Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!
There is a lot of food talked about in the world of Earthsea but this drew my attention as it was something that I hadn’t made or eaten previously. While it might not sound appealing at first this meal is delicious, vegan, and can be prepared in about 90 seconds. What’s not to love?
Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!
Steamed mantu was one of the scents Amir remembered during the Kite Tournament. The Kite Runner is a beautiful book with a stark reminder of how things can change drastically at any moment.
Steamed mantu is a wonderful Afghan dish, which I have made a bit easier with a few cheats. This is a vegetarian version but you can make a more traditional version by using minced lamb or beef instead of the sweet potato and peas.
Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!
Dany and Vin Vin share several meals in Sushi and Sea Lions, from accidentally undercooked chicken parmigiana to diner chicken wings to the titular sushi. While under pressure to do a chicken parmigiana, I left that surprise for the book. This is the perfect snack to keep in the fridge and pull out and enjoy with this great read. Enjoy.
Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!
After moving from Canton to London, Robin discovers the culinary delight of Mrs Pipers’ Scones (or Bannocks as she prefers to call them).
Obviously, one of the major plot points in the book is whether or not you like sultanas in your scones. While Robin’s benefactor, Professor Lovell, is a big fan of the sultana scone, Robin prefers them plain. Seeing that my wife agrees with Robin, plain scones is what I have made. But feel free to add a handful of sultanas if you are that way inclined.
Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill! This month, hijacked by Rachel A. Rosen.
Nanaimo bars are a classic Canadian dessert, full of chocolate, coconut, and mint. In Zilla Novikov’s Query, they’re the perfect thing to bring along when you spring your love interest from jail after she’s been arrested at a protest. Typically, they’re made with eggs and dairy, but we’re all about saving the earth so I managed to find a great vegan recipe, which I adapted from Oh She Glows.
Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!
Ove tells us about his childhood and being brought up by his single father. In the evenings they ate sausages and potatoes. This is a simplified version of a Danish Sausage casserole. I feel that Oves father may have left out some of the flourishes such as cream that would normally be added in but feel free to add a drop yourself if you are in the mood. This is a very simple and cheap dish and I could see why Ove’s father would have this as a staple. I couldn’t find Danish sausage in my local supermarket so I used Kabonos sausage instead. But any tasty sausage should do.
Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!
Today I’ve presented my recipe as a TikTok video so you can follow along at home. This is on page 91 of The Sad Bastard Cookbook.
Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!
Fermín breathed deeply, with relief, and I knew I wasn’t the only one to be rejoicing at having left that place behind…
“Listen, Daniel. What would you say to some ham croquettes and a couple of glasses of sparkling wine here in the Xampañet, just to take away the bad taste left in our mouths?”
This month I have chosen the atmospheric and beautifully written Shadow of the Wind and paired it with Spanish croquettes. I hope that this recipe, along with a nice glass of rioja, will immerse you into the Barcelona vibe that comes through so strongly in the book.
Traditional Spanish croquettes are made with a béchamel sauce and involve a two-day cook, so I have simplified this a bit by using potatoes for the croquettes. Apologies to our Spanish readers for the abomination.
Life is hard. Some days are at the absolute limit of what we can manage. Some days are worse than that. Eating—picking a meal, making it, putting it into your facehole—can feel like an insurmountable challenge. We wrote this cookbook to share our coping strategies. It has recipes to make when you’ve worked a 16-hour day, when you can’t stop crying and you don’t know why, when you accidentally woke up an Eldritch abomination at the bottom of the ocean. But most of all, this cookbook exists to help Sad Bastards like us feel a little less alone at mealtimes.
The Sad Bastard Cookbook is funny, realistic, and kind. It’s vegetarian/vegan. It’s a community-built project. And the e-book is free. It’s hard to survive late capitalism and we want to help.
Want an e-copy? Newsletter subscribers get it right away so sign up and enjoy! Plus, the newsletter has monthly pictures of our cats. Sometimes our dogs and our fish. But mostly cats.
Want an e-copy and hate newsletters? We’ll make it free for everyone in January on the e-book platform of your choice. Or sign up to the newsletter and unsubscribe after you get the Sad Bastard Cookbook. We all know how to game online systems.
Want a print copy? Unfortunately, the pervasive nature of capitalism means we’re selling print copies on Amazon for money. We live in a society.
Want a print copy and hate Amazon and/or capitalism? We’re not the biggest fans either. Subscribe to the newsletter, download the free pdf, and print it. We’re cool with that. We made it legal with Creative Commons (4.0 attribution non-commercial), but if you get a thrill from breaking the law, you can pretend it’s not.
Want to help us make The Sad Bastard Cookbook a success? Work with us to game the book-recommendation algorithms so more people see the cookbook in their suggested “To Read” books. Leave us a review Goodreads or Storygraph (or anywhere else). The algorithms rate reviews higher than anything else, so saying what you honestly thought of the book is incredibly valuable to us—and to other readers. It’s one of the best things you can do to promote our work.
Want an amazing editor for your own project? Victoria Rose (she/her) is an editor, writer, avid reader, self-described geek, and fan of all things creative. You can find her at FlickeringWords.com. Lindsay Hobbs (she/her) is a book lover, fiction editor, occasional writer, and cat mom. You can find her at topazliterary.com. We had a truly wonderful experience working with both of them. Their eye for detail was incredible, and they knew how to change our words without changing our meaning. Most of all, they believed in the project and they treated our work with love. If you need an editor for your writing project, you should see if either of them have an opening.
Want to hear us get sappy? The Sad Bastard Cookbook was the work of the community coming together. From professional editors volunteering their time, to complete strangers suggesting recipes, it was truly a wonderful experience to create something meaningful with so many of you. We hope it help you find food you can eat, and helps you know that you are loved. Please, take care of yourself.
Content notes for The Sad Bastard Cookbook: Mental and physical illness, disordered eating, and dark humour throughout, as well as occasional mentions of alcohol, swearing, and political references. If you have specific food triggers, some recipes may be unpalatable to you.
Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!
This is my first baking recipe for Night Beats and I have kept it to a very simple sponge cake. However, you really need a stand mixer for this recipe.
Night Beats Extended Universe 