Jean Harlow's Stuffed Celery a la Shrimp

Just back from a wonderful weekend in Stroud with Gary C and chums. Two days of belly dancing, eating a vast amount of delicious food and consuming a vast amounts of red wine and fruity cocktails. Fabulous!

Just wanted to write a quick blog entry before the site goes offline for a few days. It's having a makeover so it has to come down for the work to be done. I'm excited but scared - what if everything I've written here gets lost in the ether? Four years of cooking antics gone! Keep your fingers crossed my lovely chums.

On Friday gorgeous Paulette cooked dinner en famille and she made Jean's stuffed celery as a starter. YUM. She was using premium quality mayonnaise and I must say it does make a difference. They were scrumptious. I made Ida Lupino's Lemon Mousse for pud and got it all a bit wrong as I was chatting to Shirley when I should have been concentrating. I put in too much cornflour but it still tasted good. Didn't set like it usually does though - was more mouseey..

As with all gizmo's young 10 year old Shirley was doing all sorts of fancy tricks with Paulette's new i-phone while us grown ups just looked at it like it was something out of a Star Trek film. Shirley took some pretty good pix of the celery, one of which can be seen on the flickr site

See you once the site transformation has taken place...

Jean Harlow's Celery a la Shrimp

Jean looks a bit like how I feel at the moment - a bit haggared... I've had a shocking cold all week and will be going on date 4 with the New Yorker sporting a cold sore as big as Texas. Shame. I will try and orchestrate it so that he sits on my left for the whole evening!

Anyhow, I'm getting back in to blogging the results of the test cooking as there seems to be no time at all at the moment to cook myself. Roxie reported AGES ago that she'd made Jean's celery dish for a dinner party. Her guests all enjoyed it and the general consensus was that it was a perfect starter as it is both flavoursome and light. The paprika was considered to be the perfect twist and livened the dish up. Final verdict? "The receipe was elegant and simple - if there were more flavours on the plate it would confuse your palate and spoil the dish." So it's a winner!

Jean Harlow's Celery A La Shrimp

“I like to wake up each morning feeling a new man.”

Ha ha, me too Jean, me too!

For the first time in living memory however, I have woken up on the first day of a New Year totally on my lonesome. Not too hungover to make myself laugh by saying out loud immediately upon waking up, "Happy New Year To Me!" All sorts of resolutions have been made for the new decade, one of which is (broadly speaking) to just get my act together. It's vague I know, but it has to happen.

My New Year's Eve was lovely. Spent in the bosom of my pals in Crouch End drinking copious amounts of bubbly, eating a few Hollywood canapes including Jean's classic shrimp dish and entertaining each other with "turns". Shirley played us a song on the piano, Paulette gave us a tune on the accordion and Ivor led us all in a game of bingo. Marvelous. I did a family friendly version of my paper tearing act.

So the new year begins with preparation for a grand luncheon tomorrow with all recipes by Hattie McDaniel. There is much to do but I'm managing to squeeze in a cheeky drink with Charley at Villiers Terrace later. We are both agreed we are going to dance on the grave of 2009. And besides, my mum has sent some Christmas cake for him...

Jean Harlow's Celery a la Shrimp

“No one ever expects a great lay to pay all the bills.”

A feeling of great joy today after a lovely evening with the E17 posse. They came round armed with gallons of fizzy wine in an attempt to make a dent in the Cassis left in the number 43 cocktail cabinet via the medium of Kir Royales. Ginger, Grace, Cary, William, Jack and Grace's new beau polished off the canapes with vigour - favourite seeming to be Marion Martin's Peanut and Bacon Bouchees. We have christened the new beau Douglas Fairbanks Snr as he is full of vim. He said he wasn't sure about the combination of peanuts and meat though - to which Ginger's response was, "it's a good job you don't live in Thailand!"

I'd had a weird day in which my fortunes rose and fell to the tune of £300 over the space of an hour. I thought my battle with the storage company was won until - crazy archivist mentality not withstanding - I realised I hadn't kept a copy of a crucial email. I blame the stress of that for the amount of fizzy wine I consumed. I knew I was really, really drunk when after getting into the bath to scrub my black flip-flop encrusted feet clean I heard someone say, "Come on now, be sensible" and it dawned on me that everyone else had gone home...

Jean Harlow's Celery a la Shrimp

“Underwear makes me uncomfortable and besides
my parts have to breathe.”

Isn't this just the BEST picture of Jean ever? I think Ruthie and I should pose like this for our author photos, leaning on the heads of two polar bears facing each other.

I'm thrilled that the lovely Matthew over at movietone-news.com has done a fab piece about my Silver Screen Suppers blog. You can see it here http://www.movietone-news.com/2009/06/eat-like-your-idols.html - I am bashful but chuffed! Welcome new readers!

I've been in Brighton today for Joan's birthday. It was lovely except for the fact I seem to have developed an aversion to being touched by babies - and there were two there... Joan kept dandling one of them and propelling it towards me then away from me from me like Vic Reeves' and his spirit level. I seemed to be the only non-broody woman in a coven of them.

Home to safety, Casualty and Jean's Celery a la Shrimp. I've been craving it throughout my booze binge and tonight's the night. I might just go the whole hog into spinsterdom, put on my kaftan and do as Jean does - go commando.

Jean Harlow's Celery a la Shrimp

"She didn't want to be famous. She wanted to be happy."

So said Clark Gable...

Poor Jean - only 26 when she died. Lots of people were madly in love with her - including William Powell it is rumoured.

We liked her crispy shrimpy celery. We had a "taste test" involving stuffed celery to Jean's recipe and some modified with style by Ruth. Admittedly the modified version was more suited to the modern palate but we did like the subtle pinky green hue of Jean's original.

Cary and William were over for lunch and much discussion was had as to whether a sprinkling of paprika or cayenne pepper would perk it up. We may have to include a health warning though that inhalation of cayenne can cause a choking fit that might amuse other diners but isn't much fun to the pepper throated cougher.

Jean Harlow's Hot Rolls

“No one ever expects a great lay to pay all the bills.”

Ha ha! How true. Ears must be burning both in Brixton and in Iraq today. We have given our imaginary boyfriends a right old going over in between lunch at Harpoon Hannah's Tiki bar and a session at SEA NEEDLES. Will Ruth and I EVER run out of things to talk about - I doubt it.

Well, Jean Harlow's Hot Rolls - despite being cut in the shape of CRABS as befits our location in Delaware - were no great shakes. The Ronald Coleman English Pot Pie is in the oven and I'm hoping this will improve upon things.

Alas, although one of the things on my list of things to do while I am here was to go to a crab restaurant in they all seem to be closed as it is out of season. This will mean I am CHEATED of the opportunity to reply to the question, "What did you do in Delaware?" to answer, "I got crabs...."