Brunch with Vincent Price

 

I've cooked many recipes from A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price (links to those posts below). It's one of my save-in-case-of-fire cookbooks. It was out-of-print for a long time and I was lucky to get my hands on a copy at a library book sale. Now, it's back in print and my friend Jenny at Silver Screen Suppers is having a cookalong to celebrate.

I had just watched The Baron of Arizona (for the first time ever!) and wanted something with a southwest vibe. Fortunately, there's an entire section in A Treasury of Great Recipes on the Santa Fe Super Chief, the train that once carried passengers in luxury all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles. The blueberry muffins were a specialty of La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona, and were served in the Super Chief dining car. Continuing the Arizona theme, Ranch Eggs have a southwestern flare thanks to their yummy pepper/onion/tomato combo. They pair really well with blueberry muffins (and a great cup of coffee).

Ranch Eggs

4 1/2 ounces bacon, cut into lardons
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 onion, thinly sliced
3 cups chopped tomatoes (or two 14.5-ounce cans)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
 2 tablespoons butter
12 eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 scallions, sliced

Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat. As the bacon pieces crisp up, remove them to a paper-towel-lined plate to drain. Sauté bell pepper and onion in bacon fat, regulating heat so vegetables soften but don't brown too much. When pepper and onion are softened, add the tomatoes, garlic, salt, and pepper. Turn the heat up to cook off the tomatoes' liquid. Stir frequently. When most of the tomato water has evaporated and the sauce is nice and warm, turn the heat down and keep warm while you make the eggs.

Melt the butter in a clean skillet over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, beat the eggs and cream together in a mixing bowl. When the butter bubbles, add the eggs and cream and turn the heat down to medium-low and cook, stirring constantly, until eggs are softly set. Season with salt and pepper.

Pile the eggs in the middle of your serving dish and surround with the tomato-pepper sauce. Top with bacon and scallions. Enjoy!

Serves 4 to 6

Blueberry Muffins La Posada

1/3 cup (2 2/3 ounces) soft butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk
10 ounces blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and grease 16 regular muffin cups. (So, one pan plus four more muffins.) Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar then add in the eggs. Alternate stirring in the flour and milk, adding the baking powder and salt with the last addition of flour. Gently stir in the blueberries. (You don't want to mash them up or your muffins will be grey.)

Fill muffin cups half full and bake for 20 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Serve warm with butter.

16 muffins

Both recipes adapted from A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price (1965). 

 The Baron of Arizona is loosely based on the life of a real man, James Addison Peralta-Reavis (played by Vincent Price), who went to extraordinary lengths to lay claim to a huge chunk of Arizona and part of New Mexico. Some of his antics included forging documents and creating an entire noble family out of thin air. Pretty impressive. Be sure to check out the movie; it's on DVD and sometimes shows up on TCM.

 A dining car on the Super Chief, 1947

 Lounge Car on the Super Chief, 1947

 The Turquoise Room on the Super Chief, 1951

Want more Vincent Price? You know you do! Here are my other posts:
The Tomb of Ligeia and Roast Chicken with Bread Sauce
The Pit and the Pendulum and Caesar Salad
The Three Musketeers and Filets de poisson cardinal
The Masque of the Red Death and Welsh Rabbit
House on Haunted Hill and Kedgeree
Manicotti alla passetto and Buckingham Eggs
Ayrshire Poacher

Everything you need to know about this cookalong and the reissue of A Treasury of Great Recipes:

Vincent Price Treasury Cookalong with Silver Screen Suppers

Cooking With Vincent Website – for details of celebratory events in the USA 

Vincent Price Legacy Tour – for details of celebratory events in the UK

Amazon Page for the 50th Edition of A Treasury of Great Recipes

Treasury of Great Recipes Facebook page

Silver Screen Suppers Facebook page

Super Chief photos from Wikipedia

Baron of Arizona photos from Amazon
Vincent Price photo from Doctor Macro

North by Northwest Dinner for Two

Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint star in Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest

Happy Valentine's Day! Perhaps you're looking for a romantic dinner for two? Look no further--I've made a menu based on the 20th Century Limited's Dining Car, which was featured in North by Northwest (1959), which would be a pretty good Valentine's Day movie choice, as well. There's train travel and adventure and romance and spies and national parks! What could be better? North by Northwest airs Saturday, February 16th, at 11:00 p.m. CST on TCM. It's also available on DVD.

British Film and British Baking: Cast a Dark Shadow and Coffee and Walnut Cake

Coffee and Walnut Cake

In Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), Dirk Bogarde plays a widower with a big problem--his first wife, whom he married (and murdered) for her money, was on the verge of leaving him all her assets but she died before she could sign a new will, leaving everything but the house to a sister in Jamaica. So, Bogarde goes off to Brighton to do some wealthy-widow hunting and catches Margaret Lockwood. In a departure from her usual roles, brassy Margaret Lockwood proves a match for Bogarde when she refuses to give him control over her money. Cast a Dark Shadow isn't available on DVD, so be sure to catch it on TCM this Tuesday.

Delicious Coffee and Walnut Cake, photographed in front of the Houses of Parliament page in This Is London (1959), is just the sort of thing I imagine tea shops in Brighton would have served in 1955.

 Dirk Bogarde and Margaret Lockwood in Cast a Dark Shadow

Dunmow Flitch Trials, Part 3: Made in Heaven

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: July Chicken Casserole 

David Tomlinson and Petula Clark, two Brits who would become much more famous in the 1960s*, star in Made in Heaven (1952). Tomlinson and Clark play a married couple, Basil and Julie Topham, who are in the running to win the Dunmow Flitch. The only obstacles? One sexy Hungarian maid and a missing side of bacon. Made in Heaven isn't a particularly amazing movie, but it's enjoyable enough and has three things going for it:

1. There's a portrayal of the Dunmow Flitch Trials. I wouldn't have known about them otherwise.

Feasts and Festivals: Diamond Jubilee

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth taken for her coronation

Not that I need an excuse to get out my commemorative china and bake a cake and drink champagne, but the Diamond Jubilee was just the perfect opportunity to do all three. There were also a lot of photographs of the queen over the years on The Guardian's website, so I thought I would share a couple of my favorites:

 Left: 1968, Right: 1975

Now, on to the cake. I had originally wanted to make a Battenberg, but it makes two cakes (because of the two colors of cake) and let's face it, I'm pretty bad at the whole trimming and reassembling thing. So, I thought I would make a Battenberg-inspired marzipan-wrapped Jubilee Almond Cake. It turned out really well and it was a lot less work! Plus, it's covered in pearl dragées, because (a) they're terribly festive and (b) Queen Elizabeth is rarely photographed without her pearls.*

Dinner and Movies: Africa on Film

Greta Scacchi, in a still from White Mischief.

This post was originally going to be about the book and film White Mischief. I was able to get the book (written by James Fox, not the actor) through interlibrary loan and enjoyed it, so I thought, "Why not make a 'Dinner and a Movie' out of it?" My library just happens to have a copy of White Mischief (1987) on VHS. I thought I had hit a goldmine...until Paul and I watched it. Except for the synthesized music (it's supposed to be 1940), it's difficult for me to say exactly why this movie doesn't work, but it doesn't, and no amount of gratuitous sex, nudity or violence can make up for it (take note, future filmmakers). The story should be fantastic fodder for a movie--the young wife of a much-older peer takes up with a reckless, womanizing earl. Everyone is living it up in an exotic locale (Nairobi) while the rest of the world is at war. Suddenly there's a shocking murder that wasn't considered "solved" until 2007. Just read the book.

So--what to do? Thankfully, TCM has several hours of movies set in Africa planned for next Wednesday and Thursday that you can watch instead. Even better, these films star some of my favorite actors: Gene Tierney and George Sanders (Sundown), Clark Gable (Mogambo) and new favorite Ralph Richardson (The Four Feathers). There'll be more about The Four Feathers in July--it's a Life "Movie of the Week."

Dinner and a Movie: The Master of Ballantrae

Remember my Burns Night Roast Lamb Dinner? Well, there are two of us, so that means we were left with a good amount of leftover roast lamb. So, something fortuitous (at least to my mind) occurred. I had recorded The Master of Ballantrae from TCM and I had bookmarked a couple recipes for Scotch Broth. It's just the sort of thing to eat while immersing oneself in Jack Cardiff's technicolor Highlands.*

Think Thin Thursday: Chicken Divan

1957 photo

It's that time again--another recipe from The Slenderella Cook Book (1957). It's really not much of a recipe. Basically you boil some broccoli and put that in a casserole with leftover chicken and pour cheesy sauce on top of it. Then you stick it in the oven for ten minutes. It's not wow! spectacular!, but it's tasty enough and a great way to use up leftover chicken (and work in some veggies at the same time).

Dinner and a Movie: White Christmas, Visions of Sugarplums, and Exciting News

I love picking up old magazines at estate sales or antique stores. This December 1956 issue of McCall's is chock-full of great recipes, including Huntburgers and Polka Dot Pudding, which went perfectly with a viewing of White Christmas (1954). A couple of notes: next time, I'd use homemade marinara sauce in the Huntburgers, so that's what I've listed in the recipe. Secondly, the marshmallow ad has obviously used torched marshmallows, rather than the browned-in-the-oven variety (see my photo). Paul's hoping I'll make this again and let him take his propane torch to the unsuspecting confections.

Think Thin Thursday: Veal Hungarian

More pretty clothes from the same year as our cookbook!

December Movies and Visions of Sugarplums Event

December 2011 Film Recommendations

New Feature: Think Thin Thursdays...

...where we'll have fun with diet food from the past! I picked up a copy of The Slenderella Cook Book (published in 1957) on an antiquing trip while my parents were here visiting. It's written by a lady who was the "food consultant to Pan American Airways." Can't get more glamorous in 1957 than that!

Vogue February 1957

This dinner is from the 1200-calorie-menus section (that's for the whole day). I've changed the squash and pudding recipes, because I don't use sugar substitutes. Oh, and I left out the vegetable soup, because I'm lazy. I was surprised by how tasty 585 calories could be--the pork chops and squash have excellent sweet and savory flavor and the vanilla pudding in its cool and creamy goodness is so much better than the stuff from a box. Eat like this and you'll be in those shorts in no time! :-)

Week-in-Review and November Film Recommendations

This week on The Past on a Plate:


November 2011 Film Recommendations:

Joan Bennett seduces Edward G. Robinson in Scarlet Street

North by Northwest Guest Post and More Baroque Music

Exciting news! I've written a North By Northwest, 20th Century Limited Dining Car-inspired menu for Andrea's blog, Paper Sparrow. Please stop by and check out the Hitchcock Blog Party.

Dinner and a Movie: House on Haunted Hill

Welcome to Week 1 of a special all-Vincent month on Dinner and a Movie! That's right--all the movies for Dinner and a Movie this month star Vincent Price and all the meals are going to be adapted from his cookbook, A Treasury of Great Recipes. I'm so excited! This week, I've made Vincent Price's Kedgeree, which is based on the recipe from London's The Ivy. A product of the empire, Kedgeree (to quote Vincent) "originated, I believe, in Singapore."

Week-in-Review and October 2011 Film Recommendations

This week on The Past on a Plate:

 Interlibrary-Loan Tisane and Life This Week: September 19, 1938

 Peach Crisp and Murder

 Black and White Wednesday

Vintage Recipe Thursday: Baked Fish in Creole Sauce

Feasts and Festivals: Harvest Home

Fashion in Film Blogathon: Barry Lyndon

October 2011 Film Recommendations--all films are on TCM, times are CST: