Hereby follows a fabulous guest post by Uncle Vic, my ex boyfriend, current neighbour and lover of all things Vincent Price related….  This was Vic’s challenge for the Vincent Price Halloween Cookalong, but he was poleaxed by lack of cooking pans in his own gaff.  Therefore he came down two flights of stairs from his flat, across the lawn in front of our building and up four flights to my place to make it a few days later.  Here is his report…

Liver. Everybody loves it. I always enjoy a nice bit of offal, and I’m sure that you do too. But though I have rustled up much of it in times past – principally of the pig and lamb variety – never have I ventured towards the realms of chicken liver. Hence it was only with the expert assistance of Jenny, the Silver Screen Supper Queen and foremost custodian of Vincent Price’s cookbooks, that I attempted the preparation of this dish. To be honest, I peeled the potatoes and poked at the liver with the tongs a bit. Jenny did all the complicated stuff and timing and whatnot.

I must say that to me, as a non-chef, Vincent’s grand book of recipes looks beautiful but is somewhat daunting. As heavy as a tombstone, but with a leathery cushy padded cover somewhat akin to the insides of an expensive Hollywood funeral casket, it’s an imposing volume indeed. I’ve enjoyed looking at the pictures – I like to see photos of Vincent lavishly lounging around in his mobile home clutching a cognac –  but it was with a large degree of trepidation that I approached the actual idea of cooking something contained therein. It was a bit scary, in fact, as scary as Price’s performance in Witchfinder General (1968). Well, maybe not quite that scary. But you know what I mean.

I studied Vincent’s words: One of Luchow’s most popular dishes, this is a marvellous way to serve chicken livers. The combination of liver, apple and onion is so outstanding that I don’t even mind dirtying the three pans necessary for their proper preparation. So this was one of Luchow’s most popular dishes, was it? Luchow? Who he? And what about this bit about dirtying three pans? I don’t even own three pans.  

 

Luckily, though,  Jenny did, and it was a good job my dear ex was at hand to help. I was relieved to discover the actual steps involved were pretty straightforward. And, even better, Jenny did most of the work. We accompanied the liver with good old-fashioned mashed potato, peas and carrots.

In the end, it was well worth the effort. The livers were delicious. I’d definitely have those again. I had feared that the sugar, butter, apple and sherry would make it all too rich and gloopy and we’d get gout. But it didn’t. It was a splendid repast. Vincent triumphs once more – and this may be my favourite of all the Price dishes I’ve sampled.  

Vincent was right: it is worth dirtying the three pans, though the only time I can remember seeing Vincent in washing up gloves was way back when he was bunging bodies in the acid bath in Scream and Scream Again (1969). But I guess that even a legendary King of Horror has to do the dishes once in a while…

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