The Moving Finger – Irish Stew

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  This month our menu is a tribute to The Moving Finger, a 1942 novel by Agatha Christie featuring many people’s favourite amateur crime solver, Miss Jane Marple.  In contrast to the last few novels in which we have dined with the Dame, The Moving Finger is loaded with mentions of food including an Irish Stew.  My own opinions of stew match those of Megan Hunter (below) so when I made it, I thought that I would just have a taste and then the Fussiest Eater in the world could eat the rest.   This is exactly the type of food he loves.  My spoonful ended up being a whole bowl and  I would have had another for lunch the following day if the leftovers hadn’t been commandeered by someone else! So success all round.  I’ll definitely be making Irish Stew again.  

 

Irish Stew 1

The Moving Finger – The Plot

Jane Marple.  Look at her well.  I tell you, that woman knows more about the different kinds of human wickedness than anyone I’ve ever known.

Agatha Christie – The Moving Finger

Jerry Burton and his sister Joanna move to the “quiet” village of Lymstock so he can recover from injuries after a flying accident.  Shortly thereafter, they receive an anonymous letter accusing them of being lovers.  They burn the letter but soon learn that they are not the only people who are being targeted by the poison pen writer.  

Although offensive, the letters consist of wild speculation and don’t seem to target actual wrongdoing.  Then, one of the people from the village is found dead with a letter accusing her of adultery beside her.  

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We have:

  • The Police unable to solve the crimes
  • Another grisly murder where a housemaid is skewered to death.  Did she see something she shouldn’t have
  • A book found with pages ripped out – the source of the letters
  • Local citizens suspecting each other 

Good thing one of the villagers has the sense to call on her friend Jane Marple to set things right!

There are lots of things to love in The Moving Finger.  The details of village life and the characters who live in it are well-written.  My personal favourite is Mrs Dane Calthrop the Reverend’s wife.  She is an original thinker and the person to contact Miss Marple.  I love this response from her when asked if she has had a poison pen letter:

Oh yes, two, – no three.  I forget what they said.  Something very silly about Caleb and the schoolmistress, I think.  Quite absurd, because Caleb has absolutely no taste for fornication.  He never has had.  So lucky being a clergyman

What we might call today “too much information”.

I also very much liked Partridge, Jerry and Joanna’s cook who seems to be in a constant bad temper.  

There are also some things not to like.  There is a more than likely gay man in the village and a few homophobic comments made about him.  And there’s a weird romance going on between Jerry Burton and Megan Hunter.

Also, for a Marple novel, Miss Marple only enters on, in my edition, page 121 of a 160-page novel!  

Apart from these few niggles, I very much enjoyed this novel.  

The Moving Finger – The Covers

 

The Moving Finger Collage

I was delighted to find so many non-English covers for The Moving Finger – we have French, Spanish, German, Czech, Swedish and others I cannot identify.  My favourites are the German Die Scattenhand third row second left and the Swedish MordPer Korrespondens on the same row far right.  The English cover, bottom row, far left is terrifying!

The Recipe – Irish Stew

“Murder is a nasty business on an empty stomach.” 

Agatha Christie – The Moving Finger

For my Irish Stew I used the recipe on BBC Good Food by Bruno Desmazery. 

As mentioned, this was delicious and, despite my initial reluctance was something I would definitely make and eat again!  And, contrary to the quote from Megan Hunter below is not mostly potato and flavour.  Although, maybe in 1942 with wartime rationing it may well have been.  

I went round to apprise Partridge of the fact that there would be three to lunch.  I fancy that Partridge sniffed.  She certainly managed to convey without saying a word of any kind that she didn’t think much of that Miss Megan.  I went back to the verandah.  Ïs it quite alright?”asked Megan anxiously.  “Quite alright ” I said.” Ïrish Stew.”  “Oh well, that’s rather like dog’s dinner anyway isn’t it? I mean it’s mostly just potato and flavour””

Agatha Christie – The Moving Finger

Irish Stew 3

Links To The Christieverse

None that I could find

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in The Moving Finger

December’s Read is Sparkling Cyanide. 

     

The Elsa Greer – A Roast Beef Sandwich

Hello Food Lovers and Crime Readers!  The Agatha Christie aficionados out there may be thinking “The Elsa Greer? But she is from Five Little Pigs and we were expecting a recipe from The Moving Finger. Has something gone horribly wrong? The complete opposite in fact. Something has gone tremendously right in that I have a new job. At least for the next 12 months.  Things went a little bit like this.  Person x in my company got a 12-month secondment into another team. My boss then got a 12-month secondment into that person’s role. And I am now on a 12-month secondment into my now ex-bosses role. The 12-month secondment for my old role is yet to be filled so at the moment I am double hatting.  All of which means I have yet to cook the recipe for The Moving Finger. But I already had made this one because the Oeufs Caroline recipe was a last-minute idea.

Elsa Greer1

I’m also prevaricating on The Moving Finger post because I am trying to decide between two of the food items mentioned in the book.  And anyway, who doesn’t love a roast beef sandwich? Well, vegans, vegetarians, Hindus….but for everyone else, this is an awesome sandwich that befits a strong character like Elsa.  She is after all ranked sixth in a Reddit poll on Christie villains and the highest-ranked female wrong ‘un. So if anyone deserves a sandwich in their honor it is Elsa.  And as she was the little pig who had roast beef, the main filling for this sandwich was a no-brainer.  The rest of the ingredients are things that I like to eat in sandwiches and that I think go well with roast beef – such as watercress, pickled onions, blue cheese and horseradish. 

Elsa Greer3

The Recipe – The Elsa Greer

Print

The Elsa Greer – A Roast Beef Sandwich

A roast beef sandwich names after Elsa Greer, the villain in Five Little Pigs

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 red onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp sugar
  • 2 slices of bread – I used a potato and rosemary bread
  • Butter
  • 23 slices of roast beef 
  • Slices of Tomato
  • Sprigs of watercress
  • Blue cheese, crumbled, as much or as little as you like
  • Horseradish cream 
  • Mayonnaise

To Serve (Optional)

  • Potato Chips
  • Beer (preferably non-poisoned)

Instructions

Place your onions, red wine vinegar and sugar into a small bowl and allow to quickly pickle.  You can leave this as long as you like but they will be ready after 30 mins.

Mix the mayo and the horseradish in a small bowl.  Start with a tablespoon of mayo to half a teaspoon of horseradish but feel free to adjust to your level of bite!

Spread one slice of bread with butter and the other with the horseradish mayo.

Layer your your watercress, tomato, cheese beef and drained onion onto one slice of bread and top with the other.  

Serve with chips and a cold beer!

Enjoy while reading Five Little Pigs! 

Notes

If you don’t like blue cheese, you could use a nice sharp cheddar.

Hate horseradish?  Or mayo?  Sub in some mustard.

No Watercress?  Iceberg or Cos will work.

Elsa Greer5

 

Have a great week!  The Moving Finger Post is coming…

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Midweek Quickie – Oeufs Caroline (2)

Welcome to another midweek quickie!  I was delighted last week when the lovely Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers sent me this gorgeous photo of her dinner…or should that be supper…of Oeufs Caroline.

Jenny-OC - Midweek Quickie

Jenny agreed that the eggs were yummy and they certainly look very pretty on her vintage plate!  If you have cooked any of my recipes and would like your creation to feature on a midweek quickie, please get in touch!  I would love to see your versions!

If you feel like even more cooking, why not hit up Jenny over at Silver Screen Suppers.  She is looking for recipe testers for the second volume of her Murder She Cooked book. I will be doing some testing very shortly!  If you don’t want to test but want to cook up some recipes by characters from Murder She Wrote, you can pick up the first volume here

I have a copy of this and am looking forward to cooking from it!!!  As a childhood fan of Gilligan’s Island, Alan Hale’s Skipper’s Dream Sandwich is high on my list of things to make.  As is Claude Akin’s recipe for Barbecued Honey Orange Chicken and Samantha Eggar’s Tostada Salad.  And who could resist Jerry Orbach’s Tough Guys Desert…ok..I want to cook the whole book!  😂

But enough from me, these posts are meant to be short and sweet!  I hope the week is being kind to you!

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White Ladies Part Two

Hello Friends, today we are indulging in a sweet treat called a White Lady. Hold up, I hear you say, haven’t we already done this recipe back in March? Well, apparently recipes for White Ladies are like busses. You wait for ages for one to come along and then, all of a sudden three come at once. Because, spoiler alert, there will be another White Lady recipe appearing soon!  Last time, our white lady was a very yummy ice cream with chocolate sauce, this white lady is a delicious shortbread-style cookie.

White Ladies2

But not just any shortbread cookie because these have white chocolate and rose water icing and then a dusting of icing sugar on top of that.  Delicious.  But sweet. 

These need to be balanced out with a nice strong coffee.  The recipe for these White Ladies comes from that bastion of posh food, Australian Gourmet Traveller, the May 1993 issue to be exact. This is the same mag that brought us a lovely Warm Chestnut Salad a while back.  The recipe for White Ladies recipe comes from an article on chocolate and the powerful memories it can evoke in people.  

“What is it about chocolate that makes us cherish the memory of certain occasions with such ecstacy?

And if you think that quote possibly goes a little bit too over the top, what about this one?

One friend’s most potent memory is of eating dark Arabian chocolate on a sultry night while being serenaded by eunuchs

I feel that night might have been memorable even without the chocolate….

My own favourite chocolate memory is of a bright cold day in winter a few years aog.  My best friend and I were in the country celebrating my birthday on a girl’s weekend.  After a morning spent at the Hepburn Spa we drove to nearby Daylesford for some afternoon tea.  I had an Italian hot chocolate which I’m pretty sure was pure melted chocolate.  It was warm and sweet and rich and made for the perfect end to the perfect weekend!

 

White Ladies3

Happily, or possibly sadly for some of you,  you don’t need a hot night in Arabia or a chorus of eunuchs to enjoy these white ladies. A cup of coffee and a few moments of peace are enough!

The Recipe – White Ladies

White Ladies recipe

 

For those of you who like to gift cookies as part of the holiday season, White Ladies could become a perfect addition to your gifting regime  If they last long enough for you to give any away that is!

White Ladies4

Have a great week!

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Midweek Quickie – Lilac Sweetpeas and Lillies

Hello flower lovers!  I was walking past the florist the other day and these lilac sweetpeas reminded me so much of the Grazier’s wife that I had to buy them.  They are the most gorgeous colour and they smell divine! 

Lilac Sweetpeas

When dinner is ready I light the candles and limit the lights in the dining room to a corner lamp.  The stereo set continues playing soft mood music all evening.  My large dining table will be set with a plain lilac linen tablecloth and moss green linen table napkins.  The main decoration will be a small bowl of lilac sweet peas with deeper mauve candles inserted into the centre of the float bowl.  On each woman’s napkin there will be a freshly picked pink rosebud tied with a narrow lilac velvet bow

I don’t have the moss green linen or the mauve candles but the Lilac sweetpeas were a gorgeous addition to my dining room table at our latest Tasty Reads Cookbook Club meeting.  My friend Leesa brought me this equally gorgeous bouquet of Calla Lillies, Rosemary and Seaside Daisies all from her garden as a hostess gift! 😍

Calla Lillies

I very rarely buy flowers because I get a little bit sad when they start to wilt but the scented simplicity of my sweetpeas and the creative combo of Leesa’s bouquet brought me so much joy that maybe I will rethink my stance!  

I hope your week is blooming great!

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