Forrest Gump Dinner and Movie Night | Rewind & Dine

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The Forrest Gump Dinner & Movie Night That Proves You Just Have to Keep Showing Up

Forrest Gump came out in 1994. I was eleven years old and I absolutely saw it in theaters, and I have seen it approximately one million times since, and I will cry every single time that feather floats across the screen at the opening. Every time. It does not matter that I know exactly what is coming. It does not matter that I have watched Tom Hanks sit on that bench and tell strangers about his mama and his Jenny and his shrimping boat more times than I can count. I will cry. That is just the deal we have made with this film.

I have been a Tom Hanks fan my whole life. The man is incapable of a bad performance. A few years back I went to see one of my favorite singers, Gavin DeGraw, at the Greek Theatre in LA. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were sitting literally right in front of me. I spent the entire concert trying to decide if I should tap his shoulder and ask for a photo. I did not. They were on a date night and it just did not feel right. I like to think Forrest would have understood. He was always pretty good about reading a room.

I am telling you all of this because the day I filmed this chapter was not an easy one. I had gotten some hard news earlier that day, the kind that makes you question yourself as a creator, and I almost let it derail everything. There is a scene in Forrest Gump where he has just lost Bubba, and Lieutenant Dan, and Jenny, and instead of processing any of it he just starts running. He does not have a plan. He does not wait until he feels ready. He just goes. I have thought about that scene a lot. Sometimes showing up is the whole thing. So I showed up. I went into my kitchen, I made three kinds of shrimp from scratch, I built a box of homemade chocolates, and I filmed it. It turned out to be one of my best pieces of content. Forrest would probably just say he felt like making shrimp.

If you want every recipe from this chapter plus the full Flashback Blockbusters lineup, grab Rewind & Dine right here 👉 https://thefairytalefoodie.com/collections/all-cookbooks/products/rewind-and-dine-dinner-a-movie-cookbook-instant-download but keep reading because this menu has a story behind every single dish.

Here is what was on the table for our Forrest Gump Dinner & Movie Night:

Drink: Gotta Pee, Mr. President Appetizer: Bubba Gump Shrimp Appetizer (Coconut Shrimp, Pepper Shrimp, Shrimp Cocktail) Entrée: Mama’s Southern Fried Chicken Side: Lieutenant Dan’s Cheddar Grits Side: We’re Like Peas & Carrots Bread: Bus Stop Biscuits Dessert: Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

All of it is in the cookbook. 👉 https://thefairytalefoodie.com/collections/all-cookbooks/products/rewind-and-dine-dinner-a-movie-cookbook-instant-download

If you are loving this Forrest Gump Dinner and a Movie, you might also want to check out Mrs Doubtfire, Twister and Indiana Jones!

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Gotta Pee, Mr. President

If you know the scene, you know. Forrest gets invited to the White House, meets the President of the United States, and when asked how he feels, he tells him he has to pee. Because he drank fifteen Dr. Peppers. This is genuinely one of the funniest moments in the entire film and it demanded its own drink.

I did a Dr. Pepper float. Vanilla ice cream, Dr. Pepper poured slow over the top so it foams up beautifully, a maraschino cherry, and a red and white straw. Mocktail as written. If you want to make it adult-appropriate, a splash of bourbon or vanilla vodka slipped in before the ice cream is your move. It tastes exactly like a state dinner should taste, which is to say nostalgic and a little ridiculous and completely wonderful.

The White House seal cocktail pick is doing a lot of heavy lifting here and I am not sorry about it.

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Bubba Gump Shrimp Appetizer

Okay. So. Bubba.

Bubba spends the better part of this movie reciting every single preparation of shrimp known to mankind. Shrimp gumbo, shrimp pie, shrimp kabobs, shrimp creole, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp sandwich. He is passionate. He is committed. He has a vision. I respect it deeply. So when it came time to design the appetizer for this chapter, doing one shrimp preparation felt like a betrayal of everything Bubba stood for.

I did three.

Coconut shrimp with a piña colada dipping sauce. Pan seared pepper shrimp with a homemade aioli. A classic shrimp cocktail with cocktail sauce. All on one platter with labeled picks so you know exactly what you are dealing with. My husband lost his mind over the coconut shrimp with the piña colada sauce and honestly I get it. It is tropical and crispy and the sauce is so good you will want to put it on everything.

The pepper shrimp though. That one is personal. Matt and I love a good steakhouse, and when we go, if there is a shrimp appetizer on the menu we are ordering it. There is a salt and pepper shrimp at one of our favorite spots, Paul Martin’s in California, that I have been trying to replicate for years. This came pretty close. I mean pretty close. I may have done a little victory lap around the kitchen.

If this shrimp situation has you in a full Bubba spiral, I have good news. The Sandlot dinner night over on the blog has the same summer-cookout-at-its-finest energy, and it pairs beautifully with a cooler of cold drinks and absolutely zero plans for the rest of the evening. Check it out right here.

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Mama’s Southern Fried Chicken & Bus Stop Biscuits

Mama said life was like a box of chocolates. Mama also clearly knew how to fry a chicken, because in every scene where she feeds someone in that house it looks like the kind of food that makes you close your eyes when you take a bite.

The whole film is rooted in Alabama. In the South. In front porches and screen doors and food that takes time and love and a cast iron pan that has been seasoned for forty years. I wanted this entrée to honor that. So I made a classic buttermilk fried chicken. Brined, battered, fried until the crust is genuinely shatteringly good. The kind of chicken that Mama would have put on the table without any fanfare because she knew it was perfect and she did not need to make a big deal about it.

The biscuits are Bus Stop Biscuits, named for the bench. The bus stop bench. Where it all begins and ends. Fluffy, buttery, golden on top. They go on the top tier of the stand because they deserve to be elevated. Literally.

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Lieutenant Dan’s Cheddar Grits

Lieutenant Dan did not want to be saved. He had made peace with dying in that field and Forrest went and ruined the whole plan by carrying him out anyway. Their friendship is one of the great odd couple stories in cinema and I love every minute of it.

Lieutenant Dan eventually finds his peace. He gets his sea legs back, literally and figuratively, and he ends up on that shrimping boat with Forrest catching more shrimp than they know what to do with. He earned his grits. These cheddar grits are rich and cheesy and the kind of side dish that quietly becomes the thing everyone talks about. Sharp cheddar, creamy base, a little butter because Lieutenant Dan did not survive Vietnam to eat sad grits.

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We’re Like Peas & Carrots

The simplest dish on the table and also the one with the most emotional weight, which is very on brand for this movie.

Forrest says it twice. Once about him and Bubba. Once about him and Jenny. They just go together. They always have. Peas and carrots is one of those combinations that should not be as comforting as it is, but here we are. Buttered peas and carrots, simply done, sitting in a little bowl on the table as a reminder that sometimes the most important things in life are also the most straightforward.

Also it is a vegetable side dish on a table that otherwise includes fried chicken, cheesy grits, and three kinds of shrimp. So there is that.

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Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

Mama said you never know what you are gonna get. I decided you were going to get four things, all of them excellent, and you were going to be very happy about it.

I made this entire box by hand. Milk chocolate domes with a vanilla cream filling. Dark chocolate shells with a peanut butter filling. Peanut and almond nut clusters. Dark chocolate truffles. All of them finished and laid out in little gold candy cups in a white gift box like something you would pay thirty dollars for at a boutique chocolate shop.

I brought them to Matt as they were hardening to get his reaction. He ate one. Then he came back. Then I had to hide them from him because he kept stealing the vanilla cream ones specifically. I am telling you this so you understand the stakes. These chocolates are dangerous and your date night partner will not be able to stop themselves and you should plan accordingly.

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The Full Spread

When everything was on the table I stood back and just looked at it for a second. The tiered stand with the chicken and biscuits. The shrimp platter front and center. The little bowl of peas and carrots. The box of chocolates off to the side. The Dr. Pepper float. The Bubba Gump logo pick standing in the middle of it all like it owned the place. The Forrest Gump menu card propped up behind everything.

It looked like a love letter to one of the most beloved films ever made. And we watched it and I cried at the feather and I cried at the bench and I cried when Jenny dies and Matt pretended not to notice any of it.

Forrest Gump has always felt less like a movie and more like a time machine. If that’s your thing, the Dirty Dancing dinner night and the Grease dinner night live in that same warm, golden, everybody-knew-every-word-by-heart pocket. Both are in the Rewind & Dine cookbook if you want the full experience.

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Tag me when you make it. Mama would be proud.