Like so many of you, I’ve been watching Bridgerton. And while I’ve enjoyed the past two seasons and prequel, it wasn’t at the top of my favorites list. It was fun to watch, but not must-see viewing. But Season 3 – the redhead wallflower with a clandestine writing gig finally gets the guy she’s been pining over? Oh yeah, I’m in, I’m there and I’m totally addicted. So, I figured I’d review the episodes and have a place for all my rants and musings. In my searches for Bridgerton content, I stumbled upon this book: The Official Bridgerton Guide to Entertaining: How to Cook, Host, and Toast Like a Member of the Ton: A Cookbook by Emily Timberlake with recipes by Susan Vu.  I thought it might be fun to make some recipes from it and review them alongside each episode, so I clicked some buttons on Amazon and it arrived at my door.

DESCRIPTION

From the front book flap:

“These forty recipes have been developed with a modern audience in mind, offering mocktail, vegetarian, and gluten-free options to ensure that no fan is left hungry. They are presented alongside mouth-watering food photography, stills from the show and sidebars explaining essential expertise, such as how to address a Marquis, execute the perfect curtsy, or build a macaron tower sturdy enough to last the night.”

ORGANIZATION

The book has a 2-page introduction, then is organized into themed chapters that start with interesting bits of prose like “how to prepare a proper pot of tea” – if I’ve dated more than one British man, can I skip this section? Or “how to construct a macaron tower” which you know will absolutely come in handy in an emergency. Not to be outdone by “dance etiquette”, where we learn the order of dances, because God forbid, we do the scotch reel before the quadrille. Interspersed are lovely photographs of some recipes and stills from the show. Unfortunately, not every recipe has a photo.

This book is also oddly small. Most cookbooks are larger, and so are coffee table books, which this could fall under as well. Here’s a picture of it in my cookbook holder for reference.

The Chapter Themes:

1. A Breakfast Visit With the Bridgertons
2. The Queen’s Lawn Party
3. Afternoon Tea with the Sharmas
4. Dinner at the Featherington Ball
5. Lady Danbury’s Den of Iniquity

first impressions

Gentle Readers, I’m a fairly experienced cook and baker, so when I ordered this, I wasn’t too worried about the recipes. I was thinking – little cakes and tea sandwiches. How hard could that be? It was dropped off at Death Mountain and as I started paging through, the panic began. This is not a cookbook for the faint of heart, or those who don’t like making pie crust from scratch or hunting down random ingredients. Most recipes look pretty complicated and fairly expensive. The simplest ones are the cocktails, so strap in folks, it’s going to be a boozy season. Let’s see if I can hunt down stuff like “black currant juice”, “Indian style yogurt”, “gooseberries” and “black treacle”. Most recipes have a plethora of ingredients as well. For example, “Kippers on Toast” sounds simple, and yet it lists 16 ingredients. That’s right, 16. I’m not feeling like this cookbook is for the “modern audience”, maybe like “masochists” or “people with too much free time”. And I totally expect some complicated recipes, but as someone with a horde of cookbooks, most don’t have quite so many intimidating ones. All that being said, this is just my first impression and I’m going to keep an open mind as I try to cook through this book. There’s a chance I may just be making cocktails, so we’ll have to see how coherent my reviews are and how many drunk dials it results in. Hopefully I can make Lady Whistledown proud. Cheers!

Are you a Bridgerton Fan?
If so, are you more or less excited for Season 3 as compared to the previous ones?