“No matter how bad things get, it’s impossible not to love someone who makes you toast.” says the 9-year old Nigel Slater (Oscar Kennedy), who grows up to be one of the UK’s best culinary writers. “Once you’ve bitten through that crusty surface to the soft dough underneath and tasted the warm salty butter, you are lost forever.” The film, Toast, based on Slater’s memoir of the same name, starts with Nigel trolling a market with his mother. He suggests getting pork pies or cheese, but she buy cans. At home she put the unopened cans in boiling water to heat. Nigel asks her if they could make a cake and she reluctantly agrees. It is a disaster from start to finish. The cans burn, the cake burns, and they end up eating toast instead.

Toast is Super Chef pick for DVD foodie gift. This is a touching story of a sensitive boy growing up in the West Midlands city of Wolverhampton, England. Nigel dream of glorious food – panting over cookbooks under his blanket at night, none of which his mother can make. His mother dies and his brutish father hires a house cleaner played with crass relish by Helena Bonham Carter. She provides the comedy and some poignancy to the film – Mrs. Potter can cook, and makes glorious meals, but she is from a lower class and Nigel knows she is after his father. Freddie Highmore plays the older Nigel – spying on Mrs. Potter to learn her secrets to making the perfect lemon meringue pie.

Super Chef won’t give the story away, but there is plenty of beautiful food, and all of the characters will pull at your heart.