Drinks - Retro Food For Modern Times

16
Jun
2020

Coffee Ice Cream Sodas – The ManBrown Suit

categories: Coffee, Dining With The Dame, Drinks

Hello crime readers and food lovers! Today on Dining with the Dame I am looking at the food found in the fourth novel by Dame Agatha Christie, The Man in The Brown Suit, published in 1924. Like The Murder on the Links there was not much mention of food – at one point I seriously thought that this post might have to be on “dry toast and ginger-ale” which is mentioned as a meal taken by the very seasick heroine. Happily for me, later in the book she buys not one, but two, coffee ice cream sodas to soothe her jagged nerves following one of her adventures.

The Man in the Brown Suit – The Plot

Our heroine, Anne Beddingfield leads a quiet life but is ever so ready for adventures. After the death of her father she decides she wants to live in London and heads there for a job interview. On the way home, Anne sees a man fall onto the live rail at the station and die. Anne picks up a note dropped by the doctor who pronounced the man dead which reads “17.1 22 Kilmorden Castle”.

The man is identified as LB Carton and in his pocket was a viewing document for The Mill House, owned by Sir Eustace Peddler MD. The very next day a strangled woman is found dead in the same house. The eponymous “man in the brown suit” who was seen entering the property shortly after the dead woman is named a suspect.

Anne realises that Killmorden Castle is the name of a ship, sailing to South Africa. She uses the last of her money to buy a ticket.

Hijinks ensue!

The Man in The Brown Suit contains:

Travel to South Africa
Shifty secretaries
Suspicious clergymen
Stolen diamonds
Romance
Kidnapping
Murder attempts
And of course, the mysterious man in the brown suit

The Man in the Brown Suit is also funnier than any of the previous novels. There are quite a few witty lines, mostly to do with Guy Pagett, the shifty secretary mentioned above.

“Guy Pagett is my secretary, a zealous, painstaking, hardworking fellow, admirable in every respect. I know no one who annoys me more” says Sir Eustace. He also describes Pagett as having “the face of a fourteenth-century poisoner”.

The Covers

A lot of the covers for The Man in The Brown Suit either depict the scene on the train platform or else the ship, The Killmorden Castle.

I have chosen my two favourites here.

The one on the left has a Frank Abignale, Catch Me if You Can vibe which very much enjoyed. The one on the right takes the prize for bonkers with a depiction of a long blonde wig and a bloodied razor.

The Recipe – Coffee Ice Cream Sodas

“I walked into Cartwright’s and ordered two coffee ice-cream sodas – to steady my nerves. A man, I suppose would have had a stiff peg but girls derive a lot of comfort from ice cream sodas”

The Man in the Brown Suit, Agatha Christie

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Coffee Ice Cream Soda – Dining with The Dame 4

Print Recipe

So good you might want two! And for the daring, it also has a “stiff peg” in it’

Author: Taryn Nicole
Yield: 1 1x

Ingredients

Scale

¼ cup hot coffee
1 tbsp sugar
1–2 tablespoons coffee liqueur or rum (optional)
Club Soda to fill your glass
2–3 scoops coffee ice cream
Finely grated chocolate (optional)
Maraschino cherry (optional)

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Stir the sugar into the hot coffee.
Chill until ready to serve.
When ready to serve, add the coffee liqueur / rum.
Pour into your serving glass.
Add the ice cream.
Top with club soda.
Garnish with grated chocolate and a maraschino cherry.

Notes

Alternate or additional garnishes might include chocolate sauce or whipped cream.

Other Food Mentioned in The Man in The Brown Suit

Dry toast and Ginger ale
Chicken Broth
Curry

A Personal Note

I identified with Anne Beddingfield quite a bit, particularly at the start of the book where she is girl from the ‘burbs, longing for both adventure and romance. Cue me at 14…15…16…17….

The plot about the stolen diamonds also made me remember a story I wrote when I was…maybe 10? I had just learned that the nickname for diamonds is “ice” and immediately wrote a story about a band of diamond thieves who hid their stolen wares in a large pitcher when the police came calling.

They would have got away with their nefarious ways except for an eagle-eyed girl detective (Trixie Belden? Nancy Drew? No, ME!) who noticed that on this very hot day, the “ice” in the pitcher was not melting as it should be.

Thieves caught, diamonds restored to their rightful owner. All well with the world!

I hope all is well with your world! Have a great week.

27
May
2020

The Clover Club

categories: Cocktail, Gin, Raspberry

I was walking Holly and Oscar in the park one morning when I found a four-leaf clover. That time feels like a million years ago but it was on February 10th so only about 100 days ago.

Whilst I am not superstitious by nature, this felt like an omen. Things were going pretty well. Holly was settling into her new home with us, it was a glorious summer morning, all seemed well with the world. What could possibly go wrong?

Within weeks if not days? Welcome to the shittiest year of all of our lives.

It’s enough to turn a girl to drink!

I was thinking about that day recently. One of the ways I have been idling away my time is to do a heap of Buzzfeed quizzes…you know the sort…”Tell us which pizza toppings you like and we’ll describe your perfect vacation”. Mostly these are terrible and I would be a little embarrassed to admit doing 1-5 per day but occasionally you find one that gets you right in the sweet spot.

Such was the case with the quiz “We know exactly what cocktail you are craving tonight”.

Turns out, I was craving a Clover Club. Now I had, up to that point, never tasted a Clover Club. But, I looked at the ingredients – Gin, raspberries and lemon – these are a few of my favourite things! And suddenly, yes, I was craving one!

I decided to break out the Babycham glasses I bought when I was in Rye last year. How cute are they? I have been saving them for a “special occasion” but you know what? If not now, when? I was inspired by this post on Foodie Crush to seize the day a bit more!

A Brief History of The Clover Club

The Clover Club is an American cocktail from the Pre-Prohibition era, dating all the way back to 1896. A group of men, who called themselves The Clover Club used to meet at the Bellevue – Stratton Hotel in Philadelphia. The Clover Club was invented for them to drink. I find the idea of those olden day men sitting around drinking foamy pink cocktails adorable!

We totally LOVED The Clover Club! The Fussiest Eater in the World said it was the best cocktail he had drunk since 1997! Who knew he was keeping a list….

I used the recipe for The Clover Club via Liquor.com which you can find here.

If you like sweet / sour fruity cocktails then the Clover Club is for you! It may not bring you good luck but it will brighten up your day!

Have a great week friends, stay safe! Let me know what cocktail you get if you do the quiz!

06
May
2020

Tijuana Sunset and Buenos Noches – Two Evening Themed Cocktails

categories: Cocktail, Mexico, Tequila

Ola people of the internet! Today we are celebrating all things Mexican with a couple of cocktails, the Tijuana Sunset and the Buenos Noches both from Cantina. Regular readers would know what I have set myself a task to cook through this book by the end of the year. Readers from the way back would know that this book and I have a troubled past. Too cheffy, too complicated, too many hard to find ingredients have been my complaints of this book in the past.

Let’s kick things off early in the evening with..wait for it…we need some sort of fanfare…ah…here he is…

Da da dadada…TEQUILA!

The Tijuana Sunset

This is billed as “A sophisticated take on the tequila sunrise”.

Okay fine. But IMHO, the only thing that makes a tequila sunrise any good is that gorgeous ombre effect of the grenadine and the orange juice. And if you are going to call that drink a sunset then that ombre effect needs to run the opposite way to the sunrise right?

Well, it is totally missing from the Tijuana Sunset so I guess the way the gradient goes is immaterial right?

Now, bear in mind I made both of these drinks in iso at a time when even generally easy to come by ingredients were scarce on the ground. Blood orange juice was an impossibility. I decided to sub in Blood Orange Soda instead of Blood Orange Juice and Soda. Did this affect the colouring? Possibly. However, as there is no picture in the book I suspect that they also did not get that beautiful colour array.

Looks may be one thing but taste is another. And when it came to taste the Tijuana Sunset was OMG….100% delicious!!! 😍😍😍. Tangy from the lime, a little sweet from the soda, a nice kick from the tequila and the touch of salt was GENIUS. I loved this so much I immediately made another which I garnished with a little slice of jalapeno. This made it even better!

I loved the Tijuana Sunset. I just wish it had a different name so there weren’t those expectations of what it was going to look like!

Wait up. Hold on. Do you think that by making the claim that it is a “sophisticated” take on the Tequila Sunrise that the authors are trying to say that the beautiful orange to deep red shading is somehow unsophisticated? Are they making fun of my love for a drink that looks pretty as well as tasting delish?

OMG…see what this book does? It makes me crazy! Or maybe that’s life after what now…seven weeks in iso?

Buenos Noches

Now this one looked the biz! It is a Mexican take on an Irish Coffee which is a drink I hold dear. And on paper it sounds delicious. Chilli infused tequila, cinnamon infused coffee…sign me up!

Okay, so truth be told. This was one of the worst things I have ever put in my mouth. Particularly because I had to wait 3 days for the tequila to infuse with the chipotle.

I actually cried after tasting this. Which I admit is an extreme reaction. But, at the moment, when our lives are so restricted, something that I was looking forward to for THREE days and which turned out to be a bitter disappointment might actually be worth a tear or two.

I felt this was bitter and flat. It lacked any sweetness to counteract the bitterness of the coffee and the heat of the chilli and had no zestiness to bring the bitter and hot flavours together.

I’m calling Goodnight Irene on the Buenos Noches.

But here’s that recipe. Just in case you have really repressed emotions and need to cry over something dumb instead of the horror that is the world as we know it.

Have a great week! Stay safe!

20
Mar
2020

Dining With The Dame 1 – Rum Spiked Cocoa

categories: Books, Dining With The Dame, Drinks

My first attempt at blogging involved writing about the food contained in, or inspired by, the books I was reading. It was not successful because, after the first book, the next three books I read did not contain any food to blog about! But I have never lost the desire to blog about food in fiction. This year one of my goals was to (re)read the novels of Agatha Christie. And, as I began to read, I started to think that maybe it was time to give combining food and fiction another try. Which is why today you are reading the first in a series called Dining with the Dame. We’re getting things started with rum-spiked cocoa as featured in…

The Mysterious Affair At Styles

We’ll start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start, after all. The Mysterious Affair At Styles was Agatha Christie’s first novel to be published way back in October 1920.

“Styles” is also the first Hercule Poirot mystery. Poirot is a war refugee, living in the village of Styles St Mary with 7 of his chums. And whilst this series will focus mainly on the novels, there is an absolutely delightful moment in the Poirot tv series where Poirot’s crew of Belgian refugees are walking through the British countryside singing “It’s a long way to Tipperary” before becoming acquainted with the pleasures of the English public house. That moment occurs at around the 13-minute mark if you want to see it for yourself!

The eponymous mysterious affair is the death of Emily Inglethorpe, owner of the country manor Styles. Mrs. Inglethorpe did not pass away quietly in her sleep but was poisoned! Enter Hercule to exonerate the wrongly accused and, of course, find the real murderer.

The Covers

I made a tier of some of the covers for this novel. There were many, many more. I have so many opinions that this would become the longest post ever if I started to voice them – but take a look. What is your favourite?

What would you move up? Or down?

The Recipe – Rum Spiked Cocoa

Poirot is talking to Annie, one of the maids at Styles.

“Now I want to ask about something else. There is a saucepan in Mrs. Inglethorpe’s room with some cocoa in it. Did she have that every night?”

“Yes sir, it was put in her room every evening, and she warmed it up in the night – whenever she fancied it.”

“What was it? Plain cocoa?

“Yes sir, made with milk, a teaspoon of sugar, and two teaspoonfuls of rum in it.”

This is soooo good. The little hit of rum adds a lovely little kick to a drink that is 100% as comfort! And we all can use a little bit of comfort in our lives!

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