I do so wish I lived in America and/or Canada. Tonight on TV is the premiere of “Liz and Dick” starring Lindsay Lohan as Liz. Through my day job I know a lot more about La Lohan than is really necessary and I’d love to see how she gets on attempting to harness the power of One-Shot Liz. Tonight, as I can’t get hold of the biopic I’ll have my own little tribute to Liz by watching Cleopatra and eating her Chicken Steamed in Wine. I made it last night in preparation and was very proud of myself when I successfully jointed the chook myself.
Elizabeth Taylor’s Chicken Steamed in Wine
“I know no way better to cook chicken than this. Because it is so elegant. It sounds difficult, but actually you will find that it is very easy.”
3-4 pound boiler-fryer cut in pieces
4 tablespoons salad or olive oil
Flour chicken lightly and brown in a heavy skillet or Dutch oven.
1 small onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons minced parsley
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 ½ cups dry Sauterne
Pour over chicken. Cover and simmer about an hour, or until tender.
And that’s it! It’s wonderful over rice, or just by itself. But do have French bread, or something to mop up the wonderful sauce.
Serves 6 to 8.
Another reason for wanting to live across the pond is the availability of trashy foodstuffs. I’ve been getting a bit obsessed with Caker Cooking and am dying to try some of the recipes. I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for film star recipes that contain short cuts involving condensed soup, cornflakes and marshmallows. I’ll be sending Brian the recipe for Richard O’Sullivan’s Horse Noodles because I’m sure he’d like it.
As well as having a good chuckle at Brian’s recipes and the lovely affectionate way he writes about mangiacake cooking I absolutely LOVE his Bazaar-O-Rama page. So much so that I press-ganged Ben into taking me out in the Citroen Avant in search of one last weekend. Here is a little photo montage showing the adventure we had…
Beautiful day for a bazaar.
Yippee!
The Venue (I could tell this would be a POSH Bazaar).
Almost everything at this bazaar was mass produced crap like this. We were a bit disheartened and despaired of finding any hand knitted pan scourers.
My budget was £2 and I toyed with the idea of buying one of these battery driven candles for £1.50.
We perked up when we saw these grubby looking bags of candy floss – reduced to 50p each.
At last! This made the trip totally worth it. A “Bake Time” hamper that includes a Betty Crocker cake mix.
My purchase – I like the fact that the cupcakes were too small to fit into the specially made cupcake box carrier thing – they should have used a cereal box! Reduced to £1.50.
Only an American lady living in the Chilterns would make a cupcake as splendid as this. It was delicious.
I plan to find me another Christmas Bazaar next weekend, that was fun.
I sent a few Liz Taylor recipes over to Yinzerella at Dinner is Served 1972 so I’m hoping she will be rustling one up tonight for the premiere. Can’t wait to see what she thinks of the film.
Dont know about the idea of living in America. I was there in May 2011 firstly in Washington where it was hot , humid and sticky and then in San Francisco where it was bloody freezing!
Plus that ridiculous tipping when eating out even when the service was poor.
Hmm, yes. By contrast I hear that in France they are going to stop including service in the bills to give people a chance to tip on merit. I didn’t realize service was included when I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago. No wonder all the waiters were very flirty – I kept tipping!
Good for you Jenny!
I found out in London that when service is included it goes towards paying the wages.
Best then to just pay the bill without the service charge and tip the staff if you want. At least then it goes directly into the staff pockets!
I have a feeling that your chicken was better than the movie. That being said, I can’t wait for it to be on reruns here.
Thanks for the recipes–I actually went with Chasen’s Chili–she had quarts of it sent to her in Rome when filming Cleopatra–it was quite weather-appropriate. And we couldn’t have chicken after all that turkey!
I so, so, so hope one of the channels here in the UK runs it – I may even go out and get a television if this happens!
Ooh, I do love Chili – so now the search for “Gebhardt’s chili powder” will begin…