I have made a grown-up decision. I am going to buy a new fridge. The fridge I have in my rented flat is small and CRAMMED with jars and bottles. It has a tiny freezer on top, also crammed with foodstuffs. The main reason for getting a new fridge is for bread making purposes. When I make bread once a month to sell at my nephew’s brewery, I always put a batch of dough in the fire escape to prove overnight because there is never room in my fridge, and it needs to be cold.
But there are 2 reasons why this is becoming less of an option:
1 – the weather is heating up and in the summer months it’s going to be too warm for the bread dough out there.
2 – the caretaker threw away a cauliflower that I left out there once, as there was no room in the fridge – who is to say that he won’t throw away my dough?
It was Heather who came up with the new fridge solution. I was thinking of getting another small fridge and hiding it behind the sofa in the front room. Just for bread dough. But she is a practical woman. Seeing a large box of cornflakes on top of my food cupboard she said: “What have you got all those cornflakes for?” I said: “leftover from a recipe” (Bill Holden’s Hong Kong Burgers to be precise) to which her sensible response was: “Less cornflakes, more fridge!”
Cornflakes! Next to the Temple Big Pan which I am temporary guardian of…
Heather, you may remember, is the woman who swoops down on me occasionally, defrosts my freezer and makes me declutter stuff like 70 jam jars at a time. I call her Bishop Brennan.
So, aways a woman who loves a mission, she measured up my fridge space and found me the exact fridge online that I need.
Hence, I am frantically trying to eat everything up that is in the tiny freezer before my new “white goods” arrives.
Hence, Henry Fonda’s Spare Ribs.
Now then, I need to find a good recipe from Henry for the forthcoming Vincent Price Co-Star cookbook I am working on with Peter Fuller of The Vincent Price Legacy UK. But this ain’t it. I’m sharing it, just in case you like your spareribs boiled. But I for one prefer them cooked more like this – Peter Falk’s Barbecued Spare Ribs.
Gotta go – lots of frozen food to eat…
Henry Fonda’s Spareribs and Sauerkraut
3 pounds spareribs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
4 cups sauerkraut
1 large apple, sliced
Place spareribs in large kettle. Season with salt and pepper, cover with boiling water, and simmer, covered 35 to 40 minutes. Drain sauerkraut and add with apple. Simmer 1/2 hour longer. Serve hot. Approximate yield: 6 portions.
It was beyond my powers to take an appetising photo of this dish…
4 responses
Henry’s recipe sounds like the spareribs and sauerkraut recipe from “one of Hollywood’s most exotic stars of all time” in the 1956 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook. The second neatest thing about this cookbook after the mouthwatering photos are the celebrity recipes from the 1950s. This isn’t one of them unfortunately. There is one for Rarebit with kidney beans from Joan C. though.
Henry’s recipe sounds like the spareribs and sauerkraut recipe from “one of Hollywood’s most exotic stars of all time” in the 1956 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook. The second neatest thing about this cookbook after the mouthwatering photos are the celebrity recipes from the 1950s. This isn’t one of them unfortunately. There is one for Rarebit with kidney beans from Joan C. though.
Ooooh, I don’t have that in my collection but am bidding on one right now on eBay! Thanks for the tip-off. I have made Joan’s rarebit with kidney beans – sounds weird but I remember liking it… Do you have the Jane Sherrod Singer book – Cooking With the Stars? Joan’s recipe is in there too… It’s a weighty tome with loads of good movie star recipes that she’s gathered from all over the place and rewritten. She doesn’t give the original source though, and I do like to go back to the original source so thanks again for letting me know about this Betty Crocker book. Currently going to cost me $50 including shipping to the UK – OOF!!
Ooooh, I don’t have that in my collection but am bidding on one right now on eBay! Thanks for the tip-off. I have made Joan’s rarebit with kidney beans – sounds weird but I remember liking it… Do you have the Jane Sherrod Singer book – Cooking With the Stars? Joan’s recipe is in there too… It’s a weighty tome with loads of good movie star recipes that she’s gathered from all over the place and rewritten. She doesn’t give the original source though, and I do like to go back to the original source so thanks again for letting me know about this Betty Crocker book. Currently going to cost me $50 including shipping to the UK – OOF!!