BOOK/A TABLE - Lemon Cakes

People always say it’s a bad idea to meet your idols. I think it’s also a risky proposition to reacquaint yourself with a book you once worshipped. It’s not always a triumphant reunion.

In my 20s, I plunged into The Fountainhead with abandon and told everybody about it before subsequently tearing through the weighty Atlas Shrugged (The Fountainhead, also of considerable length, seemed really just a preface afterward!). Both books colored my world, imbuing real people, places, and events with the fiction I read in the pages. I didn’t care much for Rand’s objectivist theories though, but sure delighted in the exciting plots that reminded me of Valley of the Dolls (and that, to me, is high praise).

While I definitely think The Fountainhead is still pretty cool, I didn’t respond to it with nearly as much fervor this time. Perhaps the passions of Ayn Rand are best consumed when one is young and impressionable. I’m not sure I want to tamper with my memories further by venturing back into Atlas Shrugged.

The following quote from The Fountainhead is the most memorable for me these days, neatly incorporating two of my favorite things: a nice sit-down tea and a murder mystery.

“Ah, there’s nothing like tea in the afternoon. When the British Empire collapses, historians will find that it had made but two invaluable contributions to civilization—this tea ritual and the detective novel.”

In a happy accident, I came across How to Cook the Victorian Way by Annie Gray and Andrew Hann in our laundry room’s lending library and was rather taken by this recipe for Lemon Cakes, perfect for teatime. The cookbook includes recipes from Avis Crocombe, head cook at Audley End in the 1880s. It is certainly a handsome tome, with a ton of gorgeous pictures. Although many of the recipes seem to require staff for the assembly and presentation, here instead is the much simpler recipe for Lemon Cakes.

Lemon Cakes
Makes 12

Ingredients:
200 g/7 oz/scant 1 cup of caster sugar (or regular granular sugar, pulsed in a food processor)
7 eggs, separated
Finely grated zest and juice of 2 lemons
2 tsps rose water, or a few drops of rose extract
2 tsps icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (optional)*
170 g/6 oz/1 1/3 cups flour, sifted, plus extra for the molds
Butter, for the molds
*The use of cream of tartar is included here just to guarantee a rise if you are not using a copper bowl.

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.

Whisk the caster sugar in a bowl with the egg yolks, lemon zest and juice, and rose water until light and fluffy.

Whisk the egg whites and icing sugar in a separate bowl. Adding the cream of tartar will help to stabilize the foam if you are not using a copper bowl. Carefully fold the sifted flour and meringue alternately into the yolk mix, ending with the last of the meringue.

Butter and flour 12 dariole molds or small but deep muffin tins. Divide the mix between them, then give them a good tap on the work service to remove any air.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Invert the molds onto a wire rack and allow it to cool, before gently easing the cakes out.

Soup's On!

Of course, I’ll be making a rousing pot of Hoppin’ John soup to kick off 2026, but I thought I’d share these super “instant” soups that can be made in a pinch. So delicious, nobody will suspect they took only a few minutes to prepare!

For the last few years, I’ve thrown a small cocktail party at my mother’s house in New Hampshire on Christmas Eve and greeted guests with a soupçon of hot soup in antique teacups. It’s a wonderful idea to help friends shake off the cold and slip into something so comforting.

But after toiling over the hors d’oeuvres (such as quiche and this fabulous fruit-nutty cheese spread), I like to keep the soup preparation thing quick. So here are two shortcut soups I serve on these particular occasions, and I’ve also included variations of them below made from scratch, should you care to linger a little longer in the kitchen.

SHORTCUT: Simmer a box of Pacific Foods or the Imagine brand of Butternut Squash Soup with a few slivers of orange rind, a bushy sprig of rosemary, and a good pinch of salt. Heat until nicely fragrant, remove rind and rosemary, and serve.

LINGER LONGER: Silky Carrot Soup 

SHORTCUT: Any kind of ready-made or canned potato or potato/leek soup will do for Green Vichyssoise. Cook spinach according to package, strain, and add to soup with some milk (as suggested on packaging), thyme threads, and salt. Simmer, remove thyme and serve right away in the winter months. Otherwise, chill for a mid-summer refresher. 

LINGER LONGER: Vichyssoise

Do enjoy—and Happy New Year!

P.S. These oranges looked so pretty as I was preparing to pare off the rind.

BOOK/A TABLE - Copperfield Punch

It’s Dickens weather!

“To divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, I informed Mr. Micawber that I relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to the lemons. His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning rum, and the steam of boiling water.”  Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Punch
Ingredients
1 pint of rum
1 wine-glass of brandy
1 cup of sugar
1 liter / quart of boiling water
3 lemons

Peel lemons, adding peels to sugar is a large, heat-proof crockpot with a lid (do not use glass or plastic). Pour brandy and rum into the bowl. Heat mixture for 3-4 minutes on the stove. Once heated, add a quart of boiling water and squeeze in the juice from the lemons. Allow to simmer
for 10-15 minutes, cool slightly, and serve.



Thanks to Kikkerland.com for the recipe!

Book Ends & End Tables - The Best of 2025

Oh, the weather (and just about everything else) is frightful...but the table is set for a hopeful New Year just the same. 

Here, I try to stick to what feeds my heart, whips up my consciousness, and stirs my soul: good food and books. As I’ve always maintained, reading is fundamental and a fella’s gotta eat. So let’s dig in!

OMG! Oyamel by José Andrés! This summer we swooned over the staggeringly fresh, icy cold ‘gaspacho’ salad of pineapple, orange, jicama root, cucumbers, mango, and queso fresco bathing in lime juice with a dusting of chile pequin.

Marsanne is a fairly new Mediterranean entry in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. We stopped in for the Veal Agnolotti, veal-stuffed dumplings in veal jus with potato puree, beech mushrooms and Parmesan—several times.

A dear friend took us to Osteria della Tre Panche tucked away in The Hermitage Hotel, a few steps away from the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. She had raved about the Chicken with Truffled Cream Sauce and rightly so. The dish was done to perfection. And I mean, truffled cream sauce, right?

Making my way to visit the tiny British food shop Myers of Keswick in the West Village is annual tradition for me every December. I purchase a little pork pie and scuttle home to heat it up, then close my eyes and think of England with each savory bite. For a pork pie recipe (that probably trickled down from French Canada), click here.

I love vegan Planta Queen and have enjoyed the inventive fare (you won’t miss the meat!) on every visit to the NoMad location. The staff is super friendly and the atmosphere brims with festivity, making it the perfect venue to entertain out-of-towners, too. I was, however, unprepared for the absolutely delcious alcohol-free Not-A-Rita made with Seedlip notas de agave, cranberry, lime, agave, damiana flower, and antioxidants. Sip it slowly...

And of course, I read, finding sustenance in the following books that topped my list for the year out of the 60-some that I finished:

The Cider House Rules by John Irving. The book deliberately parallels David Copperfield (and Great Expectations) as we follow Homer Wells’s journey—and indeed wonder whether or not this particular orphan (our “Prince of Maine,” our “King of New England”) will become the hero of his own life. What a joy to read!  

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell. Florence, the 1550s. I’m not a huge fan of historical fiction, but...the story about the ill-fated Lucrezia di Cosimo de ’Medici marrying into the Ferrarese dynasty is absolutely riveting. Maggie O’Farrell is a spellbinder for sure, as evidenced by that other book you might have heard of, Hamnet! Gorgeous and tragic, the final twist is a stunner.

The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. Reading this dazzling novel felt like being plunged into a tub of Champagne—at once perilous, heady, and delicious. There’s a definite nod to The Great Gatsby, I think, as we follow Katey Kontent (Kontent) and her witty chums (particularly the seductive, mysterious Tinker Grey) around a glorious, fizzy Manhattan in 1938.

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. A sweet (and yes, diminutive) heroine struggles to free her father from the Marshalsea debtors’prison as a pair of suitors look after her heart in the midst of numerous Dickensian knots, while the master himself skewers British bureaucracy. “Five and twenty, Tatty. Five and twenty!” 

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito. Patrick Bateman, all misery amid the rustle of long black skirts? This spin on the Gothic novel is not exactly American Psycho either perhaps, but the peverse bloodletting is much the same. A wicked tale of revenge, so gorgeously written. 

Venetian Vespers by John Banville. One of my all-time favorite authors, his latest transports us to Venice in 1899. A struggling writer’s wife disappears and as the floating city feels like it’s sinking under his feet, he begins to suspect that he might have killed his betrothed. Nothing is what it seems as we are swept away by Banville’s depiction of the haunting, ancient splendor that is Venice.

BOOK/A TABLE - Botta's Pork Chops

When my husband and I were in Florence earlier this year, he discovered a...murder! Murder in Florence that is, by Marco Vichi. He loved the colorful mystery surrounding Florentine detective Inspector Bordelli and ending up reading the entire series.

Death and the Olive Grove is the first book and in it, Bordelli finds himself sweating through a gruesome case, but takes some time out to enjoy Botta’s simple dish of pork chops. The Botta in question here is a thief and counterfeiter (and recurring character) who became a great chef while learning the trade in various prisons all around the globe! 

Vichi includes the recipe for the chops in the acknowledgments and in a final twist, the truth is revealed: the dish came actually from his beloved father, who was a tremendous inspiration in the writer’s works. 

Buon appetito!

Botta’s Pork Chops

“Put [two bone-in] pork chops (preferably not too thick) in a frying pan with a bit of water and cook them well on both sides until the water has almost entirely evaporated. Add a cup of chopped tomatoes and turn the chops several times. Then add a cup of [whole] milk and a handful of fennel seeds, and when the sauce begins to boil, turn the heat down and leave uncovered to reduce the liquid until the sauce has reached the proper point of density. Then remove the pan from the burner, cover it and leave it in peace for a couple of minutes.” 

Finish with salt and serve!

BOOK/A TABLE - British Coffee Cake

Apart from Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, The Sittaford Mystery is perhaps Agatha Christie’s most wintry detective novel, where a wicked blizzard provides a convenient alibi for guests sheltered together during a deadly seance... 

However, the real headline here is that having started with Sleeping Murder in 1978 and finally reading The Sittaford Mystery, I have now completed all 66 books in the Agatha Christie canon! 

Herman Melville once spouted that profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by silence, but I think this particular moment calls for—cake!

In an effort to help catch the killer lurking around Sittaford, Caroline Percehouse requests a recipe for British Coffee Cake to assist in the investigation: “I hear you had the most delicious coffee cake for tea yesterday afternoon. Will you be so kind as to give me the recipe for it?”

Happy to oblige, Caroline. Here it is, thanks again to Karen Pierce, author of the wonderful Recipes for Murder: 66 Dishes That Celebrate the Mysteries of Agatha Christie. 

Do enjoy!  


British Coffee Cake
Yields two 9-inch (22-centimetre) round cakes

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups (270 grams) all-purpose white flour
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/8 cups (255 grams) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing
3/8 cup (85 grams) vegetable shortening
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated white sugar five large eggs
5 cups (1.2 litres) whole milk, plus 2 tablespoons
5 1/2 tablespoons Camp Coffee (Scottish coffee syrup) or Coffee Time coffee syrup, plus 2-3 tablespoons 
4 cups (520 grams) confectioners’ sugar

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C)
2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. In a stand mixer fitted with a medium bowl, cream 3/8 cup (85 grams) of the butter, the shortening, and the sugar.
4. Add the eggs and beat well.
5. Add the milk and mix well.
6. Add 5 1/2 tablespoons Camp Coffee or Coffee Time
7. Grease two 9-inch (22-centimetre) round pans, divide the batter between them, and bake for 20-25 minutes.
8. While the cakes are baking, make the icing. With a hand mixer in a medium bowl, combine the confectioners’ sugar with the remaining Camp Coffee and the remaining 3/4 cup (170 grams) of butter. If the icing seems too thick, add the remaining milk and mix well. To runny, add a little more confectioner sugar. Mix until you achieve the desired consistency.
9. When the cakes have finished baking, toothpick tested them for doneness and let them cool to room temperature.
10. After the cakes cooled, ice them in layers with all the icing.

Consider the Oyster (Stuffing)!

                        
Back in 1941, M.F.K. Fisher wrote vibrantly, wickedly, about love, death (and stew) amongst the molluscs in her seminal tome Consider The Oyster. So, I got to thinking...how about considering an oyster stuffing for Thanksgiving this year?

If you are curious as to what it’s all about, the recipe is below. Whatever you serve, have a wonderful time with family, found family, and friends. And THANKS for reading Evenings with Peter!

“The oysters were curious too, weren’t they...”
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Oyster Stuffing

In a large pot, melt 4 tbsp butter over high heat until it smokes gently. 

Add 2 ribs diced celery, 1 large diced onion, 1 diced bell pepper, 1 1/2 jalapenos (seeded and minced), 7 cloves minced garlic, and 2 1/2 tbsp poultry seasoning. Lower to medium heat and saute until browned and tender, 15 minutes. 

Stir in 3 cups shucked oysters (purhcase a tin, already shucked!) and their liquid. Cook until edges curl, 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat. 

Stir in 8 cups crisp bread cubes, followed by 1 cup chicken or turkey stock. Add 1 more pack of stuffing mix and 4 eggs to incorporate. 

Season with salt and pepper. Fold in 2 cups chopped parsley, 2 sliced green onions, and 1 1/2 tsp minced rosemary.

Stuff in a 12 lb turkey. Or, bake in a greased casserole at 350 F until golden, 30-45 minutes.