Congrats CJ!
I am a big fan of food. When I think about my favorite romances, memories of what the hero and the heroine eat during certain scenes often jump out at me. There is, for example, a scrumptious cake with candied violets and piped almond buttercream in an equally scrumptious scene of seduction in Susan Johnson’s WICKED. In Judith Ivory’s BEAST, a whole incredible outdoor dinner started with beluga caviar and concluded with tiny berries in sabayon sauce—followed by a pivotal confrontation.
My pleasure in Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s MATCH ME IF YOU CAN is vastly enhanced by all the lovely Italian dishes on parade during the dates the matchmaker heroine arranged for the hero, at some of Chicago’s finest restaurants. On the other hand, when I recall NOBODY’S BABY BUT MINE, it’s always with a slight sense of austerity, as the heroine of that book eats things like plain bagels with hardly any cream cheese. (What is a bagel but a cream cheese delivery device, I ask.)
I write historical romance and need to do a lot of research for it. Needless to say, when the research is about food, it’s not really work. My books are set during the very late Victorian decades, smack in the middle of La Belle Epoque, an excellent time for munchies.
Here for example, is a menu from the famous London hotel Claridge’s, for a private dinner hosted there.
Hors d’oeuvres
Consommé Sévigné Shrimp Bisque
Filet de Sole Florentine
Chicken à la d’Albufera
Beef Richelieu
Spit-roasted Snipe
Seasonal Salad
Green Asparagus Mousseline Sauce
Pineapple Ponchardin
Comtesse Marie Petits Fours
Parmesan Soufflé
Dessert
Google has no idea what is a Ponchardin or a Comtesse Marie. But that’s like saying you need to be explain how an internal combustion engine works to enjoy a smooth ride in your car—you don’t. And so I just salivate and imagine all kind of sumptuous things that a Ponchardin could be--although given the French culinary tendency to give a name for everything, it’s possible that pineapple Ponchardin just pineapple with a sprinkle of Grand Marnier, or some such. J
Currently I’m thinking about setting a romance during an Atlantic crossing, on an ocean liner that is both the epitome of power and the embodiment of luxury—at least in first class. My heroes and heroines, conducting a new and intense affair, probably would not frequent the formal dining saloon very often. So they would have room service. Perhaps a gamy duck dish with a mouthwatering aroma, and a dessert that alternated between layers of puff pastry and layers of berry-laden, barely sweet pastry cream. And then weeks later, when things go completely awry between them, they would happen to dine on exactly the same dishes one night at dinner, and boy, things would really come to a head.
My latest release, HIS AT NIGHT, doesn’t really have a focus on food, and the plot leaves no room for scenes of leisurely dining, but still it has “a small, beautifully iced cake, with pale blush marzipan roses blooming along deep green marzipan vines.” The cake, compliment of the Savoy Hotel, is the hero and the heroine’s wedding cake, served in their suite. But the wedding is a hasty, forced ceremony, and things don’t look so promising for our protagonists, which of course means they choose to talk about the food instead.
“The cake is here,” she said for something to say, locking the door again behind her.
He turned around, not so much at her words, but at the sound of the door locking—for that was where his gaze flicked before coming to rest on her face.
He had misunderstood what she meant by locking the door. He thought she signaled that she was ready to be his wife in truth: there was a tautness to his stare, a challenge almost.
She found she couldn’t hold his gaze. Her eyes instead focused on the boutonniere on his lapel, a single blossom of blue delphinium, the color so deep and rich it was almost purple.
“The cake is here,” she repeated herself. “Would you like me to cut it?”
Do you, as a reader, remember the foods from your books? Do you remember the delicacies by themselves or firmly in association with the emotions of the scenes in which those foods played a part? Do you ever get hungry reading those scenes and have to walk with the book to the kitchen to raid your fridge?
I will be giving away a copy HIS AT NIGHT to a commenter. And if anyone knows what a pineapple Ponchardin is, I will throw in another copy. J
2009
