Appetite for Murder: A Mystery Lover's Cookbook

by Kathy Borich

Off to England for supper with Sherlock Holmes, morning tea with Miss Marple, or a pub crawl with Chief Inspector Morse. Guaranteed to whet your Appetite for Murder, this tantalizing slant on cooking... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1589394992
• ISBN13: 9781589394995
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: Virtualbookworm.com Publishing
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.3" x 11.1"

Customer Reviews

Something for every palette

Appetite for Murder: A Mystery Lover's Cookbook This is a delightful book, with a very neat play on the word `cookbook', for it is both an actual cookbook and also cooks up a wonderful collection of famous and much-loved everyday English detectives written by well-known English crime writers, cast in light-hearted settings of short descriptions of imaginary crimes. It creates appetites and recipes to die for! The book is a beautifully fresh idea, light as a soufflé, bringing together food, interesting fictional detectives, novel and wonderfully attractive culinary sayings, and neatly crafted imaginary crime scenarios. For readers who want to have perfectly penned short vignettes of detectives as varied as Chief Inspector Morse, Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Rumpole of the Bailey, Ellery Queen, Hercules Poirot and Chief Inspector Wexford (plus many more), this is a sparkling book. Each vignette is accompanied by culinary aphorisms to delight and charm: `The curry was like a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It stunned, it made one fear great art' or `Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had nothing to live on but food and water'. Each character vignette is also followed by several recipes. We meet the simple pleasures of `spinach crepes', herbal delights such as `French potato salad bathed in vermouth, chervil chives and tarragon', the full-blooded `shepherd's pie', the delicacy of `orange and walnut crumpets', and the wonderfully indulgent `Birnennwecken pear cake from the Berne district with pears, prunes, and figs soaked in wine' or `drunken strawberries'; there is something for the palette of every gastronome and reader of fictional detectives. We have `A `Wimsical' Picnic with Lord Peter, `Chief Inspector Morse's Fish and Chips to Die For', and `Aboard the Orient Express; in all twenty chapters of delights, beautifully written and presented, with photographs, recipes, prose and sayings. This book has been lent out to very many friends, and they are all captivated by the recipes, the idea, and the writing. Not only is it a perfect table book, but also a kitchen recipe book whose straightforward recipes cannot fail to charm. It would be an excellent present for lovers of English, cooks and gourmets alike.

A Spicey Treat for Mind and Palate

A warning must come with this book. That is you can't put it down until you have read it at least twice. First, mystery lovers want to get the references to those mysteries they haven't yet read, as I did. Then all of us who love good food-and who doesn't-must peruse the recipes, estimating which might be possible to try, which we feel confident attempting and which we might look for when dining at a restaurant of the appropriate cuisine. One of the aspects of the recipes I noticed is that several could be adapted to a heart-healthy regimen. The baked cod with cucumber sauce and meringues with strawberries from Melrose Plant's Pub crawl, mushroom omelettes from Savarini's by way of Margery Allingham, and spinach crepes from The Orient Express could, with easy adaptations, find their way into South Beach Diet fare. Perhaps Ms. Borich will now take on the adventure of "South Beach Diet Meets Appetite for Murder". I'll gladly purchase that one, too.

Cookbook Lover

Appetite for Murder-A Mystery Lover's Cookbook is a must for lovers of Cookbooks. Kathy Borich presents us with a cookbook that is unlike any other on the shelf. The author cleverly combines favorite mysteries with great recipes appropriate to the story's content. Recipes range from the exotic, roast Christmas goose with apricot glaze, delicate sauces, to such hearty recipes as venison stew and Navajo bread. The book is a fun read with a wonderful collection of recipes.

Much More than a Cookbook

What aa creative idea! "Appetite for Murder" is much more than a cookbook. It is a witty rendering of some of the classic crime stories of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie, and more. This book not only brings meaning to its menus, it's seasoned with scholarly and humorous quotes related to the recipes. Before the section on Swiss pastry, James Beard reminds us that "A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch."Even if you never cook them, the recipes themselves are a hoot. I especially loved the pub food with crazy names like Bubble and Squeak, Toad in the Hole, and Spotted Dick.And even though many of the stories are English, the cuisine is international, including Swiss, Indian, French, Native American, and New York Deli style.A must for mystery buffs and foodies.