Hello! Welcome to the Candlestick Review
Today’s cookbook is all about spirits, and not the spooky kind (although I did, admittedly, think it was the spooky kind initially).
Cooking with Spirits
1976, 101 Productions (USA)
It took me a while to work out what Cooking with Spirits was all about. On first glance it could be a religious textbook. There are monks drinking and crucifixes swinging, priests blessing barrels, and hands held in prayer over bottles of beer.
On second glance the penny drops. It is a book about making spirits at home. Of course it is. The tone is light, the instructions simple, the monks drunk.
Written by Beverly Barbour, this 1976 edition (the original published in 1927), we learn that “Cooking with spirits is not extravagant. It should-actually it must-be done gently, with a light touch. The spirit should bring out the natural flavor of food, not overwhelm it. Often a spoonful, or even a few drops, will lift a dish into the gourmet class. Many liqueurs are available in miniatures which hold about three tablespoons: enough for most recipes, with leftovers for the cook. You really don’t have to invest in a fifth unless it’s a spirit that you enjoy drinking as much as you like cooking with it.”
My bookshop’s food zine is back for another issue! Introducing issue 5 of Candlestick Paper:
Now printed landscape! (Yes, I am quite excited by this)
Twelve pages stuffed with essays on food and cookbooks and recipes:
🍥 The Invention test: How one North West London charity turns surplus food destined for landfill into delicious three-course dining @laurenceslarder
🍥 Spiced Oranges and Joy: writer Aicha Marhfour shares a family recipe @aichmarhfour
🍥 Habichuelas, de aquí, de allá: writer Rebecca Echevarria on keeping an ancestral connection alive through stewed beans @of_the_air_
🍥 Seasonal recipes picked from a deep archive of vintage cookbooks
🍥 Cheap eats: How a cookbook designed by cash-strapped art students captured a unique moment in time. By Saskia Ericson @bigwoodenfork
🍥 Feeding Theo: an illustrated food diary by illustrator Reena Makwana @reena.makwana
🍥 Prized Possession: by Kitty Travers of La Grotta Ices @lagrottaices
🍥 Cold as Ice: why has the woman dubbed the ‘Queen of Ices’ been lost to time? By Katie Bagley
Plus more!
Edited by Katie Bagley (me), illustrated by Eleonora Marton @eleonora_marton , and designed by Ferry Gouw @ferry_gouw
Limited print run
You can preorder it here
Thanks! <3
me automatically assuming it was about dinner parties with ghosts
Love the illustrations!