Tortilla Soup [2001]

Directed by Maria Ripoll
Art Direction by John Mott
Production Design by Alicia Maccarone 
Set Decoration by Julieann Getman
Cinematography by Xavier Grobet
Film Format: 35 mm 
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Samuel Goldwyn Films

For a story that revolves around the progress and reversals of multiple characters in a contemporary Mexican-American family, with varying points of plot departure centered on the chief persona of widowed father (Hector Elizondo), a semi-retired professional chef, trying to buttress the traditional values of his assimilated daughters and maintain the stability of his household as it's visited by various boyfriends and aspiring suitors, the kitchen plays an important part as locus for his dexterous prep work, and the arena for family confrontations, interruptions, and resolutions. 

For authenticity the actual kitchen in the Encino home of Larry and Doris Silverton, parents of La Brea Bakery owner Nancy Silverton, was used as a set, which production designer Alicia Maccarone made credible with a crowded but uncluttered & functional assortment of colorful foods, dishes, cookware and hand tools. And since cooking of such a specific kind serves in an equally spotlighted role, the meals for the movie were specially designed by famed restaurant Border Grill chefs Mary Sue Milliken & Susan Feniger, with local cook Paul Rosenbluh in an uncredited role as Elizondo’s “stunt hands” for close-ups.