There are shallow bowls full of raw vegetables. And there is, in its earthenware dish, the crab casserole Clarissa made herself, for Richard, because it was his favorite.
The Hours, Michael Cunningham
Handwritten notes on ageing cards. Scribbles in the columns of cookbooks. Newspaper recipes, either clipped neatly, or hastily torn, showing the 50 cent discount for baby food, uncovered between pages. I have a love of old cookbooks (and a tendency to buy them!), but it's not just because it's one more I might use. I enjoy seeing the first owners of the book. Which recipes were used enough to have dog-eared corners. Where you can place the book on its spine, pages up, and let it open to where it's used to. The turned to again and again recipe. The pages ruffle to that spot.
This recipe is adapted from Retro Food, a "hand written recipe tucked into a cookbook' of the author's mother's. I only had a 170g can of crab in the cupboard to work with, and fortunately it was just me for dinner that night. So the recipe has been adapted for a one person serve, for what I had in the cupboard at the time, and my taste for smoked paprika that night.
You'll need:
1/3 tsp dry mustard
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
1/3 cup milk
1 hard boiled egg, chopped roughly
1/3 lb crabmeat (170g can of crabmeat in this case)
1.5 tbsp butter
2 tsp flour
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/4 cup cracker crumbs
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
Stir together the butter and flour. In a saucepan, mix together the smoked paprika, mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and milk. Add in the crab meat, eggs, and bread crumbs and stir for 3-4 minutes until combined and starting to heat up. Scoop it into a casserole dish and sprinkle with cracker crumbs and a bit of extra smoked paprika. Bake at 175C/350F for ~20 minutes, or until the top starts to golden.
Seated on the divan beside Langdon, Sophie drank her tea and ate a scone, feeling the welcome effects of caffeine and food. Sir Leigh Teabing was beaming as he awkwardly paced before the open fire, his leg braces clicking on the stone hearth.
-The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
Just the chapter before, as part of the password of entering Sir Leigh Teabing's estate, Langdon has to answer correctly how to take his Earl Grey tea. The answer, with lemon. So, instead of just doing straight scones, we've infused ours with lemon and earl grey tea. The end result is light but flavoursome.
I know the characters in Dan Brown's books are always in a mad rush, solving a mystery, but I wish they would eat more! Or when they do, something more descriptive and/ or substancial. In an almost 600 page book, The Da Vinci Code includes tea, more tea, wine, coffee, bread, Perrier, crisps, nuts, Seltzer, vodka, cognac, French escargot, Roquefort (a cheese), fruit, and candied almonds.
You'll need:
2 earl grey teabags
1/2 cup milk
one lemon, grated and juiced (half will be used for the scones, the other half for the glaze)
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tbsp water
2 cups self raising flour
1/3 cup white sugar
45g softened butter
1 tsp baking powder
Start by heating the milk in a mug in the microwave for about a minute until hot. Infuse the two teabags and half the lemon rind in the milk for about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, take half the juice of the lemon and the other half of the grated lemon, and add it to a small saucepan with the 1/4 cup of white sugar and the tablespoon of water. Let simmer until reduced to a sticky glaze (about 10 minutes). Turn off the heat and let sit to cool.
After your milk, tea and lemon is infused, mix it together with the rest of your ingredients (sugar, flour, butter and baking powder). The dough should be kneadable by hand. Dry enough to hold, but still moist enough. Roll it out about 1 inch thick, and use a round cookie cutter to cut out the circles of dough.(I actually used the bottom of a large funnel from my canning set. Anything works!)
Butter a cookie pan and place the circles of dough with an inch or two of space between each. Bake for about 20 minutes at 150C/300F. Gluten free scones will turn out looking like this, 'normal' scones will fluff slightly.
Butler prepared them a meal. Nothing fancy. Vegetarian spring rolls, followed by mushroom risotto with creme caramel to finish. Mulch opted for a bucket of diced worms and beetles, sauteed in a rainwater and moss vinaigrette.
So many names for that perfect bite of deep fried goodness. The spring roll. Personally, I love mine vegetarian, and absolutely dosed in sweet chili sauce. Double dipping is compulsary. Heck, make that triple dipping.
And after making them fresh at home, your local chinese takeaway restaurant will seem piddly in comparision. Once you get into a rhythm of spooning, folding and rolling, it gets easier. I made more than needed, but popped them into the fridge. They loose their crispiness overnight, but those leftover spring rolls will look pretty enticing round lunch time.
You'll need:
a 100g packet of vermicelli noodles
1 tbsp of peanut oil
3 spring onions, sliced
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 large carrot or 3-4 baby carrots, peeled and grated
1 1/2 cups shredded Chinese cabbage (check out this picture if you aren't sure what you're looking for. I know I didn't!)
1 can water chestnuts, drained and chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 pepper
20 spring roll wrappers, thawed (found in frozen section of grocery store)
frying oil (vegetable)
sweet chilli sauce for dipping sauce
Before cooking the noodles, break the 'roll' of noodles into four pieces, then cover with boiling water in a large bowl. Cover until soft, then drain.
Next, in a wok (or a large frying pan), heat up the peanut oil until hot. Add in the spring onions, garlic, grated carrot and cabbage. Cook until soft. Toss in the noodles, water chestnuts, soy and pepper, stir until combined, then set aside to cool.
Follow the instructions in the blog from Zaiqa.net on how to roll a spring roll correctly. Having images always helps!
Have a small bowl of cold water next to your work space for wetting the edges, and cover the extra wrappers with a damp teatowel.
Take one wrapper and turn it so a corner faces you. Take one tablespoon of the stir fried mixture and place it in a row horizontally close to the corner near you. Wet the edges of the wrapper, fold the corner closest to you up, fold the left and right corners inwards, then roll it together.
Complete all the other wrappers, keeping them covered with a damp teatowel as well.
When all the wrappers are filled and rolled, heat a wok a large saucepan with vegetable oil in, about one -third full. To test if oil is hot, take a tear of bread and drop it into the oil. It'll sizzle and bubble.
Cook spring rolls a few at a time, for 1-2 minutes, until golden. Pull out and keep warm in an oven set on the lowest temperature or 'keep warm'. Once all are cooked, remove them and serve with the sweet chilli sauce.
With the excitement surrounding The Great Gatsby release, I thought it would be fun to take you on a tour through Sydney and explore the locations where Baz Luhrmann brought The Great Gatsby scenes to life.
image: Warner Bros. Pictures
Gatsby's Mansion
"The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard — it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion."
image (circa 1900): wikipedia/ State Library of New South Wales
In Luhrmann's mind, there was one building that stood out to be transformed into Jay Gatsby's Long Island Mansion - St Patrick's College in Manly. Built in 1885, it was used as a seminary (post secondary school for becoming a clergy or minister). When it closed in 1995, the International College of Management began using it. It's also well known as the location of Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's wedding.
For the film vast amounts of faux ivy were attached to the bottom two levels of the building, while a temporary fountain was added in the courtyard. After filming, special effects added in turrets and other detail.
~
Gatsby's Estate & Nick Carraway's House
"The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog — at least I had him for a few days until he ran away — and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove."
Out of all the buildings in The Great Gatsby (both the book and the movie), Nick Carraway's 'bungalow' is my favourite. There's something quaint and endearing about the place. In Baz Luhrmann's version of The Great Gatsby, Carraway's house was built and filmed in Centennial Park, as was Gatsby's estate. 'Gardens' were created, which is humourous considering it's filmed in a park, and Gatsby's gates. The sets were taken down after filming.
image: Warner Bros. Pictures
image: Tracee Lea/ Perthnow.com.au
~
Valley of Ashes
"About half way between West Egg and New York the motorroad hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes- a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spade and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight."
image: Warner Bros. Pictures
White Bay Power Station in Rozelle was transformed into the working class area where Wilson's Garage is found. This same site has been used for Australian tv shows, advertisements, as well as filming of The Matrix Reloaded.
"The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress."
~
Daisy's Mansion
"Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens — finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch."
The exterior of Daisy's red brick Georgian mansion was built on a sound stage at Fox Studios, one of 42 sets created for the film. Other details were placed in post-production using special effects. All interiorscenes have also been shot at Fox Studios.
image: Warner Bros. Pictures
image: Warner Bros. Pictures
~
Gatsby' Funeral
"About five o’clock our procession of three cars reached the cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the gate — first a motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then Mr. Gatz and the minister and I in the limousine, and a little later four or five servants and the postman from West Egg in Gatsby’s station wagon, all wet to the skin. As we started through the gate into the cemetery I heard a car stop and then the sound of someone splashing after us over the soggy ground. I looked around. It was the man with owl-eyed glasses whom I had found marvelling over Gatsby’s books in the library one night three months before."
image: The Daily Telegraph
One of the world's top ten most beautiful cemeteries, according to CNN, Waverley Cemetery was the set for Gatsby's funeral, complete with fake rain to create the drizzle. It's known for it's views and Victorian and Edwardian monuments that are still in good shape today. The cemetery has been used in several films and tv shows since the 1970's.
filming location spots around Sydney
Follow the Film
Star Trail
But no need to
stop there. If you're in Sydney, there are two more trails to follow. If you're
a film buff, follow the lives of the casts and check out where they ate,
shopped and stayed, for yourself.
While we can’t stay
at the $10k a week, five bedroom, five bathroom waterfront mansion (complete
with pool, jetty and cruiser), located in Vaucluse that Leo Di Caprio stayed
at, we can catch our zzz’s at The Astral at The Star. He eventually moved there
after a few weeks, after the word got out about the mansion.
The Star also
seemed to be his playground when he wasn’t filming The Great Gatsby. The
following are restaurants where Toby Maguire, Leo Di Caprio, Carey Mulligan or Baz
Luhrmann and his wife, Catherine Martin have been spotted.
Black by
Ezard, best known for their seafood dishes and ‘grass and grain fed dry aged
beef.’ Ground
Level, Harbourside, at The Star, Pyrmont
image: The Star
Sokyo, an incredibly
popular high end Japanese restaurant. Ground Level at The
Star, Pyrmont
image: The Star
Felix, a One Chef Hat
French bistro and bar, known for its authentic feel. 2 Ash St, Sydney
Aria, Circular Quay.
Think views of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a too-die-for
menu, Two Chef Hats, and owned by celebrity chef Matt Moran. 1 Macquarie St, Sydney
image: Aria
Otto Ristorante, Italian cuisine, located on Woolloomooloo Wharf. 6 Cowper Wharf Rd,
Woolloomooloo
Live the 1920's
If you're looking
for a 1920's spin on your trip, check out the following:
Palmer and Co. Think jazz singers, prohibition cocktails and true 1920’s fashion from the
hostesses and bartenders. You’ll think you’ve stepped back in time. Abercrombie Lane,
Sydney
images: Dan Boud
Eau De Vie is
another done up in the 1920’s style. In true speakeasy style, you’ll have to
find the bar (which has no signage out front). I’d suggest using your 21st
century technology and punching in 229 Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst to your
phone.
Wherever your exploring leads, you'll find something that'll make your trip memorable.
There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.
Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York — every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler’s thumb.
At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.
-The Great Gatsby, F. Scott. Fitzgerald
image: Warner Bros. Pictures
Let's pull it all together, shall we? Below are the drinks and food mentioned throughout the book, as well as links to recipes around the web.
image: brytontaylor.com
Champagne. Alcohol was prohibited in the 1920's, but it still was around. Just remember they served them in wide brimmed champagne glasses, not the flutes that we use today. If you don't want to buy glass like these Casablanca Champagne Coupe, try a package of 40 Plastic Champagne Glasses for a larger party.
Claret. A dark rosé wine from Bordeaux, now no longer around. The term Claret de Bordeaux now means a fruity light red wine that's easy to drink. For this party, in it's place, try any rosé wine. Crittenden & Co (links to Dan Murphy's, my local Australian store) makes a nice rosé that's well priced for large dinner parties (~$5 a bottle).
Sauterne. A sweet dessert white wine. Serve it at room temperature and not with sweet desserts (goes well with cheeses). This is a pricier wine (the lowest I could find was $30 a bottle) but can be served just as dessert itself.
Tea. In the novel, tea is served with the lemon cakes when Gatsby and Daisy meet at Nick's house. You don't have to throw a big dinner party to celebrate The Great Gatsby out in cinemas. Host a small tea party instead. Try orange pekoe, black tea or green tea.
Lemonade.'He was profoundly affected by the fact that Tom was there. But he would be uneasy anyhow until he had given them something, realizing in a vague way that that was all they came for. Mr Sloane wanted nothing. A lemonade? No, thanks. A little champagne? Nothing at all, thanks...' Try Sweet Kiera's meyer lemonade recipe here. Looks deliciously refreshing!
Cordial. If you just don't drink, are the designated driver or are throwing this party for a below 18 year old (or 21, whichever your legal drinking age is), cordials make an appealing and tasty alternative. In the case of the book, they were probably used as mixers.
Baked Ham. Try Chatelaine's spiced baked ham recipe. My old Chatelaine cookbook that's been lugged around the world with us, makes the description more elegant, by placing maraschino cherries (which were introduced in the 1920's) in the centres of the cut diamonds in the fat, and placing strips of kumquats into the cuts, so try combining the two.
Hors d'oeuvres. These are essentially, finger foods that you eat before a main meal. The list is endless on what you serve, and are quite simple foods, often just displayed on platters.
When I threw my 1920's party last year, I needed it to be, for the majority, finger food as we were playing a murder mystery game. This was the menu I planned (based on an 1920's italian speak-easy)
Salads. Salads were very popular in the 1920's, according to Food Timeline. Try ones that would've been around in Gatsby's time, like this Waldorf Salad from Yum Sugar, or the Candle Salad. Although popular in the 50's, it originated from the 20's (and yes, in my opinion looks quite phallic.) Also, any molded salad (think foods stuck in Jello) was the go. And finally, don't forget the Caesar Salad! Yet another 1920's invention.
Pig sausages. 'Most of the time I worked. In the early morning the sun threw my shadow westward as I hurried down the white chasms of lower New York to the Probity Trust. I knew the other clerks and young bond-salesmen by their first names, and lunched with them in dark, crowded restaurants on little pig sausages and mashed potatoes and coffee.'
Pork sausages, you'll find them in the grocery store. Makes for good finger foods. To make it daintier, slice them and poke toothpicks in for serving/ easy handling.
Mashed potato. Naturally, goes with the pig sausages.
Lemon cakes. Served with tea at Nick's. I made these recently, and used The White House Cookbook's Citron Pound Cake recipe found on gutenberg.com, replacing the brandy with white wine and using fresh grated lemon rind and lemon juice.
image: brytontaylor.com
Cold fried chicken. A meal between Tom and Daisy, served with cold ale. Try the recipe I made here. If you're serving it at a party, make it finger bite sized and keep them hot in a buffet server (if you throw more than one party a year, you need one! Cheap enough, I bought mine for around $30-$40.)
Writing up invitations, place cards or menus? Try out these fonts.
The official font for recent The Great Gatsby movie by Baz Luhrmann, starring Leonardo Di Caprio, is Atlas Regular and Atlas Solid.
Looking for free 1920's Great Gatsby fonts? Try these from fontspace.com
For a more feminine 1920's font (free), for a tea party
image: amazon.com
If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you're coming into the right weather to host your Great Gatsby party outside. Too cold but have a greenhouse or outdoor room by chance? Having walls makes decorating easier! Especially if you want to string hundreds of fairy lights to create that romantic 1920's glow.
image: brytontaylor.com
Alcohol flows in The Great Gatsby, so don't forget to make the bar your main focus.
Crystal bottles and cigar boxes, image: brytontaylor.com
Want to throw a 1920's party, but more gangster/ flapper? Check out the speak easy party I threw last year here. It includes images of costumes, decor and the floorplan.
The notion originated with Daisy's suggestion that we hire five bathrooms and take cold baths, and then assumed more tangible form as 'a place to have a mint julep'.
-The Great Gatsby, F. Scott. Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby didn't hold my attention very well, I suppose I like my books wrapped up neatly with a bow in the end. Instead I felt The Great Gatsby was too incomplete. It just faded in and out of situations. But that's life, and life doesn't end with a shabang. Instead, it goes on.
I did, however, love The Great Gatsby novel for a chance to be inspired by the 1920's. There's no better excuse to throw a flapper party, than a classic novel being turned into a movie. And it wouldn't be complete without a mint julep in hand!
I bought one of the authentic Mint Julep cups off Amazon (not cheap). If I was in Canada (or the US) I would've just popped over to Home Sense (or Marshalls, or TJ Maxx, or Winners etc etc etc). The bathroom section always has toothbrush holders and bathroom cups of that style. And while you're there, pick up the soap dishes to keep with the style. They make gorgeous small serving platters. So if you're throwing a party and want authenticity, that would help keep your costs down. Gawd, I miss shopping there.
You'll need:
15-20 mint leaves (approx 4 sprigs of mint)
1 tsp powdered sugar
2 tsp water
2 oz bourbon whiskey
Muddle together the mint, sugar and water with a mortar and pestle, or in a glass with the back of a spoon, until a mint paste is formed. Place it into the cup you'll be serving it in.
Fill the cup with ice (shaved or crushed is preferable).
Pour the bourbon over the ice and garnish with a mint sprig.
She heard John's footsteps coming up the stairs. She was eagerly awaiting his customary visit. John's words were her only link with the world. If only she could talk, tell him how much his presence and his conversations meant to her. If only she could go down to Alex and kiss him like the son she didn't have, play with him until they were tired, if only she could remember how to cook so much as a couple of eggs, enjoy any kind of food, if only she could... return to life. She noticed a smell that struck her. A smell that was foreign to this house. John opened the door and stood there with a tray in his hands and a bowlful of ox-tail soup!
-Like Water For Chocolate, Laura Esquirel
This meal was delicious. Tender meat, bit of a
spicy kick, and comforting on a cool evening in front of the fireplace. We teamed it up with chunks of warm sourdough bread to soak up the excess liquid in the bowl.
But. Whatever you do. Do not pour boiling soupy stew onto your
hand. Simple, yeah? Apparently for a clutz like me, not so much. Try to avoid doing the same. Kind wrecks the enjoyment of the meal. You'll end up crying as much Tita does.
You'll need:
a tbsp of olive oil
1-2 lb oxtail (they come available cut into pieces)
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp garlic mince
4 cups water
2 large potatoes, chopped into bite sized pieces
250g green beans, washed, ends cut off and
snapped into three pieces each bean
a can diced tomato
1 tsp smoky paprika and 1 tsp chili powder (or
if you have access, like the original, add 4 chiles moritas/ chipotle peppers.
We don't have them here)
The original recipe says to brown the oxtails,
onion and garlic, simmer in water, pull meat from bones, add veggies, simmer
more, yada yada yada.
Instead, in a dutch oven on the stove (best.
thing. ever. I bought mine from Target for $25), fry the onion and garlic in
the oil, then pop everything in. Let it heat up on high, then turn it down and
simmer for ~2.5 hours. With meat like ox tail, tough, chewy, the longer you cook
it, the better. At the 2 hour mark, you still pull the meat out, let it cool,
tear meat off the bone, then toss it back in for the rest of the half hour,
with the lid off to let the liquid reduce.
Spoon it into bowls (watch the fingers!) and
serve with chunks of bread.
Crossing the porch where we had dined that June night three months before, I came to a small rectangle of light which I guessed was the pantry window. The blind was drawn, but I found a rift at the sill.
Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, with a plate of cold fried chicken between them and two bottles of ale.
He was talking intently across the table at her, and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement.
-The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby movie, starring Leonardo Dicaprio (yes, he
was my childhood crush thanks to Titanic) and directed by Baz Luhrmann, has
taken yonks to get here.
When it was announced it would be out in cinemas end of last
year, the whole world went into a big who ha.
Now when all
the kafuffle is over, it’s finally decided to show its face (almost half a year
later then planned, I might add). Now that we’ve got the 1920’s thing out of
our system, it’ll be curious to see how we react to the movie. Another round of 1920's, shall we?
You’ll need:
2 pieces of chicken breast
~1 cup bread crumbs
1 egg
1 cup frying oil
Wash the chicken breasts and slice into finger sized pieces.
In one bowl beat the egg. In another, place the bread crumbs.
Roll the chicken pieces in the egg to cover, then drop them into the bread crumbs and roll around until coated. Set aside.
Heat up a frying pan with the oil. When a small bit of chicken is dropped in and begins to sizzle, it is hot enough to cook with.
Place a few chicken pieces at a time into the frying pan and cook for ~3-4 minutes either side until golden to medium brown.
Remove onto a plate and continue cooking the rest of the chicken pieces.
Cersei set a tasty table, that could not be denied. They started with a creamy chestnut soup, crusty hot bread, and greens dressed with apples and pine nuts. Then came lamprey pie, honeyed ham, buttered carrots, white beans and bacon, and roast swan stuffed with mushrooms and oysters. Tyrion was exceedingly courteous; he offered his sister the choice portions of every dish, and made certain he ate only what she did. Not that he truly throught she'd poison him, but it never hurt to be careful.
-A Clash of Kings (Game of Thrones), George R. R. Martin
For the first season I watched Game of Thones obsessively. However, come season 2, and I let it go. Mostly to keep myself from getting insomnia. I was having such bad nightmares, I refused to go to sleep (there’s some scaaaary sheet in that show!). I'll probably finish it off, but will wait till each season is finished and out on dvd for a full marathon. Meanwhile, there's still the books!
Because Game of Thrones is set in another world, there's no way of really tying it to a particular century. However some people recommend basing it on medieval times. 1894 was the oldest recipe I could find, but the simplicity of the recipe makes it possible a similar recipe would have been followed.
There’s two ways with these chestnuts. The original recipe says to
shell and blanch the chestnuts. But I love the roasted flavour and couldn’t
bear to simply blanch them. Plus they’re easier to shell when they’re roasted.
Start by taking a small sharp knife and cutting a X into the
bottom of each chestnut. Turn on the oven to 200oC and let heat up. Place them
on a baking tray or a wire backing rack with small holes so it doesn’t fall
through. Let them roast in the oven until they’ve clearly split open. Let cool
before, shelling (this includes taking off the middle ‘lining’ not just the
outer shell).
Place them in a medium to large pot with 4 cups boiling water.
Add in the chopped onion, celery, bay leaf parsley and paprika.
Cover and boil for 30 minutes.
Press through a strainer or cheesecloth, stir in 2 cups milk, and
return to the stove.
Rub together the butter and flour before adding to the soup.
Remember to actually rub it together and not just add it separately, otherwise
it clumps.
Let heat up for one minute, sprinkle with some salt, and press it
through a metal strainer with the back of a spoon or use a
purée sieve if you happen to have one. Or purée
in a blender, always easier, even if not correct.
At a table near the window we drank tea with lemon, scalding through the thick cups, and ate our way through sardines on buttered white bread and even a few slices of torta.
-The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
If a book was to combine some of my favourite things, The Historian nailed it. History, travel sprinkled with food from other cultures, mystery and a little bit of gothic (Dracula!). I've never tired of the novel (having read it several times), which takes you through Amsterdam, Istanbul, France, Budapest, Romania, and Bulgaria. It's incredibly descriptive and you can almost imagine being there yourself, walking along the cobbled stones next to the narrator.
I'm not sure when the next book I read will mention plenty of Ottoman cuisine, so over time I'll be making the majority of the foods mentioned.
There's several types of tortas out there. However in this scene the narrator (as a young girl) and her father are eating this in Slovenia, so I've gone with the recipe for Torta Plava Laguna from Celtnet. This is apparently 'traditional' and eaten for special occasions. The 'Blue Lagoon' part of the recipe comes from the blue coloured house the cook lived/lives in, and really it's just a normal chocolate torta. But having that extra bit to the name makes it sound so much more exotic.
I altered the recipe to be smaller (and I'm glad I did!) It's rich and I've ended up freezing half of it for later, since there's not enough people around at the moment to eat it fast enough. If you've got four+ people around, by all means double it back up.
Start by whisking in your mixer the egg whites and the salt until stiff. Scoop it into a bowl for later. In the mixer whisk together the egg yolks, then add in the ground almonds and ground hazelnuts, breadcrumbs and/ or flour. When it's been mixed well, carefully fold in the egg whites.
Grease and flour a 13cm springform cake pan. Scoop the batter in, smooth the top with a wet spatula and place in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn down the temperature tp 160oC and bake for another 30 minutes. A skewer pushed into the middle should come out clean.
Remove from the oven, let sit for 10 minutes, then place on a wire rack to cool completely.
With either a cake cutter or a bread knife, cut the cake across (horizontally). If you've made a larger cake, you'll cut it so you have four layers. Because this is smaller, you just need to cut it once.
Wash your mixer bowl, then cream together the butter and sugar. Add in the eggs. Microwave the chocolate (medium power, stir every 40 secs) until melted, then pour into the mixer. Stir well until combined. The original recipe says to sprinkle the coffee onto the cake itself, but here I just whisked it into the buttercream. End of the day it gets mushed together...
Place your cake on the platter you're going to serve it on. Spread a thick layer of the buttercream on the layer of cake, place the top layer of cake on, and completely cover the top and sides of the cake with the rest of the buttercream.
Place in the fridge to chill and harden for half an hour before serving.
If you've ever wondered what Wonka's 3 Course Meal Gum tasted like, or drooled over the food mentioned in your favourite book, you're going to have fun hanging out with me!
for a larger party.
off Amazon (not cheap). If I was in Canada (or the US) I would've just popped over to Home Sense (or Marshalls, or TJ Maxx, or Winners etc etc etc). The bathroom section always has toothbrush holders and bathroom cups of that style. And while you're there, pick up the soap dishes to keep with the style. They make gorgeous small serving platters. So if you're throwing a party and want authenticity, that would help keep your costs down. Gawd, I miss shopping there.
