Jimmy Stewart's American Apple Pie

Tonight's post is a slow process because to be frank, I am absolutely sloshed. Usually a fast touch typist, tonight this is like typing underwater...

My lovely Walthamstow chums have been over for lunch and it was supposed to be a dinner and a movie affair - Barbara Stanwyck's wine soaked leg of lamb with Jimmy's Apple Pie to follow. These were both DELICIOUS but as we are having an unseasonally gorgeous weekend the six of us went to the Middle Lane Pleasure Gardens instead of watching Ball of Fire.

It's been an odd weekend. After lying fallow for 8 months or so - like buses, two have come along at once. For the first time since moving to Crouch End I had a bed fellow of the opposite sex last night. I am having to keep my eyes open with matchsticks this evening - not much sleep was had. But I was strangely disconnected throughout. Perhaps I was just hungry? After the promise of a nice dinner, turned out crisps and wine sufficed.

And then, after a big build up from Grace, ROD turned up on the scene this afternoon. Interesting. There's a touch of the David Essex about him, and as some of my readers know, I am rather partial to the gypsy lifestyle...

Over and above all of this was the absolute HEAVENLY PLEASURE of spending some time with Cary, Grace, William and the lovely and very zen Douglas Fairbanks. I do not see these folk often enough so a whole afternoon with them all was a springtime treat of the very best kind.

Jimmy Stewart's Chicken Pie

"I lasted one night.
They said my playing spoiled people's appetites.”

Well Gene's appetite certainly wasn't affected last night. He ate TWO pieces of the pie and took one home with him this morning. We christened the splendid beast the "Piewacket" after Kim Novak's cat in "Bell, Book and Candle". OK, so I fell asleep on the sofa while we were watching it, but it wasn't because of Jimmy's acting.

Jimmy's Pie takes a LONG time to make but I consider it worth it as it is so scrumptious. In another kitchen elsewhere in London, Basil was having a bash at it too. He made his half the size of mine, using chicken thighs and proclaimed it to be "absolutely delicious!" adding, "If you commit to making it, the rewards WILL justify the efforts!" He admitted that he and his lovely wife Bettina ended up eating the whole pie between them (even though it should have served 4). I don't blame them, it's virtually impossible to resist.

Also virtually impossible to resist is Gene, but resist each other we did! He was charm itself and took himself off to the spare room to get his beauty sleep after pie and a movie. I did enjoy the business with the apron strings though...

What a lovely day today. It began with a text from the very top of the house to me down in the kitchen asking if there would be crumpet for breakfast. For comedy factor I got two out of the freezer. Later on I had lunch with my mentor Hugh. How lovely to spend quality time with two people I am VERY fond of in the same day. Lucky me.

Jimmy Stewart's Chicken Pie with Clara Lou Sheridan's Caramel Carrots

The rolling pin is a virgin no more. I don't remember EVER making pastry without my mum being by my side telling me how it is done so I was VERY pleased with myself on Saturday when my chicken pie was a triumph! Both Rosalind and Jimmy Stewart himself complimented me on it and the pastry in particular.

I was having a little low self confidence dip this weekend and it boosted me no end to find that I could indeed make a pie. Jimmy's recipe calls for a whole chicken which you have had "cut in pieces". Easier said than done in this day and age. I was slightly concerned in Waitrose on Friday to discover that it would cost me a million pounds to make the pie with ready chopped up thighs, legs, breasts and whatever. I asked a friendly looking couple by the meat racks if there was a butcher in Beaconsfield who would chop up a whole chicken for me - of course not. No butchers in Soho anymore - neither in the countryside. The man behind the meat counter couldn't chop me up a chicken either unless I wanted a cooked one so I thought TO HELL WITH IT and bought a whole raw one.

The recipe says you have to put the pieces in a pan with various other things and boil them. After an abortive attempt at tearing a leg off a raw chicken with my bare hands I decided to put the whole damn chook in the pot to boil. I found a second cookbook at Rita's place which is entitled, "Four Hundred Years of English Cooking" (to which I imagine Rita's response would be - "well there's no point doing any more then...") and it had a recipe that involved boiling a whole capon so I thought not much harm could come to us if I did the same with a chicken... And so it seemed to be. I couldn't find a sieve for the flour either so I used a tea strainer. I am getting VERY adaptable.

Rosalind rustled up some of Clara Lou Sheridan's lovely carrots (she later changed her name to Ann of course) and we ate almost everything in two sittings. Greedy fat pigs!

Jimmy Stewart's Chicken Breast Italiano

"Not all of us were working at the same time, but enough of us.

Hank Fonda knew how to cook rice.

We lived pretty much on a rice diet."

On Friday Rosalind came over to the tub bringing her lovely new beau Jimmy Stewart. I thought I should cook him something by his namesake but couldn't find anything amongst my heaving shelf of vintage cookbooks and 1940s film fan mags. I therefore resorted to the world wide interweb machine to source a recipe and stumbled upon Jimmy Stewart's Chicken Breast Italiano. This could of course be any chef by the name of Jimmy Stewart or indeed just someone's neighbour who is a dab hand in the kitchen, but I am sincerely hoping it is a personal recipe from the stove of "Zuzu's Petals" Jimmy.

I rustled it up despite only having UHT cream from Mr Riverside and we ate it on the roof. To my mind it was pretty curdled but luckily it was eaten by candlelight and my two guests returned clean plates with compliments (they can come again).

On Sunday Rosalind was on a cleaning jag and not only cleaned but also reorganised all my kitchen cupboards and fridge putting "like with like". Now of course I am engaged in a slapstick comedyesque opening and closing of a million cupboard doors in order to find what I am looking for but I DO love her for it.

The search begins for Henry Fonda's rice recipe. Rice, water and salt I guess but maybe he had some kind of Fonda family secret ingredient...