I pressed the “publish” button for my book on Friday – eek!  I’ve been celebrating all weekend.  Here I am, cocktail in one hand, proof copy in the other.  Don’t I look pleased with myself?!

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Well I AM pleased with myself.  It was a lot of work but I am very proud of it.  More details, ad infinitum, coming soon.  On sale Saturday after next – 8th November…  It is BIGGER than I was expecting, but I love it.

Mr R made me a congratulatory Joan card and furnished me with Champagne which we drank on Sunday morning in bed – DECADANCE!

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Later on we decided to create a Crawford cocktail for the Joan Crawford Virtual Reality Dinner Party on the 8th – are you coming?  Everyone is invited! Wherever you are in the world, join us!  Recipes are on the Recipe of the Month page if you land here in November 2014 – if you visit that page sometime in the future, who knows what you will find?!

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People have occasionally asked if I “make up” the film star recipes I write about here – most definitely NOT!  They are all recipes linked to the stars that appeared in fan magazines, promotional booklets and cookbooks.  I’ve written about this a bit more here….

BUT, I did make up a cocktail once, and that can be found here… The Louella Parsons Cocktail (although I may have to make it again.  To check the ratios you understand…)

and now I am making up another, for all my lovely readers who either:

a) would like a nice pre-Joan-Crawford-dinner-cocktail for their party on the 8th

or b) can’t be bothered to cook anything on the 8th but would like to join the party…

Just make one of these!

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The Joan Crawford Cosmo

3 parts Smirnoff vodka*

2 parts Cranberry Juice (one of Joan’s nicknames was Cranberry)

1 part M&S Orange & Brandy  Liqueur (you could use Grand Marnier, Triple Sec or Cointreau if you can’t get your hands on this – and then you can then RENAME this cocktail and make it your own!)

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Shake all of the above in a cocktail shaker with some ice then drain into lovely big glasses.  Serve with a cherry on a cocktail stick.

If you don’t have a cocktail shaker just mix it all together and pour it over lots of ice.  If you don’t have ice, have it warm.  Who cares?  It’s your cocktail!

I like cocktail recipes that do measures in “parts” because I have no idea what 5 oz of booze looks like…  When measuring “parts” I use my mad jigger thingy.

The small end for “relations”

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and the large end for “friends”.  Ha ha, cheeky eh?

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Must get some silver polish!

Actually for this one, I used the small end and that was enough for two nice cocktails I reckon.

* And why do I specify Smirnoff?  Because I found this note in one of my notebooks recently.  Who knows where I read this, but I found it worthy of writing down, naturally!

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Enjoy your special tipple my lovelies – it’s sort of a Cosmopolitan without the lime juice (I didn’t have any….) You might have to try out a few before the 8th of course, just to make sure you like them…

If you think a Cosmo is a bit girlie for you, Mr R is creating a “Dr Phibes” cocktail for pre-dinner drinks on Halloween which I’ll write about here later.  We will be having Vincent Price Goulash – naturally!

the-abominable-dr-phibes-dvdIf you’d like to see a film of me and my chum Nathalie making some of Vincent Price’s Goulash in a film made to promote the British Film Institute’s Gothic season, click here…  I am slightly freaked out to see that this has had 3,450 views of of today – that’s SPOOKY!  I can’t get over how many TEETH I seem to have…

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