Category: Dining With The Dame


Aug
2022

Death on The Nile – Roasted Potatoes and Artichokes

categories: Artichokes, Dining With The Dame, Poirot, Potato, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  I’m going to kick this one off on a very personal note.  Middle Eastern Food is probably my favourite style and flavour of food. I love the largesse of the many plates of food, all designed for sharing that is so much a part of the cooking of this region. So I was hugely excited to read Death on The Nile.  Surely we would get some hummus, flatbread, falafel, slow-cooked lamb, maybe some baklava to finish….I was so up for this.  And was bitterly disappointed. There is not much food at all mentioned in Death on The Nile.  Hence we are eating Potatoes and Artichokes.  The potatoes and artichokes are not a bad dish, in fact they were really tasty!  Just not what I was expecting!

Potatoes and Artichokes1

Death on The Nile – The Plot

Linnet Doyle,  a beautiful heiress, is honeymooning in Egypt with her husband Simon.  The two should be in the realms of newly wedded bliss however their trip has been spoiled by Linnet’s former friend and Simon’s former fiancee Jacqueline de Bellefort who is stalking the couple.  In an effort to evade Jackie, the couple embark on a trip down the Nile.

On a side trip to Abu Simbel, a large rock falls off a cliff, just missing Linnet.  Accident?  It could not have been Jackie, she was on the boat.  However, a few days later, a drunken Jackie shoots Simon Doyle in the leg.  That same night, Linnet is shot dead.  Again, it could not have been Jackie, after the incident with Simon, she spends the entire night both heavily sedated and under the watchful eye of one of the other passengers.

So, who killed Linnet Doyle?  Good thing Hercule Poirot is also on board the Karnak to solve the crime!

We have:

  • A love triangle that leads to murder
  • Stolen pearls and a missing stole
  • A dodgy maid
  • Shady business dealings
  • Kleptomania
  • Alcoholism
  • A rebellious young man with communistic leanings
  • And Colonel Race, who we last saw in Cards on The Table joins Poirot on the Karnak

Potatoes and Artichokes2

 

Death on the Nile – The Covers

There is not a lot of variety in the covers for Death on The Nile.  They are largely images of the Karnak or Egypt.  Poirot features in a few and of course, we have a few “beautiful girl in peril” pulp-type covers.

Death on The Nile Collage

But where I ask you is the crazy?  I have come to expect a few totally off-the-wall covers and was unable to anything really oddball.  I also could not find any non-English covers which also seemed odd given that this is such a well-known and loved Christie novel.

The Recipe – Roasted Potatoes and Artichokes

I found this recipe for Roasted Potatoes and Artichokes on Real Simple.  It was nice but I thought I could do a bit better.  So there is my revamped version.  You can of course keep it (real) simple and use the OG recipe

Print

Roast Potatoes and Artichokes

Potatoes and Artichokes1
Print Recipe

A simple and flavourful side dished based on a recipe from Real Simple and inspired by Death on The Nile!

  • Author: Taryn Nicole
  • Cook Time: 50 minutes
  • Total Time: 50 minutes
  • Category: Side

Ingredients

Scale
  • 500g chat or new potatoes
  • 2 tbsp olive oil plus one more for dressing the cooked potatoes
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • I 275g jar of marinated artichokes
  • Juice of 1/2 a lemon
  • Black pepper, freshly ground
  • 5–6 sprigs of parsley, mint, chives or a combination of  them

Instructions

  • Par boil the new potatoes in salted water until they are just tender.  This will depend on the size of your potatoes but it took me 12 minutes.
  • Drain the potatoes and cut them in half.
  • Heat your oven to 180C.
  • In a bowl big enough to hold the potatoes mix together the olive oil, salt and paprika.  Toss the potatoes through and then place them cut side down on a baking tray.
  • Put them in the oven and roast for 20 minutes.
  • Drain your artichokes and pat dry.
  • After twenty minutes and your artichokes and the garlic cloves to the baking tray with the potatoes. Cook for 15 minutes
  • Chop your herbs and add to the extra olive oil with the black pepper and lemon juice.
  • Remove the roasted garlic from the oven.  Squash down cloves so the roasted garlic puree comes out and add this to your oil and lemon mix.  Do this one by one and taste as you go so you can get the dressing to your desired level of garlicky goodness.
  • Once you are happy with the dressing remove the potatoes and artichokes from the oven.  Place into a bowl and stir through the lemon / garlic / herb dressing.
  • Enjoy while reading Death on The Nile!

 

Notes

Adding some onion wedges with the artichokes would also work well here.

If you wanted to sprinkle a little feta cheese over the top of the finished dish would be delicious!

Any leftover garlic can be kept in the fridge for a few days and added to anything that needs garlic.

Potatoes and Artichokes 3

Dr Bessner’s bulk moved up and down appreciatively. “Ho, ho, ho, it was very funny that!  Doyle, he tells me  about it.  It was a telegram all about vegetables – potatoes, artichokes, leeks – Ach!  Pardon?”

With a stifled exclamation Race had sat up in his chair.

“My God,” he said.  “So that’s it! Richetti!”

He looked round on three uncomprehending faces.

“A new code – it was used in the South African rebellion.  Potatoes mean machine guns, artichokes are high explosives  – and so on.”

Agatha Christie – Death on The Nile

If you would like to read of another instance where Artichokes were compared to weapons, click here.

Links to The Christieverse

  • Christie has a short story also called Death on The Nile.  We will come to that one in due course.
  • Miss Van Schuyler says to Poirot that she has heard of him from a mutual acquaintance, Rufus Van Aldin.  He was a character in The Mystery of The Blue Train
  • The death of Mr Shaitana featured in Cards on The Table is mentioned.  It is said that it occurred a year earlier.
  • Poirot mentions a case in which a red kimono was found in his luggage.  This refers to Murder on the Orient Express
  • Poirot also speaks of attending an archaeological site which references Murder in Mesopotamia

Potatoes and Artichokes 4

 

The Film

Of course, we were not going to talk about Death on the Nile without mentioning the Kenneth Branagh film of the same which was released this year.  We saw it in the cinema and, although the reviews have been universally bad, I thoroughly enjoyed it.   I was not a fan of  Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express; this has not changed.  But I thought the film looked beautiful.  The scenery was spectacular and really made me want to go to Egypt to see those sights for myself.  I also loved its over-the-top opulence.  And I thought Gal Gadot and Emma Mackey were both perfectly cast.

 

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Death on The Nile

Lots of booze here and not much food!

To keep things neat, next up we are going to read the other Death on the Nile, the one contained in Parker Pyne Investigates.  Will I get falafel and hummus this time round?  I’m both doubtful and hopeful!

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Jul
2022

Dumb Witness – Good Boy Biscuits

categories: Dining With The Dame, Poirot

Hello Crime Writers and dog lovers!  Today, in celebration of Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie, we are preparing some treats for our canine friends in the form of some Good Dog Biscuits.  For those of you wondering why we are departing from human food, Bob the Dog is an important character in Dumb Witness and, to double down on the dogginess, Agatha Christie dedicated Dumb Witness to her dog Peter whom she calls the

Most fruitful of friends and dearest of companions, a dog in a thousand

Good Boy Biscuits 1

This is Bob the Dog as depicted in the Dumb Witness episode of Poirot.  What a cutie!

Bob The Dog

Dumb Witness – The Plot

Miss Emily Arundell is dead. Had it not been for a letter she wrote to Hercule Poirot indicating she was concerned about her safety, her death would have passed for natural causes. Sadly, the letter is not posted until after her death. Poirot accepts the case and begins investigating who might have wanted her dead! Without giving anything away, it wasn’t Bob the Dog, despite the fact that someone set up an “accident” that could have been attributed to him.

So, who is in this motley band of possible assassins?  We have:

  • Theresa Arundell, Emily’s niece.  She is described as “belonging to a young, bright, go ahead set in London – a set that has freak parties and occasionally ends up in the police courts”.  I would LOVE to know what Agatha Christie’s idea of a “freak” party was.  I would also like an invitation to one.
  • Charles Arundell, Emily’s nephew.  Charles is the kind of person who, 65 years after the publication of Dumb Witness, would be described by The Libertines as a waster.  Terminally broke due to his spendthrift ways, he hits up his aunt Emily for some money and then threatens her when she refuses to give him any.
  • Bella Tanios, another niece, Charles and Theresa’s cousin.  Bella is married to a Greek doctor.  Despite his profession, the Tanios’ are not well off.
  • Jacob Tanios, Bella’s husband.  This poor man is constantly racially slurred throughout the novel.
  • Wilhemina Lawson, Emily Arundell’s companion who Christie describes as Emily Arundell’s slave.  Miss Lawson is obsessed with the seances held by The Tripp sisters and is always trying to get Emily to attend

Good Boy Biscuits 2

Dumb Witness – The Covers

There are so many covers I want to share today!  We have a few featuring Bob, a few depicting Emily Arundell’s fall down the stairs, and a few that are downright bizarre.  For its American release, Dumb Witness was renamed Poirot Loses A Client.  Let’s have our usual collage of the more normal covers.  There is a particularly delightful Magritte spin on Poirot in these:

Dumb Witness Collage 1

And now let’s take a look at some that need some special call-outs:

Dumb Witness Collage 2

Let’s take these from left to right.

Emily Arundell is an older, if not elderly, woman.  She is not a glamourous brunette with a dress cut down to her navel.  She is also not stabbed?…in the street and left to die while the killer leaves a trail of bloody footprints in his wake.  I love this style of artwork but this really is taking artistic licence to the limit.

Let’s call this next one, “What is the number for the RSCPA?”.  I shouldn’t really have to say this but dogs can’t talk.  So you don’t have to wrap a piece of rope around their mouths to stop them from talking.  I also think it is possibly perilous to wrap a dog’s mouth in rope because dogs pant to regulate their temperature.  I’m guessing on the danger factor on that one because I think googling “what happens if you tie a rope around a dog’s mouth?” will land me on some sort of psychopath register.

As for the third?  I understand the ball, the hammer and the string.  The rest?  Absolutely baffling.

The Recipe – Good Boy Biscuits

This recipe comes to us from a very special source  –  my mum who got it off the lady who ran the training school she took one of her dogs to.  I can’t attest to all dogs but my dogs and her dogs love them!

Holly Good Boy Biscuits

Good Boy Biscuits recipe

Links to The Christieverse

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Dumb Witness

Our next book is a biggie – get ready for Death on The Nile!!!!  Hopefully, it will have you jumping for joy!

Have a great week!  Happy reading!

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May
2022

Sage and Onion Stuffing – Cards on The Table

categories: Dining With The Dame, Poirot

I have a special affection for Cards on the Table, the first Poirot novel to feature Ariadne Oliver.  I absolutely love the way that through the character of Ariadne Oliver, Agatha Christie gets really meta –  she pkes fun at herself, her characters and the whole business of crime writing.  There is a lovely…in the movies, they would call it a set-piece, I am not sure what the literary equivalent is…featuring sage and onion stuffing so that is what I decided to go with for my recipe.

Sage and Onion Stuffing 1

Another reason I love Cards on The Table is that during the first lockdown of 2020, looking for some comfort reading I decided to re-read a  compilation of the Ariadne Oliver novels that I had bought from the local library a few years before.  It was whilst reading Cards on The Table and the passage about the sage and onion stuffing in particular that I began to wonder if writing about the food in Christie’s books might be a thing!

Sage and Onion Stuffing 2

If you think some of my sage leaves look a bit manky – they are straight from the garden,  organically grown sage leaves and that is how they come!.

Cards on The Table – The Plot

Mr Shaitana holds a dinner party where the guests consist of four sleuths and four people who may have successfully gotten away with murder once.   During a game of bridge,  one of the possible murderers  stabs Shaitana to death.

On the side of law and order, we have:

  • Hercule Poirot – private detective,
  • Ariadne Oliver – crime fiction writer,
  • Colonel Race – Secret Service and,
  • Superintendent Battle  – Scotland Yard.

The suspects are

  • Mrs Lorimer – Keen bridge player.  She may have murdered her abusive husband
  • Major John Despard – an adventurer who possibly killed the husband of a woman he was having an affair with
  • Dr Geoffrey Roberts  who might have killed one of his patients
  • Anne Meredith –  a ladies companion who maybe swapped her employee’s  medicine for hat poison

Can the sleuths team up to find the killer?

Sage and Onion Stuffing 3

Mr Shaitana – Mephistopheles is Not Your Name

If you were the kind of person who liked to play a drinking game while you read your Christie, should you decide to take a chug every time Mr Shaitana s described as Mephistophelian you would be utterly hammered before the first half of the book is done.

Ariadne Oliver

As mentioned, I love Ariadne Oliver, first because I love the way Agatha Christie pokes fun at herself through this character.

“What really matters is plenty of bodies.  If the thing’s getting a little dull, some more blood cheers it up.  Somebody is going to tell something  – and then they’re killed first.  That always goes down well…And people like untraceable poisons and idiotic police inspectors  and girls tied up in cellar with sewer gas or water pouring in”

“I only regret one thing – making my detective a Finn.  I don’t really know anything about Finns and I’m always getting letters from Finland pointing out something impossible that he has said or done.  They seem to read detective stories a good deal in Finland. I  suppose it is the long winters with no daylight.  In Bulgaria and Romania they don’t seem to read at all.  I’d have done better to make him a Bulgar”

 

The other reason I love Ariadne Oliver is her portrayal by Zoe Wanamaker in the Poirot series.  It is mwah! Chef’s kiss perfect!

Sage and Onion Stuffing 6

Cards on The Table – The Covers

I was excited to see the covers for this because my copy is a very boring omnibus edition of all the Ariadne Oliver novels.  As usual the covers did not fail to delight.  I could only find one non-English version but it is a very cool looking Spanish edition with Shaitana looking most Mephistophelian.

The Recipe – Sage and Onion Stuffing

Normally if I was making stuffing, I would pop it into the cavity of the chicken, however for the purpose of this pot, seeing as I wanted to highlight the stuffing I did not want to hide it away.  So, I made stuffing balls and served them with a 40 cloves of garlic chicken for dinner and then also made chicken, lettuce, stuffing and mayo sandwiches for lunch for the next few days.

The recipe I used is from In the Kitchen by Alan Campion and Michelle Curtis.  I once did a cooking class with Alan Campion and he was absolutely delightful so I am very glad to be sharing one of his recipes here:

Sage and Onion Stuffing Recipe

 

I am workng as you can see.  But that dreadful Finn of mine has got himself terribly tangled up.  He did some awfully clver deduction with a dish of French beans, and now he’ s detected deadly poison in the sage and onion stuffing of the Michaelmas goose, and I’ve just remembered that French beans are over by Michaelmas”

-Ariadne Oliver in Cards on the Table – Agatha Christie

Sage and Onion Stuffing 7

Links to The Christieverse

  • In Cards on the Table, Ariadne Oliver has written a book called “The Body in The Library”.  This is also the name of a book written by Agatha Christie featuring Miss Marple. That book was published in 1942, six years after Cards on Table.
  • Anne Meredith knows that Poirot solved “the ABC crimes”.

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Cards on The Table

  • Whiskey Soda (nearly as common as Bacon and Eggs)
  • Apples – Ariadne Oliver is particularly fond of apples and is described at one point as having a large piece of apple core reposing on her chest!
  • Tea
  • French Beans, Michaelmas Goose
  • Coffee & hot buttered toast
  • Tea and muffins
  • Blackberry sirop
  • Brandy

June’s book will be Dumb Witness, another Poirot.  Get reading!

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Apr
2022

Shakshuka – Murder in Mesopotamia

categories: Dining With The Dame, Eggs, Middle Eastern, Poirot

Easter greetings crime readers and food lovers!  In a seasonally appropriate menu today I am cooking eggs.  Shakshuka is a Middle Eastern dish described somewhat inelegantly by Nurse Amy Leatheran in Murder in Mesopotamia as “eggs in sauce”.  Shakshuka 1

Murder in Mesopotamia – The Plot

“Bismillahi ar raham ar rahim.  That is the Arab phrase used before starting out on a journey.  Eh bien, we too are starting on a journey.  A journey into the past.  A journey into the strange places of the human soul.”

 – Hercule Poirot in Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

Our journey into the strange places of the human soul begins when our narrator. hospital nurse Amy Leatheran, is hired by Swedish-American archaeologist Dr Eric Leidner to look after his wife Louise who is suffering from “nervous terrors”. The couple is living at an archaeological dig site very closely based on the Royal Cemetery at Ur where Christie met her second husband Sir Max Mallowan.

Friends tell Amy that a strange tense atmosphere prevails at Tell Yarrimjah, an atmosphere that most people  blame on Louise Leidner.  Louise is disliked by everyone but her husband who adores her.

Louise shows Amy a series of threatening letters which she believes may have been sent to her by either her dead / not dead first husband or his deranged younger brother.  It is these along with some other scary events that are terrifying Louise.

Louise Leidner is murdered the next day. Hit over the head by a heavy blunt object.

However, no one entered the compound during the time of the murder.  So someone in the dig party is a murderer.

But who?  And why?

Shakshuka 2

Plot Points

  • Poirot solo.  No Hastings or Japp in this one although Amy steps in to be Watson to his Sherlock.  The Poirot episode of Murder in Mesopotamia does have Hastings  though.
  • “Dead” faces in windows and other things that go bump in the night
  • Poirot jabbing people with pins
  • Another member of the dig party killed horribly but not before she can gasp out a key clue to Louise’s deah
  • A priest who might not be a priest
  • Some side shenanigans of stolen artefacts and drug abuse

Shakshuka 3There is a truckload of casual racism in Murder in Mesopotamia, most of which is espoused by Amy. I feel though that we are meant to see this as a by-product of Amy’s parochial ways and not as an espousal of Christie’s worldview.  Does this make it more palatable? It’s  definitely a case of hate the player not the game which is not always distinguishable in Christie.

Beware Spoilers

Ok, if you intend on reading Murder in Mesopotamia, skip down to the covers.  For the rest of us, let’s talk about that ending.  When I was in high school, in either year 8 or 9 we had to read a book called The Wife of Martin Guerre.  The premise of this novel (land also the movie Sommersby which was a film adaptation of it) is that Martin Guerre returns home after being at war or somesuch for an extended period of time.  Only he’s a very different man to the one who left. Not just emotionally.  He’s actually a different man.

Even as a young teenager I found this plot ridiculous. Because why does no one else recognise that this is not Martin Guerre numero uno?  The wife has a vested interest because MG2 is a whole lot nicer.  But did no other person realise that this man was not Martin Guerre?

Similarly, in Murder in Mesopotamia, we find out that murderer of Louise Leidner is her devoted husband Eric who is also her dead / now definitely not dead first husband Fredrick Bosner.

I  mean really?  I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed but if one of my exes was to turn up on the doorstep tomorrow with a new name and haircut I am pretty damn sure I would recognise him long before I decided to rekindle any old flames.

It’s certainnly a plot twist but just not a very credible one!

Shakshuka 4

Murder in Mesopotamia – The Covers

There are some AMAZING covers here including a French and a Bangla version of Murder in Mesopotamia.  My fave is the pulpy middle row second from left which shows a terrified Louise Leidner in the foreground with a threatening man – (dead / not dead first husband?  Deranged younger brother? ) in the background.

Amy Yarnell Carter

 

The Recipe – Shakshuka

I used the chickpea shakshuka recipe from Women’s Weekly Vegetarian for my recipe.  Chickpeas are not a standard inclusion in a shakshuka however, I like them as they bulk out a meal that I usually eat for dinner rather than the traditional breakfast.  I also like to sprinkle a little feta over my shakshuka which is not in this recipe.

Shakshuka recipe

 

Lunch was just ready and we went in, the doctor apologising for his daughter who he saiid was always late. We;d just has a very good dish of eggs in sauce when she came in an Dr Reilly said , “Nurse, this is my daughter Sheila.”.

-Agatha Christie – Murder in Mesopotamia

Shakshuka 5

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Murder in Mesopotamia

 

May’s book will be Cards on the Table, another Poirot but this time with Ariadne Oliver who I love!

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Mar
2022

Macaroni au Gratin / The ABC Murders

categories: Dining With The Dame, Pasta, Poirot

Hello Crime readers and food lovers! I am excited today to be sharing a recipe for Macaroni au Gratin – aka Baked Mac and Cheese!  This month’s Agatha Christie book, The ABC Murders is dark.  It is definitely the darkest book we have read so far. So, it’s a good thing we have the comforting familiarity of macaroni and cheese to get us through!  We have my favourite trio in Christie too – Poirot, Hastings and Japp. It is however written in a mix of first-person and third-person which feels a bit clumsy.  However, it is a cracking read so do not let that prevent you from reading this.

Macaroni Au Gratin1

The ABC Murders – The Plot

We begin with Poirot receiving a letter taunting him:

MR. HERCULE POIROT–You fancy yourself, don’t you, at solving mysteries that are too difficult for our poor thick-headed British police? Let us see, Mr. Clever Poirot, just how clever you can be. Perhaps you’ll find this nut too hard to crack. Look out for Andover on the 21st of the month. Yours, etc., A.B.C.

And on the 21st Mrs Alice Ascher is murdered by a blow to the head in Andover

We have:

  • Some fun banter between Poirot, Japp and Hastings prior to the first murder.
  • A second murder – Betty Barnard strangled in Bexhill
  • A third murder – Sir Carmichael Clarke clubbed to death in Churston
  • Taunting letters to Poirot with each murder and a copy of the ABC rail guide left by the body of each of the victims
  • The diary of a man who seems to be increasingly losing his grip on reality.  The man’s name?  Alexander Bonaparte Cust.  (Just look at those initials!)
  • We have a group of amateur sleuths made up of Megan Barnard (Betty’s sister), Franklin Clarke (Sir Carmichael’s brother, Donald Fraser (Betty’s fiance) and Mary Drower (Alice Ascher’s niece).
  • There is a beautiful and very poignant bit of writing about the death of Alice Ascher and the remorselessness of the passing of time
  • This is lightened almost immediately by a lovely fun bit of banter between Poirot and Hastings concerning fruit and vegetables
  • The fourth letter leads Poirot to Doncaster.  Will Poirot be able to stop the ABC Murderer’s reign of terror here?

Macaroni Au Gratin2

What makes The ABC Murders so dark is the use of gaslighting by the villain of the piece.  Christie would not however have used that term as it only came into being in 1944, eight years after The ABC Murders was published!

The ABC Murders – The Covers

There are some very cool covers here.  The two that for me are the standouts – top row second from the left looks very Hitchcockian, Tippi Hedren fleeing from birds with evil intent maybe.  And speaking thereof…that cover with poor Betty Barnard lying dead on the beach with the seagull’s feet on her throat gives me the screaming heebie jeebies!!!!

 

ABC Collage

The Recipe – Macaroni au Gratin

I kept this macaroni au gratin very simple.  The internet abounds with fancy recipes for mac and cheese.  I love the lobster Mac ‘n’  Cheese they serve at Meatmaiden, one of my fave local restaurants!  And if you are looking to make your mac ‘n’ cheese a bit more healthy then I can also recommend Jamie Oliver’s Greens Mac ‘n’ Cheese.

Print

Macaroni au Gratin / The ABC Murders

Print Recipe

Comfort food at its finest!

Ingredients

Scale
  • 110g macaroni
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 450g milk
  • 50g butter (plus more for dabbing on the top)
  • 40g plain flour
  • 175 grated Cheddar cheese or a mix or what you have in the house.  I used some Red Leicester for this one.
  • Freshly grated nutmeg
  • Dash of Tabasco (optional)
  • Breadcrumbs
  • Parmesan cheese
  • 2 tbsp fried shallots (optional) Or more if you like!

Instructions

  1. Bring 850ml of water to the boil and cook the macaroni for 3-4 minutes less than the instructions on the pack.  (We will finish off cooking in the oven).
  2. Meanwhile, heat the milk with the bayleaf in a small pan and leave it to infuse.
  3. In another pan, melt the butter and add the flour and allow your roux to cook for a minute. Gradually add the milk, whisking all the time to remove any lumps.  Cook until the mixture reaches the consistency of pancake batter, stirring all the while.
  4. Add half of the Cheddar and stir until it melts.  Add some grated nutmeg and Tabasco sauce if using and season with salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Preheat your oven to 180C.
  6. Drain the macaroni and add it to the cheese sauce.  Place into one large or individual baking dishes Sprinkle with breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, the fried onions if using and a few dabs of butter to help the breadcrumbs brown.
  7.  Place in the oven and cook for 10-15 minutes until bubbling around the edges.  Then turn on your grill and cook under the grill until the cheese and breadcrumbs are golden.
  8. Let this sit for 1o minutes before eating.  If you can wait that long!

Enjoy!!!!

Notes

I like to cook this in smaller dishes so I have a ready supply of work from home lunches!

The fried shallots are available at Asian Groceries and whilst by no means traditional, add a lovely French onion flavour to this fish.

I really wanted to make this with alphabetty spaghetti.  Unfortunately, I could not find any so elbow macaroni had to do!

If the fried shallots are not your bag, you can top with finely chopped chives or parsley before serving.

Macaroni Au Gratin4

 

Our first visit was to The Ginger Cat.  Situated on the seafront, this was the usual type of small tearoom.  It had little tables covered in orange-checked cloths and basket-work chairs of exceeding discomfort with orange cushions on them.  It was the kind of place that specialised in morning coffee, five types of tea (Devonshire, Farmhouse, Fruit, Carlton and Plain), and a few sparing lunch dishes for females such as scambled eggs and shrimps and macaroni au gratin.

-Agatha Christie – The ABC Murders

The Adaptations

The Alphabet Murders – 1965

Tony Randall as Poirot, Robert Morley as Hastings?  Anika Ekberg as….I’m not really sure who she was but she was stunningly beautiful whoever she was meant to be.

I was so up for watching this!

Until I started watching it.

It.  Was.  Terrible.

I lasted half an hour max and went scurrying back to my beloved trio of David Suchet / Hugh Fraser and Phillip Jackson.

I don’t know what possessed MGM to try to turn this book into a comedy but it didn’t work for me at all!

The ABC Murders – Poirot S4 E1 1992

This version is the most true to the book.  To me, this is the gold standard by which all adaptations should be judged and this episode is no exception.  And there is an absolutely touching moment at the end between Poirot and Cust.

 

The ABC Murders – 2018

John Malkovich as Poirot?  Sign me up!!!  I only watched this one recently and it blew me away.

This version has Rupert Grint aka Ron Weasley as Inspector Crome.  No Hastings, Japp dies within the first few minutes.  Poirot is old and tired and has lost his relevance. Britain is dirty and dark and xenophobia is running high. This one is DARK.

I think this one brings to life the characters of Betty Barnard and Alexander Cust in a way the other two did not. It is beautifully shot and the attention to detail is meticulous. The acting is largely superb.  Poirot, Cust, Betty, Rose Marbury, Thora Grey, Franklin Clarke – all played to perfection!!!!! It is not entirely true to the book but it goes some interesting places. This one is a much watch for any Christie fan although I’m sure some die-hard Christie fans will not be happy with the kink element, the addition of a new murder and Poirot’s backstory.

I would LOVE to see more Malkovich as Poirot!!!!

 

 

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in The ABC Murders

 

Next month we are heading to the Middle East for a Murder in Mesopotamia. My advice on this one?  Pack your disbelief into a deep dark corner and just go with it.  The plot is largely ludicrous but we’ll have some fun on the way!

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