Marguerite Patten Cookalong – #Marguerite100

Marguerite was not a silver screen star but she could have been! Look!

Instead, Marguerite became one of Britain’s most loved home economists.  She wrote more than 170 cookery books, was the first ever TV chef and wanted everyone to be able to eat well, whatever their budget.

To celebrate what would have been Marguerite’s 100th birthday, the Guild of Food Writers organised a #Marguerite100 cookalong.  Any regular readers will know how much I love a cookalong….

I decided that I would cook something for my bestie and fellow food fanatic Battenburg Belle, as she is always cooking delicious things for me.  So I took round some beautiful – and BIG – juicy lamb steaks I’d procured from our fabulous local butcher Morley Butchers in Crouch End.

I wanted to do a whole menu from my:

which is brilliant and has three split sections for starter, main and pudding. It’s a bit like those books kids have where you can make a person from one head, one body and one bottom half…

…but time was short.  Myself and BB have the schedules of a pair of maniacs at the moment.  If I tell you that on Friday, we both have the day off work to make 300 Vincent Price Cheese Knots, 300 Vincent Price Toad-in-the-Holes and 300 cheese and pickled onion combos on cocktail sticks to poke in 8 Vincent Price cucumber crocodiles, you’ll get the idea…. 

So I selected three possible main courses and asked BB, which she would prefer: Capered Lamb Chops, Chicken Maryland or Russian Rosy Pork?  She liked the sound (as she put it) of “capering lamb”.  So that is what we had, and it was LOVELY!

BB reminded me that I spent a good part of the evening taking the mickey out of her as she was planning to take the Treasury of Great Recipes (which weighs a tonne) in her hand luggage to France.  This was so she cook something for the Vincent and Mary Price Treasury Cookalong.  Can’t wait to see what she made – and there is still time to join in chums – ends Saturday at midnight.  There’s a chance to win a copy of the 50th Anniversary Edition of A Treasury of Great Recipes, or a Vincent Price themed dinner for two at Silver Screen Suppers Towers…

It was really lovely participating in the #Margeurite100 Cookalong.  She was such an inspiring woman, and it’s been really lovely reading so many memories about her over at the cookalong Facebook page.  Thank you Guild of Food Writers for organising this fun cookalong, and thank you Battenburg Belle for so many delicious meals at your place. Maybe I’ll try out Marguerite’s Russian Rosy Pork on you soon…  Cheers!