Un Gentil Huteaudeau
I just love words.
At one point in The Silver Casket, the heroine Rinette faces off against Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, soon to be Mary Queen of Scots’ second husband. Now Darnley may have been tall, blond and good-looking, but Queen Mary’s own uncle the Cardinal of Lorraine described him scathingly as un gentil huteaudeau, which pretty much means “a pleasant nitwit.” Heh. The male Paris Hilton of the 1560s. Huteaudeau appears to have been an idiom along the lines of what today we might call “a dumb cluck,” because in the sixteenth century it also literally meant “young chicken” or “pullet.”
The word is preserved not only in the Cardinal’s disparagement of Darnley, but in a traditional Scottish dish called “Howtowdie,” a chicken stuffed with skirlie (savory sautéed oats with onions), roasted (or boiled) and served on a bed of spinach with “drappit eggs” (poached eggs). Intrigued? Here’s a link to a lovely authentic recipe:
Ishbel’s Traditional Scottish Howtowdie
I’m not sure about the poached eggs, but the skirlie sounds pretty yummy. I love cooking from the periods I write about and I think I will have to try this!
Arms and the Beagles
To whom do these lovely and mysterious arms belong? (No, not the Venus de Milo, silly.) Who is sitting on our couch playing with Cressie and Boo? Why, it’s Agent Diana, in town for a conference and here to spend some very intense time discussing The Silver Casket.
It was wonderful to meet Agent D. face-to-face for the first time. We devoured incredible prime steaks, exotic chocolates steeped in fruit and liqueurs; saganaki, spanokopita and tzatziki; and lovely cupcakes. Did we do anything but eat? Heh. Well, yes. We spent hours talking about The Silver Casket, books, The Second Duchess, books, the conference, books, promotion and bookstores, and oh yes—books.
Agent D. is now on her way back to New York after waving a sad goodbye to the beagle duo, and I’m on my way back to my hermitage to write up notes on everything we talked about…
Bean and Bacon Soup
Today is a dreary, rainy day, and what could be nicer on a rainy Sunday than homemade bean and bacon soup?
Read the other day in Cook’s Illustrated—one of my very favorite magazines—that rather than just soak beans, one should brine them. Yes, I know, our mothers all taught us not to salt beans before cooking them. But Cook’s did all kinds of tests and determined that soaking overnight in salted water (two teaspoons of salt per quart of water) yields better-seasoned and more evenly cooked beans in the end. So we shall see! I put my pound of great northern beans in brine last night and later today will make my soup.
As for the soup recipe itself, well, it’s never quite the same. Take some nice lean bacon and cook it crisp. Drain it and put it aside; discard most but not quite all of the bacon fat; in the remaining bacon fat sizzle up some chopped veggies, onions and celery and carrots and whatever else you like. Then add the brined beans (drained and rinsed), enough water or chicken or veggie stock to cover it all, and simmer for a couple of hours.
When the beans are tender, whizz the soup with an immersion blender (or puree about half of it in a regular blender), add more stock if it’s too thick, add some greens (I like spinach) and continue to simmer just long enough to wilt them down. Then add back in the crumbled crisp bacon, adjust the seasonings, and serve. Heavenly, and despite the bacon, very healthy. The trick is to use a smallish amount of bacon and discard most of the bacon fat. It only takes a teeny bit to produce wonderful bacon flavor.
Mmmmm, bacon.
Book Shopping, Day Eighteen
New Classic Family Dinners by Mark Peel jumped into my shopping cart for the cover photo alone—just look at that delectable little chicken pot pie! The most comforting of comfort foods, yet executed with elegance and restraint. And gorgeously photographed.
Mark Peel is the chef/owner of Campanile, an award-winning restaurant in Los Angeles. In this book he takes traditional, best-loved family dishes (meat loaf, barbecued ribs, hamburgers, pork chops, macaroni and cheese, tuna noodle casserole, chocolate pudding) and realizes them in a beautifully polished style—not so much “re-imagined” with a bunch of fancy additions, as made into the most perfect, most refined version of the simple original dish. That’s what makes this book a fabulous gift for plain home cooks (like me) as well as more ambitious foodies.
Peel’s voice is friendly and accessible and the photographs are simply stunning—this is not only a book to cook from but a book to curl up with on a rainy Saturday afternoon. For example, when he’s writing about his chocolate pudding he says “If Jell-O Pudding could fantasize about becoming something great, this would be it. Lighter and less intense than pots de crème, the creamy, comforting pudding with a whisper of mint added to the chocolate is very popular at the restaurant. We serve it in whiskey glasses. Note how little peppermint extract is needed here. You have to use this ingredient with caution. Mint is delicious right up to the point where it turns awful.” Heh. Now that is my kind of chef.
New Classic Family Dinners by Mark Peel, with contributions by Martha Rose Schulman and photographs by Lucy Schaeffer, is available at Books-a-Million, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and of course your favorite independent bookstore. For these last few days before Christmas, shop in a brick-and-mortar bookstore to save expedited shipping charges.
By Request: Lumbago
Had a good chuckle at Lisa Brackmann’s comment about why plumbago is called plumbago—“I would have gone with ‘it’s plum-colored and can be used to treat lumbago.’ For that matter, what IS lumbago?”
Ask and you shall receive. The word “lumbago” dates to early in the seventeenth century and comes from the late Latin lumbago, “weakness of loins and lower back,” which itself is from the Latin lumbus, “loin.” Here’s a fellow from an early 17th-century book of “anatomies” [Cousin, Jehan. Livre de pourtraiture. Paris: Jean Leclerc, 1608] who has obligingly taken off his skin to show us his musculature; his loins are indicated by the number 3. For more fascinating historical books of anatomy, see the Research section of the Wonders and Marvels website. I particularly like the ones in which the subject is rather coyly peeling back his or her own skin and muscles in order to display the organs beneath. What were the artists thinking?
“Lumbago” has rather fallen out of use these days, in favor of “Owie! I just threw out my back!” Perhaps we should bring it back. Or perhaps this evening I’ll tell the Broadcasting Legend™ I’m going to cook him a nice lumbus of pork with potatoes, apples and sauerkraut. Mmmm!
Guilty Pleasures
…having nothing to do with history. Well, maybe only a little.
- Top Chef. Jennifer Carroll for the win! That chocolate bread pudding with peanut butter sauce sounded delectable, but people—what’s the point of posting a recipe calling for 120 egg yolks and 5 1/2 gallons of heavy cream, which ends up serving 100 people? Cut it down a little. Top Chef website fail.
- Homemade Apple Crostata. The Broadcasting Legend™ brought home a bag of Granny Smith apples by mistake, and so I’ve been baking up a storm. Delicious as a dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or as a breakfast pastry with a wedge of cheddar cheese. I don’t really follow a recipe—I make piecrust the old-fashioned way (rubbing the butter into the flour by hand) and just mix up the filling as the spirit moves me—sliced apples (skin left on, please), a little lemon juice, a little white sugar and brown sugar, a pinch of salt, a sprinkling of flour to thicken, and of course lots of cinnamon.
- Attention Deficit Theatre. I love Mad Men and these are the best recaps ever. J. Kristin Ament is a hoot and a half.
- And speaking of recaps, History Spork, from Two Historians. This comes with a hat tip to the best agent ever, Diana Fox. Needless to say I love historical movies but I sometimes follow along with commentary much like this. Although I’m nowhere near as funny.
- The Daily Digital. The adventures of my friend Laurie, her husband Philip, and their wonderful beagles. I’m nowhere near as funny as Laurie is, either.
FLAT RINETTE
The Flower Reader
Read the First Chapter of The Flower Reader
The Second Duchess
Read the First Chapter of The Second Duchess
The Second Duchess is available on iBookstore!
