Outlander Kitchen

Hot Chocolate with La Dame Blanche from Outlander Kitchen

It isna a matter of right, Sassenach, I heard Jamie’s voice saying, with a tinge of impatience.  It’s a question of duty.  Of honor.

“Honor, is it?” I said aloud.  “And what’s that?” The waiter with my plate of tortellini Portofino looked startled.

“Eh?” he said.

“Never mind,” I said, too distracted to care much what he thought of me.  “Perhaps you’d better bring the rest of the bottle.”

I finished my meal surrounded by ghosts.  Finally, fortified by food and wine, I pushed my empty plate aside, and opened Gillian Edgar’s gray notebook.

Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber (Chapter 48)

Claire’s Tortellini Portofino from Dragonfly in Amber For New Year’s Eve from OutlanderKitchen.com

Bangers & Mash with Crock Pot Onion Gravy from DIA from Outlander Kitchen.com - recipe

Bangers & Mash with Crock Pot Onion Gravy from DIA

“Where the hell have you been?” I demanded.

He took time to kiss me before replying.  His face was cold against mine, and his lips tasted faintly and pleasantly of whisky.

“Mm, sausage for supper?” he said approvingly, sniffing at my hair, which smelled of kitchen smoke.  “Good, I’m fair starved.”

“Bangers and mash,” I said.  “Where have you been?”

He laughed, shaking out his plaid to get the blown snow off.  “Bangers and mash?  That’s food, is it?”

“Sausages with mashed potatoes,” I translated. “A nice traditional English dish, hitherto unknown in the benighted reaches of Scotland.  Now, you bloody Scot, where in hell have you been for the last two days?  Jenny and I were worried!”

Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber (Chapter 33 – Thy Brother’s Keeper)

Read more and find the recipe here.

Madame Nesle de la Tourelle’s Slippery Nipple

I dipped automatically, struggling to keep my eyes on the floor and wondering where I would look when I bobbed up again.  Madame Nesle de la Tourelle was standing just behind Louis, watching the introduction with a slightly bored look on her face.  Gossip said that “Nesle” was Louis’s current favorite.  She was, in current vogue, wearing a gown cut below both breasts, with a bit of supercedent gauze which was clearly meant for the sake of fashion, as it couldn’t possibly function for either warmth or concealment.

It was neither the gown nor the prospect it revealed that had rattled me, though.  The breasts of “Nesle,” while reasonably adequate in size, pleasant in proportion, and tipped with large brownish areolae, were further adorned with a pair of nipple jewels that caused their setting to recede into insignificance.  A pair of diamond-encrusted swans with ruby eyes stretched their necks toward each other, swinging precariously in their gold-hooped perches.  The workmanship was superb and the material stunning, but it was the fact that each gold hoop passed through her nipple that made me feel rather faint.  The nipples themselves were rather seriously inverted, but this fact was disguised by the large pearl that covered each one, dangling on a thin gold chain that looped from side to side of the main hoop.

Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber (Chapter 9)

Fergus’s Chestnut Tarts

“What on earth is that?”  I peered over his shoulder, and gasped when I saw the signature at the foot of the letter.  James Stuart, by the grace of God King of England and Scotland.

“Bloody Christ!  It worked, then!”  Swinging around, I spotted Fergus, crouched on a stool in front of the fire, industriously stuffing pastries into his face.  “Good lad,” I said, smiling at him.  He grinned back at me, cheeks puffed like a chipmunk’s with chestnut tart.

“We got it from the papal messenger,” Jamie explained, coming to the surface long enough to realize I was there.  “Fergus took it from the bag while he was eating supper in a tavern.  He’ll spend the night there, so we’ll have to put this back before morning.  No difficulties there, Fergus?”

The boy swallowed and shook his head.  “No, milord.  He sleeps alone — not trusting his bedmates not to steal the contents of his bag.” He grinned derisively at this.  “The second window on the left, above the stables.” He waved an airy hand, the deft, grubby fingers reaching for another pie.  “It is nothing, milord.”

Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber, Chap 13 (Seal Books, 1992)

Claire’s Nettle-Kissed Buns (inspired by Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon)