I love being part of the era before social media and over scheduling took the reins even if its only for the duration of a movie.  It makes you want to get outside and pretend that your biggest worries are a giant baseball eating beast or summer ending too soon.

As always, let's jump right into the pairing.  I used a bit of creative freedom for our first snack.

Fried Pickles

A number of times during the movie the line "in a pickle" was used to describe the precarious situations the Sandlot boys found themselves in.  I love Fried Pickles so I was more than happy to attempt to make them at home.  I used this recipe from She Wears Many Hats.  It was a pretty easy recipe to follow and this tangy treat was a perfect way to break up the numerous sweets we're also using in our pairing today.

Before we head to the sweets, I have one more savory item I'm sure you're already familiar with because it's the ever popular hot dog!

Bite Size Hot Dogs

Hot dogs can be seen in the Fourth of July and Founders Day celebrations and honestly I just can't think of a better food to represent a summer baseball film.  I mean come on, you gotta have them!  I used the same recipe I used in While You Were Sleeping because they're easy and so cute.  These Bite Size Hot Dogs from Bakespace are a big hit in this house.

Now that the savory treats are taken care of, I promised sweets so here we go.  Indisputably, the most iconic food in The Sandlot is the s'more so I've brought you options.

First we have the traditional s'more.

Hamilton "Ham" Porter: Hey, you wanna s'more?

Scotty Smalls: Some more what?

Hamilton "Ham" Porter: No, no. Do you want a s'more?

Scotty Smalls: I just got here, so how can I have some more of nothing?

Hamilton "Ham" Porter: You're killin' me, Smalls!

       

The recipe is as follow with compliments to Hamilton "Ham" Porter:

"Okay, these are s'mores stuff. Now pay attention. First, you take the graham. You stick the chocolate on the graham. Then, you roast the mallow. When the mallow's flaming, you stick it on the chocolate. Then, you cover it with the other end.  Then you scarf.  Kind of messy, but good.  Try some."

Next, we have a non-traditional but equally delicious s'more option.

No Bake S'mores Bars

 These No Bake S'mores Bars from Crazy for Crust only require 4 ingredients and are refrigerated so they are pleasantly chilled when eating.  The chocolate does tend to melt a bit when it touches your fingers so just as "Ham" says about the traditional s'more, "kind of messy, but good.  Try some"!

To continue our feast of sweets, we are going to have cupcakes inspired by the Founders Day celebration.

The Founders Day picnic featured a large multi-tiered cake with white icing as the base and red and blue decorative touches.  It's too bad no one got to enjoy any! You could make your own tiered cake or even mini tiered cakes, but that would require a lot of time with all the stacking and icing. Not to mention an assortment of cake pans.  I used a trusty standby Betty Crocker Vanilla Cake mix and because I was feeling particularly lazy and wouldn't even bother to fill my own pastry bag I gave the Pillsbury Vanilla Frosting that's already in a pastry bag a try.  (It made clean up so easy!)  Then to top it off, literally, I added some festive red and blue sprinkles to mimic the Founders Day cake and hey, it's July so red, white, and blue treats are a must!

The next items keep the sweet momentum going, but don't require any work in the kitchen.

Any guesses on the reference?  Naturally, I'm not going to suggest serving pouches of chewing tobacco like the fictional Big Chief brand the boys had at the carnival.  If you've seen the movie, you know that did not end well. How about some Big League Chew instead?

Just like we can't have a Food+Film pairing for The Sandlot without s'mores, we also can't go without acknowledging, "the Great Bambino, the Sultan of Swat, the Titan of Terror, the Colossus of Clout, and the King of Crash"... err I mean Babe Ruth.  So in honor of the legend grab yourself a Baby Ruth!

We're down to our final item: the drink.

"This pop isn't working, Benny.  I'm baking like a toasted cheeser!" ~ Ham

Full disclosure time... I'm a Pepsi gal.  Given the option I will always choose Pepsi.  Is it even possible to like both?  It seems to be quite the polarizing debate.  If you love one, you simply don't enjoy the other.  Nevertheless, one cannot help but notice the old Coca-Cola signs in The Sandlot and the boys all sitting around trying to cool down with an ice-cold bottle of Coke.  If you're able to find Coke in glass bottles that would give the pairing a more authentic retro vibe, but if you're not having any luck a can will do.  The fact that I don't enjoy Coke and yet feel sentimental about Coca-Cola bottles and their old billboards is a testament to their incredible marketing skills!

That's it for this month's Food+Film post featuring The Sandlot. I hope your summer is just as amazing as the summer of 1962 was for Scotty Smalls.

See you next time!

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