I was inspired to make a White Lady by two things. In Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie, Bridget recalls a poem by Frances Darwin Cornford called To a Lady Seen From a Train which mentions a white woman. Simultaneously, I found a recipe for a dessert called a White Lady inthe March 2003 edition of Delicious Magazine. This makes this post not only a Dining with The Dame adjacent post but also a Twenty Years Ago Today adjacent post. I do so love it when things come together!
Part of the poem recalled by Bridget runs as follows:
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves, Missing so much and so much? O fat white woman whom nobody loves, Why do you walk through the fields in gloves
Now, as you can tell from the fragment above, this is not a great poem. But something about it roused the ire of other poets of the time. And in what, I imagine to be some sort of precursor to a modern-day rap battle, the poet A.E Housman parodied To A Lady Seen From a Train as follows:
O why do you walk through the fields in boots, Missing so much and so much? O fat white woman whom nobody shoots, Why do you walk through the fields in boots,
And that was not the last word on the subject either. Another poet, G.K Chesterton wrote his own poem called The Fat White Woman Speaks in response to Cornford
Why do you rush through the field in trains, Guessing so much and so much. Why do you flash through the flowery meads, Fat-head poet that nobody reads
Move over Ice Cube, your beef with N.W.A has nothing on Chesterton! Also, this is not about to become a poetry blog, even though I seem to be talking about it a bit recently!
I mean really! Little did that poor woman taking a shortcut through a local field realise that she was going to be weight shamed, accused of being utterly unloveable and have it lamented that she is not the target of a sniper!
In contrast, we are celebrating her with a White Lady or Dame Blanche which is a Belgian ice cream sundae.
White Lady – The Recipe
Now the recipe gives you the option to make your own ice cream. I did not take this option – sometimes you just don’t want to wai a few hours for your White Lady! I don’t love the combination of chocolate and orange so I only used half the amount of Cointreau mentioned iabove.
The White Lady gave me serious McDonalds Hot Fudge Sundae vibes with a little kick of alcohol!
The White Lady was delicious! But also serves as a warning. Ladies, if you are walking through fields, maybe take your gloves off so you don’t incur the wrath of battling poets!
Hello Friends! This week we are stepping back in time to February 2003 via Delicious magazine. It just so happened that the topic that came up in my random generator was Girl’s Night. So it seemed like a perfect opportunity to tie this into Galantine’s Day.
Before we get into that, let’s set the scene for February 2003. The month started with “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera topping the charts. This was replaced by Avril Lavigne with “Im with you” for the remainder of the month. Number one in the box office was “How to Lose A Guy in Ten Days” and the best-selling book this week was The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
My menu has somewhat of a pink theme which seems fitting for a Girl’s night but the content is definitely adult, starting with a watermelon vodka cocktail!
Watermelon Vodka Cocktail
This was so simple! I added a little squeeze of lime into the watermelon and vodka mix as I felt it was a bit too sweet / one note without it. It was super refreshing and made the most of our lovely summer produce! Be careful though…too many of these and you’ll be slurring
I am beautiful no matter what they say Words can’t bring me down I am beautiful in every single way Yes, words can’t bring me down, oh no So don’t you bring me down today
into a pretend mic and telling all your gal pals how much you love them before dessert!
Watermelon Vodka Recipe:
Beetroot Confit and Marinated Goat’s FetaTarts
I didn’t make these because I pretty much hate beetroot. To me, except for one Beetroot Tzatziki which I love, it tastes like dirt. The funny thing is though, it is something I really want to like. So I keep trying to make things with it in the hope that I will find the magic recipe that turns that switch in me from off to on. In this instance, I love the look of the pastry dotted with poppy seeds, the shape of the tiny little black dots echoed in the round of the goat’s cheese, and the gorgeous crimson of the beetroot in between.
Confit Beetroot and Goat’s Cheese Tarts Recipe:
Tuna Carpaccio
I loved this!!! It was so good! (one thing, I completely forgot to add the cucumber to this!). Also, I had no mixed baby cress so I subbed in watercress. When I was in Darwin recently, we went to a restaurant called Pee Wee’s at the Point for the Fussiest Eater in the World’s birthday. There, I had a buffalo carpaccio which was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life! That dish came with a Hot English Mustard Mayo which inspired me to add my own mayo to this carpaccio. I made a Wasabi Mayonnaise (you can see a little dab of it front and centre in the above photo).
Here is a pic of that buffalo carpaccio. Just looking at it makes we want to go all the way back to Darwin so I can eat it again!
Tuna Carpaccio Recipe:
Baby Tiramisu
These look adorable! And despite not being pink, they are the perfect way to end the evening…or to snack on as you are settling on the couch to watch a dvd or two! And because they are tiny, you can eat one and still fit into a dress just like Kate Hudson’s in “How To Lose A Guy in Ten Days”!
Baby Tiramisu Recipe:
My Nigella Moment – Duck with Berries
For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious. In the context of these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in either because I made it and it was really good, or I just didn’t have time to make it!
This month, my Nigella dish is Duck with Berries which came from an article on romantic food to cook for Valentine’s day. It was so good! Timing is so important when cooking duck and this recipe nailed it!
Duck with Berries Recipe:
Delicious Magazine certainly delivered on the Girl’s Night Menu!
Please let me know if you make the Beetroot Tarts. I am so intrigued by them! And also, if you are old enough to have had a girl’s night in 2003, would this have been the menu you would have chosen?
If you would like to contribute a theme, please let me know, I’m up for any challenge you can throw at me!
And happy Valentines, Galentines or however you want to spend the coming Tuesday!
Hello Friends and welcome to Twenty Years Ago Today for January 2003. It’s summertime here in Australia and living is easy. We want some no-muss, no-fuss food – and if we can slap it on the BBQ – so much the better! The magazine I am using for this month is Super Food Ideas from December 2002. The theme is summer vegetarian…will the magazine meet the challenge?
Here’s the menu I devised from the recipes in the magazine. I was able to meet my challenge of relaxed summer vegetarian food quite easily – there were a few options for the opening drink, the starter, side and dessert. There were not so many vegetarian mains but I really liked the sound of the sweetcorn and zucchini burgers! And the fussiest eater in the world loves peanut brittle so we appeared to be onto a winner, winner vegetarian dinner!
Pineapple and Rum Crush
This was summer in a glass! Rum and pineapple is a classic tropical flavour combination. I also liked the refreshing scent of the mint. This is a perfect hot-weather drink!
ChunkyAvocado Dip
I did not make this as I could not find a ripe avocado for love or money the day I wanted to make it! Here’s the recipe. This came from an advertisement for Tupperware, hence the mention of the serving vessel.
Sweetcorn and Zucchini Burgers
I was excited to make these because I love a zucchini fritter and I love a corn fritter. Also, I picked the zucchini and the parsley from my garden! What could be better than combining the two? Unfortunately, these were not good. Usually, when I make zucchini fritters, I squeeze the water out of the zucchini after grating them. This recipe did not say to do so and, when I am cooking a recipe for the blog or for Tasty Reads, I follow the recipe exactly. Maybe because I did not squeeze my zucchini (which sounds like a euphemism if ever I heard one) the mixture was a mess! I had to add almost double the amount of flour suggested to get something that would even hold together. The burgers tasted too much like flour and not enough like sweetcorn or zucchini. I would not make these again. If you want to try them, I would try squeezing the moisture out of the grated zucchini. Or for a really good recipe for zucchini fritters, use this one from Epicurious which is one of my faves!
Tomato Salad with Creamy Dressing
This was good, nothing special but a tasty tomato salad. We are about to have a bumper crop of tomatoes from the backyard so I might be making it again very soon!
Peanut Brittle
This was a semi-fail but entirely due to user error! The recipe says to microwave for 6-8 minutes. I do not cook with my microwave very often and got a bit panicky when at the six-minute mark the dish I was using to cook the brittle in felt very hot. The mixture inside it looked like something normally seen in the crater of a volcano about to explode. I lost my nerve and stopped the cooking process! As a result, the candy creation was not brittle but had the consistency of fudge. It was delicious though! Next time I will hold my nerve and cook it for the full eight minutes!
My Nigella Moment
For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious. In the context of these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking in because it was really good! This month, my Nigella moment came from an article on Asian food which included one of my restaurant favourites, Thai Fish Cakes. This is my go-to starter when eating Thai but I have never even contemplated making these at home! I loved these! They were deliciously tasty and were very close to the ones you eat in restaurants. I will definitely make these again! Also, happy Lunar New Year Everyone!
I hope you have enjoyed my trip back to the vegetarian food of 2003. It certainly had some mixed results. The absolute highlight for me were the fishcakes, they were sensational! The cocktail was pretty good too!
Future Twenty Years Ago Today Posts
I have been thinking about these 20 Years Ago Today posts and I decided that, whilst I love doing them, the risk is that the menu themes will get a bit predictable and will be limited to the food that I like. To give me a challenge and to hopefully really highlight what is featured in my 20-year-old magazines, I have come up with a list of menu themes and each month I will randomly select a theme and see if I can build a menu from that theme out of the magazine in question. Some of the themes are serious, some are based on actual food preferences of people I know (for example, the Fussiest Eater In The World once told me he did not eat white food. Except for potatoes, bread, rice, cauliflower, fish, milk, yoghurt….the list goes on!) and some I made up to challenge myself! You can find the list of themes here:
If you would like to contribute a theme, please let me know, I’m up for any challenge you can throw at me!
.Hello Friends and welcome to Twenty Years Ago Today! Today I am planning a Christmas Cocktail Party based on recipes from the December 2002 Edition of Australian Table. The Christmas Martini featured in the magazine felt like a perfect way to kick off the festivities!
The Christmas Martini
I had to check my dates to see if the Christmas Martini was created at the height of Sex And The City and thus was leaning into the Cosmo craze that show generated. It was a little late for that so now think that the use of cranberry juice in a martini was more due to its festive colour than a call back to the show.
I admit to being a bit worried about this – I thought it might be too sweet. I used a no-added-sugar cranberry juice to try to counter this and to my mind, this recipe really worked. The Christmas Martini is definitely sweeter than a regular martini but the tannins in the cranberry helped to keep it from being sickly. I also liked the combination of the slightly sweet drink and the salty olives. So this was a winner for me!
Christmas Martini Recipe
The Other Recipes (and My Variations)
Parmesan Chilli Biscuits with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
If I were making these, I might be tempted to swap out the baby spinach leaves for basil leaves and pipe a little splodge of goat’s cheese onto each biscuit not only to add some more flavour but also to anchor the tomato to the biscuit a bit better! No one wants a stray balsamic-covered cherry tomato rolling off their biscuit and staining their cocktail dress!
Here’s The Recipe:
Cured Salmon with Fresh Herbs
I made this and the salmon was amazing! So good and so easy! To fit in with my cocktail party theme, instead of serving it in long strips with potato salad, per the recipe, I cut the salmon into chunks and served it on crackers with some cream cheese, thinly sliced shallots and the capers and herbs suggested by the recipe. These would work perfectly with the Chrirtmas Martini too!
Here’s The Recipe:
Fillet of Beef with Salsa Verde
For cocktail party serving, I would make cut the beef into nice bite-size chunks, place it on a grilled bit of crusty bread and drizzle with the salsa verde.
Mixed Berry Tarts
A great alternative, if, like me, you are not a fan of the traditional mince pie! These would be a lovely ending to your Christmas cocktail party!
My Nigella Moment
For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious. In the context of these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking in because it was really good! This month’s item of irresistibility was a Peach, Watercress and Blue Cheese Salad. This was sensational! (If it looks a little bit familiar, we ate this as a side dish to last week’s Stilton and Leek Souffle.
Here’s the recipe:
I hope this has given you some inspo for your own Christmas Cocktail Party. Have a wonderful, safe and festive holiday period!
How many of you have ever had a horror day on the cooking front? The day when nothing went right? So It was with me when I went to make the “Baked Curly Shells and Proscuitto Cake” recipe from the November 2002 editiion of Super Food Ideas mag. For various reasons, about to be elaborated upon, these morphed into these spicy mac and cheese bites!
Spicy Mac and Cheese Bites – The First Error
The base of the OG recipe was ricotta cheese. I went to the deli section of my local supermarket. “Can I have 250 grams of ricotta cheese please?”
The little gobshite behind the counter (believe me, the truth of this statement will bear out) said. “We don’t have any”.
“Ermmm…..could you check out the back please?
He went out the back but he returned far to quickly to have checked for anything.
“We don’t have any””
Ok. So I was shopping at around 7pm so the proper, non-supermarket, deli was closed. The tubs of ricotta in the dairy aisle were all the size of small swimming pools. I didn’t want to be spending the rest of the week finding recipes to use that much left over riicotta. So I decided to use bechamel, for which I had all the ingredients for at home.
“‘Ok, no worries, can I have 12 slices of proscuitto please?
“‘Of what?”‘
“PROSCUITTO”
Let me be clear, we’re still not at the point where he became a gobshite.
Spicy Mac and Cheese Bites – The Second Error
So I got my proscuitto. Sorry, PROSCUITTO. And headed home. Boiled up my macaroni. Made my bechamel. Mixed my macaroni and bechamel together. It was a little bland. I added some chilli flakes. It’s the Sri Lankan in me. I like things a little spicy. I then went to line my muffin tins with proscuitto. (Just like last weeks cupcakes, I was making smaller versions of these “cakes” to work with my picnic theme.
I opened my pack from the deli and was faced not with proscuitto but with Sopressa! Which is an incredibly spicy salami.
Now my first ever job was in the supermarket deli. Never ever would I have mixed up proscuitto and sopressa!!!! And this my friends, is what made him a gobshite!
But by now it was close to 9pm. I did have the energy to get back in the car, drive back to Woolworths, explain what had happened, swap out the sopressa for proscuitto, drive home…
So I remembered that old Italian adage. “When life gives you sopressa, make….mac and cheese bites anyway”‘.
These little mac and cheese bites were so good! I would probably drop the chilli from the pasta mix when making again though as, with the sopressa they were really quite fiery! They were also good reheated and cold / ambient temperature! So would be great picnic food.
Add the flour to the butter and stir with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes.
Gradually add the milk, whisking all the while to remove any lumps.
Cook, stirring all the time, until the mixture boils and thickens.
Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring frequently for 5 minutes or until the sauce is the consistency of custard.
Remove the sauce from the heat, add stir through the cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add a pinch or two of freshly grated nutmeg and some chilli flakes if desired.
Macaroni
Cook the macaroni according to the directions on the packet. You can reduce the cooking time a bit as the macaroni will be baked later.
Heat your oven to 180C.
Mix the cheese sauce into the macaroni.
Grease your muffin tin. I prefer to use a spray for this but you can use butter or olive oil if you prefer.
Line the bottom and sides of each muffin cup with sopressa or proscuitto. Cut the proscuitto into 2 pieces.
Spoon the pasta mixture into the lined muffin cups.
Sprinkle with breadcrumbs
Dot with butter
Place into the oven and cook for 30 minutes or until the tops are nicely browned.
Let sit for a few minutes before removing from the pan.
Let me know if you make either recipe!
Have a great week!
