My wife and I don’t binge-watch much. I just don’t quite have the patience and she’s not going to sit on her own and mainline TV for a day. But Lord of the Rings is special.

The films came out for a set of Christmases lets-not-discuss-how-long-ago, and we associate them forever with nice festive times. These days I try to actively avoid watching them as I don’t want to see them too much and spoil them for myself somehow.

But, we all know what 2020 has been like. And, despite being pretty well-avoided by the rigours of 2020, it still meant we couldn’t see family and friends, with plans getting cancelled pretty late. And earlier this year I discovered There and Snack Again from listening to the Desert Island Discworld podcast. And we normally watch LotR at this 🎄 time of year.

Well, now.

To be clear, the idea, in Nate’s words:

to watch all three Lord of the Rings films (extended editions, of course), while attempting to eat everything that got eaten on screen

This is clearly a noble goal, and considering there’s very few things we can do in Tier 4 right now, why not match this quest?

checklists of food
Some planning started.

So, the problems:

  1. Amy, my wife, is coeliac, we need gluten-free options for everything
  2. We’ve got about a week to plan it, and there’s a lockdown
  3. Nate doesn’t necessarily make it sound super fun

So, we decided to loosen the rules very slightly:

  • Amy had tablet, as a spiritual GF version of lembas. One bite can feed a man for a day - pure sugar will do that
  • We’re not doing hardmode. We don’t want hard
  • We’re not eating food we don’t like! 🤢
  • We are definitely drinking alcohol
Scottish tablet (crumbly fudge)

So, we made a list, and checked it twice, and worked out what we wanted and didn’t, and what we could prep in advance. Then we had some kind of fit in the supermarket and this happened:

food on a supermarket checkout belt
I regret buying those Wotsits as they really ruin this picture's mood

I guess a few tanks of petrol not spent this year covers it though. It would be nice to say we drew out a schedule, but we more sort of… winged it

The plan:

  1. Prep (beef) stew the night before, run in the slow cooker during the first film
  2. Lay out and box any food we can the night before
  3. Get up early 🌄
  4. Clean our teeth on getting up! Always brush, kids.
  5. Fry up our (second) breakfast, and all the other meat at that point, then eat it cold the rest of the day
  6. Shower after the fry-up, to not stink of oil
  7. Definitely, definitely, don’t overeat

What could go wrong?

Partially cooked vegetables in plastic cookware
Aside: I love my slow cooker

Well, we set our alarms for 0700 to start Fellowship at 0730. Hopefully we’d get through the first film by 1300 (a lot of cooking in this one), and start the last by 7pm at the latest to be done for midnight.

food and utensils on a table
Another aside: intimidating to see in the morning

And so, to bed.