It’s Halloween, one of my favourite nights of the year, and there is a vast amount of Vincent Price Goulish Goulash in the slow cooker. My CHARGE is coming for dinner tomorrow evening, and like some Aunt in a PG Wodehouse novel I want to make sure he is fully fed. He’s here from New...
Dr Lawrence Napper has been obsessed with Godfrey Winn ever since Charles Barr bought his Godfrey Winn Tea Towel into a seminar at UEA and proudly presented it to us. I’ve been promising him Godfrey’s Kedgeree for a long time and so it came to pass yesterday for brunch. Godfrey’s recipe was pretty plain –...
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmuffins! Muffinsmmmm. That’s all I have to say about them really. Vincent’s recipe was perfect – natch. So there is not much more to say about it. They were gorgeous – me and Lawrence and Nathalie just about ate them all. So instead of raving about them I hereby post a playlist of the inaugural...
I had a gentleman caller last night. It was date 3 with a fellow from OK Cupid known around these parts as “Mr Shoulder” and I did enjoy seeing him smoking a fag whilst hula hooping at about 1 in the morning. Reminded me a bit of Johnny Marr strumming away with a gasper firmly...
Being a guest on Hatty and Marc’s Silly Radio Show was SO MUCH FUN. I really enjoyed our chinwag about all the stars and the food they liked to eat. My favourite bit was when listeners could challenge me to see if I had a recipe for a particular star. Can’t remember them all now,...
When I am faced with shop full of 78rpms I always buy ones with funny titles like, “My Wife is on a Diet” or “Washing Dishes With My Sweetie” both of which turned out to be winners. So it is with recipes. Sometimes I just pick them because they sound cute. Egg Nog Pie De...
I will be on the radio on Saturday talking about Silver Screen Suppers. Tune in to www.croydronradio.com 1-3pm and tweet in on hattyashdown or on the shout box ! (I don’t know what a shout box is – Hatty told me to say that!) I have just made some Janet Gaynor Ice Box Cookies and...
Look out for my lounge on Saturday night on BBC’s Arena about the Beatles’ film Magical Mystery Tour – it was used as a location to represent a 1967 front room on Boxing Day. Now to business! This will probably be my longest post ever. Any conference where you get handed a breakfast margarita to...
Eek – I’m featured on Food Blogger Connect today. I’m going to be attending this three day event in London and am beyond excited. Can’t wait to meet food bloggers from around the world, exchange ideas, eat loads of delicious food and listen to some great speakers. Will report back. I realize that nobody will...
For the first time in my entire life Cup-O-Soup was on my shopping list. I slightly blame Brian over at my new blog-stalker-obsession-spot Caker Cooking who I virtually met (if you know what I mean) yesterday morning in bed on a blog tour. If you don’t have a blog yourself I would strongly suggest you...
My fridge is almost entirely stocked with salad dressings and cheese after last Sunday. I overdid it. So I was very pleased to find this recipe to use up what’s left of the Roquefort. Nice and easy and very, very tasty. Phil says: Mash the cheese in with the eggs until there are no lumps...
I always imagined Thousand Island Dressing to be seventies thing. But who would have thought that in 1916 Ralph would offer us his recipe in, ” Celebrated Actor Folks’ Cookeries: A Collection of the Favorite Foods of Famous Players”. I’ve never made Thousand Island Dressing before but excuse my swearing, this was bloody delicious. I...
I made half the quantity Edna May suggested for the Lucille Ball Sunday Supper as her recipe would have been enough for an army of salad eaters. We were a party of 5 and I’m going to be having this on salad until Christmas I think… – seen on the left with Thousand Island on...
Had a lovely Sunday with Heather, Glen, Nick and Brad watching The Long Long Trailer and having a whole menu suggested by Lucille Ball. Lucy’s Sunday Night Supper for Two or Twenty – Salad – Goulash – Dessert I made Lucille’s goulash almost exactly to her recipe except for two things. I didn’t use any...
The winner of the Hitchcock competition is Jane Tracy. Congratulations Jane! Usually my prizes are won by chums as lots of them enter, but this time the prizes go to someone I do not know, an unknown reader of the blog, and that is just lovely! I got lots of entries for this competition from...
I’ve gone Quiche crazy. Preparing for the Highgate Horticultural Society competition on Saturday. I couln’t decide between Alfred Hitchcock’s and Vincent’s but my work colleague Obi just clinched it. He said of today’s quiche, “I’d rather buy your quiche than Waitrose’s finest”. What a compliment. I am going to follow his suggestion of using Hitch’s...
What a few days! I cannot begin to express what an amazing day I had at the Paralympics on Thrilling Thursday. I thought my eardrums would burst when David Weir won his race the sound in that stadium was unbelievable. It was a day full of love and friends and their families and every single...
I am sun-kissed and happy after a day at the seaside with the Ladies of the 43 – my ex-flatmates Gaby and Lucy. Oh it was glorious! I love those women. I gave a talk to the lovely ladies of the Southend Women’s Institute last night and I was super nervous but it seemed to...
I am celebrating all things Hitchcockian this month with a BIG COMPETITION. Super-dooper prizes on offer and everyone can enter. Here’s the scoop on Hitchcockian action a go-go. 1 – recipe of the month this month is Alfred Hitchcock’s Quiche Lorraine – skip over to the Recipe of the Month page for the recipe during...
Life is full of surprises and my American pen-pal Margie was right, Gene’s crazy sandwich is GOOD. It is made from mashed potato and French bread and onions and mayonnaise and it tastes mighty fine. Mmmm. Surprise number 2 tonight was The Way We Were. I settled down to watch it and was very surprised...
It was a special night at the Palace of Solitude tonight – I had two lovely dinner guests. Two of my very favourite people and what is more, two people who live within spitting distance of my flat. How lovely to have such friends on my doorstep who can come round for din dins on...
Whenever I make salsa I can’t help reminiscing about a gorgeous hunk of a man who made some for me one night wearing a very sexy blue and white striped T-shirt. Ooh, he was a sight to see chopping those tomatoes. Yum yum. When I am on my deathbed I sincerely hope that one of...
Vic came round for his tea last night. There was a great article in one of the Sunday supplements last week about the different nuances of the words tea, dinner and supper. Last night was a tea verging on a supper. To me supper always seems a slightly more elaborate version of tea, and usually...
The esteemed Dr Lawrence Napper has given me a tip off that on Saturday night there will be a tribute to Novello at the Proms and it will be shown on tele. He suggests that fans of the divine Ivor might like to rustle up his dish to accompany events. I haven’t tried this one...
I have just had a long night of the soul where all my worries gathered at the foot of my bed to torment me. Instead of tossing and turning and hurrumphing I decided to get up. So I started making a birthday cake for my desk buddy Lucy at 4.30am. It was all done and...
Wow, what a week! On Thursday I got up at 5am to go and see the Olympic Torch in Camden. I love the fact that my local tube station in Highgate was all flagged up for the Olympics when I got there at 5.30: The torch relay was coooooooooool. Then on Friday night I went...
I passed the Amstel Hotel a couple of times on my way to and from business meetings in Amsterdam but I saved up my visit for Saturday morning when I could appreciate it to the full. I was strangely nervous as I walked across the bridge. It’s such an imposing building and I really felt...
Summer has arrived at last in London and I had a really lovely cocktail hour in the garden on Sunday with Vic and Corinna drinking beer and talking nonsense. Vic said he had vowed never to sit on a rug in a garden but we made him do it. It’s a rare sight to see...
I ate quite a lot of rich food in Amsterdam including this: in honour of Vincent Price’s Hotchpotch of Curly Kale… so on Saturday I was craving a Joanie salad. There has been a tin of pineapple slices in my cupboard for ages so I made this and it was absolutely delicious. You can’t quite...
When I first clapped eyes on the best cookbook in the world – Vincent and Mary Price’s Treasury of Great Recipes – I knew many great culinary experiences lay ahead. The mighty tome arrived in a box in a huge postal sack from the USA, delivered to work as I knew it would be far...
Tony says: “When I was a kid in New York, my closest friends were Irish and Italian and we shared everything, even holidays. So I figured I might as well get into the act and always asked Mom to whip up her stuffed cabbage, my favourite then, and my favourite still.” Well, I made Tony’s...
I found the little brown shrimp I’d been looking for. Even though I have never had potted shrimp I knew the big pink ones that are more available wouldn’t be right and these teeny brown ones were perfect. This was recipe of the month last month and I’ve been waiting for the halcyon days of...
Quote from Black Narcissus: Q: What do nuns eat? A: Sausages. Quote from Silver Screen Suppers Towers: Q: What do spinsters eat? A: Eggs It did make me laugh when a gentleman caller asked me recently what I was reading and picked up my bedside book, “Eggs I Have Known” by Corinne Griffith. I think...
It is day one in my new academic diary and it is time for this old kazoo to go back to school. My intensive 6 month writing boot camp with Lisa Clark begins today. I took the day off work and have been writing like a machine. My new project Movie Medicine is now up...
Ah, the soothing power of Gone With the Wind. Always a tonic. I made Hattie’s Sweetcorn Pudding from Modern Screen magazine and as always it was darn good. Usually I make it in a shallow dish but this time I baked it in a soufflé dish and it turned out lovely and fluffy, but all...
I was a bit worried that this would turn out like Harold Lloyd’s Eggs Dolores which were, quite frankly, disgusting. But happily Viola’s tomatoey eggs were delicious. The esteemed Dr Lawrence Napper sent me this recipe, transcribed from Picture Show magazine. It’s given me a powerful urge to get myself down to the Newspaper Library…...
Ah, these turned out perfectly! I decided to make some of these as well as the Ice Box Cookies for the “Women in Early Hollywood” event and good job I did – they were all scoffed! This one is definitely going in the Silver Screen Suppers book and I have retranslated the American cups measurements...
The JG Ice Box Cookies are wrapped in foil and in the fridge. I am going to bake them tomorrow and give them out at the event I am speaking at in a desperate attempt to get everyone to like me so much they won’t ask me difficult questions. It’s a panel about women of...
And then the mice came… I think my romance is well and truly over. What a shame. I was having a conversation with my 12 year old chum Jessie about it on the bus the other day and when I said it wasn’t going well she said, “Oh dear. And you had such high hopes!” ...
Ooh, this was a weird one. Mixing an egg in with the mince then baking it before covering it with the chilli mixture and baking it again. This resulted in a kind of thin brick of meat with tomatoey stuff on top. Not a great success. Ben was very polite and ate his full portion. ...
I am trying to introduce a shuffle system for my two freezers. This makes it sound like I am living in some kind of enormous farmhouse with two chest freezers and an Aga. This could not be further from the truth. But as I cook so much and my landlord has supplied only a TEENY...
This week has been one hell of a roller-coaster ride so I’ve been planning an emotional omelet for five days. And you know what they say, “you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”. I have no idea why Dorothy christened her omelet so, but it’s a good hearty brunch for a spinster feeling sorry...
I’ve been thinking about having another go at the Bette Davis Orange Marmalade recipe. This is mostly because my kitchen cupboards are overflowing with washed-up empty jam/gherkin/pickled onion/caper/whatever jars and I’ve heard a rumour that Corinna has more for me too. They lie in wait for some kind of jam/marmalade/pickle/ mustard or chutney extravaganza. Trouble...
Oh goodness, I am on a panel – I am bricking it. 3 July 2012 – 6.30pm – tickets are £10 Looking In, Looking Out Festival, Conway Hall London Bidisha leads a high-kicking whirl through Hollywood history and a celebration of the brilliant women who co-founded Hollywood, with film experts, critics, Old Hollywood fans and...
It’s time to start eating things from the freezer. First up, some of Vincent’s Tortellini. It was good. Real comfort food as yet again, someone has bust my balloons… I’m Tired I’m not exactly sure what happened but I have a pretty good idea. Oh well, England are playing the Ukraine and there are bigger...
Just back from an enormous creative boost at the Sheffield Documentary Festival. Met some amazing new people and some much cherished old friends – the wonderful Sarah and Suzanne. I was also thrilled to see my much-adored mentor Hugh. I just bumped into him in the street, absolutely by chance, what a joyful bit of...
Coo what a feast! Heather, Ben, Sanja, James and my imaginary boyfriend came to help me scoff everything. It was a lot of work but I really enjoyed myself so it was worth it. I am definitely getting less stressed out when I do complicated menus. Detailed and copious lists with precise timings are the...
I am getting anxious about tomorrow’s party. It’s a big deal for me, a celebration of the end of the Vincentennial Cookblog and a gathering of most of the people who were at the party to launch it. I am worried about whether I’ll get everything done in time, whether people will like the food,...
Hmm. This was tasty. I had it with a Vincent Price burger that I retrieved from the back of the freezer. It had Roquefort cheese inside. Mmmm… Here’s Joan’s simple but effective recipe: “Wilted Spinach Salad: I pour hot bacon grease and vinegar over the spinach leaves until they sag, and then sprinkle crisp bacon...
As Britain is so very, very British at the moment at this time of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee I thought we should have a very British dish as the recipe of the month. How more British can you get than Gracie and Potted Shrimps? I found this scanned cook book on the internet a few...
Yes, it was as weird as it sounds and looks. I’d been wanting to try it since I saw the recipe because I love avocado and I love liver. I knew it would be weird though, fried avocado? Hot avocado? And yes, it was strange But kinda good too. I only managed to eat about...
Behold His Majesty The Loaf. I love making bread. You have to be having a spinster’s day in really, for all the sticking it in a warm place to rise and then kneading it and letting it rise again, but really it’s a lovely thing to do. Vincent’s recipe actually makes two loafs and I...
I rocked up at The Guild of Food Writers annual awards ceremony on Wednesday and it was just wonderful. I was thrilled that one of my heroes Yotam Ottolenghi was only a few feet away from me accepting his award for “Jerusalem on a Plate” and that Claudia Roden won the lifetime achievement award. I...
OK, so there were no noodles. I am English and the idea of having a chicken leg with noodles just seems odd, so I had it with Savoy cabbage instead. Yum yum. As Vincent observed, “The real secret of this recipe’s excellence is the red wine added for the last bit of cooking. That’s the...
Hmmm – I overcooked some of these… I made them for Ben and Polly’s wedding which was one of the loveliest weddings I’ve ever been too. Ooooooooo there was a lot of love there! I had some of the mixture and pastry left over so I made a few for me and Jane to...
Ha ha – these were fun to make. I think I over cooked them but they were amusing little fellows while they lasted.
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What a lovely surprise. Queens of Vintage magazine are running my piece about Silver Screen Sandwiches again. You can read it here: Silver Screen Sandwiches If any readers of the article drop by – hello and welcome! I blog about all my adventures in cooking the favorite fodder of my favourite movie stars right here....
Just sent out the monthly newsletter, a bit late this month as it’s been busy, busy, busy. I’m running a competition for the best Gingerbread Man – should be fun. Recipe is here if you are not a newsletter subscriber, I’m excited about the prospect of getting some pictures of crazy Gingerbread Men and am...
Aw these were cute! I made them before work as I knew making dinner would be a scramble. I had the ladies of the book group to dinner and it was lovely. We drank lots of wine and talked about the book a little bit, but seemed to talk mostly about my adventures on the...
My fungi phobia is abating and I was quite surprised about how much I liked these. Even though the little critters looked WEIRD, they tasted good. I made them with something quite funky I found in Morrison’s. A jar of “mixed mushrooms” in oil. I tried to find a picture of them on Google to...
I don’t know what the link was between Clive Brook and Richard Barthelmess but I guess at some point they rustled this up together. Maybe they were flat-mates in some seedy boarding house before they hit the big time? If anyone has the insider knowledge, please let me know. Perhaps they made this for their...
I was craving Mae’s salad for lunch when I was at the supermarket today so I tried to remember what was in it on the hoof. So this is basically Mae’s recipe with the addition of a few things I had knocking around the fridge – lettuce, rocket, some beetroot and a few cubes of...
A lovely surprise via Facebook this week. Rebecca in Wisconsin posted two pictures of her version of the recipe of the month – don’t they look cute? Rebecca added some cocoa powder to the icing sugar which I thought was a genius touch. The Silver Screen Suppers Facebook page is a very new thing for...
Pineapples! I’ve been wanting to throw a whole Vincent Price dinner party for a long time and Easter Sunday seemed like a good time to do it. It was SPECTACULAR. First up were Rumakis (above), water chestnuts cloaked in chicken liver with a bacon wrap. Divine. I should have made more, 2 each was not...
Whose idea was it to start making a chutney at 9pm in the evening? I blame the bottle of sherry I bought today for my Vincent Price Teriyaki sauce. I used 1 tablespoon of it for that, and seem to have drunk just about the rest of the bottle this evening preparing for tomorrow’s VP...
Just sent out my monthly newsletter with this month’s recipe – they are SO CUTE. If you fancy a little baking over Easter or any time in April these are very much recommended… I have 4 days off work for the Easter holiday. Yippee. I do love work, but it is nice to have some...
These were very cute, but next time I make them I will try to roll the dough much thinner. I think a trip to the cookshop is required, I think I need one of those mats for rolling stuff out on, you should see my kitchen worktop. Cooee. Both of my blind dates would […]
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Most contemporary chefs would be alarmed at the amount of time Bette cooked her scallops for (30 minutes parboiled then 10-15 minutes under the grill) and I was a bit concerned they would be chewy, but they turned out fine. Here are before and after shots of the bacon-y little tidbits. I am already mildly...
I decided that if my date for tonight cancelled again I would give up on him – even though he’s the first single man I’ve met that I fancy for what seems like forever. And he has done, so I’ve put myself back on the internet dating scene. Having enormous fun already – and I’ve...
A mustard mystery of Miss Marple magnitude in Melton Mobray this weekend! Oh my goodness the intrigue! Trix, Jane and myself made a pilgrimage to the Great British Mustard Bash: a six hour round trip to see if my Colonel Mustard’s Mustard’s Chocolate Beer Mustard had pleased the judges – if only for its beautiful...
The ex who cannot be named came round for dinner and a movie last night and it was a funny experience for me to have him fall asleep during the movie holding my hand. Hand holding is something I never remember him doing when we were together. It felt quite odd, especially as I sat...
I have versions of The Duke’s favourite cheese casserole recipe in FIVE different celebrity cookbooks so can only assume it was something he really, really liked to eat. But only this week I found out that the recipe was also featured on that most lovable of all recipe formats, a recipe card… One of the...
