In which things get pretty fucking terrible. Content notes for slavery, racial violence, and torture. The title card is a Black woman winding a clock. On the barge, Jamie is feeling all sorts of guilt at not being able to stop Bonnet. Claire tells him that he shouldn’t blame himself, and Jamie’s like, I helped him escape the noose and I couldn’t stop them. I don’t know, maybe the blame lays with Stephen Bonnet? Anyway, … Continue reading Outlander 4.02: “Do No Harm” →
WE’RE BACK Y’ALL. We begin in somewhere in North America, 2000 BC. prehistoric people build a circle with flat slabs of stone. They dance around it as Claire voiceovers about the human fascination with circles and their symbolic properties: the rotation of the planets, a simple wedding band…the circle is life or death. The picture cuts to a view of a street seen through a noose. We are in North Carolina, and it’s 1767. Jamie … Continue reading Outlander 4.01: America the Beautiful →
GUESS WHAT’S COMING BACK TOMORROW? OUTLANDER. OUTLANDER RETURNS. THE DROUGHTLANDER IS OVER. I might be a bit excited. So, I thought we’d make some Scottish bannocks! It’s a flat bread with no leavening, made with oats, or barley, or beremeal. Beremeal is a variety of barley that grows in Orkney and Shetland. It has a lower yield than regular barley, but apparently more flavor. I chose to go with oats because I already had Scottish … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Bannocks →
I got inspired by The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassell and went looking for a Dutch recipe that was very seasonal and tasty and also used the oven because IT GOT CHILLY HERE, and that was from the general era and might have been something that Katrina would have eaten. This was made much easier by a friend of mine who is a living history nerd (much like myself) and also a Dutch American who … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Apple Taert in the Walloon Manner →
THIS BOOK IS SO DUMB. Like, it is ACTIVELY STUPID. I thought I was getting a forced proximity medieval, and I thought maybe this could be cool and fun, and then I saw that it’s a reprint of The Barbarian and the Princess, which Krahn published in 1993, so I thought “Oh, Old Skool wackiness! I’ve kinda missed that!” and then I got some of the shittiest world building EVER and I’m just annoyed. It’s … Continue reading Three Nights With the Princess by Betina Krahn →
It’s October, it is decorative gourd season, motherforkers, and time for SPOOKY STORIES and pumpkin spice and boots and scarves and right on time, we have a feminist version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow told from the point of view of Katrina van Tassel, the woman at the point of of the love triangle between Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones. In Washington Irving’s original story, Ichabod Crane comes to the village of Sleepy Hollow … Continue reading The Spellbook of Katrina van Tassel by Alyssa Palombo →
I don’t know what it’s been like in your corner of the world, but in mine, it’s been wretchedly hot all summer. Far too hot to cook. So this month, I thought let’s try an AMA. Do you have questions about historical cooking? Food? Historical re-enactment? Ask them down in the comments, and I’ll answer things on Sunday. Ask away!
Take a pile of pretty people, a GORGEOUS location, a fish out of water, a “you don’t know what you’re actually getting in to” love story based on a best selling book series, and you have Crazy Rich Asians. This is the story of Rachel Chu and Nick Young, two attractive people in New York who fly to Singapore for Nick’s BFF’s wedding, where Rachel meets Nick’s family… and he never told her that his … Continue reading Movie Review: Crazy Rich Asians →
This is a recipe that drifted across my Facebook feed a couple weeks ago, and it looks so delicious I had to make it. It’s from a 10th Century Arabic cookbook, Kitab al-Ṭabīḫ, in Arabic: كتاب الطبيخ, or “The Book of Dishes.” Barida refers to a cold starter dish. The theory at the time was the stomach needed to be “warmed up” before starting a full meal. It’s like stretching but for your digestive system. … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Black Barida →
If you are lucky in life, you will have a friend or two that you will ride or die for, and will ride or die for you. I highly recommend it. If you are unlucky, you may end up in a situation where you need to get a MacGuffin to Vienna after your roommate’s one night stand murdered your (Ex?) boyfriend who is also a spy. But, if you do end up in that place, … Continue reading Movie Review: The Spy Who Dumped Me →
It’s been too damn hot to cook, so I thought I would give you my thoughts on something you can do, sitting in the air conditioning, drinking a cool beverage of your choice. A few weeks ago, I discovered a new show on Netflix, and it was clearly perfectly aligned to my interests that I have to assume that Raidió Teilifís Éireann and Mind the Gap Films created a show just for me. Lords and … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Lords and Ladles →
