Requiescat in Pace -- Colleen McCullough

Colleen McCullough died on 29  January.   She was Australia's best selling author, a neurophysiologist, and for us, a cookbook author.  She was boisterous, witty, and more accomplished than most.  So it was quite shocking and in profoundly bad taste that The Australian began her obituary, not with her remarkable gifts, but by stating she was "plain" and "overweight."  Screw them!

Take a few moments to read our Famous Food Friday on Colleen McCullough from several years ago.

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A Painter's Kitchen

O'Keeffe's Kitchen Sink, Ghost Ranch, 1975  by Dan Budnik

Just when you though you had seen "everything but the kitchen sink" when it comes to Georgia O'Keeffe -- we give you Georgia O'Keeffe's kitchen sink.

When she was 24, Margaret Wood met the 90-year-old Georgia O'Keeffe.  She was hied to be Miss O'Keeffe's companion, staying with her at night and preparing her evening meal and her breakfast.  Alas, Margaret Wood was not much of a cook at the time, so Miss O'Keeffe taught her.  Years latter Wood compiled recipes that she cooked into A Painter's Kitchen: Recipes from the Kitchen of Georgia O'Keeffe.

As one might expect from an elderly woman living in the middle of nowhere, the recipes are simple, filled with natural ingredients.  An avid gardener, O'Keeffe was an early adopter of the writings of Adelle Davis who's book Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit was a huge bestseller.  With all of her care for nutrition, making her own yogurt, milling her own flour, and growing her own vegetables, she never shied away from good steak.

 

Each recipe in the book has a headnote memory of O'Keeffe; food they ate, books they read, stories of travel and friends.  O'Keeffe had an old Chambers Stove from the 1940's.

Photo from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

Like so many houses, the kitchen was the focal point of the house, with three different rooms radiating off the kitchen.

Photo from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

During the waning light of fall, O'Keeffe spent a lot of time pouring over recipes, she seemed to be a big fan of Prevention magazine.

Photo from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

She was always reading about vitamins, minerals and natural foods.  She had a real love of nuts and grains.  This recipe featured several different kinds of nuts wrapped into a single muffin.

Atomic Muffins

1/4 cup coarsely chopped almonds

1/4 cup coarsely chopped cashews

1/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1 cup unbleached flour

1/4 cup soy flour

3/4 cup whole-wheat flour

2 tablespoons brewer's yeast (optional)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1/4 cup safflower oil

2--3 tablespoons honey

1 cup whole milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Chop the almonds, cashews, pecans, and sunflower seeds (or other nuts of choice). Combine the flours, brewer's yeast (if desired), baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.  In a smaller bowl, beat egg then and add the oil, honey and milk. Add the liquids and nuts to the dry ingredients and mix just until blended. Grease a muffin tin and fill to 2/3 full.  Bake for 15 minutes, or until nicely browned. Serve with butter/oil and fruit preserves. Makes 1 dozen muffins.

Generally, we are not big fans of "nuts in our food" but we might just make an exception in honor of Georgia O'Keeffe.

If you are a fan of O'Keeffe, this cookbook is a perfect addition to your collection.

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Not A Cookbook --Wes Anderson

"Twee" has always been one of my favorite words.  It was a lost, slightly obscure word that is now a cultural buzz word.  I am not too sure I like that!   Anyway.   The Twee-King is Wes Anderson.  (That would be Twee-King, not twerking which is horrific enough when Miley Cyrus does it, but god-forbid we ever had to see Wes Anderson with Robin Thicke! But I digress...)

I have always been a huge fan of Wes Anderson all the way back to his pre-tweeness.  One of my favorite things about Anderson is his obsessive attention to detail. 

In the hands of less creative director, Moonrise Kingdom, would have a Boy Scout Camp, easily recognizable book titles, and a pop-driven score.  Not Anderson. In Andersonville, there are Khaki Scouts, The Girl from Jupiter, and Benjamin Britten.  Nothing screams teen romance more than Benjamin Britten. Yes, somewhere there is a Khaki Scout Handbook. And yes, of the six books that Suzy Bishop held dear, including The Girl from Jupiter, Wes Anderson wrote long passages for each book just in case one needed to read aloud these fictional fictions.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou featured first time actor Seu Jorge, a famous Brazilian singer who sang David Bowie covers in Portuguese.

Did you notice the typefaces in The Royal Tenenbaums? Wes Anderson did.

In Andersonville, the worlds are self-contained and the most simple of things are fretted over with great detail.  Nothing is off-the-rack.  Everything is plotted and created.  There is always a back story that Anderson can commandeer at any moment.

His latest movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel is based on a story by Stefan Zweig.  I must admit a fondness for moody Austrian writers.  I simply adore the late Ingeborg Bachmann.  Anderson swears that he stole much of the movie from Zweig's Beware of Pity.   The Grand Budapest Hotel features Mendl's Bakery as another location and key plot element.  Mendl's has its own distinctive packaging and a famous confection: the Courtesan au chocolat.  In a Wes Anderson movie, if there is a bakery with a special recipe, one can rest assured that that recipe is one that you too, can make.   Further more, that particular recipe will have its own back story.

"The exact recipe for the Courtesan au chocolat has never been published or publicly disclosed as per the conditions of Herr Mendl’s will. However, the following has been collated and adapted from a several “pirate” sources in the Nebelsbad archives (including a 1963 recipe from the kitchen of the Grand Budapest Hotel using powdered eggs that was printed in the Lutz Daily Fact)." 

There would be a recipe:

Mendl’s Courtesan au Chocolat

THE PASTRY

Make a choux pastry of flour, water, butter and eggs. Though correct proportions may vary depending on one’s elevation and humidity, we recommend:

1 cup plain flour
1 cup fresh water
1/4 lb (1 stick) butter
4 eggs beaten in a bowl
A pinch of salt
A larger pinch of sugar

Bring the water, butter salt and sugar to a boil. Remove from the fire and quickly mix in the sifted flour. Return to heat for a few minutes, stirring, and cook until the dough forms a single lump. Allow to cool just enough to keep the eggs from cooking and stir in very gradually with a strong wooden spoon.

Cover your tray in parchment and pipe the dough into spoon size dollops. You will need small, medium, and large size pastry balls (large tablespoon, teaspoon and hazelnut size dollops) to make a courtesan. Bake in the oven at 350F(180 C) for about 25-35 minutes. The smaller pastries are best put on a separate tray as they will cook more quickly.

Remove from the oven and discreetly make a small piercing in the choux to allow the steam to escape.

THE FILLING

Once cooled, the large and medium choux should be filled with a crème pâtissière of chocolate, egg yolks, and sugar.

1 1/2 cups whole milk
Several large pieces semi-sweet chocolate
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
2 spoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon flour
Cornstarch to thicken

Heat the milk gently and add chocolate, stirring to melt into a rich, almost-steaming chocolate milk. Whisk egg yolks, flour, sugar, cocoa and a few spoons of cornstarch into a smooth mixture. Add half of the hot chocolate milk to the bowl, a little at a time, stirring constantly. Then add this mixture back into the rest of the hot milk, stirring over gentle heat for a few minutes until the mixture thickens to a custard. Remove from heat and chill.

ASSEMBLAGE

Once cooled, spoon the chocolate crème into a pastry bag and pipe into the large and medium pastry balls.

Prepare sugar icing of confectioner’s sugar, a dash of vanilla and enough milk to achieve the desired consistency. Separate into 3 small bowls and add food coloring to each - one pink, on lavender, one pale green. Reserve a small amount of white icing.

To assemble a Courtesan, dip a large ball of filled pastry in the pink icing (to the midline) and place icing side up on a small tray. Repeat with a medium pastry into the lavender icing, and place it, iced side up, atop the first ball. Press it gently so it sticks in place. Repeat with the smallest pastry in the green icing. Decorate with filigree of white icing as desired. Place a cocoa bean atop the tower as a garnish.

Serve fresh.

And there would be an instructional video:

I must say, The Grand Budapest Hotel is not my fave Wes Anderson movie, but so far, it seems to be the only one that comes with a recipe. 

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The Bloomsbury Cookbook

You might think that you know EVERYTHING, yes, everything there is to know about that merry band at Bloomsbury.  You know who slept with whom, who wanted to sleep with whom, who shouldn't have slept with whom, and on and on.  You have read all the letters, diaries, and biographies.  You have visited their houses in person, online, and in books.  There is absolutely NOTHING you don't know about Bloomsbury.

WAIT...

There is something you don't know.  While the literary ensemble that has become its own growth industry few have taken more than a passing look at the food of Bloomsbury.  I mean, after all that sleeping around, they had to have quite an appetite. Well, actually, there has been some peeking into the culinary exploits of the literary gang.  Several years ago, we wrote about a little self-published booklet about Grace Higgens.  Grace at Charleston featured memories and recipes from the housekeeper of Vanessa Bell.

Recently, Stewart MacKay wrote a slim biography of Grace Higgens, The Angel of Charleston.  Expanding on Grace's memories, and her correspondence, MacKay looked at references to Higgens in the many memoirs and letters of others at Bloomsbury, as well as the memories of Vanessa Bell's children and grandchildren.  While Higgens and Bell had moved past the rigors of the traditional Edwardian upstairs/downstairs dichotomy, there was still a broad chasm between the life of the very privileged Bell and her housekeeper. 

In an interview with the BBC, Higgens spoke about her time with Vanessa Bell.



When we last visited the kitchens of Bloomsbury we wrote:

"Grace at Charleston, though small, is the closest thing to a Bloomsbury cookbook there is, an I find it to be a treasure." 

A treasure, yes, but now we are blessed with mother lode of treasures, The Bloomsbury Cookbook.   Jans Ondaatje Rolls has produced one of the most beautiful and literary cookbooks ever.  She has combed the archives of the Charleston Trust and many other sources to assemble a cookbook that reflects the food of Bloomsbury.

Lets face facts, there was very little cooking actually done by the Bloomsbury group as they were occupied with sleeping around, painting, writing, dancing, gardening, and other things.  But they always had dinner and they were writing about it and painting it with reckless abandon.

Ondaatje Rolls has artfully gathered together the paintings and writing that frame the food.  The recipes have been drawn from actual cooks for Bloomsbury like Grace Higgens and from hand written recipes from the collections of Angelica Garret and Helen Anrep and Lydia Lopokova. When an event is recounted with no direct recipe attribution, Rolls uses the popular cookbooks of the day to recreate the recipe or she makes her own.

 The Bloomsbury Cookbook is a truly memorable work of art.  It is filled to the brim with painting and photographs.  There are excerpts from memoirs and novels.  There are hand written recipes and memories.  And there is food.  If you are a fan of any one of these literary characters or a fan of cookbooks, this book will blow you away.  One cannot merely pick it up, flip though it and set it back down.  Every time you pick it up, your mind swims in the information.  It is all at once a book of literary criticism, an art book, a culinary history, a recipe book, and a whole lot of fun.

Mark Gertler Portrait of a Girl Wearing Blue [Dora Carrington], 1912

One of my favorite characters at Bloomsbury was Dora Carrington.  It seems that Carrington was quite the master of the kitchen.  Sadly, her collection of recipes has been lost, but the memory of them lingers.  David Garnett wrote of Carrington:

"Her cowslip wine was nectar, her sloe gin unequaled.  Then the jams, bottled fruit and vegetables, chutneys, pickles,preserves.  Her pickled pears were a revelation.  The making of these was part of Carrington's secret life."

A similar sloe gin comes from the pages of Mrs. Beeton's All About Cookery.  

Sloe Gin

Half fill clean, dry wine bottles with the fruit [sloes] previously pricked with a darning needle.  add to each, 1 oz of crushed barley-sugar, a little noyeau, or 2 or 3 drops of essence of almonds.  Fill the bottles with good unsweetened gin,cork them securely, and allow them to remain in a moderately warm place for 3 months.  At the end of this time strain the liqueur through fine muslin or filtering paper until quite clear, then bottle it, cork securely, and store away in a cool, dry place until required for use.

If you are a fan of Bloomsbury, a fan of cookbooks, a fan of art you must add this to your reading list.

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Victor Borge's Game Bird Cook Book

Yes, Virginia, we love a good celebrity cookbook.  We especially love those cookbooks written by the obscure celebrity.  Actually, in his prime, Victor Borge was quite the celebrity and his fame continued with a centennial celebration on PBS.  Borge was an accomplish classical pianist, but he gained fame by poking fun of his talent.  His ability to blend high culture and slapstick made him a natural for music hall variety shows of 40's and 50's radio and television.  He would go on to be a popular performer even sharing the stage with the Muppets. It would seem that encouraging listeners to use Chopin's "Minute Waltz" as an egg timer was quite lucrative.

He invested his money in a farm in Connecticut.  Victor Borge is known in the culinary world as the man who introduced Rock Cornish Game Hens to the American housewife.  The "game" in Rock Cornish Game Hens is a misnomer.  It is a particular breed or rather cross breed of chicken that is killed very young.  The breed occurred when the stocky Cornish game rooster was bread with a Barreled Plymouth Rock hen.  The resulting offspring were had short legs and big breasts and when killed young, they made attractive little single-serve chickens.

Housewives in the 1950's were enamored of the little birds that were quick to cook and made a far more exotic a main dish than "chicken."  While Borge was the "King of Game Hens," his farm also raised pheasants and guinea hens.

Since his birds were "exotic" and shipped from his ViBo Farm, he put together a small pamphlet of a cookbook to provide the harried housewife with ways to cook the Rock Cornish Game Hen.  Here is his favorite recipe:

Victor Borge's Favorite Recipe

Rub the inside of six ViBo Rock Cornish Game Hens with salt and pepper.  Sear in 1/4 lb. butter in Dutch Oven until golden brown -- 10 to 12 minutes.  Add 1 1/4 cups water and let simmer, covered, until tender -- approximately 35 minutes.  Remove birds.  Stir into drippings a paste of cold water and three teaspoons flour.  Add 1/2 cup light cream, salt, tasteless sauce coloring, 1/2 teaspoon sugar.  Serves six.

Ask yourself,  "Which isle is the 'tasteless sauce coloring' in?

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Cool Cooking

 

Today's Famous Food Friday features rock stars of old...some of them still rocking today. Cool Cooking by Roberta Ashley was published in 1972 by the Scholastic Book Service. It was a draw for YA rocker who liked to cook as well as rock.

How old is this book?

So old that The Honey Cone was giving the Supremes a run for their money.

So old that Elton John was straight.

So old that that Michael Jackson was black, not to mention alive.

So old that Paul McCartney was a carnivore.

You will find:

Aretha Franklin's Chitlins.

Glen Campbell's Scrambled Eggs and Lamb

David Cassidy's On-the-Set Salad

and this winner from George Harrison.

Banana Sandwich

ripe banana

bread

peanut butter (optional)

Slice a ripe banana lengthwise and lay it on a piece of bread. If you like, you can spread the bread with peanut butter.

We just love these old cookbooks that are compilations of famous folk making their own food! Grab some peanut butter, flip on "oldies" channel, and rock on to Cool Cooking.

 

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At Home with May and Axel Vervoordt

I have two words for you -- food porn.   At Home with May and Axel Vervoordt is a big old book of food porn. I am not saying it is wrong.  I am just saying it is!   Frankly, no one loves food porn more than me.  Clearly, if you were hanging out in Belgium and May Vervoordt says come on over for quick bite, you would go.   The food would be great.  The food in this cookbook is nice and tasty.  There are a lot of ingredients that sit squarely on the spice rack.  There is not a lot of meat.  The food is surrounded by dreamy castle shots and rich place settings. A reasonably accomplished home cook could pull off anyone of these recipes and be the toast of the kitchen.  I don't mean to complain, but lets review.

If you lived here:

If your husband was a noted antiques dealer and decorator whose clients list included Bill Gates and Sting:

If you has access to a vast array of dishes and china and whatnot's: 

 If you oversee a staff nearing 100 including your chef:

My best guest is that you could set a nice table with nifty grub for family and friends.  It is not a criticism, it is just a fact.  You might pick a nice dessert like this one.

Pears With Citrus Fruits and Cinnamon

 
4 small pears
1 orange
I lemon
2 cups water
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon chopped fresh gingerroot
1 pinch of saffron powder
½ cup agave syrup

Peel the pears and cut them in half lengthwise. Cut the orange and lemon into ¼ inch strips, retaining the skin.

To make the syrup, boil 2 cups water. Add the cinnamon stick, ginger, saffron, lemon and orange strips, and let infuse for 10 minutes. Poach the pears in this liquid, heated to 175-195 degrees, for 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the pears to cool in the pan.

Remove the pears from the pan. Strain the juice. Pour the juice over the pears and serve.

May likes them with a nice chocolate dessert or with one's morning muesli.  Yes it is basically poached pears.  But it is poached pears with lemon and ginger and saffron and agave syrup.  Poached pears fit for the finest trailer park or 50 room castle.  Enjoy.

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How To Take A Trick A Day With Bisquick

I love to watch the evolution of language.  I am sure that at the end of 2012, Bisquick does not want anyone "taking a trick" with them.  But tricking seemed to be just fine in 1935's How To Take A Trick A Day With Bisquick.   That was the year that Bisquick gathered a group of stars to share their Bisquick recipes. 

What hasn't changes since 1935?  The fact that these "stars" never stirred up a batch of Bisquick anything in their lives, but as we say at Christmas time, its the thought that counts.

For those of you who think a gourmet kitchen is a toilet with a microwave sitting on the back of the tank, Bisquick is a baking mix or flour that already has leavening and oil in the mix.  It is easy enough to DIY your own, but one must keep it in the refrigerator after adding the oil or butter.  Frankly, my refrigerator is jam packed and action filled, so I keep store-bought Bisquick on the shelf. 

Among the stars in this small pamphlet are Dick Powell, Bing Crosby, Joan Crawford and the incomparable Bette Davis. 

According to Bisquick, Bette loves "simple homey" things.  Tea in her dressing room for example.  Here is how Bette makes a nice afternoon tea sandwich.

Hunt Club Sandwich

Roll Bisquick dough very thin.  Dot surface with 4 tbsp. butter.  Fold so as to make three layers.  Turn half way round.  Roll out 1/2 the dough 1/8 inch thick to cover the bottom of oblong pan, about 12 by 9 inches.  Spread thickly with Chicken and Ham filling.  Cover with remaining dough rolled thin.  Cut through in desired shapes, such as squares, diamonds,etc., but leave in place.  Bake 15 minutes in  hot oven, 450.  Filling:  To 1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, cut up and flaked, and 3/4 cup cooked ham, cut in 1/2 inch pieces, add 4 tbsp. top milk, 3 beaten egg yolks, and 2 hard cooked eggs, chopped. Season with salt and pepper.

Bisquick is so easy there are no instructions for making the dough,  however, the assembly sounds a bit complicated to me!

Next week when you are stuck in the kitchen and beyond frazzled, just ask yourself  how Bette Davis would handle it.   You will no doubt come through the ordeal calm and smoking, with the melodies of Max Steiner dancing in your head.  Because Bette would have handled it with a caterer... and to all a goodnight.

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Celebrate

I didn’t want to do it.  Yes I love “entertaining” books but I didn’t think I could bear to buy the Pippa Middleton book.  Of course, I couldn’t NOT buy it, I mean really, Pippa Middleton.  Her Mum and Dad made a fortune selling party goods – paper napkins and balloons – a fortune!!  He sister married well.  She has an extraordinary ass (you can judge yourself, but commentators were quite struck by it during the royal wedding).  

Not just a pretty ass face, Pippa has had a rather prosperous career as a party planner/organizer for high-end corporate and luxury brand events, i.e. she packed the boxes of napkins they ordered, but still…

So it would only seen fair that she should write of book on how to celebrate:  Celebrate: A Year of Festivities for Families and Friends.

Do I sound a bit snarky?  Well yes I do and so does Pippa.  Just read the introduction:

“It’s a bit startling to achieve global recognition (if that’s the right word) before the age of thirty, on account of your sister, your brother-in-law and your bottom.”

Indeed!

Clearly, Middleton understands that most people who grab up this book are doing so because they remember her from her sister’s wedding.  But she does know something about the party business, so let’s jump right in.

First and foremost, there are almost as many photos as there are words in the book.  Food, flowers, decorations, drinks, parties, and dishes are all well documented.   One reviewer remarked that all the pictures were “nauseatingly middle class.” 

There is Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter, but also Boxing Day and a great Burns Night.  Middleton states in her introduction, “While some of the events, crafts and dishes may be unfamiliar to an American audience, I am thrilled to share my favorite British traditions and hope you’ll find them as lovely as I do.”

And while Burns Night is typically Scottish, the British still consider all the colonies “British”, even I think, the old US of A, just the northeast, but still…  And I must say, Pippa has an astonishing array of usages for haggis.  Who knew?

Celebrate is a good collection of food and fun for anyone. There are lovely macaroons (which Pippa tells us are difficult to make, so buy them) to Rice Crispy treats that you can make yourself.  There are decked halls, steaming fish pie, and instructions for a tug-of-war.  Celebrate is jam-packed and action filled.  And while there are indeed Rice Crispy Treats, there is also a recipe for Millionaire’s Shortbread.

Millionaire’s Shortbread

Preheat oven to 350F.  Lightly grease a 9 X 13 oblong jelly roll pan.

For the shortbread base, place 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1/2-cup superfine sugar and 2 sticks of unsalted butter in a food processor and blend together to form a smooth dough.  Press the mixture into the base of the pan and prick with a fork.  Chill for 15 minutes before baking in the over for 25 to 30 minutes until golden and firm.  Set aside to cool.

To make the topping, place 13/4 sticks of unsalted butter, I cup superfine sugar, 3 tablespoons golden syrup or honey and a 14-ounce can of condensed milk in a saucepan and stir over low heat until the butter melts.  Turn the heat up to medium, bring to a boil then cook the mixture gently for 5 to 8 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent scorching, until thick and golden brown.  Pour evenly over the cold shortbread and leave to cool.  Melt 7 ounces of chopped dark chocolate in a bowl over simmering water.  Pour the chocolate over the cooled toffee and place in the fridge to set.  Remove from the pan and carefully cut into squares.

I admit I was skeptical.  The book has been thoroughly panned in England with the most damning criticism being that the book is just to simple.  Well, it was never touted as an elaborate guide to party planning, it was written as a way to make celebrating with family and friends easy.  Seriously, the family fortune is based on selling matching paper cups and streamers, what did they think she was going to write about?  But you know the British press, they are much more snaky than I. I can tell you, if Pippa asks me to a party, I would go, as simply middle class as it might be… and don't lie, so would you!

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The Jill St. John Cookbook

We have been in full television mode at Cookbook Of The Day, so we felt a television themed Famous Food Friday was in order.  One just never knows who is out there getting a cookbook published but it seems if you are a bona fide television personality it is easier.

In the dark ages of the late 1980’s, before you were all born, the “Celebrity” chef was a rare thing.  Food Network was not being streamed into every family room/kitchen (Because there was just the kitchen and the dining room!), so cooking fell to actual clelebities.  Case in point, Jill St. John.

During the 1970’s and 80’s Jill got around.  The former Bond Girl dated Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger, Sean Connery, Peter Lawford, and Robert Wagner who became her fourth husband.  She parlayed her cooking enthusiasm into a monthly cooking spots on Good Morning America and became a food editor for USA Weekend Sunday magazine.  Who knew?

Many of these famous food cookbooks are simply afterthoughts from publicists, The Jill St. John Cookbook is quite polished.  I must say I was quite surprised by Miss St. John’s culinary skills.  We have laughed before about the decidedly twee farm-to-table cookbooks, so it was interesting to find that Jill St. John was a big advocate of growing your own herbs and eating locally.  Seriously, every recipe out there belonged to some before you!  Don’t kid yourself.

Here is Jill’s recipe for shrimp with a kick.   Notice she was “Cajun” before Cajun was cool!  She suggests putting out finger bowls if you serve these – how very 80’s.

Fiery Cajun Shrimp

5-6  large raw shrimp in their shells
1/2pound unsalted butter, melted
1/2pound margarine, melted
3-4 ounces Worcestershire sauce
4 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground rosemary
juice of 2 lemons
2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce
2 teaspoons salt
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 lemons, sliced

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

With a small, sharp pair of scissors, cut through the shells of the shrimp from top to tail.  Do not cut the tail.  Devein the shrimp but leave them in their shells.

In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients except the lemon slices.  Cover the bottom of a 13 X 9-inch glass baking dish with a little of this mixture.  Arrange the shrimp and the lemon slices in layers in the dish, stopping about 1 inch from the top. Pour the remainder of the butter sauce over.  Bake turning the shrimp once or twice, until they are cooked through, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Evidently, Jill is still cooking up a storm or to be more precise, Rigatoni with Vodka Sauce for Valentine’s Day, 2010.

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The Hemingway Cookbook

 

A week or so back, my cable inadvertently turned on HBO and I taped a few things before they cut the feed.   One was  Hemingway & Gellhorn.  I love Clive Owen, but I can't say that I have ever been a big fan of Nicole Kidman.  When the movie started, I was pleasantly surprised that I like Kidman as the elderly Gellhorn.   

Clive Owen played Hemingway in the irascible, horrible, pain-in-the-ass way that one expects he might have been, but frankly Clive Owen is no Hemingway.   Every time someone called him "Papa" it made me laugh.  Hemingway at his most filthy and uncouth still managed to get the girl, which I find interesting if not a bit odd.  Clive Owen covered in sewage would always get the girl.   On of the producers of this film was James Gandolfini.  Gandolfini would have been a great "Papa" so why do they always cast the pretty boy?   Kidman spent a lot of her time throwing her rucksack across her shoulder.  It seemed to make Kidman uncomfortable, as this was probably the first time on 30 years that she ever carried her own luggage.  I think Philip Kaufman is a great director and Henry & June is one of my favorite movies.  It is too bad that Kaufman didn't cast Hemingway and Gellhorn with the same quirkiness he used in Henry  & June.  It might have been greatly improved.

There is a good bit of food in Hemingway's writing and historian Craig Boreth compiled many of those recipes in The Hemingway Cookbook.   Long out of print and quite collectible, the book is getting a second shot this year when it is republished and launched again.

During one scene in the Hemingway & Gellhorn  the couple is in the famous El Floridita.  

Hemingway at El Floridita with his arm around Spencer Tracy and his back to wife number four, Mary.

There Hemingway makes his favorite drink, the Papa Doble.  This recipe is based upon the Daiquirí recipe from El Floridita that Hemingway drinks with A. E. Hotchner in his book Papa Hemingway.

Papa Doble or Hemingway Daiquirí

2 1/1 jiggers Bacardi or Havana Club rum

Juice of 2 limes

Juice of 1/2 grapefruit

6 drops of maraschino (cherry brandy)

Fill a blender one-quarter full of ice, preferably shaved or cracked. Add the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and maraschino.

Blend on high until the mixture turns cloudy and light-colored, "like the sea where the wave falls away from the bow of a ship when she is doing thirty knots."  (Islands in the Stream, p. 281).

Fill a blender one-quarter full of ice, preferably shaved or cracked. Add the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and maraschino.

Blend on high until the mixture turns cloudy and light-colored, "like the sea where the wave falls away from the bow of a ship when she is doing thirty knots."  (Islands in the Stream, p. 281).

Here is another example of Boreth pulling a recipe from fact and fiction.

"Aboard the Pilar, Ernest's beloved fishing boat, food took on epic
proportions. Even something as simple as a peanut butter and onion
sandwich, his lunchtime favorite, can be elevated to heroic status while at
sea:

     "Well, go down to the galley and see if that bottle of tea is cold and bring
it up. Antonio's butchering the fish, go make a sandwich will you, please?"
     "Sure. What kind of sandwich?"
     "Peanut butter and onion if there's plenty of onion."
     "Peanut butter and onion it is, sir."
     He handed a sandwich, wrapped in a paper towel segment, to Thomas Hudson and
said, "One of the highest points in the sandwich-maker's art. We call it
the Mount Everest Special. For Commanders only." (From Islands in the Stream, p. 390-1).

A.E. Hotchner, in his biography, Papa Hemingway, notes that this sandwich,
along with a glass of red wine, was Hemingway's favorite (Papa Hemingway, p. 194)."

Mount Everest special 

2 slices white bread
Peanut butter
2 thick slices onion

Spread one piece of bread thickly with peanut butter. Lay onion slices on
top. Cover with second slice of bread.

Clearly, there must have been something magical about Hemingway.  Name the last dirty guy, covered in fish scales and reeking of peanut butter and onions that you would take home to mama?

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