Amuse Bouche

All children love treats and ours were cones and wafer bought in Titteridge’s, Doneraile’s ice-cream parlour. Miss O’Connell sold sweets and this was where we indulged our sweet tooths. In most cases though, life’s little extra pleasures came from jam on well-buttered fresh bread or drinks of cool milk on a hot summer’s day.

My father was a caring soul. He made and left sandwiches on the windowsill when we were out playing. We would come and graze on these as we wished.

From Donncha’s World by Donncha Ó’Dúlaing (2014). No recommendation

Amuse Bouche

On visits to Moscow, Helmut (Kohl) invariably looked me up at the Gorbachev Foundation. In 2002, in our small dining room there, we arranged an intimate supper with just him, his assistant, myself, my daughter Irina, and a member of the Foundation staff. He cheerfully drank two or three glasses of vodka, followed by beer. Kohl was very proud of his role in the creation of the Euro, and signed a 20-Euro banknote, added the date, 1 January 2002, and gave me it as a souvenir.

from The New Russia by Mikhail Gorbachev 2016. Very Highly Recommended

Amuse Bouche

September had its miserable strictness of school’s restart and freedom’s loss, its watery, mocking sun, and its big anti-climaxes above in Croke Park, but it also had tarts and crumbles made with the finest of Mothers’s own apples that were still ripening an hour before, and that nearly made up for everything.

from The Thing About December by Donal Ryan (2013). Recommended

Amuse Bouche

Manon runs her tray along the counter, looking into rectangular metal pans of beans, sausages, watery mushrooms, tomatoes from a tin and scrambled eggs that have congealed into a solid square. A permanent breakfast offering in a lightless room, at 8.00pm on a Monday evening, for people who have ceased to observe normal day and night hours.

Dave..picks up his tray and moves over to Manon’s table..as she flicks over to Channel 4+1 for the news.

‘Officers say they are very concerned about a twenty-four-year-old woman who went missing..on Saturday night…’   . ‘Very concerned’ being code for ‘we think she’s dead’.

from Missing Presumed by Susie Steiner (2016). Highly Recommended

Amuse Bouche

Every German mother was mad about it. The Merry Widow by Franz Lehar. First performed in Vienna in 1905; as sugary as one of the city’s cream cakes. Lehar had died in 1948, and Hitler had sent a personal representative to his funeral.

‘What else is there to say?’ Jaegar took a chocolate ..and popped it into his mouth. ‘Who are these from? A secret admirer?’

…  March bit into a chocolate and winced at the sickly taste of liquid cherry. ‘Consider: you have no friends, yet someone sends you an expensive box of chocolates from Switzerland. With no message. A box that plays the Führer’s favourite tune. Who would do that?… A poisoner, perhaps?’

‘Oh Christ!’ Jaeger spat the contents of his mouth into his hand.

from Fatherland by Robert Harris (1992). Highly Recommended

Amuse Bouche

I drained the glass in thirty seconds. White wine. What is the point of it? I picked up the bottle and studied the label. Apparently the vines are grown in soil treated in harmony with the lunar cycle, using manure buried in a cow’s horn and flower heads of yarrow fermented in a stag’s bladder….

“You like it?” asked Ruth.

“Subtle and fruity,” I said, “with a hint of bladder.”

from The Ghost by Robert Harris (2007). Highly Recommended

Amuse Bouche (for the Bank Holiday)

From my very early touring days I remembered the best fish and chip shops are to be found in the North. Delicious fresh cod and chips all smothered with lashings of salt and vinegar, and let’s not forget the mushy peas. Food that comes with its own specific gravity, that stings the  lips and lies heavy in the stomach afterwards; wash it all down with cheap red lemonade or a warm can of Irn Bru and have a jolly good afternoon snooze.

from Memories, dreams & reflections by Marianne Faithfull (2007)

Amuse Bouche

A few years later, still attracted by the economic opportunities of pig flesh, he decided to buy a pile of pigs’ heads, advertising them outside his pub in Fethard. But they did not sell and the heads started to rot on the premises. Eventually, after several complaints… the rueful Bailey contaminated another stream when he threw the hundred or so heads over a bridge in the dead of night. During the summer of 1957, Bailey acted as guide to Ted Nealon, then a young reporter covering the boycott for The Irish Press.

from The Fethard-on-Sea Boycott by Tim Fanning (2010). Very Highly Recommended.

Amuse Bouche

Many of the organised crime figures in Lewisburg (jail) treated me as one of their own…made sure I received the same food as they did: corn on the cob, pheasant and rice, steak and onions….

… pheasants were ..cooked on a nightly basis around autumn. Traps were set for the pheasants - milk boxes, which fell on them, as they entered to eat loose scattered corn. One night a raid was conducted on the dormitory for narcotics and other contraband. Officer Hill picked up a laundry bag, put his arm deep inside, jumped back and shouted as two pheasants flew out and around the inside of the dormitory and out through an open window. The place was in uproar…Hill was very unpopular.

from The 100 Kilo Case by Peter Daly with James Durney (2016). Very Highly Recommended.

Amuse Bouche

My chickens are gone woeful fat. Eileen says I leave them in too much corn altogether. She doesn’t know that I also pick big caterpillars off the cabbages and feed them to the old fatsos. They see me coming and get into a right flap. They’re the fattest, happiest chickens in Ireland, I’d say. I’ve a daughter too, you know. I can’t bear talking to her any more. I used to think she was the bee’s knees, but now I’d rather feed caterpillars to chickens than talk to her.

from The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (2012) Highly Recommended

Amuse Bouche

She improvised bandages and covered the wound with a makeshift compress. Then she poured the coffee and handed him a sandwich.

“I’m not really hungry,” he said.

“I don’t give a damn if you’re hungry. Just eat,” Salander commanded, taking a big bite of her own cheese sandwich.

Blomkvist closed his eyes for a moment, then he sat up and took a bite. His throat hurt so much he could barely swallow.

 from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson (2005). Very Highly Recommended

Amuse Bouche

‘Would you like some tea?’ asked the nurse, whose name was Lydia Wong. It was the first time I had tasted Lapsang Souchong, which smelled of burnt pine and tar. If I drink it nowadays I am reminded immediately of that day when I was a stand-in for the US Navy. ‘Do you like this tea?’ the nurse asked. “This is a poor man’s tea, made from the most inferior tea leaves. It is roasted and that way the flavour is released. It is very good for sex. It is good for women before sex. I always drink it.’

from Please Enjoy Your Happiness by Paul Brinkley-Rogers 2016 (Very Highly Recommended)

Amuse Bouche

....he had experienced far more global diversity than the average college junior. He knew about shaved ice and malasada, the fried pastry coated in sugar of Honolulu, and about permen cabai, the red pepper candy of Jakarta; now he picked up a simple Sindhi chicken curry recipe from the Pakistanis that became a staple of his home cooking during the New York years: caramelize some onions; toast a spice mix of turmeric, coriander, garlic, and cumin for a minute or so; throw in six chicken thighs and a bit of water; cook until the skin falls from the thighs. He knew the ways of different cultures better than he knew himself.

• From Barack Obama by David Maraniss.

Amuse Bouche

I was just doing my job, the same as the male soigneurs.

The fact was, I was terrified of missing handing an exhausted rider his feed bag. Those lads have suffered enough already. Often I'd have fight my way through crowds of fans too. Belgian fans were especially bad, running like hell from one point of a race to another, not leaving room for staff. In winter races I'd time my arrival at the zone to the last minute, so that the heavily syruped tea we’d made would still be warm enough to heat frozen hands.

From The Race To Truth by Emma O’Reilly (2014). Highly Recommended

Amuse Bouche

“I just don’t feel like cooking tonight.”

“Cooking? Are you serious? I’ve already taken care of everything, my love. Just wait, it’s delicious! Fettucine with mushrooms, and cream, and lemon chicken scaloppini. I got a bottle of red, too, an Aglianico, the kind you like. It’ll be ready in five minutes, just relax until then.”

Ottavia, standing in front of the bathroom mirror where she had gone to remove her makeup, thought to herself that being married to Superman was a curse greater than she could possibly bear.

From The Bastards of Pizzofalcone by Maurizio de Giovanni (2013). Highly Recommended.

Amuse Bouche

‘Away from home our fans are fantastic, what I would call the hardcore fans, but at home they’ve had a few drinks and probably their prawn sandwiches and they don't realise what is going on out on the pitch. It’s out of order.’

Keane’s remarks about the prawn sandwiches caused a storm and made headlines for days. It prompted much debate as to whether too much success had made the fans complacent and whether too many fans enjoying corporate hospitality were contributing to the lack of atmosphere at Old Trafford.

from Roy Keane Portrait of a Legend by Stafford Hildred and Tim Ewbank (2007). No recommendation

Amuse Bouche

As food got scarcer, Ernest Hemingway, who reached Madrid in March 1937, consolidated his popularity by dint of the inexhaustible store of bacon, eggs, coffee and marmalade, whisky and gin, that he kept in his room at the Florida. International Brigade volunteers were always welcome and would always find plenty of bottles and tinned food. His stocks were both replenished and distributed by his faithful crony, Sidney Franklin, the American bullfighter…

From We Saw Spain Die by Paul Preston (2008)

Amuse Bouche

The drink of choice was Black Velvet, which was poured from largish jugs. Black Velvet is a mixture of Guinness and Champagne, mixed together in equal measure. Haughey was relaxed and appeared to be amongst friends. His friends were giving it to him and being irreverent. Haughey was able to take it and would laugh quite a lot through the dinner. Eventually he had to be carried off or hustled out to the car and home because he was beginning to topple off his chair.

from Haughey. Prince of Power. By Conor Lenihan. (Recommended)

Amuse Bouche. Bank Holiday Extra

After examining the contents of the pantry and refrigerator, Henry found excellent sausages, acceptable cheeses, fresh eggs, a jar of red peppers, and an unfortunate but edible loaf of white bread made of flour so bleached that it glowed as if radioactive.

He opened three different Cabernet Sauvignons, … Only the third proved drinkable. If this was the best wine that Jim and Nora could afford, or, worse, if this was their idea of a good wine - well, sadly, then they were better off dead.

From Breathless by Dean Koontz (2009). Recommended

Amuse Bouche

A few hours later, Lucy and I were ensconced inside Sean’s Presidential suit. There were lots of shrimps, bottles of champagne, laughs from the throat, laughs from the gut. Tom Jones, a Welshman to Sean Connery’s Scotsman, serenaded the room from enormous stereo speakers with “What’s New Pussycat?”

Eventually Sean took a seat on the couch between us so we could all study the dinner menu. The shrimp scampi and the vichyssoise, he said, were both a must. Sean poured us more champagne, which it was possibly a mistake to accept, as I was almost drunk already. Lucy, I could tell, was flirting with him…

From Boys in the Trees, a memoir by Carly Simon (2015). 

No Recommendation