Memory is a funny old thing. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately as I’ve been reading a lot of food memoirs and autobiographies – current obsession, Dirk Bogarde, what a WRITER!
My self-generated food memoir evening class is going slowly, but I’m really enjoying working through the list. This studiousness is partly with a view to writing my own memoir (sounds grand) one day about how movie stars taught me to cook…
A couple of weeks ago I had a day off work to write and was in my lovely local library tapping away…
I had a little peruse on the shelves and spotted this, which seemed to be serendipity so I got it stamped out to me and happily took it home.
On the bus on the way to work the next day, I opened it up and on the first page found this…
My question is. If you are borrowing a book about writing from the library, you must be a WRITER of some kind right? So what kind of writer draws a picture in a library book that prevents other writers from READING that page? I am appalled and amused in equal measure – haha!
Mind you, if you go onto Etsy, someone is making a living out of this kind of thing….
So all of this preamble is really to say, memory is weird and I can remember almost nothing about Sean’s dish. I do know this. As Sean Connery is just about the only movie star I can do an impression of, I am sure I would have said, “You call this archaeology Junior?” about a million times.
I will probably have scribbled down some words of wisdom on an index card which will turn up around the place at some point but for now, here are pix of the dish which was a seriously old fashioned retro number…
I’ve never had any luck with making dumplings…
our trip to Archway presenting a piece of Sean’s beef to the roundel
and a photo of the boozer we spent a few hours in afterwards.
It was a lovely “old man’s pub” that we both liked a lot. Plus, best crisps!
Here’s Sean’s recipe with a fabulous illustration…
and here are Mr Rathbone’s Station Factoids!
After the splendour of East Finchley’s architecture, and the intrigue of Highgate’s hidden history, Archway station could be considered somewhat….ordinary. With no outer building to speak of, and the original attractive platform tiling long gone, there isn’t too much to get excited about at this particular stop, hidden as it is at the base of the enormous, unsightly Archway Tower.
Originally the terminus of a short branch from Camden Town, the station opened in 1907 as Highgate, although it sits over a mile downhill from the village itself. A few months before the line was extended northwards to join what is now the High Barnet branch, (see Great Bear No. 8) the name changed to Archway (Highgate) before settling on it’s current name in 1941. It’s unlikely that this beautiful advertising roundel survives beneath the current wall tiling however
But when the station originally opened, Highgate Hill was still served by Europe’s first ever cable car tramway service. Now that would have been something worth looking at!
Thanks Mr Rathbone, informative as always and love the picture of the tram Look at the lovely world we’ve lost!
It’s always nice to get an opportunity to put up a picture of Sean in his legendary onesie, so I will end this looooooooong post with that!
What is /are “this”, which is how the cabbage is cut? My best thought is “thins”, but I am a Yank and don’t necessarily speak English.
Haha – I hear ya Sally! It’s an odd way of writing a recipe but I think Sean means you cut the cabbage into the dish that has all the other ingredients. Most of us normal folks would slice it on a board and pop it in, but I just imagine Sean holding a cabbage over the casserole dish and slicing it straight in with a big knife!
Dumplings are ridiculously hard to make for some reason and enough to send anyone to the boozer ! What library is that ? Looks delightful. Memoir wise, you should also try ‘ The Art of Memoir’ by Mary Karr. And that is quite a bizarre drawing . Indeed, who does this ? Except of course for Joe Orton, who defaced library books far more graphically than this and has due to his later celebrity had them since put on special display !
So true about the dumplings Mark. It is the lovely Alexandra Park Library between Muswell Hill and Bounds Green. An absolute delight. Thanks for the Mary Karr tip, will get hold of that. I did think about Joe when I saw that drawing! At first I thought maybe somebody’s kid had got hold of the book and scribbled on it, but the drawing is too good!
Fun read!
Always good when one has a chance to see a young Sean Connery, even if it is in a baby blue terrycloth onsie!
I hope that you do write your memoir! I would read it!
Check out my blog post for help on cooking dumplings. Hope it helps!
https://imannette.net/2014/09/07/chicken-and-dumplings-ma-and-pa-kettle/
Annette! You make dumplings sound so easy. Next time I have a movie star recipe that features such things I’m going straight to your recipe! Did you know that there was a little cookbook (well a pamphlet really) to accompany The Egg and I? It contains all the “Favorite Egg Recipes of Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray”. I”ve made a few things from it and seem to remember a lemony Angel Food Cake that was a favourite of Claudette…