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Category: Fruit

12
Mar
2023

Pineapple and Spice Financier – Murder is Easy

categories: Cake, Dining With The Dame, Pineapple, Stand Alone

Hello crime readers and food lovers! This month’s read is Murder Is Easy, and I have a LOT to say about it! Starting with a rant about how I ended up choosing a Pineapple and Spice Financier (which does not appear in the story at all) to represent the novel. Murder is Easy contains very few food references. This really annoyed me! I kind of get it when AC doesn’t mention food in the novels set in foreign climes. Back in the day, there would likely have been some good old-fashioned British reserve (ie thinly veiled racism) against foreign food. But Murder is Easy is set in an English village and features multiple old ladies! Where are the scones? Where are the high teas and finger sandwiches? The village fete with cake stalls galore?

Murder Might be Easy but Menu Decisions Aren’t!

So, what do you do when there is no food mentioned in the novel? My first thought always goes to puns. Murder is greasy? Murder is cheesy? Chowder is Easy? Humlebeetroot Salad? I dismissed all of these as cornier than the chowder! I was very nearly set on the idea of making Olivia De Havilland’s Salad Niçoise. (She played Honoria Waynfleet in the 1982 version of Murder is Easy). However, when I looked more closely at the recipe on Silver Screen Suppers I saw that it contained both red and green capsicums. Long-time readers will know that these do not agree with me at all. I thought about inventing a Hit and Rum cocktail, which was going to be my take on a pineapple mojito, and spoke to two of the murders in the novel. However, I felt there have been a lot of cocktails in my recent Dining with the Dame posts so I wanted to shy away from them.

Finally, I decided I wanted to use pineapple which, features as a murder weapon, in the story combined with the country feel of a freshly baked cake. I chose the Pineapple and Spice Financier as I felt that the spices (cardamom and ginger) were a nod to Luke Fitzwilliam’s time in the Mayang Straits. Whilst this is an entirely made-up place in my mind it is a reference to Malaysia which was still under British rule in 1939 when this book was written.

Phew…that was a long intro! So let’s get into Murder is Easy!

Murder is Easy- The Plot

Luke Fitzwilliam is home to England from his work as a policeman in the Mayang Straits. On his way to London, he meets an elderly lady called Lavinia Pinkerton on the train. They get to talking and Ms Pinkerton confides to him that she is on her way to Scotland Yard to warn them that there is a serial killer operating in her small country village. She names several people who have already been a victim of said killer and also names who she thinks will be next.

Now, if you want my honest opinion of Luke Fitzwilliam? To put it nicely, he’s no Hercule Poirot. He’s not even a Miss Marple. In the words of Smashmouth he “ain’t the smartest tool in the shed”. However, his lack of perspicacity comes later. Right now, we can’t really fault him for thinking he has sat down next to some batty old lady and so he doesn’t really take her seriously.

Until, the next day, he reads in the paper that she was killed in a hit-and-run accident.

And a week later, he reads that Doctor Humbleby who Miss Pinkerton said was the next victim, has also died. Luke’s spidey senses start tingling and he heads down to Wychwood under Ashe to do some investigating.

We have:

Several mysterious deaths in the town Wychwood-Under-Ashe
A chauffeur killed by a stone pineapple
Dirty deeds going on with the local antique dealer
A cat called Wonky Poo who becomes involved in the murders in a totally disgusting way.
One of the suspects strangling a canary
Inspector Battle who we last saw in Cards on The Table (also in The Secret of Chimneys and The Seven Dials Mystery) making an appearance!

Unfortunately, we don’t have Poirot around to solve the mystery. Instead, we have Luke Fitzwilliam (cue Smashmouth quote above in your head) making what seems like interminable lists of suspects and motives and still not honing in on the killer faster than his new girlfriend Bridget. Oh, and if we’re going to cue Smashmouth whenever Luke is mentioned, then the signature tune for Bridget is The Eagles Witchy Woman! So many references to Bridget being witch-like. All of which come to nothing.

Murder is Easy – The Covers

The Recipe – Pineapple and Spice Financier

My recipe comes from the November 2022 issue of Delicious Magazine.

“Luke – Luke – what’s that…?”

The moon had come out from the clouds. Luke looked down to where Bridget’s shoe trembled by a huddled mass.

With a startled exclamation he dragged his arm free and knelt down. He looked from the shapeless heap to the gate post above. The pine-apple was gone. “

Murder is Easy – Agatha Christie

Links to The Christieverse

As mentioned above Inspector Battle makes an appearance in Murder is Easy.
The Bells and Motley. is a pub in Wychwood under Ashe. A pub by the same name features in the Harley Quin short story called “At The Bells and Motley”.

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Murder is Easy

Plum Pudding
Tea (multiple times)
Coffee (multiple times)
Bacon and eggs (I will make these one day!)
Kidneys (I will never make these)
Liqueur Brandy
Beer
Sherry

Other Related News

A boomslang features in the Bullet Train. We, of course, know all about that particular snake from Death in The Clouds.
The BBC has announced a new adaptation of l Murder is Easy. (The Olivia de Haviland / Bill Bixby version is available on You Tube. The Miss Marple version is not great and I would not recommend it, except Benedict Cumberbatch plays Luke).)
This month marks the 100th anniversary of Murder on The Links…why not celebrate by making an Omelette Berrichonne?

April’s read is Sad Cypress.

Have a great week!

20
Feb
2023

Admiral Highball – Appointment with Death

categories: Bourbon, Cocktail, Dining With The Dame, Pineapple, Poirot

Hello food lovers and crime readers! Today we have not only an Appointment with Death but also a meeting with an Admiral! An Admiral Highball that is! As mentioned in my previous post on Manakish, there is no food mentioned in Agatha’s Appointment with Death. There is however a mention of the cocktail called a Highball. I searched through my cocktail recipes and decided that an Admiral Highball would be my drink of choice for this book.

Why you ask? Well…Admiral Highball sounds like he might be a character in a Golden Age murder mystery. Or one of the potential murderers in a game of Cluedo. “It was Admiral Highball in the boatshed with a fishing rod” sounds almost too good to be made up! More importantly, though, the Admiral Highball contains bourbon and I thought that was a nice nod to the American Boynton family who feature in this story!

Also, welcome to the RFFMT family, the gorgeous Carmen Vaseranda! She’ll be popping in now and again to give her verdict on fruity concoctions. She is an absolute beauty isn’t she?

Appointment with Death – The Plot

You know how sometimes you may feel your mother is a little overbearing and/or demanding? I hear you. But believe me. None of our collective issues prepares us for Mrs. Boynton. She’s Flowers in the Attic level mad in her control over her family! Formerly a prison warden, Mrs. B treats her adult children like her former prisoners! Their touring party consists of her adopted adult children Raymond, Carol, Lennox, her own daughter Ginevra, and Raymond’s wife Nadine.

They are all somewhat psychologically scarred by their years under their mother’s control – some more than others. Then Mrs Boyton is found dead. She was taking medication for a heart condition so was her passing from natural causes? Or something more sinister?

We have

Poirot overhearing the following words through an open window on his first night in Jerusalem. “You do see, don’t you, that’s she’s got to be killed?”
Raymond Boynton catching feelings for Dr. Sarah King, a member of their travelling party.
Nadine on the verge of leaving Lennox due to his mother’s control over them
Ginevra Boyton increasingly losing hold of reality
A number of missing hypodermic needles
Some missing digitoxin
A tiny mark on Mrs Boynton’s wrist. Could it be from the prick of a needle?
Pretty much everyone lying because they think someone they love did the evil deed

It’s a tangled tale. Good thing we have Poirot on hand to bring the wrongdoer to justice!

Appointment With Death – The Covers

This, even if I do say so my self is an amazing collection! Three Italian and one Vietnamese for a start! I know I always gush over the colours but each and every one of these is amazing!

Just as quck aside, you may be wondering why both my photo above and one of these pics has a Buddha when the story is set entirely in the Middle East? Well it’s because at least once Mrs B is described as a Buddha:

“here, like an arch priestess of some forgotten cult, like a monstrous swollen female Buddha, sat Mrs Bonyton”

But none of above covers prepares us for the mec plus ultra of covers for Appointment for Death which is, of course, the Tom Adams cover. Just imagine you have heard the above plot points and seen the covers that came before you. And instead of using motifs like an older, fat woman, scenes of Jordan, or a threatening Arab (not even remotely featured in the story but back in the day apparently no one cared about casual racism) you come up with this!

Bravo and a standing ovation for Tom Adams. I have no idea what your cover means, it bears no relevance to the script.

But I love you for creating it!!!

And hate you for giving me nightmares because of it! I mean what the hell is that coming out of that woman’s head?

The Recipe – Admiral Highball

Admiral Highball 3 My recipe for the Admiral Highball came from The Mammoth Book of Cocktails by Paul Martin

Mr Jefferson Cope took another sip of highball and went on:

“I’d like to tell you, Dr Gerard, just a little of the Boynton family history”

Appointment with Death – Agatha Christie

Links to The Christieverse

I was able to find three references to other books in Appointment with Death:

Colonel Race and the Shaitana murder are mentioned by Colonel Carbury (Cards on The Table)
Nadine speaks of Poirot’s accepting the official version of the truth in the case of the Orient Express
Miss Pierce says she read all about the ABC Case

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Appointment with Death

Coffee (twice)
Whisky Soda (twice)
Tea (Twice)
Soda Water

As I said at the top – not a huge amount to choose from!

Last time I posted I was heading to Darwin, later this week I am doing a two-day work trip to Adelaide. My reading material on the flights will be next month’s selection, Murder is Easy. Adelaide is considered the weird murder capital of Australia so goodness only knows what I’ll find there! Actually, maybe I won’t take Murder is Easy – I don’t want to give some nutter any ideas!

Have a great week!

11
Feb
2023

Girl’s Night – February 2003

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Cocktail, Duck, Fish, Magazines, Tuna, Vodka, Watermelon

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 sayWords can’t bring me downI am beautiful in every single wayYes, words can’t bring me down, oh noSo 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!

29
Dec
2022

Avocado and Crab Finger Sandwiches

categories: 1980's Food, 1980's recipes, Afternoon Tea, Avocado, Crab, Sandwiches

Hello friends! Welcome to the latest post on “What Posh People ate in the ’80s”. This recipe for Avocado and Crab Finger Sandwiches comes from the Vogue Entertaining Guide from Autumn 1986. The article features a mother and daughter who love to entertain after a match or two on their private tennis court. When I said posh I meant swish enough to have a house with its own tennis court!

I would LOVE to be invited to a spot of doubles followed by an elegant afternoon tea! (Note to friends – can one of you please get rich so we can do this? And can we also wear gorgeous tennis dresses like these?)

The whole thing reminded me very much of the John Betjeman poem called A Subaltern’s Love Song:

Miss J.Hunter Dunn, Miss J.Hunter Dunn,
Furnish’d and burnish’d by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament – you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father’s euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o’clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

Rather than lime juice and gin, this article waxes lyrical about a boysenberry daiquiri served with the afternoon tea:

One of Helena’s specialties is the delicious boysenberry daiquiri which is smooth in texture, with a wonderful colour and just enough zing in it to revive tired tennis bodies

And even includes a large picture of said daiquiris:

But, back in 1986, if you had a tired tennis body and needed the reviving properties of a boysenberry daiquiri, you would have been SOL as the Vogue Entertaining Guide did not give you the recipe for it! It’s the opposite of Chekhov’s Gun. Even today, with full use of the internet, the closest thing I could find is this recipe for a berry daiquiri from the BBC. Never let it be said that I don’t give you something to soothe your tired tennis body! I mean it’s not boysenberries but what can you do? Maybe boysenberry daiquiris only exist in the realms of people who have their own tennis courts and would never dream of publishing their recipe on something as mucky as the internet!

The Recipe – Avocado and Crab Finger Sandwiches

The article made no mention of who Margie is/was so neither shall we. These were very yummy and delicate sandwiches. And whilst I don’t want to drag Agatha Christie into every post, they were certainly something I could imagine people eating after a hit of tennis in one of her novels. Whilst someone was being stabbed in the drawing room.

I added a sprinkle of chives from the garden and some chive flowers as a garnish for my sandwiches.

The Saratoga Torte which I featured a while back is from this same article.

I am now going to go dream of a life that includes

The traditional charm of a tennis afternoon tea expressed through the use of gleaming family silver and old lace

Have a wonderful week!

22
Nov
2022

Rhubarb and Rosé Syllabub

categories: Desserts, England, Rhubarb

I was doing some reading the other day and, no, not an Agatha Christie, even though I am about half way through Hercule Poirot’s Christmas for the next Dining with The Dame. I was reading some poetry (because in my head I am the cool intellectual girl who reads untranslated French poetry whilst drinking black coffee at a cool café in the hippest arrondissement in Paris).

In reality I was likely lying on my couch in dirty sweatpants, shoving salt and vinegar chips into my face. Regardless of the setting though, whilst I was reading came I across a poem by Edith Sitwell called “When Sir Beelzebub” The opening lines of which are

When
Sir
Beelzebub called for his syllabub
in the hotel in Hell
Where Proserpine first fell,
Blue as the gendarmerie were the
waves of the sea,

Which got me thinking…why aren’t there more poems about dessert? And why have I never made a syllabub? I’m still waiting for an answer on the first question. But as for the second?

No trip to hell required!

What is Syllabub?

Syllabub is a gorgeous British dessert which originated in the 16th century. It is a whipped cream dessert, originally flavoured with sweet wine or cider. My version uses rosé as the wine and pairs the rosé flavoured cream with a rhubarb and rosewater compote.

I really like the word syllabub. It sounds so slinky and smooth. But with a hint of bite with that last b. Which pretty much describes the syllabub. The silky smooth cream has a little kick of rosé and the rhubarb compote is tangy with hints of orange and rose. Layer it into your prettiest vintage glasses so you can see the contrast of the cream against deep crimson rhubarb.

It also looks very pretty when you put your spoon in and the layers get all mixed up and marbled. Maybe I have been reading too many Agatha Christie’s but my first thought was a rather macabre “like blood in the snow”! 😂 I could totally imagine Miss Marple eatiing syllabub too!

Rhubarb and Rosé Syllabub

Print Recipe

A delightful English dessert of poached rhubarb with a rosé flavoured cream.

Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale

For the Rhubarb Compote:

500g of rhubarb, cut into bit sized pieces
100g caster sugar
Juice and Zest of 1 orange
1/2–1 tsp rosewater

For The Cream:

175g rosé wine
80g caster sugar
200ml whipping cream

Garmish:

Strawberries (optional)
Flaked Almonds (optional)

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

For the Compote:

Place rhubarb, sugar, orange juice and zest into a saucepan.
Add rosewater to taste (please see note below).
Cook over medium heat until the rhubarb is soft but is keeping it’s shape. If the mixture starts to stick you can add a tablespoon or so of water but you don’t want the rhubarb mixture to be too wet.
Allow to cool

For the Cream

Add the rosé and sugar to a small saucepan and bring to the boil, over a high heat stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat and allow the mix to reduce by a third.
Allow to cool.
Whip the cream to stiff peaks.
Fold in the rose mixture.
Layer the rhubarb and cream mixtures into a glass.
Top with a strawberry and some flaked almonds for crunch!

Notes

Rosewater can be overpowering. Start with half a teaspoon before cooking the rhubarb and add more after cooking if you want to boost the flavour.

A Very Brief Side Note on Edith Sitwell

Edith Sitwell, the writer of “When Sir Beelzebub” was a fascinating woman. Six foot tall, she had a distinctive dress style – turbans and the most amazing jewellery. She was also an innovative poet. One of her poems, Gold Coast Customs was written in jazz rhythms and she wrote a wrote poems to music in a show called Facade which was performed behind a curtain pained with a face. The words were read through a megaphone via a hole in the mouth. (This to me sounds very Mighty Booshy…I wonder if they might have been inspired by her.

She was also not one to mince words and had some scathing things to say about people including the critic F.R Leavis (For those fans of Bridget Jones out there Yes, “the F.R. Leavis who died in 1978.”) whom she called a “a tiresome, whining, pettyfogging little pipsqueak”. She also called D.H. Lawrence a “a plaster gnome on a stone toadstool in some suburban garden”. So in 1953, some bright spark had the idea for Dame Sitwell to interview Marilyn Monroe, assuming, oif course that they would hate each other and the Sitwell’s scathing critique of Monroe would create a commotion and of course increase circulation!

I’m sure, much to the chagrin of a features editor, the two liked each other!

The meeting between the two occurred in the Sunset Tower in Hollywood which is certainly not a hotel in hell! I wonder if they might have eaten some syllabub!

Have a great week!