Breakfast in Dorne

Some time ago, I treated myself to A Feast of Ice and Fire, the official Game of Thrones cookbook. It's a mouthwatering collection, which came out of the blog Inn at the Crossroads, and has been endorsed by George RR Martin, who says he has tried several of the dishes that have been included. "I can't cook," he says in the introduction, but fans have turned up to book signings across the United States with lemon cakes and meat pies and other goodies for him to try.
The book is helpfully laid out with an original medieval or Roman or Elizabethan recipe, followed by a modern equivalent, and has a quotation from the books for each recipe - and lots of glossy pictures of the food.

I haven't actually tried any of the recipes yet, but I have eggs I need to use up, so last night I looked through the book and found the recipe for "Breakfast in Dorne". It's hot weather here at the moment, just right for the spicy food that Dorne seems to specialise in. The book is American, of course, so some of the terms are unfamiliar. Along with the eggs, there are various sorts of peppers - I'm pretty confident I know what a jalapeno pepper is, but the bell peppers are divided into "orange" and "cherry - in different colours", and I really have no idea what cubanelle or poblano peppers are! (I know, Google is my friend....).
More to the point, I don't think my local friendly greengrocer knows what the different sorts of peppers are, either. So I bought a selection of peppers that are available here, and I'm good to go! In fact, at the end of the recipe, the authors suggest improvisation, according to how spicy you want the dish to be.
So that's tomorrow evening's dinner organised - and if it goes well, perhaps I'll move on to a Sansa salad, or white beans and bacon - but maybe not the honey-spiced locusts from Meereen!

From Sherwood to Westeros

I happened to see a copy of the Sun today, not a newspaper I normally read, and there was a story in it about an actor who was giving evidence in court against the man who had bitten part of his ear off. The actor's name was Clive Mantle, and that rang a faint bell with me.
So I looked him up and found, to my delight, that he had been Little John in Robin of Sherwood in the 1980s. In fact, he was recorded as saying it was one of the most enjoyable acting experiences of his career.
He's done a great variety of things since then, on film, TV and stage, most notably a surgeon in Casualty and Holby City - but I very rarely watch anything like that, so I hadn't noticed him.
Now he's back in something I am following, though - he's Lord Greatjon Umber, one of the Stark bannermen, in Game of Thrones!

George RR Martin's Reading List

While fans of Game of Thrones are waiting for the next book, they often ask George RR Martin for recommendations of other books which are like the mammoth epic fantasy series.
I came across the list of 33 books that he has chosen on Huffington Post, and was delighted to see some old friends there:

No. 1 on the list is pretty obvious - it's Lord of the Rings.
However, it was No. 3 that made me go 'squee' - it's Jirel of Joiry, by CL Moore, the first fighting heroine in fantasy. She was wearing armour and beating up the bad guys long before Brienne of Tarth was a twinkle in her creator's eye!
Then there's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser - the barbarian and thief duo in the seedier quarters of the city of Lankhmar and beyond (and without Lankhmar, there would probably be no Ankh-Morpork). This series is by Fritz Leiber, and it's great fun.
Watership Down, by Richard Adams, made me stop and do a double take, but after you've got over the "But it's all about rabbits" stage, this actually does make a lot of sense - there are rabbit legends, different warrens with differing political systems, and complex interactions with other animals as Hazel, Fiver and the others struggle to establish their own warren.
A Wizard of Earthsea is another magical and detailed world, this time by Ursula K Le Guin. The classic Wizard School, with an archipelago of islands, dragons - and the white characters are these weird barbarians with a strange religion, who don't get on well with the rest of the islands.
Then there are a couple of Arthurian stories - the classic Once and Future King, by TH White, and Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff (one of my all time favourite children's authors). Another favourite children's author is Alan Garner, and The Wierdstone of Brisingamen is also on the list.
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake, also makes a lot of sense, with that convoluted and inward looking castle and a huge cast of grotesque characters.

He finishes off with some historical fiction, including classics like Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who wrote rather more than Sherlock Holmes stories), Nigel Tranter's Scottish history, Bernard Cornwell, the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser (being the further adventures of the cad and bully Flashman from Tom Brown's Schooldays, full of footnotes about the real history, and great fun).
Another favourite author, Sharon Penman, is mentioned for Lionheart (about King Richard, of course) but I think I'd recommend her Welsh trilogy Here Be Dragons, Falls the Shadow and The Reckoning - that is, if a reader is prepared to spend the last 200 pages of the last book sobbing, like I did (partly because I knew the history, so I knew what was going to happen to the characters). But anyone who's been through the Red Wedding would be able to cope with that, I think!

So those are my old favourites - which makes me think it really is time to start tracking down some of the other titles on the list which I haven't read. The Lies of Locke Lamora has already been recommended to me as something I might like (it's by Scott Lynch). I've also read one or two of the Conan stories, and I keep meaning to get round to the Dying Earth by Jack Vance.
Lovecraft I might leave to one side, and I suspect that Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique is similar to Lovecraft, so not my glass of tea.
Daniel Abraham's name is new to me, though, and his book Shadow and Betrayal is mentioned. So is Patrick Rothfuss and The Name of the Wind. Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold sounds promising, too.
Then there's Thomas B Costain and The Silver Chalice, Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates (I love Howard Pyle's artwork, and pirates. He also did illustrations for Robin Hood). Frank Yerby's Goat Song (about Ancient Greece) is next, though I think I prefer my Ancient Greece as told by Mary Renault.
Rosemary Hawley Jarman, with Crown in Candlelight, rings a faint bell - I may have read it once. I know I've heard good things about Stephen Pressfield - the Afghan Campaign is recommended, but one of his earlier books was Gates of Fire, about Thermopylae.
The Serpent Dreamer by Cecilia Holland is next - and it's nice to see a mixture of male and female authors on this list.
Then there's Sacred Band, by David Anthony Durham. It has a dragon on the cover, which looks promising. The Devil's Oasis is by Bartle Bull, and appears to be set in Egypt. And finally, there's the Iron King by Maurice Druon.

By the time I've tracked down all of those, there's a faint possibility that George RR Martin might have finished his series!