and peper to taste
2 slices smoked salmon
¼ cup sour cream
6 fresh dill sprigs
METHOD:
1 Peel, seed, and chop the cucumbers.
2 In a blender, purée the cucumbers with the chicken broth until smooth. Add the cream and blend again until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Chill until ready to serve.
3 Slice the smoked salmon into strips.
4 Divide the cucumber soup evenly among 6 chilled soup bowls.
5 Garnish each soup bowl with the smoked salmon strips, a dollop of sour cream, and a dill sprig.
Palm Beach Finger Sandwiches
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
4 ounces sharp yellow cheddar cheese
4 ounces white cheddar cheese
¼ cup diced pimentos
1 tablespoon cream
¼ cup mayonnaise and
salt and pepper to taste
12 slices good white bread (thin slices)
METHOD:
1 Shred the yellow and white cheddar cheeses and put in a bowl.
2 Add the pimentos, cream, and mayonnaise to the cheese and mix well.
3 Season the pimento cheese mixture with salt and pepper.
4 Divide the pimento cheese among six slices of bread and spread it out. Top with the remaining six slices of bread to make sandwiches.
5 Cut the crusts off the sandwiches and discard them. (Or snack on them!)
6 Cut each crustless sandwich into four triangles and arrange them on a platter.
Macadamia Nut Crusted Trout
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
3 whole rainbow trout, deboned
salt and pepper to taste
¾ cup chopped macadamia nuts
¾ cup bread crumbs
½ cup melted butter
6 lemon wedges
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Open up the fish and then place, skin side down, on an oiled baking tray. Season them with salt and pepper.
2 Combine the macadamia nuts with bread crumbs and coat the fish flesh with the mixture.
3 Drizzle the melted butter over the macadamia nut crust.
4 Bake the trout for 12 minutes, and then broil it to brown the crust.
5 Serve with lemon wedges to squeeze on top.
Grape-Nuts Ice Cream
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup half-and-half
⅔ cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1 cup cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
½ cup Grape-Nuts cereal
METHOD:
1 Heat the half-and-half and the sugar to a simmer, then turn the heat to low.
2 In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with a whisk to break them up and then temper them with ½ cup of the hot half-and-half.
3 Pour the egg yolk mixture into the rest of the heated half-and-half and cook, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat.
4 Immediately strain the hot custard into a bowl set in an ice bath.
5 Stir the cream and vanilla into the custard and let the mixture chill completely, stirring occasionally to let the steam escape.
6 Freeze the chilled ice cream custard in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.
7 Add the Grape-Nuts when the ice cream is almost finished. Store in the freezer until ready to serve.
Mar-A-Lago
Marjorie Merriweather Post and E.F. Hutton built this Palm Beach Florida palace at the height of the Roaring Twenties on seventeen acres between Lake Worth and the Atlantic Ocean. Designed by the Ziegfeld Follies stage set designer, Mar-A-Lago was elaborately decorated with furniture, tapestries, and paintings from decaying ducal palaces. The estate was the site for Marjorie's elaborate benefit galas where she and her hundreds of glittering guests would party the night away under an artificial blue moon. Mar-A-Lago is now owned by Donald Trump.
The Original Flapper's Hotel Room Fete
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
Zelda Fitzgerald was born to party. She set the standard for the Jazz Age cult of youth in the 1920s, dazzling society with her unbridled spirit and fearlessness. Even before she was a wild woman she was a wild child. Growing up in Montgomery, Alabama, she acted on her impulses regardless of what other people thought. She swam in a scandalous flesh-colored bathing suit, hung out at the ice cream parlor sipping dopes instead of doing her homework, and wore mascara before the other girls did. She was no proper Southern belle! Zelda Sayre's fiery personality attracted the attention of F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance when he was an Army officer stationed near her home town during World War I. It was love at first sight for both of them. After a rocky courtship, Zelda and Scott were married in New York City in the spring of 1920 and began living the high life in peerless fashion. They took up residence in the Biltmore Hotel and regularly ordered fresh spinach and Champagne for midnight snacks.
The Fitzgeralds never lived in one place for very long. They rented a cottage in Westport, Connecticut, and continued to party with friends from New York before moving back to Manhattan. They retreated to St. Paul, Minnesota (Scott's family home) for the birth of their daughter, and then they rented a house in Great Neck, New York, where they partied with their neighbor Ring Lardner. They went to Paris to take their place in café society, partying with Ernest Hemingway and other American expatriates, and then they rented a villa on the French Riviera where Zelda entertained herself by cliff diving into the sea and dancing on restaurant tables. They returned to the United States and after a stint in Hollywood, they rented an old mansion
