Free Planet Press

Norah Jones for HK movie

Talk about a charmed life. Singer Norah Jones is starring in the next Wong Kar-wai movie, despite having no acting experience. My Blueberry Nights is the story of an enigmatic blueberry pie eater who travels across America to find true love. It’s the first English language movie for Wong, and will be launched in June. One of the actresses in it, Rachel Weisz (you know her as the female lead in The Mummy and The Constant Gardener) is working with Wong on his 2008 project, a 1930s spy thriller called The Lady From Shanghai.

            Wong has revealed that My Blueberry Nights was based on a Hong Kong short movie he did, but it must have evolved: the two main elements are long-distance road travel and blueberry pies, neither of which are exactly characteristic of Hong Kong.

Here comes fish-free sushi

Many people like sushi but don’t like to think about eating raw fish. This is no longer a problem. Western chefs are taking sushi (historically Chinese, but now identified with Japan) and breaking all the rules. The California Roll, made of cooked crabmeat and avocado, has become one of the most popular varieties. Other parts of the US have hit back with their own inventions, such as the Philadelphia Roll, which features cream cheese and salmon, and the Boston Roll, which contains prawns and lettuce. Yo! Sushi, a restaurant in London offers strawberries-and-cream sushi.

           In the meantime, the US government has developed a way to take out the seawood taste, having developed sushi wraps from substances such as broccoli and carrot. Food scientists at the US Department of Agriculture have produced a roast pork sushi rolled in a pineapple-apricot-ginger wrap, which you can follow with dessert: a creamy cheesecake sushi in a blueberry wrap.

            Tang Dynasty chefs must be rolling in their graves.