Category: Eggs

Neviled Eggs – Towards Zero

Hello crime readers and food lovers. Let me start right off with an apology for the atrocious pun. I am so sorry. But…I was racking my brains to think of what to cook for Towards Zero and, as is my want, I started searching for a pun. “What rhymes with Audrey..tawdry…no cancel that one. Battle rhymes with cattle…maybe a beef Wellington?” And then I got to Nevile and “eh voila” as Poirot would say, the idea of Neviled Eggs was born.  And once it was in my head…there was no going back. 

Nevilled Eggs 3

I adored “Towards Zero,” so please don’t mistake my playful recipe title for any disrespect towards this brilliant novel. Usually, I read these books twice: once for the initial experience, and then again to glean details for these posts. My first read of Towards Zero left me utterly bewildered about the culprit, right until the big reveal. On my second read, however, I was astounded by the sheer number of cleverly hidden clues scattered throughout. 

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The plotting here is simply masterful! What seemed like passing chatter on the first go-round all converged beautifully towards the killer’s identity. To any aspiring mystery writer, I wholeheartedly recommend “Towards Zero” as a masterclass in artful clue placement. But even if you’re simply seeking a meticulously crafted detective story, this is a must-read.

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Towards Zero – The Plot

“I like a good detective story,’ he said. ‘But, you know, they begin in the wrong place! They begin with the murder. But the murder is the end. The story begins long before that—years before sometimes—with all the causes and events that bring certain people to a certain place at a certain time on a certain day.”.”

Agatha Christie – Towards Zero

We start with four seemingly disparate vignettes.  

  1. A group of London lawyers are speaking of the latest case and Mr Treves, a highly esteemed and elderly solicitor makes the above quote about murders being the end of a series of events that can bring a group of very different people together, all as they move towards zero hour.
  2. Angus MacWhirter is recovering in a hospital after a failed suicide. He is bitterly disappointed still to be alive but his nurse tells him that he was saved because God may need him in the future
  3. We next take a peek at a very disturbed person who is meticulously planning a murder
  4. Superintendent Battle’s daughter is intimidated into confessing that she stole things when she is innocent

Could these four seemingly unconnected events, be somehow related as they all move towards zero?

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Our Cast:

  • Nevile Strange is a tennis player, known for his good sportsmanship on the court.  Neville was raised by Matthew and Camilla Tressilian at their home Gull’s Point.  Sir Matthew has now passed and Lady Tressilian is bedridden but Neville visits her each year.  (Incidentally, I did my first “reading” of this on audio via YouTube and the reader kept referring to Nevile as Ne-vile and not Neville.  For me, Ne-vile Strange sounded like the name of a Harry Potter villain.  
  • Kay Strange is Nevile’s second (trophy) wife.  She finds the visits to Gull’s Point boring and would prefer to be having fun with her friends, one of whom is Ted Latimer, a very handsome but somewhat louche young man.  Whilst not staying at Gull’s Point, Ted has taken up residence at Easterhead Bay, a short distance across the bay from Gull’s Point.
  • Audrey Strange, Nevile’s first wife.  Normally Audrey and Neville stagger their visits to Lady Tressilian however this year their trips converge.  And no one seems happy about it.  Except Nevile who seems to be trying to rekindle his old flame. 
  • Mary Aldin, Lady Tressilian’s companion
  • Thomas Royde. Audrey’s cousin who is visiting from Malaysia
  • Mr Treves, who was an old friend of Sir Matthews is holidaying in the vicinity and is invited to dinner one fateful evening.

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We have:

  • Mr Treves killed by staircase (ingenious!)
  • Lady Tressilian beaten to death with a golf club and, 
  • Superintendent Battle virtually pushing someone off a boat to confirm that really can’t swim!
  • Rank odours, MacWhirter asking odd things of Mary
  • Something significant in the attic
  • And many, many people being lying liars who lie

Battle also channels his inner Poirot to bring the killer to justice.

Battle rubbed his chin and frowned.  “I wish I knew what keeps putting Hercule Poirot into my head.”

“You mean that old chap – the Belgian – comic little guy?” asked Leach.

“Comic my foot,: sais Superintendent Battle.  “About as dangerous as a black mamba and a she-leopard – that’s what he is.  I wish he were here – this sort of thing would be right up his street.”

Towards Zero – Agatha Christie

If only Battle had used a Boomslang (as per Death in the Coulds) as his snake analogy!

Towards Zero – The Covers

Towards Zero Collage (1)

 

So many great (and non-English) covers here.  My three favourites are Audrey on the cliff (top row second from left), a theatre bill, second row first from left showing Gull’s Point and of course, top row, first on the left, Tennis racquet head!  So clever and cluey!  

And it’s not the first tennis racquet head we’ve had either!  Murder at the Vicarage also has one of these!

Tennis Racquet Heads (1)

 

The Recipe Neviled Eggs

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Neviled Eggs – Towards Zero

A lovely elegant appetizer, inspired by one of the characters in Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero

Ingredients

Scale
  • 12 quail eggs
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard
  • Dash of Tabasco (optional)
  • 2 tsp mayonnaise
  • sprigs of dill to garnish
  • Salmon roe to garnish

Instructions

Place the eggs in a pan filled with enough water to cover them.  Bring the water to boil then cover with a lid, remove from the heat and let the eggs sit for 2 minutes.

Drain and cool the eggs in cold water with some ice cubes in it.

Peel the eggs, cut them in half and scoop out the yolks.  

Mash  the yolks with the lemon juice, mustard, Tabasco and mayonnaise until the mixture is smooth. 

Fill a piping bag with the mashed yolks and pipe back into the egg whites.  

Garnish with a little sprig of dill and a salmon egg.  

Enjoy!

Notes

I found it easier to place the dill sprigs and salmon roe on the eggs with a pair of tweezers because I have massive man hands that are not great for delicate tasks like this!  

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Links To The Christieverse

Battle mentions Poirot a few times but does not refer to any specific cases.  The other Superintendent Battle books are:

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in  Towards Zero

Our March read is The Hollow.

Have a great week!

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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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Oeufs Caroline – Five Little Pigs

Hello crime readers and food lovers. In what is starting to become a bit of a trend, today’s post is dedicated to one of the main characters in Five Little Pigs, Caroline Crale.  To many fans, Five Little Pigs is the nec plus ultra of the Christie novels.  And it is an absolute cracker!  We never actually meet Caroline as she is sixteen years dead when the story begins.  But…what a character.  I absolutely loved her.  Her dignity, grace, loyalty, and fiery temperament made her a wonderful compelling and intriguing character. 

I also feel that all egg recipes are a little wink to Poirot and his egg-shaped head! 

I found the recipe for Oeufs Caroline in the French children’s cookbook called La Cuisine Est Un Jeu D’Enfants by Michel Oliver (1963).  It is a very cute book and I will definitely cook more from it but the timing on this recipe was completely wrong.   You have no idea how many times I ate Oeufs Caroline for lunch this week trying to get it right! rp_Oeufs-Caroline1-768x

Five Little Pigs – The Plot

The accepted version of certain facts is not necessarily the true one.”

Agatha Christie – Five Little Pigs

A young woman called Carla Lemarchant approaches Hercule Poirot with a very unusual case.  Sixteen years ago, her mother, Caroline Crale was found guilty of poisoning her father Amyas Crale.  However, before she died in prison, Caroline sent a letter to her daughter professing her innocence.  Carla wants Poirot to find out the truth.  Did her mother kill her father? Poirot focuses his investigation on the five people, apart from Carla and Caroline who were present on the day Amyas died.  For if Caroline is not guilty, then one of them is… Oeufs Caroline2

We have:

Philip Blake
  • A stockbroker (went to market, geddit?) was one of Amyas’ closest friends.  On the day of Amyas’ death, he overhears an argument between Caroline and Amyas where Caroline threatens to kill him.  Philip is apparently no fan of Caroline and puts the murder down to “crude female jealousy.  However, does he have a secret desire to see Amyas dead?
Meredith Blake
  • Philip’s brother.  Unlike his brother who is a successful broker, Meredith stayed home and dabbled in herbalism and other country pursuits.  It is some coniine from his laboratory that killed Amyas.  Unlike his brother, Meredith admits a fondness for and a loyalty to Caroline.  He argues with Amyas saying that the situation with Elsa was an “”unendurable insult” and not fair to either woman.  Might seeing the woman he cares for being mistreated have given him a motive for murder?
Elsa Greer (now Lady Dittisham)
  • The little piggy who had roast beef. She was a rich, spoiled beautiful, young woman in love with Amyas.  It is her deliberate provocation of Caroline on the day of the murder that many people see as being the catalyst for later, lethal events.  Poirot…”saw her beautiful and rich, seductive to men, seeking with greedy predatory hands to fill up a life that was empty”.  She is still vitriolic about Caroline and says she would have preferred to see her hanged.
Cecilia Williams
  • Angela Warren’s former governess.  She is a shrewd, fiercely loyal woman, living “close to the bone”.  She epitomises the one who has none.  She believes that Amyas got what was coming to him, her sympathies are entirely with Caroline.  But she also has proof, never previously disclosed that Caroline murdered Amyas
Angela Warren
  • Caroline’s half-sister.  Caroline is overly protective of Angela after disfiguring her face in a fit of pique as a much younger woman.  Angela is spoiled and enjoys playing tricks on Amyas.  He wants to send her away to school.  She doesn’t want to go and this is causing some additional friction between Amyas and Caroline (as if there wasn’t enough already -the two are already, to quote Bonnie Tyler, “Living in a powderkeg and giving off sparks!).  

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Amyas Crale

And finally, let’s talk about Amyas.  In my first few drafts of this, I didn’t include a description of him because I felt we all know this character.  That is not to say that he is badly drawn but because many of us have met this person in real life.  He is an Artist and everything and everyone around him comes second to his art…back in my uni days, I would have found him irresistible.  Now, the sheer arrogance and gall of this man would make me want to stab him in the neck. 

Amyas was…a ruthless egoist.  He loved Caroline but he never once considered her in any way.  He did as he pleased…he was as fond of her as he could be of anybody – but she came a long way behind his art

Agatha Christie – Five Little Pigs

🤮

Well, just like Shaggy, it wasn’t me but it was someone.  And it will take all of Poirot’s little grey cells to figure this one out!

Five Little Pigs – The Covers

5lp collage (1) There’s nothing too crazy in the covers, lots of references to Amyas being an artist, and a few to the poisoned beer.  My favourites are the second row, second left for its pulp fiction feel and amazing font.  And I also really like third row first on the left with the artist and his brushes.

The Recipe – Ouefs Caroline

I have included here both the OG recipe from  Cuisine Est Un Jeu D’Enfants and my updated version. Oeufs Caroline recipe 1   Oeufs Caroline recipe 2  

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Oeufs Caroline

A lovely breakfast or lunch dish, inspired by Agatha Christie’s Three Little Pigs

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 tomato
  • 1 egg
  • 1 slice of bread (I used a potato and rosemary bread)
  • 1 tbsp Creme Fraiche
  • Chives or other herbs to garnish
  • Butter, Salt Pepper

Instructions

  • Cut the top off the tomato and scoop out the insides with a spoon.
  • Sprinkle the inside of the tomato with salt and turn upside down.  This will help to drain a lot of the tomato juice.  Otherwise, your eggs will be very watery.  Leave for 1/2 -1 hour.
  • Heat your oven to 180C.
  • Crack the egg and separate.  I found it easier to put the yolk into the tomato first and then top up with the white.  Don’t overfill.  You need some room to add the creme fraiche.
  • Butter your bread and place the tomato on top of it.
  • Place your egg-filled tomato and bread into the oven and cook for approximately 15 minutes for a soft egg and 25 minutes for a harder egg.  Check this as cooking time will depend on the size of your tomato.
  • After 15-25 minutes add the creme fraiche to the egg, turn off the oven and turn on the grill.  Grill for an additional 5 minutes.
  • Remove from the oven and garnish with herbs, salt and pepper.

Notes

I wanted to keep mine vegetarian but you could add a rasher or two of bacon when you place the tomatoes under the grill.

And Caroline Crale? Each person had seen her differently. Montague Depleach had despised her as a defeatist-a quitter. To young Fogg she had represented Romance. Edmunds saw her simply as a ‘lady’. Mr Jonathan had called her a stormy, turbulent creature. How would he, Hercule Poirot, have seen her? On the answer to that question depended, he felt, the success of his quest. So far, not one of the people he had seen had doubted that whatever else she was, Caroline Crale was also a murderess.”

Agatha Christie – Five Little Pigs

Links To The Christieverse

  • Poirot brings a letter of introduction from Lady Mary Lytton-Gore with him when he meets Meredith Blake.

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Five Little Pigs

November’s read is The Moving Finger

     

Mock Crab

Hello, retro food lovers and…war buffs? Today I am sharing a recipe for Mock Crab which was inspired by my reading of N or M by Agatha Christie. The real Dining with the Dame post will come next week but during my reading of this book, I became mildly obsessed with the food of wartime Britain.  I found a fabulous blog called The 1940’s Experiment and decided to give one of the wartime recipes a whirl!  I am also mildly obsessed with “mock” foods so I chose mock crab. 

Mock Crab

Umm…what?  I hear you say.  Mock crab looks like this!  However, it looks to all the world that you have posted a photo of some scrambled eggs on toast. Did you mix your photos up?  Might we finally be getting a post on the bacon and eggs that is mentioned in EVERY Agatha Christie novel but has yet to make an appearance in Dining with the Dame?

Well…no and no.  This my friends is mock crab.

But also yes.  Because this is scrambled eggs on toast.  Albeit some mildly vinegary scrambled eggs on toast.  This recipe perplexed me and I’ll tell you why as soon as I share the link.  Here it is:  Wartime Mock Crab.

Mock Crab3

 

Mock Me Not

So here is what I don’t understand about the mock crab.  Cheesy scrambled eggs are delicious.  And not just for breakfast.  I would eat them at any time of day!  Cheesy scrambled eggs with salad dressing and additional vinegar?  Not so much.  This, for me, was, unfortunately, something that was less than the sum of its parts. I’m also not quite sure why, particularly when you are on rations, you would add anything to cheesy scrambled eggs.  My preference would have been to save the dressing and vinegar for something else (maybe a salad?) and to eat the eggs as scrambled eggs.  

I can only surmise that the addition of the salad dressing and vinegar was to make it taste more crabby.  If so, it didn’t work.   No one in their right mind would mistake the taste of this for crab.  And yet….there was something.  Maybe the texture?  Or possibly the power of suggestion…that made this somewhat reminiscent of crab.  

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Whilst I didn’t love the mock crab, it was nice to take a peek into war time cooking and imagine the gang at the Sans Souci (from N and M) tucking into a plate of of it for lunch.  

Next weeks post will be on N or M, an Agatha Christie wartime thriller featuring Tommy and Tuppence.  At least I hope it will be.  I will be on holiday, soaking up some sun in the north of Australia so I will  schedule it to run on Sunday.  Fingers crossed it works!

Have a great week!

 

Food For Lovers Redux

Zakusi

Hello friends, and welcome to a special series I will be running over the next 12 months. A while ago, I realised I had totally missed the 10th birthday of this blog. In fact, I was thinking about how to celebrate this and wanted to check the exact date of the first post which I thought was in 2013.  Nope.  It was 17 May 2012!  There didn’t seem much point in celebrating eleven years but twelve sounds impressive.  So in the 12 months leading up to my 12th birthday I will be featuring one of the old books I blogged about in the early years.  Those old posts are mostly dire but the books are quirky and fun or just plain good. Sometimes all three.  To get this party started I am revisiting one of the most bonkers books I own – Kelly Brodsky’s Food for Lovers from 1971.

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Food For Lovers – The Book

Food for Lovers is broken into 15 chapters, each of which is devoted to a particular type of man and the food that their beloved should cook to keep them interested.  As the old adage goes, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach!   This may make it sound like this is a very conservative, conventional cookbook – the type of book you might have seen in the 1950’s on how to please your husband.   But this my friends was not the conservative 50s, this was the 1970s and the birth of women’s liberation so the tone is definitely tongue in cheek.  At least I hope it is because each of the men mentioned sounds awful (although also somewhat recognisable).  To introduce you to the book and its characters I thought it might be fun to do a little speed dating with the gents of Food for Lovers!

Bachelor #1 Come on down!

Freddy Finikin

Freddy

“Freddys who dislike food are an asexual lot who seem to get a perverse kick from driving the women in their lives to a frenzy in search of something to tempt their appetite…the woman who falls for such a man is either unaware of his finickiness, or trapped, or mad, or maybe she prefers to read in bed”

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Should you find either the picture of Freddy or his blurb attractive, or you are mad, trapped, or prefer to read in bed here is a recipe to keep your Freddy happy!

Zakusi

Zakusi

Zakusi

You’ll notice I have changed the recipe so that rather than filling the egg whites “liberally” with caviar, I have made a more traditional and certainly more economically viable devilled egg. These were AMAZING.  So tasty!!!!  

Let’s move on to Bachelor #2

If fussy eaters aren’t your style, maybe this likely lad is more your speed!

Joe De Go

Joe De Go

A man with the Midas touch, Joe usually has his fingers in many pies.  Often in the guise of pop star, P.R, ad-man, disc jockey, TV star or such, he wizzes from one assignment, luncheon or deal to another with a slick show of competence that belies his lingering adolescence.  Bright and on the ball he mostly shoes away from anything that smacks of more than superficial know-how, for he hates to be caught out of his depth

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Intrigued by the sound of Joe?  Why not tempt his palate with some

Creamed Leek and Potato Soup

 

Leek and Potato Soup

Creamed Leek and Potato Soup

This soup was delicious!

Still not found your ideal man?  Let’s take a look at Bachelor #3

Champers Chas

Champers Chas

With the carefully cultivated air of an educated debauchee and a fascinating, if largely fabricated family history to back it, Champers provides an inexhaustible supply of gossip.  Whether on or off the boards, he delights in titillating his ever present audience with spicy, often malicious anecdotes and ribaldry

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Fancy chatting with Chas?  Tempt his tastebuds with some 

Pistachio Nut Pilau

This was really nice, the rice was light and fluffy and went perfectly with last week’s Chilli Crab!

Pistachio Nut Pilaf

Pistachio Nut Pilaf

Still not found the love of your life? Maybe you like your men a little more sleazy and possibly criminal? Bachelor #4 may be more your style!

Professor Repressor

Professor Repressor

If the name doesn’t say it all, here’s Kelly’s description

Repressor exudes the coldness of a tree frog, his sang-froid masking some Lucifer-like leanings.  One kinky chink in his armour is his obsession with the Lolita-type nubiles on his campus – who usually run for their sweet lives when they see the kind of red-hot light they inspire in his eyes.  Inevitably, he is forced to turn his attentions to any neglected wives of his colleagues

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Ok.  We might need a palate cleanser after that so how about some

Watercress and Orange Salad

Watercress and Orange Salad

Watercress and Orange Salad

This was great and just the refreshing hit I  needed after writing about the pervy professor!  Let’s swiftly move to Bachelor #5!

Gad About Guy

Gad About Guy

Gad about Guys come in all shapes and sizes with ages and egos to match.  They usually hover round fellow Gads with a few of the uninitiated thrown in as audience.  “Remember that night in Singapore when we strolled along Bugis Street – and those fantastic little roadside stalls with the delicious Satay? ….”Lord, yes! And will you ever forget that Lamb Solanka in Moscow last winter.”…And on and on it goes, the name dropping, the reminiscences and regurgitations of past splendours”

Kelly Brodsky – Food For Lovers

If the well-travelled man is your bag, why not whip up a lovely breakfast for him with some

Wine and Song Prunes

I LOVED these.  I feel so bad that prunes have such a bad rap!  This was so delicious. And what a fabulous name!  I served mine with a little bit of labneh, some orange zest and some pistachios left over from the pilaf and it made a heavenly breakfast!

Wine and Song Prunes

Wine and Song Prunes

And because all good things must come to an end, we come to our lucky last Bachelor…who out there fancies

Jack Snack

Jack Snack

He’s strictly a non-event up to his neck in dreary day to day existence, blissfully unaware of anything outside his tight little domain…his every move as predictable as the plainness of his sitting-room with it’s enormous brick veneered fireplace above which some gypsy flamencoes wildy within a heavy gilt frame

Kelly Brodsky – Food For Lovers

I laughed out loud when I read this because growing up, we had possibly that very same flamenco dancer painting on our wall at home! I thought it was incredibly beautiful and have always wanted to learn to flamenco as a result of it!

Now, I have also not made Jack’s Snack, mostly because I quite like my life and don’t fancy being taken down by a premature heart attack any time soon.  But should you wish to share your life with this homebody and are not afraid of death by overindulgence, here is the recipe for a Veal Scallopine Sandwich that will melt Jack’s heart whilst simultaneously clogging his arteries!

Veal Scallopine Sandwich

 

Okay, food lovers, I hope you have enjoyed my second journey into Food For Lovers…I LOVED revisiting this book!!! And there are so many more delicious-sounding recipes and terrible men in it that we may have to take a third look somewhere down the track!

I have searched online for other books by Kelly Brodsky and Kelly Brodsky herself and have drawn a big flat blank!  At the moment there also appear to be no other copies of Food for Lovers for sale so, sadly you cannot share my delight in this book. Kelly, if you are out there, and I hope you are, I hope you read this and know that fifty-two years after the publishing of your book, you have a number one fan in me! 

Have a wonderful week friends and please let me know if you make that Veal Scallopini Sandwich! Or any of the other recipes!