Part 8, is dedicated to turtle soup. Helen starts with the famous poem from Alice in Wonderland followed by an extract from Pentimento by Lillian Hellman. She continues with recipes for both Mock Turtle Soup and real Turtle Soup from The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer, and for ConsommĂ© Fausse Tortue from Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll.

The Sandwich: in this article in the Food in Literature series, Helen Garlick brings us the sandwich, with extracts from The Cold Table by Helen Simpson, The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott, Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll, from With Bold Knife and Fork by MFK Fisher, Unnatural Death by Dorothy Sayers, and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

Agnes Jekyll (1860-1937) was the supreme hostess: her house was described as "the apogee of opulent comfort and order without grandeur, smelling of pot-pouri, furniture polish and wood smoke". Lady Jekyll, as she became, first published Kitchen Essays in The Times, "in which she was persuaded to pass on some of the wit and wisdom of her rare gift for clever and imaginative housekeeping".  Helen Garlick reads a few of her favourite extracts...

Agnes Jekyll's gift for friendship and organisational skills made her an excellent hostess. Helen Garlick reads three more extracts from Kitchen Essays, published in The Times in 1922, in which Lady Jekyll passes on 'some of the wit and wisdom of her clever and imaginative housekeeping'.

Convalescence

Post viral recovery can be a long haul. We seem to have lost the concept of convalescence, of the need to understand that full recovery from illness can take a period of time, that needs to be accepted and catered for in every sense. Helen Garlick searches her cookery book library for dishes to tempt and nourish invalids and convalescents…