“Tables and benches had been raised outside the pavilions, piled high with sweetgrass and strawberries and fresh-baked bread.” -A Game of Thrones Strawberries & Sweetgrass Thoughts: The first taste of summer, for me, has always been strawberries. If there were a way to further improve upon their juicy goodness, this incredibly simple recipe is it.
Olla Podrida Don Quixote – by Miguel de Cervantes – 1615 “‘That big dish that is smoking farther off,’ said Sancho, ‘seems to me to be an olla podrida, and out of the diversity of things in such ollas, I can’t fail to light upon something tasty and good for me.’” Thoughts: Olla Podrida is a kind
“‘Found some nettles and brewed a tea,’ Shadd announced. ‘Will m’lady take a cup?’ ‘Yes, with thanks.’ She cradled the tea in her scarred hands and blew on it to cool it.” -A Clash of Kings Nettle Tea Our Thoughts: Somewhat lacking in fresh wild greens in Boston, we sadly had to default to dried nettle
“Buy me a cup of Arbor gold, Hopfrog, and perhaps I won’t inform my father of your toast. The tiles turned against me at the Checkered Hazard, and I wasted my last stag on supper. Suckling pig in plum sauce, stuffed with chestnuts and white truffles. A man must eat.” -A Feast for Crows
This recipe comes from Mrs. Rorer’s Philadelphia Cookbook, a small unassuming brown book that I had grown used to seeing on my grandmother’s basement bookshelf. Only years later, after I had inherited boxes of those same books, did I sit down and begin to appreciate the coolness of it. Originally published in 1886, it’s full
This is the second round of a Game of Thrones-themed art project. I did the first copy of such a map over a year ago, but wasn’t entirely happy with the way it turned out. This is a segment of that map: inked details, and tea-stained for depth. I love the way it pops, but
Emptins, from “emptyings”, are the colonial American equivalent to the older Ale Barm. Both are made from the leftover yeasty dregs of the brewing process, and used in either baking or to start fermentation in new brewing projects. Ingredients: Original Batch
“There was much more than she’d asked for: hot bread, butter and honey and blackberry preserves, a rasher of bacon and a soft-boiled egg, a wedge of cheese, a pot of mint tea. And with it came Maester Luwin.” -A Game of Thrones Mint Sun Tea Our Thoughts: We know the text doesn’t call for mint sun
“The stewards began to bring out the first dish, an onion broth flavored with bits of goat and carrot. Not precisely royal fare, but nourishing; it tasted good enough and warmed the belly. Owen the Oaf took up his fiddle, and several of the free folk joined in with pipes and drums. The same pipes and drums they
“[Oberyn Martell] forked a stallion black as sin with a mane and tail the color of fire. He sat his saddle as if he’d been born there, tall, slim, graceful. A cloak of pale red silk fluttered from his shoulders, and his shirt was armored with overlapping rows of copper disks that glittered like a