Seven Errol Flynn Recipes!
When you wake up on a Tuesday morning during a pandemic and the news that greets you is that singing and dancing is now illegal in pubs it is easy to think that ALL FUN is cancelled. Now and forever. There is still fun to be had of course. But we are going to have to...
Natalie Wood’s Huevos Rancheros
Bored with the same old working from home lunch? I am finding it easy to be lazy about lunches. Toast is usually on the menu, and now the weather has changed I have rediscovered my passion for posh Cup-a-Soup, namely Szechuan Hot & Sour. But the other day I got a...
Laurel & Hardy Recipes x 9
Are you hungry? Are you a Laurel & Hardy fan? If so, you've come to the right place! A blog reader called Antoinette recently asked me if I could send her some Laurel and Hardy recipes so I had a rummage around in the collection and I found these nine. I've tried...
Vincent Price’s Iced Tea
Is it hot where you are? Here in the UK we are having an Indian Summer which is such a fillip. It is bright and sunny, and I'm still using my little portable desk fan. I am making the most of the lovely weather by spending an hour outside every day either walking...
Diana Rigg’s Goulash
I was very sad to hear the news about Diana Rigg's death yesterday. I thought I would republish a post from 2018 that features some lovely pictures of Diana and her recipe for goulash. As far as I know, cider is not a traditional component of goulash, but...
Recipe of the Month – September – Sophia Loren’s Sardines a Beccafico
When I unexpectedly found myself in M&S with Mr R recently my mind went absolutely blank, and then it went berserk. I have barely set foot in any shops apart from my corner shop in over six months and my brain was in overdrive. I could buy anything I wanted, right...
Karen Valentine’s Marinated Chicken
Whenever I stick something in a marinade I am always very pleased with the results. It is such an easy way to infuse flavour, I have no idea why I don't do it more often. When my social support bubble were coming for a picnic a few Saturdays ago, on the night before,...
Murder, She Wrote Hen Night
I spent my hen night in prison. Cabot Cove Prison to be precise. Cast your mind back to a time before Covid-19. When you could invite 15 of your best friends round to ALL BE IN THE SAME ROOM AT THE SAME TIME without the police being called and you getting fined...
7th Annual Pieathalon – Party Pink Pie
There are some things Covid-19 cannot wreck, and one of those is the Pieathalon. I thank all the stars in heaven for that. We Pieathaletes will continue to make mental pies. No matter what. Every year. Forever. I was thrilled to get my recipe because it contained...
August Recipe of the Month – Olivia De Havilland’s Salad Nicoise
I got a text out of the blue from my friend Neil recently which read, "You don't have an Olivia De Havilland recipe! Shame on you!!!" I was perplexed for a moment. Was he planning to watch Gone With the Wind and looking for something to eat alongside? Then it dawned...
Dinner and a Movie – Rosemary’s Baby
I had a friend inside my flat last week. Is that allowed in London at the moment? I have absolutely no idea, I have totally lost track. Well arrest me if you want, Cathy of Kitchen Confidence came round for a cocktail and as I was planning to test the Vodka Blush from...
Pat Phoenix’s Jacket Potato
I am strangely obsessed with Pat's way of pimping a potato. It pops into my mind as something I fancy on a regular basis. I think I read in one of Sophia Loren's cookbooks that cheese with fish is a no-no in Italian cooking but I LOVE this combo on a potato. Pure...
Tessie O’Shea’s Brandy Ice Cream Coffee
It's the penultimate Tessie O'Shea recipe from the slimming cookbook! I pledged to try one a month from this excellent tome way back in January 2019 and I've almost done it. It's taken me ages to get around to making this because I didn't want to buy a huge vat of ice...
Angela Lansbury’s Mustard Vinaigrette
You know how satisfying it is when you find the right tool for the job? And how the smallest thing can give you an immense amount of pleasure in these strange lockdowned times? Here's a tiny tale of one such thing. This is a beautiful bottle of delicious vinaigrette....
William Gallo’s Vodka Pasta
Pink food is weird. This was tasty (no doubt because essentially, it was mostly cream and vodka) but it was a very odd colour. I made this on a lovely summer's evening after my daily constitution. It was a typical British summer kind of evening... The first night I...
Richard Dix’s Sardine and Egg Salad
When I heard a couple of weeks ago that we won't be going back to the film archive until January 2021 at the earliest, I had a little meltdown. Six more months of working from home. I did the maths - I would be on my own five days a week for 27 more weeks at least....
Billie Burke’s Asparagus Salad
Billie Burke sent me a secret message on a packet of cheese recently. It was pure chance I spotted it because let's face it who usually reads the back of a cheese packet? It was on the wrapping of a big chunk of Davidstow Cheddar. This is the cheddar I always buy...
QUARANTINI TIME #14 – Champagne Cocktail Gloria Swanson
The pubs are open, and I have been in TWO. Yes, I have left my eyrie and gone out into the big wide world, leaving North London for the first time in 17 weeks. I went on a train and everything! Here is me having my first pint of beer out in the real world. As I...
Top 100 Greatest Columbo Scenes of the 1970s
I have been meaning to blog about this for ages but just to let all Columbo fans know that the fabulous Columbophile is doing this mega-countdown RIGHT NOW and I heartily recommend you check it out. If you are quick, you'll catch the last two posts where he'll be...
Recipe of the Month – Angela Lansbury’s Angel Hair Pasta With Fresh Summer Tomatoes
Greetings from Cabot Covid! It’s a very special recipe of the month this month. This was tested for the Murder, She Cooked cookbook by a very special person. Drumroll please! The AWESOME Tim Benzie, creator and star of the immersive Solve-along-a-Murder-She-Wrote...
Tessie O’Shea’s Diet Scotch Eggs
Have you sorted out your social support bubble yet? I saw mine last Saturday and it was a RIOT. Mr R's sister and her husband came over and we had a boozy picnic. OK, it was an indoor picnic because the weather wasn't great, but we had lots of picnic...
QUARANTINI TIME #13 – The Rock Hudson and Liz Taylor Giant Martini
This is the penultimate Quaranatini Time! Pubs are set to re-open here in the UK TODAY so there's only one more movie star tipple demo video to go. The last time me & Mr R exchanged money for cold beverages in a pub was on our wedding day - 20th March 2020 -...
QUARANTINI TIME #12 – Marlon Brando’s Godfather @ Silver Screen Suppers Towers
Wanna see Mr R do an impression of Marlon Brando playing the Godfather? Haha! We LOVED our Godfather cocktails (although, these should probably be called a mixed drink rather than a cocktail) and had two each. OK, so I got the movie wrong when I did my 'STELLA"...
Diana Dors’ Flageolet Beans With Tuna
Mr Rathbone's sister recently told me that when her mum was pregnant with her, she craved Mivvis. I am going to ask my mum if she had any particular food cravings when she was pregnant with me. It will not surprise me at all if she says tuna. Whenever I stop plotting...
Burt Lancaster’s Beef Curry – Tufnell Park – The Great Bear Stop #10
There was a time, not too far in the past, when people could do whatever the hell they wanted, whenever the hell they wanted to. Me and Mr R would regularly spend a Sunday afternoon transporting a strange foodstuff to a tube station on the Northern Line and then...
QUARANTINI TIME #11 – The Ralph Bellamy Scotch Sour
Gosh, I've just realised that I am a week behind with the Quarantini Times! So here's a link to the demo for Ralph's Scotch Sour and hot on the heels of this will be the demo for the Marlon Brando Godfather. Where does all the time go? I have no idea!...
A MOVIE STAR LUNCHEON – 282 Ways of Making a Salad
Coo what a spread! Remember when there was a time when you could eat this amount of food on one day because you had OTHER PEOPLE IN YOUR ABODE? As it has now been over 12 weeks since anyone except Mr Rathbone crossed my threshold, I find it hard to believe that this...
Mike Connors’ Lamb Chop Hot Pot
Oooh, this was GOOD! Proper old fashioned fodder with no fancy herbs and spices. Just a hearty amount of vegetables and super succulent lamb chops after two and a half hours in the oven. Perfect for a Saturday evening in lockdown. In the Cop's Cookbook the title of...
QUARANTINI TIME #10 – The Gertrude Niesen BUZZ-BOMB
This one comes with a warning, Mr R had to put me to bed for half an hour after consuming just one Buzz-Bomb (and some of the rest of the champagne of course). I lay there like a MUMMY, unable to move a muscle. This cocktail is a humdinger and no mistake. The brain is...
Tessie O’Shea’s Brussels Sprouts (Creamed Cheese Type)
Tessie does it again! On paper, her recipe looks odd, and in the saucepan, it looks even odder... But these were delicious! What an interesting and flavoursome way of cooking yer sprouts! At first, I wasn't sure whether I had understood the recipe...
QUARANTINI TIME #9 – Don Ameche’s Bourbon
Don Ameche was a man's man and didn't have any truck with mixed drinks. He liked his bourbon straight up and with no nonsense about a chaser. Here we raise a glass to him and get excited about next week's BUZZ-BOMB cocktail. https://youtu.be/1LQMf_bxtr0 Mind you,...
Grace Kelly’s Pissaladière
I hereby vow to make no more impulse buys from the "flash sales" section of my online groceries order. I really do love these fresh, herby anchovies but even though I used loads in the David Niven Jansson's Temptation recipe, the rest of the pack has been hanging...
Malik Yoba’s Rhythm and Beans and Squash Stew
I am getting a bit devil-may-care about recipes in these strange times. There are many ingredients I can't put my hands on at the moment for obvious reasons, but rather than ABANDONING recipes for lack of this or that, I am getting CRAFTY. I did not have a yam, but I...
QUARANTINI TIME #8 – The Binnie Barnes Schnorkel
Up periscope! This cocktail is a humdinger. Mr R thought it was "psychoactive" and I saw a yellow aura all around his bonce after drinking just one of these Schnorkels. It was like he'd just eaten a bowl of Ready Brek. The Schnorkel wasn't actually named in Binnie...
Living My Life Like Angela Lansbury (a second time)
Greetings from Cabot Covid (thanks to Tim from Solve-Along-A-Murder-She-Wrote for that one). Thursday was the blog's birthday. For FOURTEEN YEARS I've been blogging about movie stars and their favourite recipes. My goodness me, I can hardly believe it. I sometimes...
QUARANTINI TIME #7! The Mary Pickford
This week we propose a Mary Pickford for your cocktail hour. You will need 2oz rum, 3/4 oz pineapple juice and 3 dashes of grenadine. Shake with ice. Serve with a whistle swizzle stick if you have one! https://youtu.be/eGOwudM1ysI Cheers Mary!
David Niven’s Jansson’s Temptation
I think my lockdown quarantine feral eating period is almost over. My panic buying of store cupboard staples seems to have abated and the compulsion to eat salad cream directly from the jar on a spoon seems to be slowing down too. But here is something I made when I...
QUARANTINI TIME #6! Fairbanks #1
This week's Quarantini Time features a cocktail named after the swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks gleaned from the amazing Savoy Club Cocktail Book. As his niece Leticia Fairbanks pointed out to me in a comment on a previous post about this cocktail, her uncle was...
Diana Dors’ Chilli Con Carne
As regular readers know, I am a massive Diana Dors fan and have written lots about the recipes in the Diana Dors X-Cel Diet book. I am so lucky to work in a film archive and have the TV-am collection at my fingertips - well, I did before lockdown! Diana regularly...
Recipe of the Month – Vincent Price’s Toad in the Hole
If ever there was a time for comfort food, the time is now. TOAD. You can't beat it really, with a lovely onion gravy made with a drop of Vincent Price Ale this is TOPS. In possibly the shortest recipe of the month blog post ever, I present to you, Vincent Price's...
QUARANTINI TIME #5! Martin Landau’s Vodka Martini Straight Up
I love Martinis! I waxed lyrical about them here when the Carole Landis Martini was the recipe of the month. So here's a little video demo of the way Martin Landau likes his Martini... https://youtu.be/RqVc_m6yiFA ...and here's the recipe - CHEERS my lovelies! 2 oz...
Virtual Vincent Price Dinner Party!
This Sunday folks! It's going to be an absolute hoot. Hosted by Vincent's daughter Victoria and my chum Peter Fuller of the Vincent Price Legacy UK website, it's only $5 to join and Vincent fans all around the world will be wining and dining together via the magic of...
Vincent Price’s Chicken Sweet and Hot
My brain has gone kind of melty when it comes to cooking during the lockdown. I am usually a stickler for making a recipe exactly to specifications, no deviations, no repetitions. But these strange times are doing something good to my brainbox and I am "subbing" as...
QUARANTINI TIME #4! Shirley Temples and Dirty Shirleys
It's Friday so you know what that means? QUARANTINI TIME! This weeks cocktail du jour is the Shirley Temple. Mind you, I realised after watching an episode of Mad Men the other day that a cocktail should have 3 ingredients and these only have two. I suppose that makes...
Benny Hill’s Nice Salad
I am as old as the hills, so when Mr R brought over his DVD of the Christmas Top of the Pops from 1971 this weekend I thought, I might know some of these songs. But it turns out, I knew the lot! And three of them have special significance too. Slade's Cuz I Luv U will...
Julie Harris’ Curried Zucchini Soup
I can't remember the last time I ventured into a shop, I think it was about 10 days ago now, but I do remember that I bought two courgettes just because I thought they looked nice. Fresh veggies! I am usually very much a forward planner but these crazy days, not so...
QUARANTINI TIME #3! Vincent Price’s Pink Tonics
When I volunteered for the Vincent Price Blogathon I had grand plans of throwing an elaborate dinner party with many dishes gleaned from Vincent's fabulous cookbooks. Remember the days when you could have chums over for food and fun? I could have kicked off...
QUARANTINI TIME #2! The Charlie Chaplin Cocktail
My second movie star lockdown cocktail was a Charlie Chaplin. A very fruity little fella composed of sloe gin, lime juice and apricot brandy. I had a few technical problems with the Mary Astor Painless Anaesthetic video so I may do that one again sometime, but a new...
Godfrey Winn’s Kedgeree
Have you seen that film La Grande Bouffe? It features a group of foodies getting together for a weekend of extreme eating. They eat and eat. and eat, and eat... So it was chez moi over Easter. If I listed what we had over our 4-day lockdown at Silver Screen Suppers...
Vincent Price’s Corn Fritters
After my initial Covid-19 lockdown panic about getting hold of certain foodstuffs, things have calmed down a bit here in North London. I managed to get a grocery delivery last Sunday and I have kind friends who have dropped off a couple of things I couldn't get hold...
MY COOKING WITH COLUMBO COOKBOOK – click on pic for link
MY COOKING WITH JOAN CRAWFORD COOKBOOK – click on pic for link
