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I need this for reasons
(Apologies for any spider inaccuracies, I was too tired to research)
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Tips for writing those gala scenes, from someone who goes to them occasionally:
Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.
You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.
When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.
A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)
Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)
The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.
Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.
Members of the press generally aren’t allowed to freely circulate at nicer galas/events without a very good reason. When they do, they need to identify themselves before talking with someone.
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A truly splendid array of shelves filled with crockery, jugs and mugs creates the effect of a huge dresser, providing a decorative background for this kitchen dining area. For the cook, it is a quick, convenient step from hob or sink to table.
Traditional Country Style, 1991
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Mem., get recipe for Mina: a food guide to Dracula Daily
Inspired by There and Snack Again (in which you eat along with the LOTR movies), this is your guide to eating and drinking along with Dracula Daily.
All under a cut because there's no way I can do this with extensive spoilers. I strongly recommend not reading this unless you already know what happens in Dracula. Also only if you're comfortable reading about alcoholic drinks - there's a lot of booze in this novel.
Let's eat!
2 May
We start with the famous paprika hendl. Google "chicken paprikash" and choose whichever recipe most strikes your fancy.
3 May
For breakfast, choose from mamaliga (cornmeal porridge, similar to grits), "impletata" (vânătă umplută - stuffed aubergine) or anything with more paprika in it.
4 May
For dinner, Jonathan has robber steak: "bits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire".
5 May
Slivovitz, if you'd like it (Jonathan declines). Then, for dinner, Dracula serves up roast chicken, with some cheese, a salad and a glass or two of Tokaji wine.
6 May
"A cold breakfast" for Jonathan. In Romania a cold breakfast might include boiled eggs, telemea (sheep's cheese), franzela (bread) with assorted spreads, sliced cucumber and tomatoes, and sunculita taraneasca (sliced smoked pork). Jonathan also has "an excellent supper", but doesn't tell us what that includes.
16 May
Would it be too bleak if I suggested eating a symbolic Jelly Baby?
26 May
A glass of wine as Quincey and Jack congratulate Arthur and drown their sorrows.
18 June
There's a kind of Scottish fruit slice called "flies' graveyard". That might make a suitable snack given Renfield's meal today.
24 June
I guess a gingerbread woman, for the wolves? IDK, it turns out doing this for a horror novel is a bit grim.
8 July
Thankfully the internet has hundreds of ideas for spider-themed cakes so you can eat along with Renfield.
18 July
The voyage of the Demeter begins! Celebrate by eating like a sailor: have some salt pork, or make ship's biscuit.
20 July
Renfield has just eaten several sparrows. Provide redress by feeding birds near you, bird flu guidance permitting.
24 July
Imitate the "feet-folk" from York and Leeds by drinking some tea or eating some cured herring.
10 August
Lucy and Mina enjoy a "severe tea". There are lots of severe teas in Victorian literature, but few writers actually describe what's in it - e.g. the Churchman's shilling magazine, 1868, has a story with a severe tea "which implies coffee, tea, and muffins, with substantials". What are substantials? I have no idea, but that's what you should eat today.
11 August
Dracula has a little nibble on Lucy. I don't suggest doing this for every vampire bite in the novel, but given this one is particularly significant, how about marking the occasion with some black pudding?
30 August
No food details for a while, but in this entry, Lucy notes that she "has an appetite like a cormorant" and "Arthur says I am getting fat". Celebrate with some cake.
3 September
Van Helsing has been! And surely he wouldn't have come all the way from the Netherlands empty-handed? Acknowledge his visit with some gouda or a stroopwafel.
4 September
Eat some sugar, which Renfield has requested for his flies.
7 September
To stay in line with what the characters actually eat and drink, have a glass of port (though ideally not if you've just given blood). But for the real spirit of the day, consider a corn-on-the-cob.
9 September
Free space! Jack has "an excellent meal" but doesn't say what it is. Dig into your favourite dinner.
10 September
A sip of brandy, with which Van Helsing wets Lucy's lips.
11 September
The garlic flowers arrive. There's lots that you can make with wild garlic - personally, I like it in risotto.
17 September
A boxful of garlic flowers arrive for Lucy every day. Time to make chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. Other options for today include more black pudding (in honour of Renfield lapping up Jack's blood) or sherry.
18 September
The Zookeeper enjoys a teacake, and so shall we.
20 September
No food, but the labourers have "a stiff glass of grog". This is rum diluted with water, but you could also add lemon or lime juice, sugar, and/or cinnamon.
25 September
Nibble another Jelly Baby for the Bloofer Lady.
29 September
A lot happens in this entry, but there's not a lot of food. There are thirsty labourers, however. Maybe have a beer?
30 September
Mina makes everyone a pot of tea. Also, we don't know what they have for dinner, but they eat it at 7pm, if you'd like to time your evening meal accordingly.
1 October
More tea! Since this is being gulped down by a working man, make it builder's style - strong, sweet, lots of milk.
2 October
Jonathan visits the Aërated Bread Company. He only has a cup of tea, but you could have whatever you like best from their menu:
(source)
3 October
Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood like "a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk". You could either have some more black pudding, or drink a glass of milk in solidarity with Mina.
15 October
The Crew of Light aren't focusing much on meals any more, but they have travelled on the Orient Express. Here's the 1887 dining car menu.
(source - I can't vouch for the accuracy of a random person on Twitter but it looks plausible)
29 October
No one is thinking of food in this bit of the novel (though Mina makes yet more tea), but as they're heading to Romania, have some sarmale. These stuffed cabbage rolls are the Romanian national dish.
31 October
Mina and Van Helsing have "a huge basket of provisions". Have a picnic in their honour, if it's warm enough where you are.
1 November
Mina and Van Helsing have "hot soup" into which the local cooks have put an extra amount of garlic. Consider having a truly extra amount of garlic with this 44-garlic-clove soup.
7 November
The Crew of Light return to Transylvania. No details of food, but in honour of their journey, I would suggest a final round of chicken paprikash, to bring us back to where it all began.
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I see a lot of people clowning on the people of Pelican Town for not repairing the community center themselves or clowning on Lewis for embezzling and. like. Those criticisms aren't entirely unfair. But I think instead of coming at it from a perspective of "why can't the townspeople do this" we should be asking "why and how can the farmer do this?"
Like. Think about it. The farmer arrives in Stardew Valley on the first day of spring. By the first day they're obviously different. By day five the spirits of the forest who haven't been seen by the townsfolk in years or generations are speaking to them. By the second week they've developed a rapport with the wizard that lives outside town.
In the spring they go foraging and find more than even Linus, who's spent so many years learning the ways of the valley. Maybe he knows, when he sees them walking back home. Maybe he looks at them and understands that they're different, chosen somehow.
In the summer they fish in the lakes and the ocean for hours on end, catching fish that even Willy's only ever heard of, fish that he thought were the stuff of legend. They pull up giants from the deep and mutated monstrosities from the sewers.
In the fall, their crops grow incredibly immense; pumpkins twice as tall as a person, big enough that someone could live inside. The farmer cuts it down with an axe without even batting an eye. Does Lewis wonder, when he checks the collection bin that night and finds it full to the brim with pumpkin flesh? What does he think? Does he even leave the money? Does he have the funds to pay the farmer millions of dollars for the massive amounts of wine they sell? Or is it someone--something--else entirely?
In the winter, the farmer delves into the mines. No one in Pelican Town has been down there in decades. No one in living memory has been to the bottom. The farmer gets there within the season. They return to the surface with stories of dwarven ruins and shadow people, stories they only tell to Vincent and Jas, whose retellings will be dismissed by the adults as flights of fancy. People walking by the entrance to the mines sometimes hear the farmer in there, speaking in a language no one can understand. Something speaks back.
The farmer speaks to the the wizard. They speak to the spirit of a bear inside a centuries-old stone. They speak to the shadow people and the dwarves, ancient enemies, and they try to mend the rift. They speak to the Junimos, ancient spirits of the forest and the river and the mountain. They taste the nectar of the stardrops and speak to the valley itself. They change Pelican Town, and they change the valley. Things are waking up.
And what does Evelyn think? She's the oldest person in the valley; she was here when the farmer's grandfather was young. (How old *is* she, anyway? She never seems to age. She doesn't remember the year she was born.) Does she see the farmer and think of their grandfather? Does she try to remember if he was like this too, strange and wild and given the gifts of the forest?
And does their grandfather haunt the valley? He haunts the farm, still there even after his death; his body died somewhere else, but his spirit could never stay away for long. Does Abigail, using her ouija board on a stormy night, almost drop the planchette when she realizes it's moving on its own? Does Shane, walking to work long before anyone else leaves their house, catch glimpses of a wispy figure floating through the town? Does the farmer know their grandfather came back to the place they both love so much?
Mr. Qi takes interest in the farmer. He's different, too; in a different way, maybe, but the principles are the same. They're both exceptional, and no matter what Qi says about it being hard work and dedication, they both know the truth: the world bends around the both of them, changing to fit their needs. Most people aren't visited by fairies or witches. Most people don't have meteorites crash in their yard. Most people couldn't chop down trees all day without a break or speak to bears and mice and frogs.
The farmer is different. The rules of the world don't work for them the way they work for everyone else. The farmer goes fishing and finds the stuff of fairy tales. The farmer goes mining and fights shadow beasts and flying snakes. The farmer looks at paths the townspeople walk every day and finds buried in the dirt relics of lost civilizations.
The farmer is a violent, irrepressible miracle, chosen by the valley and destined to return to it someday. Even if they'd never received the letter, they would've come home.
They always come home eventually.
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Detail of Heaven from the Last Judgement
Artist: Fra Angelico
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