how to make homemade stuffed grape leaves dolmadakia

Corfu For You: A Taste of Greece in Sights, Sounds and Grape Leaves

Published on August 16, 2020August 25, 2020 by In The Vintage Kitchen6 Comments

If you sat down and had a glass of wine with him during these last summer weeks of August, he’d tell you a story. It would be slim but impactful – a snippet of colorful life that was mostly true and partially painted with imagination. He’d tell you about his pet pelican, about his distaste for rules, about the lunchtime hospitality of his toothless neighbor. He’d tell you about a splendidly shabby house that overlooks the sea, and about the sounds of an orchard buzzing with bees. He’d tell you about a turtle and a magpie and his devoted dearheart Roger – the scrappy canine co-conspirator that was twin in both spirit and scouting. He’d share stories about his sister Margo, vain and funny, about his brothers Larry and Leslie, who were the hunters of words and birds, and he’d tell you about his mother, Louisa, after his father died. There would be mention of the houseguests that came to stay, the disapproving aunt that refused to leave, and the naturalist that taught him to care above all for every creature great and small. He’d tell you about the heat-haze, the green sea, the drunken olives, the magic garden, the flower-scented air. He’d tell you how he fell in love. How he came to know himself. If you sat down and had a glass of wine with him he’d tell you his name was Gerald, and then he would tell you a captivating story. He’d tell you about Corfu.

Situated in the Ionian Sea, the small Greek island of Corfu shimmers like an emerald gem.

Welcome to the Vacation Edition of the International Vintage Recipe Tour 2020. Whose ready for an international adventure that involves a relaxing getaway, a Greek island, and all the stuffed grape leaves you can eat? Pull out your market bags dear kitcheners, this week we are taking a restorative trip to the Greek island of Corfu courtesy of Gerald Durrell and his entertaining, enigmatic English family.

Here we are in mid-August, just five weeks away from the first day of Autumn. This summer our passports aren’t stamped. Our road trips aren’t long. Our hotel rooms aren’t booked. We may not be filling up our suitcases and hopping on airplanes this pandemic year but that doesn’t mean that we can’t explore the world in other ways that are equally engaging, and equally satisfying. Through a book, a television show and a cooking adventure, this post highlights a travel trip to an exotic destination that can be enjoyed without ever leaving home. Thanks to the captivating real-life story of Gerald Durrell who lived with his family on the Greek island of Corfu from 1935-1939, we are traveling to a beautiful location fit for summer fun. Like any good vacation, this story contains all the great hallmarks of an exciting new experience. There’s an exotic destination, a foreign language, a bevy of interesting people, a sense of escapism and authentic traditional food. It may not be an actual real-life trip to Greece but this experience offers the next best thing – a true mental break from the state of our current affairs.

Before Gerald became an influential 20th-century British conservationist, naturalist, author and zookeeper he was a small boy called Gerry, living on a remote island in the Ionian Sea with his mother, sister and two brothers. Having, on a whim, moved from England to escape a dreary, uninspired existence following the death of his father, Gerry and his family entered into a colorful world where the sea shines turquoise, the landscape is kissed by the sun and the air is clean, clear and curious. There his family discovers life, love and importance.

A Robinson Crusoe type experience, life on Corfu was rudimentary, wild, and sensational. Seducing the entire family, the spell of the island during those five years, comes to profoundly affect and mean something different to each member. To Gerald its the start of his wildlife career and it is through his eyes that we discover the magic of an island. In 1956, Gerald chose to publish his account of that pivotal time in a book titled My Family and Other Animals. In 2016, PBS released a televised version of the book called the Durrells in Corfu. The show aired for four seasons, finishing in May of 2019 and now all the episodes are available on Amazon Prime and PBS Masterpiece. Here’s a trailer from Season 1…

This show happened to not only be my introduction to the Durrell family but also to the island of Corfu. Located just off the west coast of Greece, Corfu sits close to the mainland in the Ionian Sea. It is nicknamed the Emerald Island because it has a large amount of green olive trees and lush vegetation. It is also home to the an array of interesting architecture. In the very first episode, I fell in love with the Durrells new (old) house…

which is perched on top of a ledge overlooking the sea. I won’t share any details here about the storyline, so as not to spoil the characters and their adventures. But I will say the entire series is so beautifully produced and whimsically told that it is truly a vacation on its own. Pair it with the book and then an authentic Greek recipe and this becomes a break from the modern-day world that truly feels like a trip away.

The definition of the word vacation means a period of time spent in leisure and recreation, a temporary vacating of one’s mind and familiar surroundings. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to pack a bag, physically go somewhere else and stay away from your familiar comforts. Each episode of the Durrells in Corfu is roughly 45 minutes long. With four seasons and 26 episodes in the entire series, that translates to roughly 20 hours of visual splendor set in Greece. If you were committed you could watch it all in a weekend. If you paired it with the book, which is 275 pages long, then you could stretch this Greek affair into an entire week. Add the recipe and you’d have a 10-day sojourn into Corfu life lived long ago and far away. Altogether this time spent with the Durrells is a trifecta – a perfect cacophony – for a vacation state of mind.

The book follows a similar trajectory of the show, but there are descriptions that Gerry writes about that a camera could never convey with the same amount of vivacity…

“The goats poured out among the olives, uttering stammering cries to each other, the leader’s bell clonking rhythmically. The chaffinches tinkled excitedly. A robin puffed out his chest like a tangerine among the myrtles and gave a trickle of song. The island was drenched with dew, radiant with early morning sun, full of stirring life. Be happy. How could one be anything else in such a season.”

I can’t even begin to describe what it meant to read words like this during our unusual pandemic summer. In Corfu, it’s the 1930s, and there are no mentions of viruses or masks or political upset. There is no terrible, tragic news, no copious deaths, no bleak day to day uncertainty to digest. Instead, there is light, hope, optimism. There is a rambunctious family, a humble island, a wild world, all appreciated. Spending time with Gerald, in his childhood state, with his expressive descriptions and his curious words, felt indeed like a true vacation. A flight of fancy flown far away from the state of struggles that currently enshrouds the world.

Food features quite a bit in the book and the show, with both Louisa showcasing her cooking skills and Gerry always searching to satisfy his belly. Seeing and reading about both the culture and the landscape of the area really offered up a unique appreciation when it came to the preparation of this week’s recipe. On the menu we are making stuffed grape leaves also known as dolmadakias, a traditional lemon, onion and herb-infused rice wrapped inside a simmered grape leaf.

I struggled with scouting the main ingredient – the grape leaves – for close to a month. I searched as far away as Sparta, Greece where the lovely Jehny of The Spartan Table, relayed the unfortunate improbability of getting fresh Greek grape leaves to the US in a timely fashion. I searched locally through two different friends that have vineyards in two different states, but the time of the year here (high summer) makes for a tougher, less tender leaf (FYI: spring is the ideal season for cooking leaves like this). I searched the grocery stores (four in my city) for a brined version that the recipe recommended. My only luck were tins, in the international aisles, of already made and stuffed grape leaves – the finished end result of this homecooked project. My last resort was to order them on Amazon where they were always available but never with an interesting story. Luckily just before resigning to a mail-order shipment, I discovered a Greek market that was just a thirty minute drive away. Here I found the prized treasure! Grape leaves, sitting pretty on shelves – all brined in a line in jars of mass consumption. Success at last!

Like both the book and the movie, shopping at the Greek grocer was a bit of an adventure. Most of the packaging was in other languages – Arabic, Greek, Turkish. There was an entire aisle devoted to rice, goat heads in the freezer, big blocks of feta cheese in the fridge, bulk quantities of spices, an array of dried citrus, and towards the back of the store, there were bags of homemade bread still warm and soft from the oven. I came home with bread, a box of chocolate cream-filled cookies (made in Croatia!), a jar of olives brined in olive oil, and the prized grape leaves. Next time, I’ll shop for coffee, spices and rice.

In Corfu, the Durrells remark often about the languid air and the slower, more sleepy pace. This recipe felt very much the same. Nothing is rushed in preparation. The hands-on wrapping of the grape leaves can be done at whatever pace you choose. It also makes enough for a feast. But it’s one of those dishes that you don’t have to devour all in one sitting, as it can last for days in the fridge. I’m including the exact recipe here as it appeared in the New York Times International Cook Book, but I will forwarn you – this makes ALOT of grape leaves. I had half of the rice mixture leftover (which I wound up adding to a chicken soup later on) so you could still make two dozen grape leaves, as the recipe states, while cutting the rice mixture in half. Other than that, everything came together easily and with a sense of fun.

When the brine gets rinsed off the leaves once they are removed from the jar, they become cool and slippery to the touch yielding a fun tactile experience of folding, and rolling and wrapping. Over on Instagram, I demonstrate in a featured stories video how to wrap a grape leave, so if this is your first time too, visit this link (it will be the clip all the way at the end – Week 19!).

Dolmadakia (Stuffed Grape Leaves)

Makes about 2 dozen

1 cup olive oil

3 large onions, chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup uncooked rice

2 tablespoons fresh snipped dill

1/4 cup finely chopped Italian parsley

2 tablespoons pignoli (pine nuts)

6 green onions, finely chopped

1 cup lemon juice

3 cups water

1 8oz jar grape leaves in brine

Parsley and lemon wedges for garnish

Heat 1/2 cup oil in a skillet and saute the onions and garlic until tender but not browned. Add the salt, pepper, and rice and cook slowly for 10 minutes, stirring often.

Add the dill, parsley, nuts, green onions, 1/2 cup of the lemon juice, and 1/2 cup of the water.

Stir to mix, cover and simmer gently until all the liquid has been absorbed, about 15 minutes.

Rinse the grape leaves under running water, separate and place shiny side down (aka backside of the leaf up) on a board. If the leaves are small, put two together. (Note: It’s easier to roll and wrap the leaves if they are wet. They’ll dry out fairly quickly, so if you want to go about this project leisurely I recommend stacking the leaves one on top of each other to keep them moist.)

Place one teaspoon of the rice filling near the stem end of the leaves and roll up jelly-roll fashion, toward the tip, tucking in the edges to make a neat roll.

Place the remaining oil, lemon juice and one cup of water in a large skillet. Arrange the rolls in the pan.

Place a heavy plate or weight (I used the lid of my dutch oven) on top and simmer for 25 minutes.

Add the remaining water and cook about 10 minutes longer or until the rice is tender.

Cool and serve at room temperature with lemon wedges.

Tender, lemony and bright these stuffed grape leaves are like little gifts from the Greek gods. Delicious and surprisingly filling, they are light yet full of flavor, hitting all the taste bud notes between sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. It is a refreshing, well-balanced dish that is ideally paired for this time of year. Traditionally, dolmadakias would be served with a whole table full of other Greek dishes, but I think it makes a lovely choice for a late afternoon snack with a glass of chilled white wine.

In the show, there’s a great tradition that the Durrells start in the heat of the summer. They carry their dining room table out into the shallow water of the sea and set up their mealtimes – a la ocean – with their feet swirling around in the water. I love this idea! If you don’t have access to a waterway like them, then perhaps you’ll enjoy these stuffed grape leaves with Gerry’s book as a companion or the show as your meal mate. All three options are festive and support the ideal vacation state of mind. After being immersed in Corfu for a few weeks, I came away from the whole experience feeling rested, relaxed and inspired by the aesthetic of Corfu and the interesting experiences of this fascinating family. If you are struggling with your summer vacation plans (or lack thereof ) too then I hope this post and its recommended activities cast a little spell over you as well.

Cheers to the Durrells, to Corfu and to the Greek grocery for making this staycation feel like an actual vacation. Fingers crossed, that by next year, the pandemic will be behind us and we’ll be able to hop that plane to Corfu where we can experience first-hand the heat-haze of summer, the drunken olives, the sunbleached landscape and that magnificent beauty of a turquoise sea.

In the meantime, catch up next time for Week 20 of the International Vintage Recipe Tour when we head to Haiti, via the kitchen, to make an attention-grabbing dessert and to discuss kitchen designs in the tropics. See you then!

Eating with Elephants & Elizabeth Taylor: It’s Dinner and a Movie Night, Ceylon Style!!

Published on February 27, 2020June 11, 2020 by In The Vintage Kitchen8 Comments

Hope you are hungry this week fellow kitcheners! Tonight’s post is all about a feast for the eyes, the imagination and the belly. Welcome to Week 8 of the International Vintage Recipe Tour 2020. Welcome to Ceylon…

Last week we were in Canada making a Walnut Tart and learning all about maple trees. This week we are traveling 8,400 miles east to the lost land of Ceylon, the first stop in our Recipe Tour that involves a country that no longer exists. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. The landscape itself still exists but the country has been renamed from Ceylon to Sri Lanka. This automatically adds a sentimental bit of nostalgia to our cooking endeavors this week. So what exactly led to such a big change in our world history?

An old trading map of Taprobane. Photo courtesy of lankapura.com

In a nutshell, this is what happened. Ceylon was a British ruled country beginning in 1815. Before that, the country was known by a variety of different names including Taprobane, Ceilao and my personal favorite, Serendip, which is where we get the word serendipity from. In 1948, Ceylon established independence from Britain but it wasn’t until 1972 that they changed the name of their country to something that was more reflective of their unique heritage. They chose the name Sri Lanka which means Island of Resplendence, a positive, empowering moniker that let the world know they were ready to shine proudly, brilliantly, and independently all on their own accord. Tonight’s recipe dates to 1971, the year just before Ceylon changed names and took on a new identity.

**Camellia sinensis** – the base of all tea plants

Most tea drinkers today know about historic Ceylon because of the famous tea that came from there- a black variant steeped in antioxidants that boasts all sorts of health benefits. As a favorite known around the world, Sri Lanka’s current tea industry contributes over a billion dollars a year to their economy. Other local treasures hail from this island nation too. Important food exports include coconuts and spices. On the International Vintage Recipe Tour this week we are featuring all three of these noteworthy commodities – two in recipe version (coconuts and spices) and one in movie version (tea).

On the menu this week we are making Ceylon Curry – a spice infused chicken recipe that involves a marinade, a slow simmer, and a freshly made batch of homemade coconut milk. For entertainment, tonight’s dinner is paired with a sweeping 1954 melodrama of a movie called Elephant Walk, which stars Elizabeth Taylor and takes place on a tea plantation in Ceylon.

Liz plays Ruth, an English bride who moves to Ceylon with her new husband. There he runs a tea-plantation first started by his father years ago, called Elephant Walk. Filled with excitement and anticipation at this exotic new life ahead, Ruth, upon arrival, quickly discovers a world very different than what she had anticipated, and a husband very much changed from his wooing days back in England.

Natural beauty and a luxurious environment make up her new home, but Ruth learns almost immediately it is not a peaceful paradise. As it turns out the plantation was built, decades ago by her father-in-law, right in the middle of the migratory walking path to water made by the local elephants during drought season. This off-handed act of careless disregard for the natural instincts of the elephants has created a hostile environment between man and animal, leaving everyone’s defenses constantly on guard. To make matters more uneasy, Ruth’s husband (played by Peter Finch) is still controlled by his dead father’s arcane rules when it comes to running not only his business but also his personal life.

Busy with the management of the tea business by day and carousing with his friends at night, he has little empathy for Ruth, a stranger in a new land, and little desire to restructure his life in order to accommodate his new wife. Curious and questioning, Ruth is the only non-native woman on the plantation. An intelligent, independent, feminine creature, she is set adrift among a sea of old-school men who possess a boy’s club- type mentality. Nothing seems to make sense to her once she arrives in her new home. She doesn’t have any direction, doesn’t understand her purpose and doesn’t understand her husband, yet she is determined to figure things out. Trying to navigate this complex world leads to a growing kinship that develops with her husband’s business manager (played by Dana Andrews), who also happens to be the only person on the plantation that will talk to her about anything important, including the ostentatious ways of her father-in-law and the mysterious and powerful hold he still has on everyone at Elephant Walk.

While the plantation environment is glamorous and decadent, Ruth must continuously adjust her attitudes and behaviors in order to keep her marriage together. When she can’t stand the peculiarities of life in this strange world one more minute and decides to flee back to England, a cholera outbreak occurs keeping her quarantined within the boundaries of the plantation. I won’t tell anymore about the story so as not to spoil the ending but you’ll see from this trailer that lots of drama happens throughout the movie…

Filmed on location in Ceylon, it’s is a wonderful glimpse into the exotic culture and landscape of vintage Sri Lanka. Some of the scenes were filmed in and around an actual tea company, so we get to see a little bit about how tea is made (or used to be made anyway!)…

Tea equipment on the right, brooding husband on the left:)

and there are lots of scenes that feature the lush and verdant country landscape…

Vintage clothes lovers will appreciate beautiful Liz and her Parisian wardrobe…

Originally, Vivian Leigh was scheduled to play the lead role, but she suffered from a nervous breakdown at the start of filming. Elizabeth Taylor was called in to replace her.

as well as the safari clothes and tuxedos worn by the guys…

That’s Peter Finch on the left and in top right corner. Dana Andrews is in the bottom right.

There’s a party scene that involves traditional dances and a kitchen scene so immense in size and scope it would boggle the mind of any home cook. There was even a dinner scene complete with curry and rice!

If you aren’t familiar, curry comes in lots of colors. In this scene in the movie it was green. In our recipe this week it is red. But also in my pantry, I have orange curry, yellow curry and brown curry. That’s because there is no such thing as a universal curry. Curry is a conglomeration of different spices all blended together. There is curry on the sweet side, curry on the spicy side, curry that is mild, curry that is intense and curry that has been infused with different seeds and aromatics. Each version is unique in taste and scent.

The curry I used for this recipe is a red Thai Curry that was made of finely ground paprika, lemongrass, salt, shallots, galangal, cumin, coriander, chiles, pepper, cilantro, garlic, lime leaves, basil and spearmint. But you can use any kind of curry powder you like for this dish. If you have a spice shop in your neighborhood, I highly recommend getting your curry powder there since it will be most fresh and flavorful, yielding an optimal culinary experience.

While Elephant Walk immerses us visually in the sights of Ceylon, this week’s meal immerses us in the scents of Ceylon. Tonight’s dinner is two recipes in one. The first is for homemade coconut milk and the second is for chicken curry. Both are easy to make but the coconut milk is labor intensive. If you are short on time, just buy a can of coconut milk and add it to the curry.

I have never made, or even thought about making homemade coconut milk before, so I was excited to try it. Basically it involves cracking open two coconuts, scooping out the meat and then blending it with water in the blender. It sounds simple. It sounds easy. It sounds like a 10 minute project. I warn you now this step takes some time (about 45 minutes per coconut) and it takes a little bit of muscle to crack the coconuts open and to scoop out the flesh. It’s a messy endeavor even if you are a meticulously tidy cook and it involves tools. You’ll need a hammer, a heavy chef’s knife or cleaver, a strong butter knife, a vegetable peeler, cheese cloth and a medium to large funnel.

I made everybody a bit nervous when I posted a sneak peek video on Instagram on Sunday about the tricky aspect of chopping open a coconut. (If you missed it, click here and scroll through the sneak peek videos until you get to week 8.) It took about a minute and a half to crack open each coconut. I used the backside of the cleaver so there really was no threat that I would chop a finger or a hand off, but I’m truly grateful that everyone was so worried for my limbs! I’m happy to say everything is still intact, fingers and hands, and I’m more knowledgeable for having experienced the procedure. The whole task just takes a little bit of bravery, some good firm wacks with the knife and a steady determination to see the project complete. Eventually victory comes. I’m sure this is one of those skills that improves the more often you do it. Maybe by the year’s end, we will all be experts at cracking those coconuts.

In the meantime, I must say, cracking coconuts was a pretty fun experience all the way around. There was lots of laughing during this process, bits of coconut shell went flying all around the kitchen and there was even a little impromptu competition between my husband and I about who could crack a coconut faster. He won. By a significant amount of time. So I’d encourage you to make your own homemade coconut milk at least once, just for the experience of doing it. Even though it may sound daunting and isn’t 100% necessary to the total overall taste of the recipe (a canned version would suffice just the same) you might discover a new sense of joie de vivre and camaraderie in the kitchen.

Coconut Milk Made in a Blender

(Makes about 4 cups)

2 coconuts

4 cups hot water

Once the coconuts are cracked open. Discard the water inside. Get out your hammer. Turn each coconut half skin-side down on top of a few sheets of paper towels and bang away at it until the shell either 1) falls away from the coconut meat or two separates enough that you can slide your butter knife between the outside shell and pry the meat out. This is the messy part, as coconut chucks may go flying around around your kitchen from both the hammering and the prying.

Once you remove the hard shell there will be a softer brown shell attached to the meat which you’ll peel off with the vegetable peeler. The recipe calls for two coconuts, however, you don’t need that much milk for the recipe, so if you don’t 3 cups of leftover coconut milk hanging around in your fridge, then just use one coconut.

Once the coconut meat from one coconut is peeled, cut it into chunks, toss it in the blender and pour two cups of very hot water over the meat. Blend it on high for about 3-4 minutes until thoroughly blended.

Line a funnel with cheese cloth and set the funnel inside a large mason jar. Pour the mixture into the cheese cloth in batches. When it has finished dripping into the jar squeeze the remaining coconut pulp that hasn’t drained through the cheese cloth directly into the mason jar to extract as much liquid as possible. (Note: at this stage the leftover coconut pulp looks and feels a lot like flaked candle wax.) Then discard the pulp and repeat until you have emptied your blender and there is no more coconut meat to process. Two coconuts should yield about four cups of coconut milk. Refrigerate coconut milk until ready for use.

Ceylon Chicken Curry

(serves 6)

2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken cutlets

2 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 one inch cinnamon stick

3 tablespoons curry powder

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon chopped fresh ginger

3 bay leaves

2 cardamom seeds (or 2 pinches of ground cardamom)

Cayenne pepper to taste (this is optional – I didn’t use it since my curry powder already ha some spiciness to it)

3 tablespoons butter

2 onions, chopped

1 green pepper, seeded and sliced

1 cup coconut milk

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Cut the chicken into small chunks and place in a bowl. Add the salt, pepper, vinegar, cinnamon, curry powder, garlic, ginger, two bay leaves (crushed), one cardamom seed or one pinch of dried cardamom, and cayenne (if using). Mix well. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours or up to 24 hours. (I marinated mine for about 12 hours).

Heat the butter in a dutch oven or a large saucepan and add the onion, the remaining bay leaf and cardamom seed (or pinch of ground cardamom) and the green pepper. Cook briefly (about 5 minutes) over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

Then add the seasoned chicken and cook stirring occasionally, until the liquid is partly absorbed (about 5 minutes).

Then cover and cook 45 minutes over low heat.

When the chicken is tender, add the coconut milk and simmer, covered for 10-15 minutes. Add the lemon juice just before taking the pan off the heat, but keep stirring until it has been incorporated. Then you are ready to serve it.

I suggest serving this curry over a bed of jasmine rice accompanied alongside a glass (or two!) of cold white wine – preferably a varietal that sits on the sweeter side.

As I’ve mentioned occasionally on the blog before, I’ve been a big fan of curry for a long time and have tried handfuls of different recipes. This is by far, my most favorite to date. The curry itself is so full of flavor, I can’t wait to try it with other types of curry powder to see how the tastes change. The coconut milk adds a brothy consistency that is lovely for sopping up with bread or extra rice and offers a creamy contrast between the spiciness of the curry.

Marinating the chicken ahead of time (a new concept for me!) makes each piece so tender. Just like a slow-cooked chili or stew recipe, it only tastes better the longer it sits in its juices. All in all, this was just a joy of a recipe. Even the tricky coconut chopping wound up adding a new theatrical element to the kitchen that was fun and unexpected.

While you are enjoying your dinner… the other thing I suggest is turning on the movie (you’ll find it on Amazon), and turning off your phone or any other ringing, blinging and beeping devices. Just for the next two hours immerse yourself in all the sights, sounds and tastes of vintage Ceylon. By meal’s end, you’ll have experienced a brief encounter with a lost country through vibrant cinematic and culinary storytelling.

Cheers to vintage Ceylon and to magical movies and recipes that transport us! Join us next week as we head to China where we make an unusual dish that involves specialty papers and curious methods.

Breakfast with Bette Davis and the Famous Three Minute Egg

Published on April 7, 2018April 24, 2018 by In The Vintage Kitchen9 Comments

You could assume a lot of things about Bette Davis. Perhaps you’ve watched her movies (all 100+ of them) and you know her characters… smart, complicated, dramatic… and you think, personally, she must have been like that too. Or maybe you’ve read her books and know that her life hasn’t always been charming or easy, and you might think she bravely dealt with a lot of disappointment. Or perhaps you’ve seen her past interviews on television or youtube and witnessed how funny and polished and magnetic she was even in the off hours of her professional life.

All those instances might lead you to assume things about Bette, making you define her as one thing more than another – brassy, smart, privileged, funny, vulnerable, demanding, narcissistic, intense, wise, melodramatic, sincere, even terrifying. Thanks to Kathryn Sermak’s new book, Miss D & Me, we can put our assumptions aside and know first-hand that Bette was a little bit of all those things. And so much more.

It is always fascinating to me to read about the behind-the-scenes lives of people in the public eye. Especially those stories shared by people who worked closely with a celebrity on a daily, detailed basis. Mostly because it breaks down the perception barrier of thinking that famous lives are so much more different than our own. That somehow fame and notoriety have morphed them into other-worldly figures washed clean from weakness and frailties. We generally only get to see one side of a famous person’s life depending on which part the media chooses to focus on, but with behind-the-scenes stories, you are offered a glimpse into a much more diverse landscape than any two-minute news clip or ten-minute interview could provide.

Ordinary people that work alongside extraordinary people are witness to the three-dimensional side of stardom – all the good and all the bad wrapped up in one experience. Like the relationship between Katharine Hepburn and her cook Norah, or Frank Sinatra and his valet George Jacobs or Madonna and her brother Christopher we are offered the chance to understand that the lives of these seemingly mythical creatures are really just fellow human beings, both flawed and fabulous.

When Kathryn Sermak first came to work as Bette’s assistant in 1979, Kathryn was a young, carefree Californian who spelled her name the classic way – Catherine – and had just newly spelled out a dream of one day living in France. Bette was in her 70’s, still working and very much set in her ways. Kathryn thought she was taking a simple summer job that would enable her to fund her way to France – not even really aware of who Bette Davis actually was. In turn, Bette thought she was getting a competent, sophisticated assistant in Kathryn whom would be both professional and perfunctory. Both were in for a very big surprise.

In the early, uncertain days, Kathryn didn’t expect to eventually count Bette as one of her best friends and Bette absolutely never entertained the idea that Kathryn would become like a daughter to her. At first, everything was wrong for both women. On Bette’s side, Kathryn was not enough – she wasn’t cultured, she wasn’t able to anticipate needs, she wasn’t sophisticated, nor groomed for the level of lifestyle that Bette had grown into. On Kathryn’s side Bette was too much… too demanding, too overbearing and too controlling. Both thought they would never last the first week together.

The turn in their relationship from bad to better came down to one simple little thing – an egg. Bette’s breakfast most always consisted of a three-minute egg. The proper cooking of it was her litmus test as to the value of any good assistant’s worth. There’s not much to cooking a three-minute egg. It involves a pan of boiling water, an egg still in its shell and three minutes of simmering. But Bette added a twist to this simple test. How do you cook a three-minute egg in a hotel room with no stove, no pots and pans and no kitchen? Perplexed, Kathryn had no idea until Bette motioned to the in-room coffee pot. Then hot water was brewed. The egg was placed in the glass coffee carafe and the time was monitored on a wristwatch for 3 minutes exactly. In this small test of skill, it wasn’t that Kathryn failed to quickly and cleverly assess the options of impromptu cooking in a kitchenless room, but instead, it was the trainability of her actions that caught Bette’s attention.

That was the beauty of their relationship and the bud that ultimately bonded them together. The fact that Kathryn was young, fresh and naive while Bette was experienced, opinionated and worldly proved a combination of character traits that formed a tight friendship that lasted the rest of Bette’s life. It wasn’t always easy for these two women learning about life and each other day by day, but by the end the experience was invaluable.

There were outlandish moments, like when Bette insisted Kathryn change the spelling of her name from Catherine to Kathryn so that she would be more memorable (which she did!). There were all the lessons Kathryn had to endure… etiquette, elocution, table manners, how to walk properly, how to dress effectively, how to eat with decorum and how to hold court at a table full of strangers.

There were awkward moments, when Bette’s insistence on how to appropriately handle certain social situations was so outdated, that Kathryn would bear the brunt of the embarrassment. This was especially apparent when Bette insisted on dressing Kathryn for a formal dance in Washington DC complete with fur coat, gloves, a designer dress, expensive jewelry and dance lessons only for Kathryn to encounter a room full of denim-clad twenty-somethings casually hanging out in a dance hall.

There were the vulnerable moments when Bette crumpled up in the face of public humiliation as her daughter wrote an unflattering tell-all book, or when Bette threw off her wig in the car one day and embarked on a temper tantrum that was heartbreakingly child-like. There was oodles of advice about men and relationships and sticking up for oneself in the face of adversity. And there were the laughs and the conversations and the sweet letters that Bette would write to Kathryn expressing all the appreciation she felt for her darling assistant and her close friend. There were silent treatments and long work days, elegant cocktail hours and thoughtful gifts, tears and tenacity, laughter and luxury. There was life, with all its good and all its bad.

And there were eggs – lots of eggs. Bette and Kathryn traveled the world together and ate at many fine restaurants, but the food Bette would choose to make for herself or her family on days off was simple fare that harkened back to her New England roots. Homemade burgers, cucumber salad, cornish game hen, wine spritzers, clam bakes, fresh berries with cold cream… those are the foods that she liked to make. For this post, our breakfast menu inspired by Bette Davis includes the following:

Homemade brown bread from the 1971 cookbook June Platt’s New England Cookbook topped with butter and triple berry jam
Hash brown potatoes from the 1960 edition of the Ladies Home Journal Cookbook
Fresh fruit
Coffee
And the famous three-minute egg

It’s a simple menu symbolizing all that was Bette Davis – sweet, salty, fresh, traditional, colorful, warm, cool and classic. It takes just a few minutes to make and is so easy it doesn’t even require detailed instruction. Simply boil an egg for 3 minutes. Slice some homemade bread and slather it with jam. Bake a potato in the oven for an hour and then finely chop it up with some scallions and salt and pepper and add the mix to a pan with some olive oil and let it cook until it turns brown and crusty. Adorn the plate with fresh fruit. Tah-dah! Breakfast, Bette Davis style, is ready!

Kathryn would be the first person to tell you that life with Bette was extraordinary for her last ten years. That the talented movie star was never far from the actual woman. That there was a glamorous side to her, a practical side, a petulant side and a vulnerable side that made her interesting and unique and ultimately endearing. That she was far from perfect but perfectly real.

“That’s me: an old kazoo with some sparklers, ” Bette once said.

The many faces of Bette Davis throughout her 55-year career.

Cheers to Bette for tackling life head-on, with grace and style and fortitude and being 100% unique about the whole affair until the very end. Cheers to Kathryn to giving us a very real look into the life of real woman and cheers to three-minute eggs – a new breakfast favorite here in the Vintage Kitchen!

This post is part of a blogathon hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood featuring the life and film Career of Bette Davis. Read more about this incredible woman and her work in a variety of posts contributed by a dozen different film bloggers here.

Find the vintage cookbooks that contributed recipes to this post in the shop here.

Find the recipe for homemade brown bread from a previous post here.

Find out more about Kathryn Sermack and her book, Miss D & Me here.

Katharine Hepburn’s Lace Cookies

Published on October 28, 2017December 15, 2017 by In The Vintage Kitchen24 Comments

Red meat, big salads, tea, butterscotch pudding, ice cream, meatloaf, homemade cookies… those were some of Katharine Hepburn’s most favorite foods. Whether she was staying at her Turtle Bay residence in mid-town Manhattan or at her family’s compound in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, Katharine liked most entertaining people at home with a homecooked meal.

Kate in her natural element… cleaning up the kitchen of her Connecticut waterfront home, Fenwick, and dining outdoors in the courtyard of her Manhattan townhouse.

If you were lucky enough to be invited to dinner at either of Katharine Hepburn’s houses, you’d arrive promptly at 6:00pm and leave by 8:00pm so that she could be in bed by 8:15pm. A notorious early riser, Katharine lived by her own clock, bustling through the hours of her day with an admirable endurance that lasted her entire life.

But needless to say, even the most energetic of crusaders experiences a point in each day when blood sugar runs low and a brief rest is welcomed. For Lady Kate that small break in her schedule came at tea-time, her most favorite part of the afternoon, which she’d serve in antique teacups collected from her travels around the world. The saucers hardly ever matched the cups, the handles were sometimes repaired in one or two spots and there might be a chip in the rim, but none of that mattered. They were perfectly lovely serving pieces for a perfectly lovely time of day.

These are some of Katharine Hepburn’s serving pieces that she collected throughout her ninety-six years of life. In 2010 they were up for auction at Sotheby’s.

“Nice things are meant to be used,” said Kate when it came to living with antiques. The older the item the better it seemed. And because she was sentimental and somewhat thrifty she saw no harm in repairing a broken dish so that it could return to its previously useful state.

Along with a strong batch of freshly brewed tea, she would also always serve a homemade sweet treat believing that dessert tasted better in the afternoon than it did at night after a full meal. One of the dessert recipes she was most well-known for was her Lace Cookies which take their name from their paper-thin constitution and delicate web-like appearance.

This past week, the Vintage Kitchen moved to a new space and like Kate our energy was running on high as we packed and unpacked in a dizzy array of busyness. But now finally that we are settled and the moving boxes have been emptied, our own tea-time has come calling. We don’t get the luxury of having Katharine Hepburn come join us, but at least we have her recipe and a good imagination to make up the rest. Tracy Lord (The Philadelphia Story), Ethel Thayer (On Golden Pond), Tess Harding (Woman of the Year) … if we could somehow magically invite these Hepburn characters along with Kate this surely would be a tea-time of legend. If you are unfamiliar with Kate’s movies here is a little clip from our most favorite, The Philadelphia Story, where she plays a bride-to-be whose dealing with cold feet and a complicated heart.

When Katharine was on set or on stage she was known to give helpful training and technique suggestions to less-experienced cast members who were struggling with a scene or a role. She was careful never to tell them exactly step-by-step how to get from point A to point B because she thought that would just yield a copycat performance. What she did offer instead was advice and recommendations that would help shape the parameters of a character or the foundations of a scene so that actors could confidently put their own personality into the performance. In essence, she offered helpful broad strokes and left the details up to the individual to interpret. The same can be said for her recipe sharing.

The first thing you’ll notice about her cookie recipe is how simple it is. But we all know simple things can sometimes turn out to be most complicated. Kate’s approach to acting was often described as enigmatic, precise, contagious, controlling, all-consuming, accommodating and effortless. Her lace cookies share all those same attributes. They were absolutely delicious but they can be a little finicky, so before you whip up your own batch please note the following bits of advice from the Vintage Kitchen.

Do not use anything bigger than a teaspoon to drop your dough onto the cookie sheet. (We first made tablespoon sized cookies, thinking the bigger the better, and once heated up in the oven each separate cookie spread out to meet up with the others and form one giant cookie that covered the entire baking sheet and never fully cooked.)
A disposable foil cookie sheet works better than a metal non-stick cookie sheet because of the raised perforations in the disposable sheet design.
Don”t forget to grease your cookie sheet in-between each batch or the cookies will stick like glue to the pan.
It’s best to serve these within 30 minutes after they’ve come out of the oven. That’s when they are crispy like a potato chip. Over an extended amount of time, they relax to a more limp and chewy state (although still delicious!)

Also, Kate made her cookies with finely chopped walnuts, but we used roughly chopped peanuts because we thought the cookies would stack in a more whimsical way for the photograph. We were right – rough chopping adds a little more volume to the stack. So depending on your preference, nuts and chopping style these cookies call for a little of your own creativity as well, just like Kate would have encouraged.

Katharine Hepburn’s Lace Cookies

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 egg, room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup raw sugar

2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 1/3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup finely chopped walnuts (or roughly chopped peanuts or any nut of your preference)

Beat butter, egg, and vanilla together until smooth. Add sugars and flor to egg mixture, mix thoroughly. Stir in nuts. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls on greased baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 7-8 minutes. Cool on baking sheet. Makes about 30 cookies.

With a consistency like very thin peanut brittle and a taste like toffee, these cookies are delicate coasters of caramelized sweetness. And because they contain so little flour, they are a crisp and light dessert alternative to something dense and gooey. Keep in mind, they don’t travel well because of their fragile nature, so these treats are best enjoyed at home with friends and family and a late afternoon pot of tea just like Kate would’ve have done.

Cheers to Kate for her delicious recipe and to finding a little sweet respite in your busy schedule!

* This post was originally intended to appear as part of the Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn blogathon hosted by In The Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood. Unfortunately, our move interrupted our ability to participate, but you can still catch up on all the fun posts featuring the great Kate here.

Cocktails and A Movie: Discussing Censorship, Bar Nuts and Breen on the Set of Casablanca

Published on October 13, 2017January 14, 2022 by In The Vintage Kitchen15 Comments

This week’s post has us traveling all the way back to a cosmopolitan city in exotic 1940s North Africa, thanks to a lovely invitation from the Pure Entertainment Preservation Society. This weekend, October 13th – 15th marks the date of the Great Breening Blogathon featuring Joseph Breen, an influential, but seldom remembered figure in filmmaking during the glamorous days of old Hollywood.

Joseph was the enforcer behind the Production Code Administration, set up during the 1930s, which acted as a morality censor for all film scripts, scenes, and storylines in the motion picture industry. Bolstered by his own Catholic beliefs and the bishops who originally wrote the code, Joseph was not interested in seeing sexy, sensual imagery on the big screen and the PCA wasn’t interested in exposing such immorality to the American movie-going public. The thought of being subjected to plotlines involving extra-marital affairs, obscene language, excessive violence, or varying degrees of nudity was offensive. Family-friendly American-made films were not the place for such suggestive behavior according to Joseph and the PCA.

With line-by-line lists of can’t-do’s and won’t-permits attached to each script that the PCA reviewed, screenwriters and directors were challenged with creative ways to express characters’ motives and actions while also keeping their plots plausible and compelling. How do you portray magnetic chemistry without showing a steamy, passionate kiss? How do you elude to compromising situations without showing corrupt scandals? How do you make your central location not look or sound like the most unethical, debaucherous place in the world yet still convey to watchers that shady dealings are happening right and left? And ultimately, how do you tell one of the most romantic and dramatic love stories of all time without showing anyone caught up in the physical throes of passion?

The answer is Casablanca.

Many noteworthy movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood were questioned by Joseph and the PCA. The Outlaw (Howard Hughes’ 1943 western) showed too much of Jane Russell’s cleavage; the “damn” in Rhett Butler’s famous “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” line in Gone With the Wind was flagged for unnecessary profanity; and the fact that Casablanca’s Ilsa was married at the time she first met Rick was altogether too salacious for the PCA to greenlight. All three movies managed to overcome these sticky spots eventually, but not without some major behind-the-scenes defense tactics for creative license.

The PCA and Joseph’s staunch deployment of it was frustrating but important to movie studios because it balanced political correctness with the expectations of what movie audiences wanted to see. What was considered entertaining and appropriate to movie-goers in mainstream America in the 1930s and 1940s was laughter, light-hearted romance, and noble sentiment. So if movie studios wanted to sell tickets, they had to comply with what watchers wanted to see. And the PCA was there to make sure that decorum and good manners reigned supreme as far as what was being showcased on the big screen.

On the morality level, Casablanca in particular, seemed like it was doomed from the beginning. It was set primarily in a bar, Rick’s Cafe Americain, where alcohol continuously flowed. It was fueled by desperation with characters willing to do anything and everything to garner exit visas to leave the country. It contained a smoldering, forbidden romance, murder, and contempt for government officials. All major issues when it came to the Production Code Administration.

By the time the script came back from the PCA review office, it contained several red flags and numerous notations from Joseph Breen. No bed was ever to be shown in Rick’s apartment, (such an object would have signaled an intimate encounter with Ilsa). The dubious character of Captain Renault (who was in charge of granting exit visas from Casablanca) was not allowed to verbally suggest or show that he was granting visas to women only in exchange for sex. And Rick and Ilsa’s fated love affair? Joseph found it highly immoral that Ilsa met and fell in love with Rick years before in Paris while she was married to her husband Victor Lazlo. This long-simmering love business between Ilsa and Rick had to be cleaned up in order for the movie to go on. Even though sex does sell, in conservative 1940’s America these scandelous situations were considered way too over-the-top for the eyes and minds of mainstream movie-going audiences.

The smoldering attraction between Rick and Ilsa.

So how did Casablanca’s production team manage to get around such roadblocks and ultimately propel the film towards three Academy Award wins and iconic movie status? Through good writing and good direction and good acting. So much of the storyline that seemed PCA in-appropriate – the excessive drinking, seduction, womanizing and volatile emotions were so expertly staged and nuanced that the script eventually passed approval with Joseph Breen. Once Humphrey Bogart (Rick), Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa), and Claude Rains (Captain Renault) delivered their performances there was no mistaking the precarious situations that the scriptwriters originally intended. Movie audiences still got the idea loud and clear even if wasn’t visually or audibly spelled out.

In today’s depict-anything-you-want movie plot experience, it seems so foreign to have such a morality cloud like Joseph Breen hovering over a film production. But I wonder if the beauty and ultimate success of Casablanca came in the act of being challenged to subtly hint at each impropriety. Perhaps that is what makes it timeless and still translatable in today’s cinematic scope. It leaves room for our own imaginations to sort out and further dissect the specifics of the relationships between characters.

I’m not a big fan of censoring art in any way. I think you lose the point of it then. I once lived in a town where plays were censored for language or risque content and it felt very limiting. Art is intended to provoke reaction and expand horizons so I’m not sure if Joseph Breen and I would have been on the same page in the philosophy department, but his impact on Casablanca was influential, so maybe his enforcement of the Production Code Administration ultimately helped the movie in the long-run.

For all the spicy current passing between Ilsa and Rick throughout the movie, there is not a lot of spicy food being passed around Rick’s cafe. Originally I thought it would be fun to write a dinner and a movie post and feature some aromatic Moroccan food of the likes that would have been served at Rick’s. But apparently, the main thing on the menu at Cafe Americain, the bestseller of all bestsellers, was a cocktail or two or three or half a bottle. Champagne, bourbon, scotch, gin, whiskey are present in almost every scene. Alcohol swishes and swirls and sits in glasses while Rick broods, Captain Renault schemes, and Ilsa builds courage. So in lieu of a traditional North African dinner, here in the Vintage Kitchen, we are staying true to the spirit of Casablanca by serving up a food accompaniment with this post that pairs best with your favorite cocktail…Sweet Spiced Nuts circa 1967.

This recipe comes from the vintage cookbook, A World of Nut Recipes by Morton Gil Clark and features three ingredients essential to Moroccan cooking: cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. This is a super easy recipe to make for cocktail hour, parties, or late-night snacking. The flavors are subtle, accommodating, and interesting and with nut season now in full swing, you have a variety of options to choose from. For this recipe, I used a variety of mixed nuts which included peanuts, walnuts, almonds, cashews, and Brazil nuts but pecans, pistachios, macademias, etc all would make delicious alternatives as well.

Find this cookbook available in the Vintage Kitchen shop here.

Sweet Spiced Nuts

Makes 1 Cup

1 cup nuts

1/4 cup fine granulated sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8th teaspoon ground allspice

1/8th teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 egg (egg white part only)

Place the nuts in a small bowl and pour over them the slightly beaten whites of 1 egg. Mix so that all the nuts are evenly coated. In a separate bowl combine the sugar and spices and then toss with the nuts, mixing well again so that all the nuts are evenly coated. Spread seasoned nuts out into a single layer on a baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees for 25 minutes. If you prefer ultra-crunchy nuts bake them about 10-15 minutes longer, but keep your eye on them so they don’t burn. Once done, let them cool on the baking sheet until ready to serve. Pair with your favorite cocktail and some lively conversation.

Pair with your favorite cocktail and some lively conversation. And while you’re at it, raise a toast to Joseph Breen, who made his mark, for better or worse, on one of the world’s most beloved movies of all times. Here’s look’n at you, Joe!

To learn more about Joe Breen and his influence on old Hollywood, catch up with other blogathon related posts here.

For more dinner and movie posts from the Vintage Kitchen, pull up a chair here.

And last but not least, find 200 more pages of interesting nut-related recipes in the World of Nut Recipes cookbook available in the shop here.

Bright B(old) Things: 9 Book and Movie Suggestions for an Inspired Year Ahead

Published on January 11, 2017 by In The Vintage KitchenLeave a comment

“The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears and new eyes.” So said British author G. K. Chesterton.

Even though he spoke these words of wisdom in the first part of the 20th century, don’t you think they are still absolutely appropriate reminders for today? This new year is bursting at the seams with potential and possibility. And it is up to us to make the most of it – to get our dreams and aspirations from the inside to the outside. In the land of Ms. Jeannie we are starting the year off with a list of fascinating books and movies that will give you those new ears and new eyes, that new backbone and new soul that Chesterton so smartly referred to. Today we are looking at the magical rewards of life from different perspectives as told by people who muddled their way through the long, wayward process of dream-building and came out the other side with wisdom and wonder to share.

Offering equal amounts of inspiration and entertainment, these books and movies were discovered in 2016 but cover a wide time period. On the older side there is a new documentary about a still-living fashion icon born in the 1920’s and an incredibly romantic 2015 movie based on a classic novel written in 1847. On the newer side, we tackle old thoughts on homekeeping in our modern 21st century environment with a book about interior decorating and we spend a year in the life of modern day archaeologist/historians as they recreate authentic farm life in rural Edwardian England.

It’s a fun, eclectic collection but you’ll notice a common thread running between them all – commitment, dedication, confidence. By drawing inspiration from this cast of characters, we can draw parallels to our own lives that will help motivate the dreams that swirl around our heads and hearts and hopefully get us thinking about what steps we can take today that will affect our desires tomorrow. Let’s look…

In the reading department…

1.No Place Like Home – Brooke Berman (2010)

Budding playwright Brooke Berman had a simple goal. To find a home that she could call her own. Not one that she purchased. A rental was just fine. Not a house. An apartment would suit. And not even necessarily one that excluded roommates. She just wanted to find a place where she could store her stuff and her self for a permanent amount of time. Longer than thirty days. In 1990’s New York City.

You’d think this would be an easy feat, but for Brooke it took 39 apartments and many years to finally figure out where and how she belonged. For anyone who has ever moved more than a few times in their lives you’ll understand the importance of Brooke’s desire to feel settled. But as much as this memoir is about finding a place of one’s own it is also a step-by-step account of one woman’s journey towards self-realization. Like Janice and her Paris Letters, Brooke tells the real story of what it is like to pursue lofty creative work while fighting through the muck-ridden minutiae of basic daily life. Friendships bloom and wither, romances come and go, jobs begin and end, family members die and tragedy strikes. Despite it all Brooke keeps moving (literally!) towards her dream of a permanent address and a professional career.

Her level of determination is inspiring. Her stay-the-course focus impressive. And if you ever wanted to know what it’s really like to live in New York City, on an artist’s salary, then this is the no-holes barred book for you:)

2. Rethink – Amanda Talbot (2015)

rethink

This book had Ms. Jeannie thinking for weeks and weeks about home design after she finished it. Part history book, part design journal, part holistic living primer, Rethink tackles a lot of issues between it’s pretty covers. Illustrating how we have become a society of store-ers (owners of so much stuff that storage units are called into action to house the overflow) and accept-ers (of cheaply made, cheaply massed produced short-term furniture), Australian decorator and home style maven Amanda Talbot challenges us to rethink how we use our homes in today’s 21st century world.

Drawing on the nostalgic ideas of home from centuries past when big family, large-scale houses dominated our landscape, Amanda explains how the history of interior design has affected our mental and physical state for hundreds of years. Needless to say, times have changed significantly. Big houses are being traded in for micro ones. Traditional function rooms designed for single purposes (dining room, kitchen, bedroom, etc) have now morphed into convertible spaces where we eat, sleep, work and entertain all in the same area. But strangely our thought processes in how we approach these new room layouts has been slow to catch-up.

We require more out of our personal space than ever before in history, yet we fail more often than not to make our rooms fit our lifestyle. Amanda encourages us to break free of the nostalgic past. Beds are now workspaces, mediation zones and offices. Kitchens are now shipping centers and compost bins and charging stations. Balconies are now vegetable patches, reading rooms and communication hubs. You get the idea!

In touch with both the practical and spiritual sense of home, Amanda illustrates how certain textures, light sources, and furniture arrangement appeal to our modern minds and moods. She hails the use of soft warm wood and vintage furniture for its steadfast constitution and inherent ability to withstand time – something that is assuring to our psyche in the constantly changing and emotionally abrasive world of the 2010 years. She proposes new more efficient and intuitive ways to decorate now that we are a world of citizens constantly on the go. She tackles harmony and peacefulness, blended family relationships and plugged in environments, lighting, trash disposal and greenspace with a thoughtfulness that is provoking. By the time you finish the last page, you’ll look at your home environment and understand more about it and yourself. Rethink will make you want to question and refine your style to the infinite degree so that you are paired down and using only what is necessary, what is essential and what is meaningful in order to balance your being.

3. The Year of Reading Dangerously – Andy Miller (2014)

In The Year of Reading Dangerously, Andy Miller had one goal: to read the books on his bookshelf that he thought were important. The ones that he eluded to loving at cocktail parties (Jane Austen? Yes of course! I love all her books!) or at dinner tables (Tolstoy”s work is amazing!) but secretly had never actually read before.

Andy’s book collection was quite diverse and spanned a multitude of genres and time periods. Some were classic literature, some popular fiction, some the mark of an intellectual mind and some just complete whimsies of a fun-time book lover. He narrowed his list down to 50 books to be read in 365 days. And he stuck to it, whether he liked or not.

Throughout his year, he juggles his reading list and his job, alongside his enthusiasm, his family, his friends and his small son. He battles his pre-conceived notions, and his fortitude, his sanity and his propensity to weasel out of the ones he doesn’t like (which are a few!). He evens battles the point of the whole project. Who would care what a middle-aged British man read or not read? The truth is, you will. You’ll fall in love with Andy and his funny, honest, highly relate-able book-loving life. As Andy steamrolls his way through the shelf, you’ll begin to think about your own bookshelf, your own sheepish list of good reads you claim to love but have never cracked open. And he’ll inspire you to get started.

4. Love In The Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1988)

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Like Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast which was set in 1930’s Paris, Love in the Time of Cholera transports you to another era. This time, you are in exotic 19th century Columbia – a landscape filled with colorful birds, fragrant flowers and one of the biggest romantics in all of literature. The goal of the novel’s flawed hero, Florentino Ariza is to win the heart of Fermina Daza, a girl he is instantly drawn to in an unexpected moment.

The story winds through 53 years of these two characters lives despite other lovers, other passions and other pursuits, while also dealing with conflicting temperaments and grim possibilities. Readers fly high on a captivating whirlwind of passion as Florentino boldly and consistently declares his love for Fermina with no assured possibility that it will ever be equally reciprocated. He can’t help himself. Once he sets eyes on the love of his life (literally!) there is no going back. So he marches forward day after day, year after year, on a road that wraps in circles around Fermina’s landscape. It’s a delirious concept. Delicious in its intensity and honorable in its day after day dedication. “There is no greater glory than to die for love,” pronounces Florentino early on. With that mindset firmly established, nothing can stop Florentino from fighting for his heart’s desire.

5. Stories I Only Tell My Friends – Rob Lowe (2011)

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If you ever wanted to learn the inside story on how an actor makes it in Hollywood, this is the book. From his childhood in Ohio to his first movie (The Outsiders, 1983) to the established and extensive career he enjoys now in California, Rob Lowe like Brook Berman is the ultimate soldier in the battle field of staying true to your chosen calling. Sure he’s handsome, and he’s talented, and he’s a major A-List actor but it wasn’t always that way and Rob had to learn about his strengths and weaknesses, one micro-experience at a time, just like everybody else.

In Stories I Only Tell My Friends, Rob candidly talks about the long-road to fulfillment: how he struggled to find friends, find self-worth and find balance in an industry that doesn’t authentically nurture any of these. He talks about his 20+ year marriage, the raising of his two sons and the hopes and dreams he still aspires to in this middle section of his life. And he talks about Hollywood. The interesting stories of celebrity friends, behind-the-scenes movie making and project collaborations on super successful pop-culture productions like The West Wing, Parks and Rec and St. Elmo’s Fire. Alongside all that achievement are stories about embarrassing missteps, awkward associations and risky gambles. There are setbacks and uncertainties, self-doubt and insecurity, but through it all there is Rob. For over 40 years holding tight to his acting profession and thoughtfully digesting all the successes and failures that a creative life consumes. He never gives up on acting. He never gives up on himself.

In the watching department…

6. Edwardian Farm (2010)

Edwardian Farm was a BBC television series which first aired in 2010 in the U.K. It is a fascinating look at the modern viability of living a handmade, handspun life void of 21st century technology as experienced by three history loving professionals – one historian and two archaeologists. For one complete calendar year, this trio set up farm in England’s beautiful Devon countryside and experienced what rural life would have been like in the early 1900’s. Their mission was to answer questions about the efficiencies and possibilities and practicalities of our modern mindsets. Knowing what we know now in 2017, could we successfully return to 1900 and survive?

The trio was tasked with not only daily living activities but also business ventures as well. So moneymaking crops had to be planted, chickens had to be raised and cows had to be milked in order to keep the farm and themselves afloat physically and financially through four seasons. What was really interesting about this reality experience is that it was thankfully short on relationship drama and heavy on information. You don’t watch people complaining, bickering or tearing each other down. You watch instead about people utilizing their strengths and their ideas to propel the farm and each other forward.

In the 365 days of the project a lot of interesting endeavors were tackled including making their own cheese, chicken houses and lime ash. They plow fields with horses and attempt to spawn fish in a nearby creek. They smoke meat, make their own ice cream and bake traditional food all without the use of electricity. They wash and mend and reuse and recycle and re-purpose so much so that you’ll be inspired by how little equipment one really needs in order to get a good job done. And you’ll be inspired to try out some of their projects like smoking your own meat or planting your own market flower garden. It is fun entertainment that also happens to be highly informative. And like Amanda Talbot’s book, it will make you rethink the purpose of all that stuff in your life. Is it necessary? Is it needed? Is it functional?

7. Iris (2015)

Color, confidence and a little dose of charisma (okay a big dose) are what make 96 year old design maven and style icon, Iris Apfel one of the most shining examples of how to live life on your own terms. By courageously and unapologetically letting her natural instincts and interests guide her throughout nine decades of her artistic life Iris has followed her heart all around the creative industry. From fashion publishing to textile design, antique collecting, to clothing scout, interior designer to museum exhibit stylist Iris circumnavigated the globe while exploring everything and anything that appealed to her.

Inspiration came calling in all forms from tiny details like the quality of a certain type of thread, or the line of an unusual sculpture or the buoyancy of a puffed sleeve. Wherever she went, Iris found the unusual, and then packed it up, and shipped it home only for it to trigger a new opportunity later down the road. An antique turns into an accessories line, a satin fabric spawns a textile company, a thrift store outfit propels a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is how Iris’s life has gone. By sticking to her gut instincts on everything and always saying yes to opportunities that presented themselves Iris was able to enjoy a diverse and fulfilling life that consistently kept her engaged and excited. It is hard to argue with reason when it comes to things you inherently love. Iris never argued in that department. She just listened. And if this documentary teaches you anything, if Iris teaches you anything, it is just to travel through life as yourself. Just be yourself. Listen to your gut. And above all else, cherish your individuality.

8. Far From the Madding Crowd (2015)

Thomas Hardy wrote this book in 1847 which seems incredible now because his main heroine Bathsheba Everdene is as thoroughly modern as any woman today. In the 1960’s Hardy’s book was made into a movie starring Julie Christie but this recent version starring Carey Mulligan is by far better. If you are unfamiliar with the story-line, Carey Mulligan plays Bathsheba – a headstrong, independent woman who inherits a farm of her own in rural England. Determined to run the farm and her life, in her own way, Bathsheba struggles with the balance between independence and vulnerability. She doesn’t want to be governed by anyone yet she doesn’t want to be alone either. Love in Bathsheba’s eyes is balanced yet also wild, mutual yet individualistic, and supportive without being smothering. Three very different men converge on her life and a relationship with each unfolds. Without giving away the ending if you have not yet seen it, Ms. Jeannie will just say that Bathsheba’s choices throughout her life are as bohemian as any 1920’s flapper or any 1980’s career woman or any 2017 independent spirit. Which makes this 150 year old character quite remarkable. She’ll inspire you to forge your own way, to mold a life dependent on personal viewpoint and to reject the notions of other people’s ideas for your happiness.

9. The Age of Adaline (2015)

Ms.Jeannie was so in love with this movie she watched it twice back to back. Stunning in its cinematography, wardrobe and set design it is also posses interesting questions about mortality, relationships and familiar connections. Adaline has a secret and because of her elusiveness few people know how to understand her which leads to a loneliness that seems inescapable. Again, without giving away too much of the story for those of you who have not yet seen it, you follow Adaline’s life through decades of history and important milestones. Like Iris and Bathsheba she forges her own life, and in doing so discovers later on the impact she had on other people. It is an interesting viewpoint on how one person can affect many without ever knowing it.

On a technical side, this movie is flawless. The acting is marvelous and the attention to detail incredible. The camera follows Adaline through all the changing style trends of 20th century America which makes the visual appearance of this film fascinating in a time capsule sort of way. Years of pre-production added an authenticity to the layers of storytelling that added multiple layers of depth to every scene and set. An added bonus not to be missed is a fascinating step-by-step behind the scenes documentary on how the cast and crew accomplished such visually impactful storytelling. So this selection is two fold when it comes to inspiration. The script is one magical piece of writing and the mesmerizing production value is another. No bit of scene or set was thrown together, no character half-realized, no string of dialogue awkwardly phrased. All aspects of this movie-making process were thoughtfully executed making the end result seamless in regards to complete storytelling.

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As you can see from this list a little inspiration goes a long, long way. In the land of Ms. Jeannie we are challenging ourselves to find a moment of new inspiration in each and every day. Some days this a tricky feat. Looking for small pockets of wonder requires an open mindset and eyes that are constantly aware of the environment around us. The fun is in the search for the small details like a falling leaf or a patch of graffiti or an almond crusted cookie. And it’s in the big obvious things too like fireworks or flower beds or snow fields. It’s in music we hear, food we eat and conversation we start. Sometimes it is in an interesting article, or a pesky problem and sometimes it is even in the frustrations that fog up up our brains. The trick in this tricky project is to be able to take the time to notice and then process what it is that we are seeing, hearing and thinking. Life moves fast. In an instant a moment of magic is upon us. Our imaginations quickly carry us away. If it captures our attention long enough a dream or a desire begins to form. Then we have to make choices. Do we sit on that dream or do we we do something with that dream? Ms. Jeannie hopes this batch of books and movies will help you get going, get noticing and ultimately get started down that road to realization.

Cheers and good luck to a new year and to new eyes. And to new ears and to new feet and to new souls and backbones and all those wonderful new (old) words by G.K. Chesterton!

For more book and movie suggestions see 2015’s best of list here.

20 Vintage Books That Became Contemporary Movies

Published on February 17, 2016 by In The Vintage Kitchen2 Comments

Boring. Irrelevant. Out of touch. Those are three of the most common misconceptions Ms. Jeannie encounters when discussing vintage books. How could something written 50, 100 or even 200 years ago still be compelling in today’s modern world? Thanks to the lovely marriage between film and books Ms. Jeannie is going to show you how with these 20 examples of old books that made fabulous modern films. Movie trailers are linked to each picture, so click on any and all to get a feel for story lines. Chances are if you like the movie (or in this case, the trailer) than you’ll love the book even more!

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was a short story written by James Thurber in 1942 in this collection of his work. The movie starring Ben Stiller was released in 2013. — The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was a short story written by James Thurber in 1942 and published in a collection of his short works, My World and Welcome To It that same year. The movie, starring Ben Stiller was released in 2013.

There Will Be Blood was based on the book, Oil by Upton Sinclair which was published in 1927. The Academy Award-winning movie, starring Daniel Day Lewis was released in 2007. — There Will Be Blood was based on the book, Oil by Upton Sinclair which was published in 1927. The Academy Award-winning movie, starring Daniel Day-Lewis was released in 2007.

The Nutcracker ballet was based on a novella written by E.T.A. Hoffmann in 1816. The movie version of the ballet starring Macaulay Culkin was released in 1993.

Miss Julie was a play written by Swedish author August Strindberg in 1888. It was made into a beautifully filmed movie starring Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell in 2014.

The Last of the Mohicans was a book written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1826. Daniel Day Lewis starred in the film version in 1992. — The Last of the Mohicans was a book written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1826. Daniel Day-Lewis starred in the film version in 1992.

Jerzy Kosinski published Being There in 1971. Peter Sellers starred in the film adaptation in 1979.

In 1782 French author Pierre Choderlos de Laclos wrote Les Liaisons Danger. Just under 200 years later, the movie Dangerous Liasiasons premiered starring Glenn Close — In 1782 French author Pierre Choderlos de Laclos wrote Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Two hundred years later, in 1988, Glenn, John and Michelle starred in the film version.

Truman Capote created flawed heroine Holly Golightly in 1958. Audrey Hepburn made her iconic in the film adaptation in 1961. — Truman Capote created flawed heroine Holly Golightly in 1958. Audrey Hepburn made her famous in the film adaptation in 1961.

In 1899, Joseph Conrad wrote the book Heart of Darkness which became the inspiration for the 1979 Francis Ford Coppola film Apocalypse Now. — Joseph Conrad wrote the book Heart of Darkness which was first serialized in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1899. The story became the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola’s legendary film Apocalypse Now in 1979.

Karen Blixen published her memoirs of life on an African coffee plantation under the name Isak Dinensen in 1937. Meryl Streep brought her to life on the big screen in 1985. — Karen Blixen published her memoirs, Out of Africa, about life on an African coffee plantation under the name Isak Dinesen in 1937. Meryl Streep brought her to life on the big screen in 1985.

The king of science fiction writing, Philip K. Dick wrote the magically titled novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in 1968. The story was adapted for film in 1982 titled Blade Runner. — The king of science fiction writing, Philip K. Dick wrote the magically titled novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in 1968. The story was adapted for film in 1982 and re-titled Blade Runner.

Vanity Fair was written in 1848 by William Makepeace Thackeray. Mira Nair adapted it beautifully to film in 2004 starring Reese Witherspoon.

in the late 1940's Thor Hyerdahl defied logic by following the path of KonTiki across the ocean on a primative sailing vessal. He published his account of the experience in 1953. In 2012 a group of Scandinavian filmmakers brought the nail-biting, edge of your seat experience and infectious spirit of adventure to the big screen. — In the late 1940’s Thor Heyerdahl defied all logic by following the path of KonTiki across the ocean on a primitive sailing vessel. He published his account of the experience in 1953. In 2012 a group of Scandinavian filmmakers brought the nail-biting, edge of your seat adventure to the big screen.

Dashiell Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon in 1930. It became a popular film-noir in 1941 thanks to Humphrey Bogart.

Before Gene Wilder (1971) and Johnny Depp (2005) entertained us as Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, author Roald Dahl created a candy-coated world for kids in his 1964 confectionary.

Evelyn Waugh wowed the world with his literary wonder Brideshead Revisited in 1945. In 2008 Matthew Goode turned out a handsome performance in the beautifully captured film adaptation.

Doctor Zhivago swept the histrical romance world thanks to writer Boris Pasternak in 1958. Seven years later it became a Hollywood giant starring Omar Sherif and Julie Christie.

In 1969, English author John Fowles published The French Lieutenant's Woman. Twelve years later, in 1981 Meryl Streep portrayed her on film. — In 1969, English author John Fowles published The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Twelve years later, in 1981 Meryl Streep portrayed her on film.

Henry Fielding created the adventures of Tom Jones in 1749, two centuries later Albert Finney charmed the world with his charismatic portrayal of the title character when the film premiered in 1963.

Before My Fair Lady was the darling of stag and screen it was a play called Pygmalion written by George Bernard Shaw in 1913. — Before My Fair Lady was the darling of stage and screen it was a play called Pygmalion written by George Bernard Shaw in 1913.

These are of course just a few examples of the themes timeless books lend to our lives. More examples will come in a future blog post, but for now Ms. Jeannie will leave you in the good hands of these good characters. Go right ahead and fall in love with Tom Jones, even though he’s 200 years old. Feel the confident energy of Thor Heyerdahl even though his adventure occurred six decades ago. Relate to Holly’s vulnerability and Karen’s isolation. Get revved up by Chance’s take-life-as-it-comes attitude and Walter’s grab-life-by-the-horns manifesto. Fun things never age and fun books are no exception!

Need help finding a good book? Ms. Jeannie’s your gal. Post a message in the comments section and she’ll be in touch!

The Lady Behind The Leopard: Bringing Up Baby’s Unseen Star

Published on January 28, 2016May 18, 2021 by In The Vintage Kitchen6 Comments

Olga Celeste on set with Neissa. Photo courtesy of Click magazine, 1938.

Seventy-eight Februarys ago (that’s 1938, if you struggle with math!) Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant were lighting up the silver screen with funny situations in their second movie together, Bringing Up Baby.

They shared the comedic spotlight in this movie with two more co-stars – non-traditional sidekicks that were a bit out of the ordinary even for Hollywood standards…

Olga Celeste and her leopard Neissa. Photo courtesy of Click Magazine, February 1938.

Meet Olga Celeste, an early Hollywood animal trainer and her favorite Indian leopard Neissa. Olga was born in Sweden in the late 1880s and began working with animals at the age of 11. By 1938, she had taken her talent all the way to Burbank, California where she held court as the only female leopard trainer in the world.

Ms. Jeannie loves this photo below – you can see Olga’s excitement in working with her students.

Olga at work. Photo curtesy of Click Magazine 1938

Part of the Vaudeville circuit, she was also an actress and stunt double but her true passion lied in leopards. Using the art of conversation, rather than physical brut power, Olga trained her leopards by talking to them, using the power of her confident personality to gain control of the cats instead of using fear tactics and force.

The 1920's Luna Park Zoo brochure which features Olga on the very far right. Brochure photograph courtesy of lincolnheightsla.com — The 1920’s Luna Park Zoo brochure which features Olga on the very far right. Brochure photograph courtesy of lincolnheightsla.com

Employed by the Luna Park Zoo in Los Angeles, Olga worked with and trained a handful of leopards but her favorite was Neissa, whom she considered nothing more than a large house cat. Because Neissa was such a joy to have around, Olga often took her home with her after a long day on the set. Like any person passionate about their profession, Olga’s home reflected her life with leopards in both the decor and the wall art, which was made up of signed photographs of all the actors she had worked with in Hollywood.

At home with Neissa. Photo courtesy of Click Magazine, February 1938.

Sweet and docile for the most part Neissa did have a precocious side. As a lover of perfume (like all pretty ladies!) Neissa was soothed, comforted and drawn to anything that smelled fragrant, so Olga used perfume as her main training technique.

In Bringing Up Baby, the very first scene shot for the movie featured Katharine Hepburn walking around her bedroom and talking on the phone wearing a gorgeous floating dressing gown.

True professionals...Neissa and Katharine in action. — True professionals…Neissa and Katharine in action.

Perfume was sprinkled on the cloth near Katharine’s knee so that Neissa in the scene would rub up against Katharine’s leg in affectionate greeting.

“I must add that I didn’t have enough brains to be scared, so I did a lot of scenes with the leopard just roaming around.” – Katharine Hepburn, on interacting with her feline co-star

Neissa’s character, Baby, was portrayed as a sweet and affectionate cat with a touch of wild precociousness. Like her real-life self, Neissa was also sweet and affectionate and wildly precocious.

Promotional still for Bringing Up Baby featuring Katharine and Neissa.

Katharine worked with Neissa at ease up until the point the innocent clinking of wardrobe weights on one particular skirt irritated Neissa so much so that she spontaneously lunged for Katharine’s hemline. Luckily Olga stepped in at just the right moment before anything unfortunate happened but it did cause fearless Kate to readjust her casual relationship with Neissa.

Olga, always quick on her feet had the strength and ability to lift up to 200 pounds, so she was capable of protecting all actors on-set should something go awry but Cary Grant wasn’t reassured by Olga’s presence just off-camera. He was so terrified of Neissa that the director Howard Hawkes had to come up with creative shots so that Cary and Neissa never actually acted together in any one scene.

This was one of the scenes that had to be patched together so that Neissa and Cary Grant didn't have to act together. — This was one of the scenes that had to be patched together so that Neissa and Cary Grant didn’t have to be in the car at the same time together.

Olga understood that leopards weren’t for everyone but hoped through training demonstrations and film performances that people would come to understand how truly intelligent and extraordinary these exotic creatures were. Working well into her 60’s, Olga’s last film with her leopards was the 1950’s blockbuster The Ten Commandments, but a lover never truly stops loving, so she continued to stay engaged, interested and informed with all matters animal throughout her retirement. After more than seven decades in the film and animal training industries, Olga passed away at the age of 81 in Burbank.

leo5 — Olga and Neissa, pals for life. Photo courtesy of Click Magazine. February 1938.

Olga is a fantastic role model for the month of February… this follow-your-heart time of year that is synonymous with love, passion, romance and taking chances. Olga made a lifetime career out of pursuing her interests, living fearlessly and having fun in the process. She fell in love with leopards at a young age and managed to stretch that interest across two continents, eight decades, one wild kingdom and millions of people.

Although initially under-appreciated, Bringing Up Baby is now regarded as one of the best comedic movies of all-time and consistently lands on the ten best list of Katharine Hepburn’s greatest performances. If there was never an Olga, there would never have been a Neissa. And if there was never a Neissa there might never have been a comfortable Kate and if there was never a comfortable Kate there would never have been a successfully comedic Baby. And if there was never a Baby there would be a few less laughs in the world. And the thought of that dear readers is an absolute tragedy.

Cheers to Olga and to living life with a heart full of love!

{A little side note: Photographs for this blog post came from a feature article in the debut issue of Click Magazine published in February 1938, which was recently for sale in Ms. Jeannie’s shop. As so happens sometimes with almost antique paper, this vintage magazine is starting to show signs of wear and tear so in order to preserve its contents Ms. Jeannie will be framing it behind glass and featuring it in an upcoming blog post on decorating. Stay tuned!}

9 Book & Movie Suggestions to Rest, Relax and Recover With

Published on December 30, 2015December 27, 2016 by In The Vintage Kitchen5 Comments

Here we are dear readers rounding the corner to the finish line of Holiday Season 2015. You made it! You conquered all that hustle bustle, you cooked and cleaned and partied and pulled yourself through the merriest of months like a champion.

And by now, Ms. Jeannie bets you are ready for a little rest, a little relaxation or perhaps just some good old fashioned recovery time spent laying low. Ms. Jeannie has just the right thing for you… a suggestion list of the most entertaining books and movies she’s encountered throughout 2015.

Not all these suggestions came out, brand new, this year, some are a few years old and some are fifty years old but each of them carries the theme of history in a most interesting way, and each one will keep you entertained from start to finish.

Let’s take a look….

In the watching department, Ms. Jeannie fell in love with the following mini-series, movies and documentaries…

1. Dickens in America with Miriam Margoyles

Dickens in America: Travels with Miriam Margoyles — Dickens on the left, Miriam on the right:)

The retracing of Charles Dickens’ 1842 travels to the United States, this documentary series sent famed British actress Miriam Margoyles (perhaps the biggest fan of Charles Dickens ever!) to a variety of cities located throughout the Eastern US. Visiting all the places Dickens traveled to… Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Virginia, Ohio, Illinois and Canada, Miriam also attempts to eat the same sorts of foods, stay in the same hotels and travel the cities in the same way he did. The fun thing about this series is Miriam herself – a plug of energy, enthusiasm and quirky personality, she mirrors her contemporary viewpoints and attitudes alongside Dickens in all that was seen and experienced. She laughs, she cries, she compares and contrasts, she’s the ultimate fan and because of her devotion you can’t help but get caught up in her love affair as well. Here’s a clip from one segment…

2. Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries

How Ms. Jeannie escaped hearing about this Australian tv show that has been airing since 2013 is a wonder. Set in 1920s/1930’s Melbourne, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries centers around thoroughly modern lady detective Phryne Fisher and the bevy of strange and unusual cases she solves. Beautifully filmed, along the same glamorous lines as Downtown Abbey, Miss Phryne Fisher is progressive in all things thought and action. The writing is smart, the wardrobes incredible and the cases always intriguing. Currently, in its third season now with new episodes beginning in January, Ms. Jeannie recommends watching it from the very beginning because story lines do carry over from season to season.

This is the trailer for season one…

3. Mona Lisa is Missing

The inspiration for this documentary came from one line in a book (aha!) discovered during the 1970s:

In 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre by an Italian immigrant named Vincenzo Perugia.

Filmmmaker Joe Medieros became so obsessed with this one line and the story behind it that it took him the next 30 years to properly figure out what exactly happened to the world’s most famous painting. The result of his research is this fast-paced, funny and touching documentary stretching from New York all the way to Italy where he meets modern-day relatives of the thief who stole the painting, scours international archives, pursues all possible theories and does a re-enactment of how the whole situation went down at the Louvre step-by-step. The winner of practically a gazillion film festivals around the world, Mona Lisa is Missing is so creatively put together using a mixture of paper cut outs, film footage and moving pictures it is as whimsical in presentation as it is in story.

4. Finding Vivian Maier

Another equally fascinating real-life story, Finding Vivian Maier is a documentary about a thrifty collector who purchased a few boxes of old photographs at an auction. When he realizes upon returning home that the collection is quite extraordinary, he embarks on a vintage sleuthing escapade to uncover who exactly this photographer is, the influence of her art upon mid-century America and the unusual life she led in pursuit of her passion. So incredible, Ms. Jeannie will not say anything more about what happens because the pacing of this documentary and all that it reveals is fantastic. By the end of it – you’ll be a fan. Ms. Jeannie promises!

In the book department…

5. West of Sunset by Stewart O’Nan (published 2015)

When Ms. Jeannie traveled to Florida to take care of her sick dad in November, she spent the entire eleven hour drive each way listening to one audio book – West of Sunset by Stewart O’Nan. As you know by now, (if you happen to be a regular reader of the blog) like Miriam Margoyles and her Dickens, Ms. Jeannie has a slight obsession with anything F. Scott Fitzgerald, so she was super excited to discover this newly released novel which centers around the last three years of F. Scott’s life.

This was the point in his story (the late 1930’s) when his wife, Zelda was receiving care in a mental hospital in North Carolina and he was on the opposite coast, in Hollywood writing scripts to try to drum up enough money to live. Throughout Stewart O’Nan’s novel, F. Scott travels between life in the make-believe city of Los Angeles where he spends time with Bogart and Hemingway, Deitrich and Cukor and real-life in North Carolina where Zelda is loosing teeth and losing touch. F. Scott tries to maintain a sense of marital stability, loyalty and companionship to Zelda but this hospitalized woman is someone he no longer recognizes, a child-like version of the dynamic and vivacious woman she once was. By this time, The Great Gatsby has already been published but it is not nearly the revered literary work that is today so F. Scott in Stewart’s world is old and tired and struggling, plodding day by day at his typewriter, driven by his love of words and his desire to string a noteworthy line.

F. Scott & Zelda around the time of the book's setting. — F. Scott & Zelda around the time of the book’s setting.

Thanks to Stewart O’Nan’s humanistic approach to the end of F. Scott’s life we understand how difficult it must have been to keep up with costs to support Zelda’s mental health care, to keep his teenage daughter Scottie’s school tuition afloat and to also just be able to maintain his day to day living expenses in California while also dealing with the mental ups and downs of an unreliable creative enterprise like movie-making in California. You might know F. Scott as an alcoholic, a child of Jazz age decadence and of day to day living without future thought but Stewart O’Nan paints a highly researched depiction of this great writer in his final flawed years when he was trying – really trying- excruciatingly trying – to not drink so much, to keep his career current and to take care of his family. This is what makes this book fantastic. In our modern way of seeing success so easily promoted via social media it is easy to forget about struggle, about building, about putting in the time in so that success can happen. Stewart O’ Nan deals with all that – the unglamorous, every day side to F. Scott which made him real and likable and ultimately relateable. And there are also some very cool scenes filled with glamorous Hollywood parties and celebrity encounters that make your imagination fly:)

6. So We Read On – Maureen Corrigan (published 2014)

NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan shared her love of all things Gatsby in So We Read On, determining why and how F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby is still so relevant and so important in today’s world. Covering all aspects of the book, from its writer to its subject to its themes and its reception both then and now, Maureen examines Gatsby from all sides (literally and figuratively). She even travels all the way back to her high school where she first read Gatsby and where kids now in the 2000’s are still required to read it in order to see what the modern day perception of the nearly 100 year old novel is today. How could a book written in 1925 still be so universally relevant 90 years later? You don’t have to be a superfan to understand Maureen’s book, it is wonderfully written as a quasi-memoir and interpretation of one woman’s love of reading and the impact that one particular book made upon her life.

7. A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway (published 1964)

Ms. Jeannie most highly recommends reading this book aloud, because there is a little magic that happens when you both speak and hear the lines of someone else’s memoir. The subject becomes much more intimate and much more consuming.

The true story of Ernest Hemingway’s experience of living and writing in Paris at the very start of his career, A Moveable Feast will transport you immediately out of your current situation and deposit you in the cafe scene that is Paris of the 1930’s. You’ll hear first-hand, in his own voice, how Ernest struggled to build the sentences that would build his career and how he would struggle to understand the people that moved in and out of his life, including his own wife who was a marvel of odd and exotic understanding.

Ernest amid the 1920's Parisian cafe scene. — Ernest amid the 1920’s Parisian cafe scene.

You’ll learn how he plodded every day though the mud that is the creative writing field, while also experiencing the commonplace genius and artistic camaraderie that would make this time in Paris legendary. And most importantly you’ll see probably the most vulnerable side of Ernest, in his own words, before he was confident and comfortable in his own writing skin, while he was struggling to make enough money to buy dinner for his wife and baby, to buy a book from Shakespeare & Company or to buy a hot coffee to keep warm while he wrote on a cold day. This is Ernest at the very beginning, a keen observer of the situation before him.

8. Empty Mansions – Bill Dedman (published 2015)

Changing gears completely from Jazz Age Paris to contemporary New York high society, Empty Mansions is the true story of Huguette Clark of New York City and the story of her family’s fortune which spans the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries as it spreads from Colorado to Arizona to New York City’s Fifth Avenue.

huguetteclark1 — Huguette Clark (1906-2011)

Now rumored to be in consideration for film adaptation, Ms. Jeannie can completely understand because the book opens with the reclusive story of Huguette, a once beautiful debutante, now aged and afraid to show her face in public due to a cancer causing facial disfigurement. From the opening pages you try to decide if Hugettte is an eccentric reclusive like the Edie Beales of Grey Gardens or if she is just extremely shy and private trying to live a life away from the press.

As the book continues and the story unfolds you wonder if she is prey to the strange health care system that plagues our country and to the managers of her welfare or if she is an indomitable force that controls her own destiny living life on her terms and her terms only.

New York's famed 5th Avenue where the Clark famil lived among other tycoon neighbors like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers — New York’s famed 5th Avenue where the Clark family lived alongside other tycoon neighbors like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers

Providing back story to Huguette’s unusual lifestyle, you learn about her family’s genealogy and the American dream fantasy of hard work, risky decisions and big rewards that built their fortune and made them a formidable impression on the New York business scene of Victorian metropolitan life. You learn about the tragedies that befell the family as well as the triumphs, how they rose to fame and slowly withdrew from it, and how all those moments one by one compiled themselves onto the outlook and attitude of Huguette and shaped a century of life.

9. Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning – Elizabeth Partridge (published 2013)

Both a book and a PBS documentary, Grab A Hunk of Lightning tells the whole story of famed photographer Dorothea Lange from how she started as an awkward teenager first learning how to use a camera through experimentation and expression to how she turned into a trained eye that would make her one of the most famous photographers of the 20th century.

Dorthea Lange's most well-known photograph, The Migrant Mother, taken in 1936 — Dorothea Lange’s most well-known photograph, The Migrant Mother, taken in 1936

Beautifully laid out in folio style, Grab A Hunk of Lightening, written by Dorothea’s god-daughter, gives insight into the production and story behind her personal life and her professional photographs. And it also tells the story, again like Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast and F. Scott Fitzgerald in West of Sunset how one thing led to another in terms of career and creativity. Dorothea was a working artist trying to pay bills all the while attempting to build a style, a career and a vision that was uniquely hers. Despite difficult circumstances, marriage, children, house moves, illness and lack of confidence, Dorothea humbly went about pursuing her craft every day of her life, putting one foot in front of another.

Hope you find some new and exiting material here dear readers! If you had any extra special favorites in the book and movie department this year please share your thoughts in the comments section!

May the rest of your 2015 be lazy and lovely. Cheers and happy Happy New Year’s dear readers!!!

Joe, Frank, Bruce & the Summer Blockbuster

Published on July 30, 2015July 29, 2015 by In The Vintage Kitchen4 Comments

Summer has always been synonymous with big blockbuster movies. You know the kind dear readers… big-scale, action-packed, testosterone fueled. If there is a building to be blown up or a car to be flipped or some sort of post-apocalyptic disaster to be explored you can bet you’ll experience it first-hand in a crowded movie theater on a steamy summer day.

One of the biggest summer blockbuster movies of all times premiered in July 1988, making Bruce Willis an international icon…

Die Hard and the four sequels that followed…

diehard_collage — Die Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

spanned a total of twenty plus years of blockbuster magic. That’s one incredible feat! But the film series actually spanned even more years than that. Did you know dear readers, that Willis’ character, NYPD officer John McClane, really stems back another twenty years?

In late May of 1968, just as summer was getting underway, Frank Sinatra starred in this crime thriller…

as professionally capable yet personally troubled police detective Joe Leland determined to solve a grisly murder mystery. His character was adapted from the runaway bestselling novel of 1966, The Detective…

by American author Roderick Thorp. Containing just under 600 pages the book was lauded for its gritty yet sensitive themes and layered characters not often portrayed in the typical detective novels of the time.

Scene from The Detective. The movie also starred Lee Remick, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Duvall. Photo via pinterest.

Frank Sinatra brought the character to life on the big screen making the movie just as sensational as the book. Due to the popularity of Roderick Thorp’s novel, the success of the Frank Sinatra film, and the enigmatic character of Joe Leland, Thorp wrote a sequel to The Detective which was published in 1979 titled Nothing Lasts Forever. In this new novel Thorp continued on with Joe’s adventures fighting crime while battling with his own inner demons.

Again, history repeated itself and Nothing Lasts Forever became a bestseller and was green-lighted for film adaptation. Only this time there was one hitch. When Frank Sinatra originally starred as Joe LeLand in 1968, his contract stated that he would be offered the title role to any and all sequels. But unlike his character, Sinatra aged at the normal speed of a human being, which means that by the time the film version of Nothing Lasts Forever was ready to be made in the 1980’s Frank Sinatra was in his early 70’s – too old to play Joe.

Frank Sinatra on set of The Detective, NYC 1967, photo via pinterest

So legend has it – that in order to get around this clause in Sinatra’s contract, the title character’s name would have to be changed so that another actor could fill his spot. Joe Leland became John McClane and Bruce Willis replaced Frank Sinatra. Nothing Lasts Forever usually gets all the notoriety of being the inspiration for Die Hard, but really it all started with the roots of the main character in The Detective.

Thorp went on to write 10 other published works with some pieces being adapted for television, but none had the intensity nor the popularity of character quite like Joe. The Die Hard movies went on to become film industry gold earning over one billion dollars world-wide. Thorp died in 1999, which afforded him the ability to see at least the first three Die Hard movies made and experience the big-budget frenzy and marketing empire that they created. It must have been pretty exciting for him! To know that he created a character three decades before that was still storming the minds and hearts of crime readers and movie-goers around the world. A blockbuster indeed – write (pun inteded!) from the beginning!

You can find The Detective in Ms. Jeannie’s shop here and the trailer for Sintara’s 1968 film portrayal here.

What is your favorite summer blockbuster dear readers? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Dolmadakia (Stuffed Grape Leaves)

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Coconut Milk Made in a Blender

Ceylon Chicken Curry

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Katharine Hepburn’s Lace Cookies

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Sweet Spiced Nuts

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1.No Place Like Home – Brooke Berman (2010)

2. Rethink – Amanda Talbot (2015)

3. The Year of Reading Dangerously – Andy Miller (2014)

4. Love In The Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1988)

5. Stories I Only Tell My Friends – Rob Lowe (2011)

6. Edwardian Farm (2010)

7. Iris (2015)

8. Far From the Madding Crowd (2015)

9. The Age of Adaline (2015)

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1. Dickens in America with Miriam Margoyles

2. Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries

3. Mona Lisa is Missing

4. Finding Vivian Maier

5. West of Sunset by Stewart O’Nan (published 2015)

6. So We Read On – Maureen Corrigan (published 2014)

7. A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway (published 1964)

8. Empty Mansions – Bill Dedman (published 2015)

9. Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning – Elizabeth Partridge (published 2013)

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