Maggie Smith

“I know there is something out there and like most people, I tend to believe in it more when things go bad. But I’m not like Shirley MacLaine, who probably believes we were past lovers in another life.”

Smith sat down for a rather long interview with the Toronto Star.  She was being honored as the 2012 recipient of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s Legacy Award.

Needless to say, this season of Downton Abbey should be a barn burner!

Check out The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook post at Cookbook Of The Day.

Edith Wharton Porn

Yes, Virginia, we spent the weekend indulging in a massive dose of Edith Wharton porn.

Not exactly the entire weekend.  Part of was spent building one of those heavy stainless steel kitchen rack in a tiny closest the was not much bigger than said rack.  Such a rack usually requires at least two people to put together and space to mover around all sides.  This was a solo project in a 2 X 5 space with a 1 1/2 X 4 rack.  It was not pretty.  After contortions that would get the average person a job with Cirque du Soleil, the rack was erected.  Then there was the Alabama game followed by 36 hours of recovery from rack building.  My body felt like it had been on a rack or on the Western Kentucky offense.  I was aided in my recovery by spending the afternoon on the sofa ensconced in Edith Wharton porn.

Edith Wharton's Library at The Mount

 Richard Guy Wilson's new book on her house, Edith Wharton at Home: Life at The Mount arrived.  I spent a lovely afternoon pouring over the vintage pictures and the new photos by John Arthur.  I would have wanted more photos of the kitchen, but I doubt Wharton set foot in there more than a few times.  I have a photo from a now defunct blog featuring the linen closet at The Mount, another place Wharton probably never saw!  In fact, one of the most interesting sections of the book discusses how little information was kept on anyone who actually worked at The Mount.   Of the cooks, housekeepers, gardeners, and drivers there is only a handful of information on a few; the rest are what Wilson refers to as " the silent backdrop."

 For all the nitty-gritty details there is a wonderful "fact sheet" at The Mount's web site.  Among other things, one will find that the landscaping by Beatrix Jones Farrand cost nearly as much as the construction of the actual house.

Add this one to your Christmas wish list.

Famous Food Friday -- Jill St. John

We have been in full television mode at Cookbook Of The Day, so we felt a television themed Famous Food Friday was in order.  One just never knows who is out there getting a cookbook published but it seems if you are a bona fide television personality it is easier.

In the dark ages of the late 1980’s, before you were all born, the “Celebrity” chef was a rare thing.  Food Network was not being streamed into every family room/kitchen (Because there was just the kitchen and the dining room!), so cooking fell to actual celebrities.  Case in point, Jill St. John.

 

During the 1970’s and 80’s Jill got around.  The former Bond Girl dated Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger, Sean Connery, Peter Lawford, and Robert Wagner who became her fourth husband.  She parlayed her cooking enthusiasm into a monthly cooking spots on Good Morning America and became a food editor for USA Weekend Sunday magazine.  Who knew?

Many of these famous food cookbooks are simply afterthoughts from publicists, The Jill St. John Cookbook is quite polished.  I must say I was quite surprised by Miss St. John’s culinary skills.  We have laughed before about the decidedly twee farm-to-table cookbooks, so it was interesting to find that Jill St. John was a big advocate of growing your own herbs and eating locally.  Seriously, every recipe out there belonged to some before you!  Don’t kid yourself.

Here is Jill’s recipe for shrimp with a kick.   Notice she was “Cajun” before Cajun was cool!  She suggests putting out finger bowls if you serve these – how very 80’s.

Fiery Cajun Shrimp

5-6  large raw shrimp in their shells
1/2pound unsalted butter, melted
1/2pound margarine, melted
3-4 ounces Worcestershire sauce
4 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground rosemary
juice of 2 lemons
2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce
2 teaspoons salt
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 lemons, sliced

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

With a small, sharp pair of scissors, cut through the shells of the shrimp from top to tail.  Do not cut the tail.  Devein the shrimp but leave them in their shells.

In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients except the lemon slices.  Cover the bottom of a 13 X 9-inch glass baking dish with a little of this mixture.  Arrange the shrimp and the lemon slices in layers in the dish, stopping about 1 inch from the top. Pour the remainder of the butter sauce over.  Bake turning the shrimp once or twice, until they are cooked through, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Evidently, Jill is still cooking up a storm or to be more precise, Rigatoni with Vodka Sauce for Valentine’s Day, 2010.

Cocktails At The Burn Pit

 

Where have we been??  The summer has been a bummer here in Lucindaville.  Most of July was spent without electricity or telephone service.  A surge in the electricity fried the stove.   There was a plumbing problem.  My phone was out so much my phone bill was just under $3.  The phone company wanted ANOTHER phone number to reach me.  Seriously, if I had another phone that worked, I wouldn't be calling frantically.  If I had cell phone service I wouldn't need this crappy land line.

We are spending 720 million dollars a DAY in Iraq and Afghanistan, countries most people in Congress couldn't find on a blank map!  Maybe if we had a weeks worth of that funding we could get reliable phone service and electricity to WEST VIRGINA!   But I digress...



 During these travails, my friend Ann, who had to postpone her trip to visit, merely delayed it and decided that misery would love company.  She ventured out not knowing what she might find or NOT find, but she came prepared with tequila which needs neither a stove nor electricity.

By the time she arrived, the refrigerator was working and she stocked it Simply Limeade and the cocktail making ensued.  Ann developed a classic down and dirty margarita.  She was aided by glasses that had been in my family for a hundred years.  I checked and they hold 10 ounces.   So the next time your electricity goes off, of you lose phone service, of your stove blows, or frankly, you just need a drink without much thought, give this margarita a try.  Our  orange liquor of choice is Grand Gala.  It is inexpensive and had a bite.  It often gets criticised for its bite, but I love that in a margarita.

Ann's We Don't Have Electricity But We Have Tequila Margarita

2 ounces of tequila
1 ounce orange liquor
Simply Limeade


Measure 2 ounces of tequila and 1 ounce of orange liquor in a 10 ounce glass.  Fill with cold Simply Limeade.

It makes me happy just thinking about it...

Downton Abbey Alert

It will be a full four months before the third season of Downton Abbey, but that cannot stop die-hard fans.  Over at Vulture, they have a fan made trailer (spoiled by a thirty second commercial for a video game with fighting aliens, which is a perfect mesh for Abbey fans who want nothing more than to don Edwardian garb, make high tea, and shoot aliens from their Xbox... but I digress...) featuring the arrival of Shirley MacLaine and a bit of fan laughter in the middle.  Still it is a glimpse of Downton to come...

Happy 100th, Julia

 

Today would have been Julia Child's 100th birthday.  I joined several thousand of her closest friends in wishing her a happy 90th birthday.

PBS has put together Julia video featuring Guns 'n Roses

Then there is this particular favorite featuring Meryl Streep and Julia Child head to head.

Enjoy.

Girls and Guns

Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway

 Our recent post about Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn brought to mind the above photo.  We thought it was time for another installment of Girls and Guns.

Slim Keith

Marlene Dietrich

Carole Lombard

Helen Mirren

Requiescat in Pace - Marion Cunningham

 

Legendary home cooking advocate, Marion Cunningham, died yesterday at age 90.  Read our review of The Breakfast Book and tributes at Cookbook Of The Day.

Dreaming In French

While suffering trough the loss of no Law & Order during the derecho, I found a lot of time to read.  Do you ever get a book and just keep it a while because you know when you read it it will be over and you don't want that moment to come?  That is the way I felt when I got Alice Kaplan's Dreaming in French.

First and foremost, I am a devoted Francophile.  I love group biographies.  I have read extensively on the three women in Dreaming in French:  Jacqueline Kennedy, Susan Sontag and Angela Davis.  The book looks a specific period in time in the development of each of these women, a time when they were still in college and sought adventure, refuge, and intellectual curiosity abroad, specifically in France.  The experience change each of them and molded their future endeavors.

Alice Kaplan teaches French at Yale.  She teaches young women as sophomores.  She watches them head off on their own junior year abroad.  More importantly, she sees them return as seniors.  She sees a change and was motivated to look at iconic women of the twentieth century and write about the effects on their individual lives.

The book begins with Jacqueline Bouvier who spent her junior year in Paris in the 1940's.  The war had ended, but life was not easy.  Bouiver claimed her French heritage with a passion.

Susan Sontag in center

Susan Sontag went to Paris in 1950's.  It was not her junior year abroad.  She was 24 years old and already a wife and mother to a five year old, neither of whom made the trip with her.  Her to-do list included a note to remember to shower... every other day.

Angela Davis on right

In the 1960's Angela Davis was the only African-American student in Hamilton University's junior year abroad.  She had attended a segregated school in Birmingham.  While in Paris, the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed and four girls were killed. 


The book is a wonderful journey through the lives of three very different women and of the twentieth century as it unfolded in history.

Jacqueline Kennedy found in Paris a refuge from broken home and war-weary world.  She infused the nation with a hint of Parisian charm.

Susan Sontag thrived in the intellectual and sexual freedom of Paris, becoming an influential intellectual.  Two words not often found in tandem in America.

Angela Davis found a freedom in France that she was not offered in America.  She set out to change that by any means necessary.


The stories in this book are not merely a rehashing gleaned from other biographies, but a new and fresh insight on three of the most interesting women of the last 50 years.  Read it immediately... even if you have electricity.

Derecho!

 We got derechoed!

First -- everyone is OK.   But what a mess!

 Four large trees were taken out and blocked the bridge so we couldn't get off the property.

Two days later another large tree was felled at the gate and ...we couldn't get off the property.


Company was coming and the refrigerator was full... the freezer is ALWAYS full.  We lost power for four days as the temperature climbed to 104.  No lights, no water, no AC, no TV, no phone just the faint sounds of cats panting. 

Much of West Virginia went another 5 days without power and some still don't have any.  There are still parts of Shirley without phone service and we have been driving over the downed phone line.

We are still in recovery mode, but we will be back up to speed, soon.