HippFest Silent Cinema Festival has begun – whoopee!  My Mary Pickford Silver Screen Supper video goes out on Saturday morning and is available for 48 hours so if you have landed here looking for more information about her enchiladas or cocktails, please skip to this post for the shopping list and cooking tips.

I promised to gather together all the Mary Pickford recipes I have in the collection and they all follow – I found more than I mentioned in the video so feast your eyes!  As the festival also includes films featuring the wonderful Louise Brooks, Rudolph Valentino and Marlene Dietrich, I’ve added a recipe from each of their kitchens too, these are right at the end.  If you make any of these dishes, whether during HippFest or at another time, please do let me know how they turn out, I love getting photos too!  You can get in touch any time via my Contact Page.

Tips on how to make Mary’s Raspberry Jam Tarts can be found here.

Here’s one from Louise Brooks, I’ve made this a few times, it’s delicious!

I did a forensic exploration of Rudolph Valentino’s Secret Spaghetti Sauce recipe and you can read all about it in this blog post.  It’s lonnnnnnnng though, I warn you!  But if you are an archivist type you might enjoy all the digging around in research.  Here’s the recipe.

Rudolph Valentino’s Secret Spaghetti Sauce

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided use
1 large onion, diced
1 and 1/2 cups / 115g sliced mushrooms
1 can (8 oz / 225g) tomato sauce
1 can (8 oz / 225g) tomato paste
1 can (16 oz / 450g) whole tomatoes, chopped and undrained
1 lb / 450g Italian sausage, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon fresh oregano
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
1 can (2 oz / 55g) anchovies, drained
1/2 cup / 120ml red wine, plus more wine if needed

Instructions:

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a Dutch oven and sauté the onion pieces and mushrooms over low heat until they soften, adding a little water if needed. Add the tomato sauce, the tomato paste, and the whole tomatoes. Continue to cook over low heat, partially covered.

In a separate skillet sauté the sausage pieces, adding the second tablespoon of oil if they start to stick. Add the garlic pieces as the sausage cooks. When the sausage has browned, scoop the pieces of sausage and garlic up and pop them into the Dutch oven. Stir in the oregano and rosemary as well.

Deglaze the skillet with the red wine, and add the wine and any pieces of sausage that are in it to the Dutch oven. Stir in half of the anchovies.

Simmer the sauce for 10 minutes, partially covered, and taste. Add more anchovies as needed.  Cook for 30 minutes more, stirring occasionally. Cover the pot and/or add a little more wine if the sauce starts to get too thick.

Serve with spaghetti and grated cheese. Serves 4.

Last, but not least, for those of you who have perfected your banana bread during this year of lockdown, here’s a little Hollywood version so you can sprinkle a bit of stardust over your next one!

If you make any of these, please do let me know via my Contact Form, I love hearing from folks who have tried these movie star recipes.  If you post on social media I use the hashtag #silverscreensuppers so I might spot your photos there.

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