Hi everyone, Mod R here.
Based on how many people have asked for a House Andrews cookbook in the comments in the past few years, I know I’m not the only one who reads with her tummy as well as her eyes.
Something you need to know about me is that I am a maniac (maniac!) on the floor of Orro’s kitchen- and all other IA food scenes. Immersive books and greed mix very, very well and a Horde, as everyone knows, marches on their stomachs.
I’ve made Edge Hamburgers, Orro’s Eggs 3 Ways, I’ve ordered Old Bay seasoning from the US to cook Kate and Julie’s Low Country Boil and I’ve certainly baked a Pithivier or two (or seven). I bookmarked Nevada’s treasure box dessert for when I’ll visit Las Vegas and I had lunch at the Ca’ Sagredo hotel in Venice when I visited my in-laws in Italy just because I could. Catalina’s fajita dinner with mango pico de gallo hits the spot like no other.
I will not mention the amount of carpaccio I’ve ordered since Burn for Me has been released. Although I have yet to find it in an Asian fusion restaurant so I am still on lookout for that twist.
If I can’t order it, I have to make it, and I know no rest until I can recreate the scene exactly. My next goal is to make a grazing board based on the Tachi food mandala in Sweep of the Blade. And yes, I know I could call it a charcuterie board because the definition has expanded to include more than just cured meats and pates, but I’m staying a purist.
She cut the bread into precise half-inch cubes, placed five of them together onto the plate, one in the center and four in the corners so they formed a square. She picked up the honey and slowly dripped a few drops onto each cube, until the bread soaked up the amber liquid.
Andrews, Ilona. Sweep of the Blade, Innkeeper Chronicles 4. NYLA, 2019. Kindle Edition, page 85
The tachi at the edges of the table leaned in slightly.Maud plucked the blue kora fruit from the bowl, peeled the thin skin and carefully cut the fruit into even round slices. She managed eight slices, seven perfectly even and one slightly thicker. She placed the seven slices around the cubes. The eighth was a hair too thick. She pondered it.
The tachi pondered it with her.
Better safe than sorry. She reached for another kora.
The tachi to her left emitted an audible sigh of relief and then crunched his mouth shut, embarrassed.
After the kora, she cut the red pear, then the thick yellow stalks of sweet grass, slowly building a mandala pattern on her plate. The kih berries followed, perfect little globes of deep orange. She carefully arranged the berries and took one last look at the plate.”
I’m thinking potato sourdough for the bread, homemade hot honey infused with chilli and vinegar, and maybe physalis can be the kih berries- I always thought they looked a bit alien. I am a bit stumped because my vampire supplier is fresh out of kora fruit- does anyone know a blueish fruit or veg that could take its place? Roasted purple ube (purple yam) is as far as I’ve got.
Have you ever needed to eat something just because you read about it?
Am I first?!?
Edge burgers are now a regular at our house
They’re so good cold! I like them with a schmear of mustard and nothing else.
I like them dredged in dry masa, instead of bread crumbs.
Purple potatoes exist – they are like fingerlings. And, if memory serves, isn’t there a purpleish carrot as well. And of course, purple cabbage.
Asperagus can be purple, too. Beets are a reddish purple.
My kid is not a big ground beef fan, but she loves these. They make for a fast dinner with a salad and and an easy vegetable like sautéed green beans or glazed carrots. They are what I am making tonight!
Love this! 🥰 Passion cones sent me down the wormhole looking for a recipe, but I couldn’t find anything that felt suitable.
As a kid, I was sooooo excited when I got an American Girl doll cookbook and could make some of the food from the books! (an 18 inch doll that lives in a historical time with lots of outfits, accessories, and books) 🤗
I knoooooooow! I believe Ilona’s grandmother made the passion cones, and it’s so requested, maybe one day we’ll find out.
The passion cones reminds me of a French croissant recipe that could be wrapped around a cone shape. The syrup reminds me of a seedless raspberry jam that’s melted into a syrup. 😊
I also pictured a croissant-like dough but always come back to picturing it in my head with passion-fruit curd. I’m sure it’s because of the name. 🙂
As far as needing to eat something just because I read about it – absolutely! I do that all the time. Years ago I loved a book called Sunshine where the main character makes these amazing desserts with fun names. So I made up my own recipes for “Sunshine’s eschatology” (peppermint flourless chocolate cake) and “the death of Marat” (white chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis hidden inside). It was so much fun!
Robin Mckinley! Such a good book, one of my favorites! Death by chocolate, cinnamon rolls as big as your head… Killer zebras! Haha.
Time for a reread!
I love that book! On re-reads I always stop to imagine and “savour” the baked goods; the names are so fun too,
I want passion cones, too! I frequently try recipes from HA books. Anyone for the egg salad on fried bread from first Innkeeper?
Did you make that? I always thought that sounded fabulous 😋
I have also tried to do this with passion cones. The trick is that Meli seems to cut them straight out of the oven and
then serve them. I haven’t found a recipe that would allow this.
It might be a mistake, but I’d love to know what recipe this is!
Mod R, you are so cool and so cruel. My peanut butter toast, orange and hibiscus tea just won’t cut it today! We need a Grertrude Hunt Cookbook and I volunteer you 😎
Oops, sorry Gertrude!
Blue tomatoes? Or purple ones? Those would slice well.
Here’s a link to some info on them. 😊
https://plantophiles.com/gardening/varieties-of-blue-tomatoes/
Oooooh, those are perfect, thank you! And this summer has been the summer of tomatoes for me so it’s very on brand!
Yay! Glad I could help. Hopefully you’ll post a pic of it when you’re done! 🤗🤞
Purple tomato I bought was red on the inside.
Me too, Mod R! It’s a wonder I don’t turn into a tomato every summer, I eat so many of them!
New Jersey (the US state where I live) has a reputation of being nothing but highways, refineries, etc…but that’s such a small part of NJ. In reality, there are so many parts of it that are still pretty protected farm land.
NJ’s nickname is ‘The Garden State’ and I’m lucky enough to live near many farms….great tomatoes and corn, picked fresh that day! Can’t beat it!!! 😋
To add to what some others were suggesting, I subscribe to an organic farm every summer and get a share of produce weekly. We’ve gotten heirloom tomatoes and potatoes that are purple or bluish. I’ve also gotten purple green beans (that’s how the farm described them, but how can they be green beans if they are purple!) 😂
The purple green beans turn green when you cook them, which some find disappointing and others reassuring. I’ve grown Trionfo Violetto, a pole bean, for years. Everything about that plant is beautiful, from the leaves and flowers to the beans.Sometimes I stick it in the ornamental beds, right next to the house on a trellis. It is tougher and more productive than most of the green varieties I’ve grown. My hypothesis is that the dark colored leaves allow it to absorb more light, but who knows? It has a real green bean taste and freezes well too.
I blame Rogan for introducing our family to bulgogi. Since he ordered it in Burn for Me, it’s become a staple at our house!
Bulgogi is bae! Korean cuisine is my favorite, and I love Ilona’s recipe for it too https://ilona-andrews.com/blog/american-bulgogi-and-russian-morkovcha/
Thanks! Can’t wait to try it!
Still scratching my brain for Edge burgers.
The Edge burgers recipe is linked in the post 🙂- https://ilona-andrews.com/blog/edge-hamburgers/
I made them once, they were amazing! I used Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning to stand in for swamp spice. That was my pre-diabetic days, though, so I don’t make them anymore due to the rice. ::sigh::
Listen, Ive been reading with my tummy since I was about 7. I remember reading Black Beauty and wanting dried oats because he enjoyed it. The look my mother gave me was hilarious. I think it was then my family knew for certain they could hand me a book and I would be quiet and that I was a little crazy.
Hehehe, dried oats might have been my limit 😀 . But yes to reading with our tummies!
Mom actually asked me if there was any other food in the book I might want. I ended up asking for cheese and bread since it was always packed for one of the drivers lunches. But she did let me try the dried oats it wasnt bad but I had to try 😅
Cracklin’ Oat Bran cereal is a good human food substitute for horse oats 😁. I can’t totally recall thinking the same thing, but it does seem to ring a distant bell.
I also used to drink apple juice with my tongue like a straw and pretend I was a hummingbird.
Yes! We called this horse food when I worked in food service (college cafeteria).
😄 I wanted blueberries in cream because that’s what the Boxcar Children were eating. I’m glad I didn’t pick dried oats. 😉
When I was a kid, I made my mom track down the recipe for the cookies Pippi Longstocking makes, pepparkor. This was in the 1970s so pre-internet! But she figured it out and they were good ❤️
Okay, that is the cutest thing I have ever heard.
I learned not to start a HL reread on a certain day of the week. Because by the time the craving for sushi hit, my favorite sushi place in town would be closed for the day.
The only part of Heidi that I remember (or liked) was when Grandfather toasted cheese on bread over the fire!
Oh! Yes! I’ve been trying to figure that one out for decades! I don’t care which IA book it is.. I’ll find myself in the kitchen munching, wishing I could have one of the meals… today, it would be the ribs on the grill. The books just make me so hungry!
That was raclette— I used to think he took the big wheel of cheese and half it up to the fire and scraped off the melted part, and basically, that what raclette is, but you can buy raclette grills that have little cheese melting pans that go beneath the grill part to melt so you can pour the melted cheese over your other foods. I was wondering if you could poach something in butterfly pea flower tea to make blue food? Just can’t have any acid or it would turn purple…
I was just remembering that! As a suburban kid, but near enough to the Canadian Rockies for camping holidays, those moments in Heidi made me so happy. I imagined the Swiss alps as very green, and the cheese her grandfather toasted, and the wind whispering outside her bedroom window – lovely.
I love that fruit scene with the Tachis in Sweep of the Blade! And now I’m hungry…
I’ve made Dina’s apple cake and loved it!! Blueish is a difficult request. There are blueberries, black raspberries and marion berries. Some plums, figs and passion fruit are “blueish” on the outside but not the inside.Maybe food coloring?
My god, the amount of times I need to eat pizza after I read about it. Especially as characters order it out of justifiable lack of time for cooking. I too, find justifiable lack of time for cooking, and get pizza. Hits the spot. Also, in my head, for whatever reason, the Kora fruit was always a peeled dragonfruit (peeled like a Kiwi) & blue (drop of food dye??).
I’ve always thought of Dragon fruit too! But never went as far as food dye, hmmm. Dragon fruit is pretty tasteless, I wonder if the dye would be felt.
Can you use blueberry or blackberry juice to dye it?
Blue curaçao? Just sayin’ 😀
Ohhhh, that’s a great idea! could leave it in overnight!
if your dragonfruit (pitiya) is tasteless that’s because it’s the “wrong” variety. it’s like bananas. we ended up with the boring one as the mass produced one, but all the other heirloom type varieties are the ones with amazing flavor(looking at you apple bananas!).
look for yellow skin pitaya or the pink skin with red flesh inside. pink skin with white flesh can be very bland. plus they’re all frozen and thawed by the time the get out of the tropics. https://i0.wp.com/thegardenparty.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/beautiful-pitaya-bowl-fruit-4.jpg?
there is a reddit sub for growing them tho… so you could try!!
I’ve always thought the food sounded good, though beyond my skill level to try to recreate without exact directions. If House Andrews wants to create or sanction an official cookbook, I would absolutely buy it.
I’m pretty certain House Andrews could create or sanction an official and we would buy it!
I also don’t have skill level. I am looking for restaurant in Tampa Bay area where I could at least get some similar items.
I need the cookbook. NEED the cookbook! I do not have your creative cooking skills, and cannot cook without instructions (Sad wailing.) I have slavered over IA food for years. Please cookbook? Recipes? Can I throw money at someone? Maybe a recipe thread?
You can find most of the recipes with the Cooking tag from the Categories list here https://ilona-andrews.com/category-list/ 🙂
You should put it in your main post 😊
I have made a summer salad with (green, shelled) edamame, chopped blue potatoes, and (yellow) corn with a melted basil butter and it is a tasty, colorful dish!
mmmmm, basil butter summer salad 🤤
I tried carpacio when visiting Iceland last year, strictly because of Hidden Legacy. I loved it and will now gladly gobble it down wherever I find it!
I’m always on the lookout for other Orro creations. I’m living in my RV for a year or two, seeing the country, so kitchen space is extremely limited. If there’s a cookbook I could find the recipes when I have a real kitchen again!
I just have a feeling the carpaccio in Hidden Legacy has an Asian twist to it, like instead of capers and olive oil and lemon, it’s maybe ponzu, sesame and soy or oyster profile. The Takara restaurant is real, so maybe one day 😀
For awhile I was getting a not too far off carpacio at Noble Crust in St. Pete. But I don’t think was enough demand or something. Haven’t seen for awhile.
Mmmm. Martha’s honey muffins! I’ve tried several recipes but none are quite right. Suggestions please from the Horde?
And I applaud your dedication to recreating all the taste treats, Mod R! I just drool and sigh wistfully as I’m not much of a cook.
I think maybe we got a hint in Magic Claims that they are made with buckwheat honey! I couldn’t find it here, but I did get buckwheat honey shortbread and they were A-Mah-ZING!
Mod R (and the rest of the Horde), if you are looking for buckwheat honey, I did a Google search. Just type in buckwheat honey, and you will get a lot of information and places of where to buy it. 🙂
I wonder if buckwheat honey is similar to chestnut honey? it has a very rich flavour but oddly isn’t particularly sweet.
Try different honeys. I’m very fond of buckwheat honey. I don’t much care for either clover or orange blossom honey; but there are others I find quite tasty. It’s been a while since I’ve gone hunting for a new flavor, so I don’t actually recall what the last one was.
I’m on a heather honey kick atm but it doesn’t translate in baking that well.
I find a real difference when the honey is local. I don’t like the clover honey either but I really like orange blossom honey. But I like it on toast, over goat cheese or in tea. I think it would be over powered by Martha’s muffins. The stronger buckwheat honey is way to go.
Saw palmetto honey is a stronger flavored honey if that’s what you are looking for it’s the honey I use when making honey balsamic glaze for my roasted Brussels sprouts because it can hold its own with that assertive flavor
For Kora fruit perhaps blue honeysuckle, dragon heart plum, or purple fig? If you want a veg, purple cauliflower…?
I’ve never heard/seen blue honeysuckle before, wow, what a cool fruit. And they look suitably alien!
The only true purple food I can think of is a purple potato – maybe boiled and marinated? Or give up on purple and try that red fleshed apple? There’s a dark fleshed plum I’ve had, although I don’t recall it’s name and don’t see it often. Very ripe Mission figs?
I’ve had the red fleshed apple for the first time last year, they’re sold as Kissable Apples here in the UK. They’re very tasty but they still freak me out a bit, making me think I’ve developed sudden gum disease 😀
Damson plums are blue-purple on the outside, red-purple on the inside. They’re a small stone fruit, so not easy to slice neatly, and pretty sour; mostly used to make jam.
I just read a hint about using a utility knife for fussy cutting. Might work on Damson plums.
Oooooh, I love this! I have several fiction-based cookbooks (Nanny Ogg’s, based on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, might just be my favorite, LOL) and I, too, have wished for a House Andrews cookbook extraordinaire. Your Eggs 3 Ways are inspired – I’m especially impressed with your bacon basket, wow!
The kora fruit is blue to look at, but maybe the inside flesh is a different color? I hear there are blue-skinned mangoes and blue-skinned figs, and of course a plum could be considered blue??
That’s a great idea- blue skin certainly opens so many possibilities. I need to find the blue-skinned mangoes though, never heard of them!
+1 on Moderator R’s eggs 3 way. You are so talented.
Google translate tells me stachelbeeren are gooseberries. One week, I ordered green and white grapes and stachelbeeren from the grocery store. The stachelbeeren because I had no idea what they tasted like. I glanced in the fruit bag, saw that they delivered the grapes but not the stachelbeeren, and set them aside. I know how to take care of different fruits, btw. Grapes are fine on the counter. Berries need either the fridge or a vinegar rinse or both.
Turns out that it was the purple grapes they hadn’t delivered, as I discovered when I picked up the plastic bucket to find rotting berry juice under the white grapes.
My point: gooseberries look like big perfectly round grapes. It’s possible to cut them square, and peeling them is theoretically possible and even easy with a quick parboil. They just won’t be one big piece to cut up, but being berries they would probably be tastier than an uncooked yam (although since I’ve tasted neither — the grocery store hasn’t had stachelbeeren since — I can’t confirm this.
Reading about food always ends in a craving for me.
Wonderful post!
You need to invite us for brunch. lol
Husband and I used to have a site called “movie food” where we recreated recipes from movies. (OMG, I FOUND IT: https://web.archive.org/web/20080701015854/http://movie-food.com/)
Love this, will browse it!
Purple fruits: Damson plums if you can get them.
But here’s an idea on the blue fruits: use lychee fruit, or any other pale fruit (even melon balled pear) and then use a solution of blue food coloring and water and briefly soak them. Shouldn’t affect the flavor too much…
All the time. I, too, am married to an Italian. Food is a THING in our household. For a purple fruit, how about an Asian aubergine/eggplant? They tend to be more uniform throughout the fruit, and, thus easier to keep uniform. I also prefer their flavor to the more common variety.
The idea to have only blue skin rather than worry about blue flesh is brilliant!
Hehehe, an Italian in the home keeps the diet away 😀
I’m off to Italy for 2 months in October as an homage to my Italian parents. Hopefully all the tourists would have fled by then. I’m going to enjoy living there, as I’ve rented an apartment, and just relax, read, visit small towns and eat lots of locally grown food. I’ve booked a one-way ticket and, for the first time in my 58 years, I’m going with absolutely no plans, except for eating lots of good food😁
That sounds amazing! Hope you have a great time!
For the longest time, I had the cookbook based on the Tolien series.
Is the full story of Gerard and Helen DeMille available?
The snippet referenced in the article is the only thing I have ever been able to read.
It is one of my most unresolved searches amongst HA’s offerings.
No, the fragment is all that we have (for now, at least).
many, many years ago I had a Tolkien cookbook. Right now I have Donna Andrews (Hannah Swenson series) and Downton Abbey. I have created Easter and Christmas grazing boards (all desserts.)
I make apple pie every Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have letter shaped cookie cutters that I use to make Here Kitty Kitty dough letters on the pie. And yes everyone thinks I am weird. I have also made the apple cake a few times. Oddly my first try turned out great but the next times I made it did not.
We have the “Heroes’ Feast (Dungeons & Dragons): The Official D&D Cookbook”. I have made some of the recipes several times. I also got a copy of “The Princess Bride: The Official Cookbook” for Christmas. There are few recipes I really like. The problem that I have found with popular movie and book cookbooks is that they often have several recipes that are too odd or difficult to make.
That said if there was ever an Ilona Andrews cookbook I would buy it the attosecond it became available.
+1. I barely cook but I do bake when inspiration strikes. Just seeing all the items with tags from story they come from would be amazing!
How about Honey muffins ? I always wonder about the recipe Martha Honey muffins :3
For the Koh fruit, what about the purple witch finger/tear drop grapes?
this.
I looked them up and they are also called Moon Drop grapes. I like them because they are sweet and crunchy instead of soft and tart.
My weakness are the pierogis in Iron and Magic. They are so readilly available in the book with street sellers. We used to make the potato and cheese ones as a family. Everybody had a job. We made enough to last quite a while. It was one of the dishes we made for my sister’s and also my wedding along with stuffed cabbage. California people were “What is this”. This is a normal Pennsylvania wedding.
Pierogis… drool. When I was in Poland last year for a week I ate pierogis every single day and never repeated a filling. Spinach, cheese and potato, pork, mushroom, cabbage, twaróg cheese, peanut butter and jelly, blueberry, duck… They were amazing.
For the kora fruit, you could use edible blue food paint to paint sliced apple or pear
I confess!!! KD is the reason that I made low country boil…
I ordered the game of thrones cookbook for my husband as a joke (his hobby is cooking), and upon further review of the recipes, some of them are now traditional favorites in our home. IA foodstuffs are no different, thought my husband who stubbornly refuses to become a part of the BDH does not appreciate the literary as well as culinary enjoyment. But my 6 year old loves to make her “dragon chocolate mousse” courtesy of Nevada, and when my best friend comes to visit, we have our hidden legacy sushi.
Blue Strawberries (yes, they are a thing), Blue Honeyberries, Concord Grapes, Damson Plums, Purple Plums, Purple Haze Dragonfruit, Blackberries, Purple Bell Peppers,
Entirely possible that Nevada eating bear claw pastries and drinking coffee made me go on a “must have danishes” quest for a while during lockdown! Have not found a bear claw nearby yet, but I may give in and try to bake them.
Yep — the BDH devours more than books. We wants the foods as well. (I — unlike some folks — would like someone else to cook it for me. Doesn’t necessarily have to a 7-ft tall hedgehog.)A cookbook would be awesome! I’d also love a BDH foodbox — but I do understand that’s not realistic. But it would still be fun. 🙂
I remember sighing in relief along with that tachi when Maude discarded the imperfect slice of kora.
I’ve also eaten at that sushi place where Rogan and Neva first sat down together. It is an excellent sushi restaurant, and the pond view really is great. The joy of living in Houston 🙂
Love the commentary. In re: “Have you ever needed to eat something just because you read about it?” Well, needed to, yes, although I didn’t have it available. I still recall a mystery novel set in NYC, where the author left me with a deep craving for a hot pastrami sandwich. The author wrote of a specific deli that was so famous for it that they had a constant stream of customers, so that everyone would get the sandwich with meat still hot from the oven. But in general, descriptions of food don’t trigger my itches.
That sounds like the now defunct Carnegie Deli that was renowned for its gigantic pastrami sandwiches (among others). There were long lines daily, and there were absolute around-the-block crowds when it announced it was closing. The sandwiches were indeed worth the lines and cost.
Purple fruit? Hummm
There are purple potatos, carrots, eggplant, asparagus, artichokes, okra, radish, yam’s, kohlrabi, dragon fruit, figs and plums.
I think the figs and/or plums might work best for your replacement fruit but Dragon fruit has potential too.
all the time. and more so because my son, the chef, reads about it. I Google unfamiliar food all the time and have ordered unusual stuff from online. My son and I are talking about writing a cookbook this winter.
That’s lovely!
I know a cookbook is probably not House Andrew’s thing but could we have a list of the recipes on the website? I would love to see all of them listed there so I can go and find them easily.
That already exists 🙂 ! You can use the “Cooking” tag- https://ilona-andrews.com/category/blog/fun/cooking/ it’s underneath the title of all the cooking posts.
Or can be found here in the Category List https://ilona-andrews.com/category-list/, which is in the Blog menu 🙂
Thank you!! I will do that! Mod R, you are amazing and magical.
oh dear book lords, YES!!!
I am the person who planned her first solo trip abroad using “Travels Without the TARDIS”, All Creatures series, “Jane Eyre”, Thomas Carlyle, H2G2G books, and “The Agony and the Ecstacy” (read while in Firenze).
Off to compile “foods inspired by” list.
Yeah.. Community Coffee has become my standard morning brew because of Faith Hunter..🤓
For blue fruit blueberries and honeyberries are the obvious choice, but there are also some bluish plums and grapes. For veg, there is blue corn and blue potatoes, (although those look purplish to me). If edible flowers would work, try violets, pansies, borage (tiny flowers) or bachelor buttons
My ex used to use borage as tea infusion to help with depression.
Blue fruit – some types of black plums, mission figs when they are at the perfect step of ripeness have a beautiful blue/black skin.
Maybe a plum? some of those have fairly blue skin? Or a fig- they can have a blueish hue on the outside too.
I can’t think of any fruit with a blue interior, some of the purple fleshed dragon fruits are very blue toned purple, so maybe those?
Black apples also are more purple than blue, but they do look totally rad! (althought I wouldn’t want to peel one of those- the skin is just too pretty to waste!)
It depends on what I am reading that may nor may not cause me to want to eat something. Like the passion cones in the Kinsman series. When I read about them, I thought “that’s like a French croissant recipe I have in the Fanny Farmer’s cookbook that I tried, and everyone devoured.”
Orro’s cooking…the banquets he created…all I can say is yum!
I wonder if he’s going to cater Maud’s wedding to Arland? Something to ponder while we w**t.
Books set in New Orleans often describe beignets. So I decided that we needed a family vacation from Canada to New Orleans – it is a 1, 345 mile drive (2,164 km). My kids said the look on my face was priceless when I found out they taste a lot like Canadian “beavertails”. However, not all was lost, it was a great road trip (with lots of barbeque), and New Orelans is a fantastic city (with lots of fantastic food!).
Same here….I was all excited to have beignets and café au lait when I arrived, only to find out that beignets are what we call “doughboys” and you can get them at every fairground in the state of Maine!
I like “Beavertails” as a name much better, though. Thanks
Yes my second favourite author write a lovely set of books about a Dragon clan who befriends the local WI (Womens Institute) its a UK society in case you dont have them in USA. Anyway at the end of the books, there is a section with ingredients and how to make any of the dishes or special teas mentioned in the book.
Unless it has evil Pineapple (the fruit that hates me & makes me itch), I’ve tried to bake, mix and definitely eat or dink all.
The books are mystery stories with the odd murder thrown in, very fun and its nice to read about ladies of a later age (as well as the dragons no bigger than a great dane dog – who eat too many cakes!)
I’m allergic to pineapple also, I think it’s one of the enzymes in it. People act as if I’m crazy when I mention it as you never know what’s in something unless you cook it yourself. I can’t count how many times someone has said it’s not a real allergy and I should just eat something that has pineapple as I’m being impolite.
I believe there another of these in the works!
Safety first!! Protect yourself, always, from people who are ignorant!!
I worked for a well-known restaurant chain, and every location has a three inch thick binder of the ingredients of all the items on the menu. I always told customers that five minutes checking to make sure a menu item was safe for them beat an afternoon being sick or a trip to the ER.
I’m the same way with raw tomatoes and strawberries. I tell people I’m allergic to both. I get the funny looks until I explain to them I’m allergic to citronella wax that is in the tomatoes and strawberries. I always get a “I didn’t realize that” answer. After that, everything’s fine.
I’d be interested in reading these. who’s the author?
Kim Watt
There are many, many Asian Fusion restaurants around the world but one of my favorites is in Florence Italy. The Fusion Bar is a great choice for Asian inspired, Italian ingredients, creative fun food. https://www.lungarnocollection.com/the-fusion-bar-restaurant/
This is a must try, thank you for letting me know about it!
I own a copy of the Outlander cookbook, where the author has recipes inspired by the foods described in the series, as well as some people and objects. I very often have food cravings based on written descriptions, but I tend to want klah, and bulbs of Guinness, sweetie balls, and other things that would be extremely hard to duplicate. Based on the description, klah is a taste cross between Chai and coffee, and sweetie balls are a gummier version of mochi, that start out stiff and get softer the more you chew them.
Plums and figs are purple and there is a blue tomato sometimes called the purple tomato. Hope one of these works for you.
Your eggs in a basket is ADORABLE. HOW AWESOME IS THAT????
Also the Orro illustration totally rocks. It’s definitely a favorite. Heck the entire character is a favorite, but Isabeau Soooooo Nailed that illustration.
You know…the idea of a cookbook incorporating all the recipes in the different series would be awesome!! We’d have them at out fingertips when the munchies strike.
In stead of food colouring you could use blue spirulina powder -neutral tastning healthy algae- i use it sometimes in smoothies, they look like they contains smurfs 😝
Best wishes on the Quest
Nanna
I always pictured something like gooseberries in place of the kih berries and would probably use blueberries ir grapes in place of the kora fruit, though slicing them thin would be difficult. You could also use a plum. Apparently Damson plums are a blueish hue.
I made Dina’s Apple Cake for a party!! It got rave reviews!
That was fun! I love to cook but I’m forced to admit I rarely do a fancy presentation. Kudos to you!
How absolutely scrumptious your descriptions sound. If only I could bake but nope, nope.
Blue – hapsack berries (apologies for retail link but it had photos)
https://www.vitalaberry.ca/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvu-8–DhgAMVFg2tBh1R5gT6EAAYAyAAEgKeDvD_BwE
There are varieties of tomatillas that are pale yellow and ones that are purple when ripe. You would have to grow them from seed. I start them in window boxes on my deck that I keep mainly in shade.The sun and breeze strengthen the stems and they transplant more successfully for me that way.
I think any variety of dragonfruit would be amazing on the Tachi food mandala, also starfruit, or Chinese bayberry. all Asian fruits though, not sure how easy they’d be to get where ever you live!
“The kih berries followed, perfect little globes of deep orange” -these sound like orange/red currants. Beautiful little gem-like berries.
Loved this post, reading always makes me hungry. I thought that kora fruit was a blue tomato. They are blue thin-skinned and round… 🙂
I think aesthetically and palate-wise, I’d use kiwi slices for the round fruit, even though they are green and not blue.
Happy slicing!
Purple fruits might be these big round plums – don’t know the name -, there are purple potatoes, and you could google it 😏https://www.colorsexplained.com/purple-fruits/
I love reading about food in IAs novels and would very much appreciate the recipes at the end of the book 🙏
I always pictured this dish as tropical fruit. if I were to make it I’d make it based on the fruit I like more so the colors of the fruit. You can buy round cookie or biscuit cutters that get smaller & smaller. I’d use those to get different size circles from melon and use cherries, blue berries & strawberries. This time of year you could use plums & peaches.
When I was a kid I spent a month or two with nasty bronchitis/asthma and the meds I needed killed my appetite. I was reading Betsy-Tacey-Tib books at the time and the thing I really wanted to eat were the onion sandwiches – bread, butter, and sliced onions. Presumably Vidalia or other sweet onions, which my 8 year old self had certainly never heard of or had, so I was imagining yellow onions eye stinging and all. I have no idea why that appealed so much, and I still do not actually want to eat them but they sound SOOOO GOOD.
I love their food descriptions and recipes! If i am reading manga, i always end up making Ramen.
There is a variety of dragonfruit that has pink/purple flesh that could pass for kora fruit. For the berries I would go with a cape gooseberry/golden berry.
Still waiting for a cook book. It looks like you have a good start. There are times When I have read about a food item in a book then had to eat it.
Yes! Low county boil is a favorite. I made it immediately after reading about it several years ago.
You are awesome! I love the eccentricity. Your eggs 3 ways looks amazing, Now i am hungry
Plums, dragon fruit (more magenta), some tomatoes.
I always pay attention to food in books. I ordered the Dragon Lover’s Guide to Pern from the Science Fiction book club and tried the recipe for Klah. I also wanted to try and make bubbly pies but never did. Maybe I should hunt through my bookshelves for the book and try to make them now. It is blueberry season.
Yes, almost all of the food described in Hidden Legacy and the Innkeeper series!! Especially the sweets and pastries!!
(No mushrooms or shellfish, though – serious allergies.)
There is blue Dragon Fruit, but they are hard to find! Really more of a purple colored flesh, but might work?
I love that scene with the Tachi. I always wished there were more to it. They seem interesting (not as interesting as space chicken philosophers, but then who is?)
I was reading The Witness by Nora Roberts (one of her better recent romantic suspense titles, IMO), and the main female character made pasta e fagioli soup, which just sounded perfect to me at the time I was reading. It sent me on a soup-making kick and I sustained myself that winter on pot after pot of hearty pasta e fagioli, inspired by the fictional Abigail Lowery.
La Nora’s “Dance upon the Air” is also really really hungry making. I made those recipes loads.
Well, most blu(ish) vegs and fruits are berry-types, blueberries, concord grapes, elderberries, etc. However, there are blue/purple carrots, tomatoes, corn and currants.
Cauliflower is more purple than blue, and I doubt anyone could get 7-8 slices from any of the berries.
Blackberries and black currants are actually dark blue.I’ve heard that damson plums are blue, but I think it is just the skin, not the inside.
Personally, I think the tomatoes are weird enough (on the outside) and big enough to work, but I haven’t seen the inside of one in quite a while. I can send pictures if you liker this link does not work.
https://buyingseed.com/product/500-rainbow-tomato-bonsai-organic-vegetable-fruit-bonsaited-seeds/?gad=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1L7ZjfThgAMVxP_jBx3prAQjEAQYASABEgJtePD_BwE
heritage beetroot or carrots might do for the blue section or rare breed potatoes
Of course! I started young. The Redwood series by Brian Jacques was chock full of food I needed to make. Damson wine, dandelion salad and/or wine, acorn everything.
Mod R, I am also based in the UK. In the past, I have ordered some weird and wonderful stuff from https://myexoticfruit.com/. I have no affiliation with them, and, must warn that they are expensive, but their list of fruit would certainly provide some inspiration for the tachi platter.
Hmmm. No idea why my comment generated that photo! That is certainly not me…
The photos are set with Gravatar- which then pulls it and replaces it whenever you make a comment with the email associated with it. Gravatar is here, maybe you can reset your password and change the pic 🙂 https://en.gravatar.com/site/signup/
I love that scene. The tachi are so impressed with Maud’s sensativity. Maud’s experiences are so varied and I love how the Vampires are so surprised.
You can maybe try carrots or tomato’s, since they come in many colors. There is even some apple variants that have a blueish tint.
BTW love all the food scenes in the books and it always make me hungry or go grab a snack 🙂
They make me hunt restaurants. But have No Idea where I could find eggs 3 ways and I SO want to try it.
Thank you!
Now I’ve been sucked into the rabbit hole of blog history looking up recipes and making a menu. And it’s a very nice rabbit hole:-)
This will require a list! A trip to the store! FIRE!
FIRE! 🦔
Dragon fruit?
YouCan find in frozen section of grocery store. M y youngest always used it in his smoothies.
I spent a few years of my teenage years on Pern, so when Sage said there was a recipe for klah, I had to have NOW. I found it on http://cookfiction.com. There are other goodies there too!
blue damson plums.
pretty darn blue and very yummy
they come in red too.
and there are such things as blue tomatoes, though they’re on the purply end of the spectrum. they’re called Indigo Rose.
dragon fruit for purple fruit strange
So, just curious…how many of us in the BDH are now
a) STARVING and
b)planning on going out for a nice dinner at a restaurant tonight or (alternatively)thinking about what fantastic meal we are cooking (or ordering via takeout) tonight?
Raise your hands! [Thousands of hands, including mine, fly up at once.]
+1000
+1000. Am now at a restaurant with Asian fusion choices while I go through all of these posts. These posts are perfect accompaniment.
Some great suggestions I’ll have to try. Mangosteens have a hard dark purple/indigo skin. Although the flesh is white, sometimes with a very slight bluish hue. Divine tasting
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Berthe_Hoola_van_Nooten48.jpg
Have you ever tried to make Klava from the descriptions in Brust’s “Jhereg” series?
+1
My nephew works as a cook in a fine dining restaurant and I’d like to forward him Orro’s kitchen rules for fun. Could you please provide us with a link or a quote thereof? Thank you and have lots of nice and inspired meals in the near future 🥙🌮🍚!
I don’t quite remember a passage of Orro’s kitchen rules, can anyone refresh my memory?
I think that she’s thinking of the speech that began with very young Orro; not yet tall enough, but apprenticed, and proceeded through rise early and don’t touch another’s’ knives…
Damson plums( Italian prunes) are blue purple on outside but not inside but very yummy
Purple mangoteen would work, it looks pretty alien
For kora fruit, check out the Congolese safou, or African pear
Oh wow, that’s really interesting and sounds delicious! Thank you!
I would suggest the Purple Star Apple.
Thank you for sharing your amazing food adventures! One day, I might reach some of the lows of Orro’s food experience!
Lovely and so fussy. Bless you.
white dragonfruit (pink skin) with blue food coloring?
Should have read all the comments before posting. lol
Blue dragon fruit is what I picture for Kora fruit
I think the first time I craved food from a book was reading Wind in the Willows when I was 7. The picnic scene where they are unpacking the basket.
I tend to mark down books where the authors don’t pay attention to food.
My husband loves that picnic scene – Moley gets so overwhelmed hehe.
I made a Pithivier with almond paste and apples because I read about Nevada making it. It was delicious! Thank you for the inspiration!
I make one with mincemeat filling for Christmas and it goes down a treat 🤗 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincemeat
MODR!! YOU ROCK!!
Love the Horde belly wants to eat summary, and It’s going on my to do list!
This hit my funny bone and now I just have to re read all of HA just for the food.
And if one cannot find the correct color of food required, food dye comes in handy. ( From my children’s days of Green eggs and Ham).
I have used blueberries to color & flavor my quinoa for my granola quinoa yogurt delish.
I wonder if you could use Plums as teh blueish food?
you can grow and maybe buy purple carrots. They taste great. Also Huckleberries are purple.
Some plums are purple blue.
Well, when we moved to the US, we went to Applebees for dinner once cause my husband got super excited after passing by. We did not return. 🤭
I also bought a bag of Takis, but gave up since it was super salty.
But I made Rose’s Edge burgers, Catalina’s Pithivier, and Dina’s Apple Cake after reading the books and getting Ilona’s recipes.
Did you order the apple or the bees 😂😂
oh ya. applebee is really dependent on the specific location. if you don’t know locals who love it then skip that one. ours finally closed. yea.
How timely! I was just thinking last week that a cookbook would be a fun project for House Andrews to play with whenever they are frustrated with current projects and just want to have a bit of fun. Plus it could introduce new people to the different series because it will draw from each of them and there could be excerpts and references to send readers looking for the series. It would make the perfect Horde gift to people they are trying to bring into the fold. (The word seduce comes to mind.) Maybe a publishing house would be interested because it would help promote their existing series.
You’ve been very creative, Mod R, in your pursuit of these dishes! I love the photos.
Anyone ever read S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse books–Dies the Fire, The Protector’s War, etc.? Since the initial apocalypse leaves everyone at risk for starvation, his descriptions of meals once they start to have enough food are downright pornographic. Even his newest books (a new anchor series, completely different world) has a lot of loving detail in descriptions of meals. I can’t point to any one dish, but details about meals now helps me enjoy a book more, like how the captain cooks for her crew in Jessie Mihalik’s Hunt the Stars.
Oh my God, I really have found my people!! I totally do this! I even want to make the apple cake Dina made Sean…and I don’t even like cake.
This whole post makes me so happy!!
one of us
one of us
one of us
😀
😂
do you need the process or just the result? I would shape and slice a suitable salad turnip then marinate it in blueberry juice. this soft white turnip is what is used in falafels tinted pink as a quick pickle. it takes colour well, is crunchy, and generally does what you tell it!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonicera_caerulea
You might try Haskap for Kora
it’s not blue, but red Dragon fruit always seems alien to me.
paper lantern gooseberries are orange.
good luck
You and I were going the same way Geri
Try a dragonfruit (the dark, red/magenta inside kind) – they look alien an may be the best substitute that you can slice evenly – then take a picture! (Thanks for taking a pic of the eggs three ways – I will have to do that for a brunch)
Yes, we need a cookbook!
Or at least more recipes 🙂
I re-read Dina’s apple cake recipe just last week. I have apples…
I looked at a couple recipes for the Pithivier and wasn’t impressed with any of them. Most had rum, which I like, but the apple one sounded better. This one looks 👍
Thanks Mod R!
In the first Innkeeper Dina makes egg salad sandwiches on toasted garlic bread. They sound wonderful 😋
Yes. I learned about low country boil from Kate Daniel’s leftovers. It’s a summer favorite!
Indigo Rose tomato and a very deep blue color. Also Damson plums or Concord grapes. My father grew Concord grapes and Damson plums, and all of us kids absolutely loved eating them straight from the garden. I am sure there are many heirloom varieties of tomato out there that are a deed blue/purple in color.
Kih berries = kumquat. Blue fruit – there are “blue” mangoes, though I’ve never seen one in person. For something to cut up – purple potatoes or tomatoes. Blue fruit to go with bread and honey – haskap berries is something more unusual but available
I grew up reading Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books. So many interesting foods in those books…
If you’re looking for more kora fruit alternatives, there is a fruit called the star apple, which has a dark purple rind and flesh that shades from white to blueish purple. The seeds form a star pattern which would look beautiful sliced up.
since you’re doing honey then i’d suggest some large maine blueberries
Not exactly “fusion” but you may find Beef Tataki what you are looking for as an Asian style of carpaccio
🙂
the egg sandwiches Dina makes during the dahaka bbq!
All hail Orro! Who HASN’T had to eat something they read about? Philistines!
Took a wander on Google, and the closest thing I could find to a purple fruit that one peels then slices would be some forms of dragon fruit. Plums might work here too.
You beat me to it Leanne. See my comments below about taste. Peeling a dragon fruit is fun though, slice off the two ends, cut down the middle lengthways and simply peel off the skin.
Certain figs are purple on the outside, and you can eat the skin so they could remain purple on the outside, wild grape can sometimes be a very deep purple – so can regular grapes, obviously. Then there are giant blueberries, definitely purple.
mangosteen is purple on the outside and needs to be peeled, but you wouldn’t slice it as it comes in segments
Aside from the IA food items, I’ve had the following cravings or food switches:
Chocolate chip cookies because of Mercy Thompson
Pepsi because of Lt Eve Dallas
Lebkuchen because of an issue of Betty and Veronica where they visit Germany during the holiday season
Cake shake because of the Chicagoland Vampire series
Still haven’t found it, but I soooo wanted butter pies to be real because they were a favorite of the kids in A Tale of Time City.
Butter Chicken because of a Penny Reid book
Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, Kinsey’s favourite in Sue Grafton’s Alphabet series.
And would butter tarts work for butter pie?
Probably not. Butter pie is supposed to be both cold and hot. From the Diane Wynne-Jones wiki:
“Butter-pie is a dessert from Forty-two Century, in A Tale of Time City. Described as a ‘yellow nubbly ice cream’ on a stick, it is a wonderfully creamy and buttery ice-cold concoction with a hot syrupy center that Samuel Lee Donegal describes as “goluptous”.
Okay, now I want that! Can’t imagine how to do it, but it sounds yum!
Dragon Fruit would work well. We have red and white dragon fruits in Perth Aust, but I’ve done a Google search on Dragon Fruit colours and there is a beautiful purple fruit. If you haven’t had one definitely try it. The fruit can be a bit mellow, but it holds its shape well, and goes well with pineapple.
Go online and google blue color fruit, I found several articles. one talks about blueberries, blackberries, Damson plums, Concord grapes, black currant and something else.
What if you soaked dragonfruit or honey dew in butterfly pea tea for the kora fuit
I’m going to cheat. Yes I have because I read cookbooks all the time. I’ve actually done the Tachi bread and fruit spread before. I used magos, star fruit, dragon fruit, apples, pears, strawberries, physalis, and kiwi. The colors were odd but I put sweet on the outside to not so sweet on inside. There were two types of honey and a cream cheese. Had some fresh bread with it too. It was a super cool sign to barrow from.
Well, there was this Mushroom Stew recipe I had to try, but not from a book. I used to play LotRO, and one of the in-game festivals had this recipe as a quest, and it sounded soooo good I just had to have some IRL. So I made it (with a couple small adjustments), and it was fabulous!
All the food from House Andrews books makes me drool, too. Yummy!
Mod R, may I come to dinner? Lunch? Breakfast? (Teasing, of course).
Blueberries are quite purple
Eggplant
Or aubergine on the outside anyway
Purple grapes
Blood oranges have flesh, those ladt two items could be best
Purple dragon fruit! The red variety has either deep red or purple. Prunes too. If you are not particular about the inside flesh Figs and mangosteen work well. Açai fruit sorbet can be scooped and added as well!
Apart from purple carrots and cabbage, purple sweet potatoes are delicious. I am lucky that I can get all of these at the supermarkets in Singapore.
http://flavorsofbrazil.blogspot.com/2011/02/fruits-of-brazil-jabuticaba.html?m=1
check out jabuticaba where the berries crowd the trunks… the trees look out of this world.
and red flesh guava also looks amazing.
honeyberries/honey suckle fruit
Japanese akebi
purple carrots! there are tons of cool varieties of carrots with different color patterns. Farmer’s markets might carry them. I grow some purple or purple/orange blends like dragon because my kids looove them.
I admire all of you who can cook and/or bake. I’m a complete disaster in the kitchen. HA meals and recipes in their books always sound so fabulous I can practically taste them as I read. Alas, someone else would actually have to put these meals together for me (I’d gladly pay or trade something)! I’d even sample the desserts and baked goods even though I’m not a dessert or carbs person. (I know, I know. I get even weirder than that since I can’t stand the smell and taste of cawfee or any alcohols too.)
I really like Kerrine, from the M.C.A. Hogarth books (the Dreamhealers series, starts with Mindtouch). It is a hot cinnamon cream drink.
1 T butter
1/4 cup cream (or 1/2 & 1/2)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 T honey or sugar
pinch salt
milk to taste
Over pot set to medium-low heat, stir butter, cinnamon and honey until combined and warmed through.
Add cream and stir until combined. Leave on burner until steaming, then season with salt and add milk to taste. (Steamed or warmed milk integrates more easily.)
from “Mindtouch (The Dreamhealers Book 1)” by M.C.A. Hogarth
Honestly, the only books that have made me hungry were the memoirs of Ruth Reichl, she was the restaurant critic for the NYT in the 1990s and also worked as the restaurant editor at the LA Times prior to that. She was also the editor at Gourmet magazine before it folded. When you read memoirs from people who work directly in the food/restaurant industry, they describe food in a way that is different from other people (not a knock against House Andrews, all the food in their books sounds delicious).
If you haven’t read Ruth Reichl’s memoirs, I highly suggest it! She includes the recipes in her books too and I think she’s since published a few cookbooks.
why not use a French Plum for Kora? if it’s just barely ripe it should be super crisp and purple is blue enough, right ??
😀
also you might enjoy the MCD Dowser series as she the Main character runs a bakery and there is (free!) cookbook the author shares.
and I just realized French plums aren’t that purple inside! lol. oh well, maybe a pluot?
We grew some purple potatoes last year, I have thoughts about them:
1 They are *not* purple once they have been cooked, more blue-ish, still striking. And of course you really shouldn’t eat raw potatoes!
2 The ones we grew were extremely floury so do not boil, they *will* collapse however careful you are, either steam or, my recommendation, microwave.
3 Should you want to grow some yourself bear in mind they have a low yield, in our experience all the coloured ones have low yields.
I have a thought about damsons too, in my experience they are sour, not mouth puckeringly sour like sloes but still, they make the best jam ever because of the sweet sour thing, and great crumbles, but many humans would find them too sour raw. Taichi might be fine with them, I’ve not prepared food for any, so don’t know 😉
The Horde has come though with some wonderful suggestions I never knew existed and now want to try, but would have no idea where to buy . . . but the Horde came up with a soution for some at least 😀 Yay the Horde!
Oh and finally, you can sometimes get purple carrots in Waitrose.
Blue fruit & veg: there are blue potatoes, blue corn, blueberries, plums can be an intriguing dusky blue (the skins, anyway). Eggplant is more a deep rich purple shade but may work.
Ever since cones, I started putting lemon rind in every baked cookie. I love it. I tried making the apple cake but I messed up instructions but ill try it again . Tried eggs tree ways as well they were great. Looking forward to more recipes
I’m I’ve seen blue carrots 😀
If you like books that contain recipes try the Hannah Swensen murder mystery series, by Joanne Fluke. Hannah runs The Cookie Jar bake shop, Lake Eden, Minnesota’s most popular bakery. For years I looked for a banana bread recipe that didn’t turn out dry. I found Sally’s Banana Bread recipe in one of the books and now always made that one. It gets rave reviews from the family.
Oh yes! I made the Apple cake and it was fantastic! I made “Ascanio’s Chocolate Chip & Cherry Cookies” with green cherries 😉 after reading Blood Heir.
Kay Skarpetta’s (Patricia Cornwell) Crab cakes.
Purple fruits, vegs. Blueberries, blackberries, plums if you put them cut side own, or how about blue corn (used mostly in the USA South west in tortillas, chips, or other corn meal based things.)
Yes I will often read with my stomach. I’ll read about something in a dinner and then go look up a recipe.
Also, Did you know there are Blue Tomatoes! I didn’t. But you can find anythin on the interweb. https://joyfuldumplings.com/blue-vegetables/ is a website that lists 10 blue “vegetables” that sound interesting. Although they kind of cheat with 2 kinds of blue mushrooms.
Happy eating!
Anytime a brownie (my kryptonite) or cheesecake is mentioned in a story, I immediately want one.
Omgoh mod r would you please share the low boil recipr you used? Out of all the food ilona has mentioned in books that one is the one ive been dying to try!
I used this https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/low-country-boil-with-shrimp-corn-and-sausage – definitely go with the lemon butter!
I had Eastern European smoked sausages and definitely upped the Old Bay. Happy eating!
Thank you!!!
I now make my grilled cheese by first, grilling the bread, then rubbing a cut garlic clove all over it. Then putting the cheese on and grilling to melt the cheese, rubbing more garlic on the outside. CANNOT recommend enough!
I always read with my tummy and while I’ve only made two pithiviers, I have become hooked on the cantaloupe cucumber salad with Feta from HEB which is delicious and made my Texas kid ship me the fajita seasoning and taco sauce from HEB as well – way cheaper than ordering it. I’m definitely a mango in my pico de gallo girl. It never dawned on me I could do eggs three ways! Or recreate the mandala. Mod R, you’re brilliant! And yes please, we want a cookbook!
Yes. From the James Bond books. But I also collect cookbooks, and have the Nero Wolf cookbook in hardcover since my paperback copy fell apart. I would LOVE a House Andrews cookbook
I can always tell when Hubby is re reading Hidden Legacy: He starts cooking skirt steak fajitas, including the mango pico.
Bliss.
That made me want to reread it for the 4th or 5th time. The Sweep series was so good. And I thought there was something of a promise of another volume.
how do we get these re ceipes
Click on the links in the blog article 😊
Asian beef carpaccio is called beef tataki.
Highbush blueberries can be as big as an inch. Tho they mostly run to about just under half an inch. Sigh. Every year we run down to a local u-pick and spend a morning picking lots.
They are berries and blue. Lol.
The Apple meringue pie is something I have tried… It doesn’t look as nice but it tasted good
Cape Goose berries would be great yes, but also Golden tomatoes (small cherry size) for the kih berries… image link:
https://dutchgardennursery.com/product/yellow-cherry/ They are quite sweet for tomatoe when ripe.
Over all Very delish sounding. More sweet than hot for me, please!
Kohlrabi comes in purple, too. I grew green ones this year. Next year, I grow both purple and green.
There are dark purple bell peppers. My aunt grows them. They change color if you roast them which I think is neat. There are also purple carrots though they are small
Edge burgers are a staple at our house. I like to eat them the next day in particular. I have made recipes from Lisa Kleypas’s historical novels. She will often have a featured dish woven into a story. The recipe will show at the end of a book. It’s such a fun interactive way to immerse myself into the story.
IA also has beautiful descriptions of food. I’m glad they post recipes to the blog!
Amazing post, thank you.
Please also post a picture when you manage to make this mandala dish.
Thank you again <3
Just now it happened to me.
I got a sudden hankering for fruit
after rereading this here 🙂
I always pictured dragonfruit on the tachi’s plate. Its got such a crazy color and skin, it definitely seems like an alien fruit!
+1
Plums are purple
plums= Pflaumen
some purple potatos keep their colour as well
purple carrots
You want books that make you want the food? Read the Redwall books by Brian Jacques. Kind of kid’s stories, but me, my dad and brother loved them. When they’re describing a feast and talking about the truffle, flan, cake, pasties, and then get into the drinks, it’d make me a little crazy because it always sounded amazing and I had no idea what half of the dishes were.
In terms of blue fruit, a lot of people have suggested blue tomatoes or Damson plums. Plums sound pretty good for the board, which is more fruity than veggie.
But you could also do figs. There are those Texas Blue Giants. Slicing those evenly does strike me as an elegant trick.
Mod R,
I have a burning desire to try Nevada’s Treasure Box dessert. I finally found a recipe that shows a pic of what the dessert sounds like – https://images.app.goo.gl/r6EEYdGob5q2BaCn7.
Maybe Manor Chum plums? Or there’s a prune that is bluish on the outside and dark purple on the inside… those eggs are impressive!
Mod R. check out purple potatoes, in our local foodie grocery stores (some sprouted so I planted them, they don’t mind snow, and prospered in my garden 🙂 )
Blueberries, seedless purple grapes (NOT wine grapes–seeds) , (rare) blue turmeric (winter indoors/summer outside) exists, got some segments from my local fruit stand & they sprouted so I potted them up as they have a very cool looking reddish strip up the center of the green leaves
What about Moon Drop grapes? https://www.southernliving.com/moon-drop-grapes-6834509#toc-what-are-moon-drop-grapes They’re long enough that you could slice them, but irregular enough that perfect symmetry would be challenging.
Even though its not blue, i always imagine dragonfruit in this scene.
One of the reasons I started on SM Stirling work was I was reading one of his works and the descriptions he had of food made my mouth water. Food is life and to despise food is to despise the life sacrificed for the meal.
that’s what I was thinking of cainito aka star apple.
Figs are purple skinned but wouldn’t slice in even diameters, a concern for a balanced mandala.
japoticaba looks like a 1″ grape, but isn’t a grape. I’ve only come across them once here in Sydney.
I’ve never met a fruit I’m unwilling to try.
there is a blue honey berry. I’ve never tried it. local groceries are pretty mainstream boring. but I like to garden and I keep looking at online plant sellers. I’ve learned about a lot of plants I want to grow and honey berry is on my wishlist