Fairy Tale Friday--Snow White (Betty Boop, 1933)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

This week we look at the Betty Boop version of Snow White. It was made in 1933 by Max Fleischer Studios It is considered a milestone in the Golden Age of American Animation and took six months to complete. That’s about one month per minute of film. Wikipedia says the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1994. The same year, it was voted #19 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. It stars Betty Boop, Koko the clown and Bimbo the dog, who in other films has appeared as her boyfriend. This would be one of the last films he appeared in due to the Hays Code censorship rules becoming more strictly enforced in 1934. Wiki says: Bimbo disappeared from future Fleischer cartoons of the era, due to the implications of an anthropomorphic dog dating a human girlfriend being too risqué at the time.

Interesting fact: Koko's dancing (including some moves that look like the much later "moonwalk" and "dab") during the "St. James" number is rotoscoped from footage of Cab Calloway. (thanks to Wiki for this trivia.)  

This film is clearly influenced by the Brothers Grimm version as it has a stepmother obsessed with her looks and jealous of her stepdaughter’s beauty, a magic mirror (which in this case also acts a magic wand), a glass casket and seven dwarfs. There is more emphasis on the stepmother and the mirror than on the dwarfs here. Here, events happen out of order than we expect—a frozen river encases our heroine in a coffin of ice (like the glass casket), but she appears at the seven dwarfs’ cottage frozen and appearing dead at their first meeting rather than them entombing her there after she dies. Here she appears sort of half alive, unable to move but blinking out a weird Morse Code of “Help me.” Okay, I may be making the Morse Code bit up, but her slow blinking in the block of ice while scary ghost stuff happens all around her is definitely creepy.

I am including a summary from Wikipedia , but with my own notes interspersed.

We begin with the ugly Queen gazing at herself in the mirror. There is some funny animation here with her powdering her enormous phallic nose and then dropping the powder puff  down the back of her dress. Then a hand comes out of the mirror and buffs her sausage-like nose shiny. She asks a variation on the magical question, “Mirror mirror in my hand, who’s the fairest in the land?” At first the mirror says it is her but then Betty Boop comes over and sings about meeting her stepmother and the mirror changes its mind. Wiki says the face in the mirror is meant to be Cab Calloway, but I felt it looked more like The Black and White Minstrel Show. There is a tiny “Easter egg” of Micky Mouse in the sequence where she enters if you look carefully.

Betty Boop goes to see the stepmother and some very interesting animation ensues. The glass in the mirror disappears like an empty tennis racket allowing the stepmother’s face to go through the glass leaving her hair behind. Then her face morphs into a skillet of fried eggs with the eggy eyes popping out of the sockets. She also has a very well done “Off with her head!” snicking scissor motion that is well animated. It is clever and makes you understand why it was considered such a masterpiece.

 The Queen orders her guards Bimbo and Koko to behead Betty. With tears in their eyes, they take Betty into the forest and tie her to a tree; as they prepare to execute her, they spare her by destroying their weapons, but fall into a pit before they can free her.

 Note: The pit fills up with a heap a snow after they fall in which makes it resemble a grave. She is still tied to a tree and calls for help. The tree appears as magical helper and unties her and sets her free. As she is walking away the garter on her thigh falls off and the tree lays it on the “grave” like a wreath.

 Betty falls into a giant snowball (as you do) and rolls downhill into a frozen river. The  frozen river encloses her in a coffin of ice. This block slips downhill to the home of the seven dwarfs, who carry the frozen Betty into an enchanted cave, running into Koko and Bimbo.

Note: You know it is enchanted by the huge sign outside bearing the words MYSTERY CAVE in big letters.

 The evil stepmother comes upon the snowy “grave” with the garter wreath and presumes her beautiful stepdaughter is dead. She asks the mirror who mocks her due to her ugliness causing her to fly into a temper. She uses the mirror first as a shovel to lift the snow from the pit and then as a sort of magic wand which turns her into a witch-like hag and then becomes a sort of hoverboard which transports her down into the pit where she encounters Koko and Bimbo.  Koko sees the seemingly dead Betty Boop and sings a very heartfelt rendition of  the St. James Infirmary Blues.

 Note: This animation is stunning. It is sung by Cab Calloway and was rotoscoped over his movement. Rotoscoping (if you don’t know) is a type of animation which involves tracing  a live action film onto glass and animating it. Most films of this era are quite jerky and crackle-y (the rest of the film is) but this part is as smooth as butter. It is a quite sad and sinister song with lyrics like

I was down to St. James infirmary, I saw my baby there
She was stretched out on a long white table,
So sweet, cool and so fair

As Cab Calloway/Koko the clown is doing his slippery dance, weird and scary things like ghosts and flying skeletons are passing through the air. The evil Queen, now transformed into a witch, turns them into grotesque creatures as Koko sings. The Queen then freezes them all.

 With her rivals disposed of, the Queen again asks the magic mirror who the fairest in the land is, but the mirror explodes in a puff of magic smoke that returns Betty and Koko to their normal states and changes the Queen into a hideous and mysterious dragon-like monster. The dragon-like monster chases the protagonists until Bimbo grabs its tongue and yanks it, turning the creature inside out and causing it to flee away. Betty, Koko, and Bimbo dance around in a circle of victory as the film ends.

Note: The turning inside out of the dog-barking dragon is another wonderful example of the cleverness of this animation.

 This was truly incredible for its time. I do have one quibble, though. Betty Boop wears a garter on her left thigh. It is there on her left leg when she enters the castle to see her “step-mama”, it is there when she is tied to a tree in the woods. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a garter appears on her right thigh and conveniently falls off in the snow. She is never pictured wearing two…but suddenly when the need arises, a second one appears. I am know you have to willingly suspend your disbelief in cartoons, but this bugs me. Why I am seemingly okay with a flapper dating a dog but not an extra article of clothing, I have no idea.

 Watch it here:

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for a funny version. There are several live action foreign language versions of Snow White, but none I can find a complete copy of on YouTube, sadly. While I would love to look at a version from Germany or Hong Kong, instead we will look at a version with three stooges.

 

What We Ate Wednesday--Hummus Pizza with Leftovers and Munchy Seeds

 Hello Lovelies! We like to have pizza quite a lot—I make my own crust out of spelt as wheat does not agree with me (it gets very shouty in my tummy) but any crust will do for this—store-bought, handmade, Gluten Free…whatever you use, just try this pizza!

This pizza uses hummus…again homemade or store-bought. It is made from a bit of leftovers in my house—one tiny new potato, a few cherry tomatoes leftover from a pasta, a few sad mushrooms lurking in the back of my fridge, a sliver of red pepper, and leftover munchy seeds from another meal.

My crust needs to be cooked 5 minutes at 250C/500F and then add the toppings. Then cook for another 12 minutes. But if yours just goes straight in the oven put your toppings on straightaway and cook according to package directions. 

Hummus Pizza with Leftovers and Munchy Seeds

You need

1 pizza crust 

1 white onion, cut into rainbows

a bit of red pepper, diced small

1 small new potato sliced wafer thin

2 mushrooms sliced thin

6 cherry tomatoes cut in half

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

hummus

Mixed herbs

Munchy Seeds

Cook the onion in a splash of water or vegetable stock until softened then set aside.

Marinate the cut cherry tomatoes in the balsamic vinegar.

Layer your pizza like this:

hummus

cooked white onion

mushrooms and peppers and potatoes

tomatoes, cut side down around the edge

Sprinkle on copious amounts of mixed herbs on the top and any remaining balsamic vinegar from the tomatoes. Grind on black pepper. 

Bake in a very hot oven according to package directions. When it is ready, top with Munchy Seeds.

This was really delicious...lots of flavours and textures  going on.

 

What We Ate Wednesday--Pea and Potato Soup Topped With Savoury Seeds

Hello lovelies! This is a quick and easy soup to make, even quicker if you already have the Munchy Seeds made. I had lots left over so topped an Apricot lentil Soup and even threw them on a pizza (see next week’s What We Ate Wednesday!)

Pea and Potato Soup with Savoury Seeds

First make your Munchy Seeds (recipe HERE) and while they are roasting and cooling make the soup.

You need:
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
200g potatoes, diced
400g ( about 3 cups) frozen peas, defrosted 
700ml (about 3 cups) hot vegetable stock
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large pot sauté the onion and the garlic in a splash of oil or water until softened. Add the potato and the defrosted peas and the hot vegetable stock and bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are soft (about 12-15 minutes)
2. When potatoes are soft, transfer the whole lot to a blender and puree until smooth. This is one recipe that needs to be smooth...my immersion (stick) blender just does not cut it. Put the pureed green soup back in the pan and add the juice of half a lemon and salt and pepper to taste. Reheat to piping hot and serve topped with Munchy Seeds.

Fairy Tale Friday--Snow White (silent film, 1916)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

This week we begin to look at versions of Snow White on film. Today we begin with the oldest version I can find which was made in 1916.

This silent film was directed by J. Searle Dawley and was adapted by playwright Winthrop Ames from his own 1912 Broadway play Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was in turn adapted from the 1812 Grimms fairy tale.

Interesting fact number one: The director Dawley also made a 14-minute horror "photoplay" of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in 1910 which is the earliest known screen adaptation of  the novel.

 The film stars Marguerite Clark as Snow White (reprising her stage role) and Creighton Hale as the Prince. Clark was the second most successful silent film star next to Mary Pickford. Sadly, most of her films are lost. She is terrific in this—expressive without overacting. 6 foot 2 Lionel Braham also shines as the enormous huntsman (with an even more enormous beard) which makes him look rather like Brian Blessed.

Interesting fact number two: According to Wikipedia-- Walt Disney was fifteen years old when he saw it, and it inspired him to make it the subject of his first feature-length animated film . Chronologically, this should be discussed in the next few weeks, but I am going to save the Disney film for last as it is the most famous version and for many of us our gateway Disney film.

So how was the film? It is a full hour in length, so I had to watch it in parts before and after work, but it is a masterstroke. There are many familiar elements such as the jealous stepmother, the magic mirror, the Prince, the dwarfs and a wedding. But how these parts fit together is completely novel. There is much extra detail—some puzzling and some jaw droppingly original. The effects are not that bad for 1916 and the acting is never melodramatic. There are good title cards to help you follow the plot—a few funny enough to make me snort.

Our film begins with Father Christmas coming to deliver a set of dolls which he carefully places on a table while a child sneaks downstairs to watch. After he goes back up the chimney, the dolls transmogrify into the live action characters.

We set the scene with the bit straight out of the Grimms where the mother is sewing and pricks her finger and the red blood drops on the white snow of the ebony window. Here the Queen actively squeezes the blood out forcing it to drop on the snow as if to make a point and one of the ladies in waiting gives a subtle eyeroll which made me chuckle. We also see here one of the ladies in waiting who is quite ugly with a big false nose.She is our antagonist of the film. 

This evil lady goes to a bald witch (with a fearful familiar who is basically someone in an animal onesie) and wants a spell to make her more beautiful than Snow White and to get to marry the King. The bald headed witch gives her a truth telling mirror which magics her beautiful (basically gives her a nose job) and says if the mirror ever breaks, she will go back to her ugly self. The witch also predicts that within a year the good queen will die  and the evil one will be the new queen. But there is one caveat—the witch demands Snow White’s heart.

The prophecy comes true and the evil lady in waiting is now the queen. As in Cinderella, our young heroine is forced to work in the kitchen and not join her group of dancing maids of honour (who I suppose are just the junior version of ladies in waiting.)

The stuffy, pompous big-wigged chamberlain (who acts like he has a stick up his butt both literally and figuratively) does the bidding of the evil queen. I should like to say I do not recall ever seeing her father in all this. Snow White (again, much like Cinderella) is happy and cheerful and everyone loves her, and she doesn’t mind a bit of hard work as she flits around barefoot like a simpleton.

Snow White is tasked with going to the Huntsman’s little cottage and collecting three ducks for lunch. These ducks are clearly on the menu and are not just going to be guests at the table. This fact is important for later. The Huntsman has three adorable little children named Tina, Trina and Tip who wear sort of traditional folk costumes from some unspecified European country. She gently scolds the littles and gets them to release a small brown bird they had in a tiny cage saying “Birds should never be caged. Let them fly free.” I guess ducks don’t count in your assessment of the rights of birds, eh Snow White?

A Prince from a neighbouring kingdom happens by out on a hunt and decides to shoot the tiny brown bird they have just released with his bow and arrow. Luckily, he is a crap shot which gives them time to beg to spare the bird’s life. He agrees not to shoot as he is smitten with the raven haired mystery girl. They flirt shamelessly back at the Huntsman’s cottage and he tries to work out who she is but again like Cinderella in her poor dress and no shoes she shyly (or cunningly, depending on how you see it) deflects and makes him think she is one of the maids of honour. Then she skips away barefoot down the lane with the three poor ducks who are gong to meet their doom as lunch.

There is some sort of party where all the other maids of honour in white want to dance—but our heroine in her shapeless black sack of a dress is forbidden to gavotte by the snooty Chamberlain. She knows the Prince is there. She wants to see him and be seen by him. Each maid of honour gives up a little bit of her clothing so she can blend in with her white gown and veil. “You look like a bride!” they exclaim as a sort of foreshadowing. But what about shoes? She is still prancing around barefoot. They all agree to take off their shoes so she can blend in. They all dance, she catches the Prince’s eye. He is saddened as he has come to deliver a proclamation that he is to marry his cousin Snow White whom he has never seen, and this is quite sad as he is in love with another. Embarrassingly, the evil Queen thinks he is talking about her and his face is so “aw hell naw” it gave me laugh number two. He declares his love for one of the maids of honour but when he picks her out of the line-up and the evil Queen realises that the maid of honour is in fact her stepdaughter Snow White. She declares they can marry in a year and a day, but first Snow White must go to a boarding school for backwards princesses. This made me laugh with a snort.

Obviously, this is the point where Snow White will need to be killed and her heart taken. The witch appears and makes it clear—it must be the heart of a beautiful girl to make her spell work. The evil Queen summons the Huntsman and threatens to lock up his children in the tower and starve them to death if he refuses to comply. So that’s why we met his three adorable kiddies earlier! He reluctantly agrees and takes Snow White out to the forest. That’s the FOREST. (This will be important later.) He tells her what he is tasked with doing and she thinks he is kidding…when it becomes clear it is not a joke (after throwing herself in his big strong arms and batting her eyelashes….I feel this Snow White definitely knows how to use her womanly wiles) he tells her to run and he agrees to find a wild pig to kill instead. Snow White is then menaced by a lion—that’s a LION—who has inexplicably wandered into the forest and then the little brown bird she saved comes along and tells her to follow. She follows the bird to the cottage of the seven dwarfs. She takes a tiny bite off of all their plates and then falls asleep in one of the beds.

We see the dwarfs—who are quite small (I cannot be sure if they hired little actors or perhaps children as their faces are obscured by long white beards. Perhaps it is forced perspective filming as the actress who plays Snow White is quite tiny herself) in a scene that is meant to be in a weirdly lit underground mine but makes them appear like they are a heavy metal rock band on an arena tour. They arrive home and do a helpful roll call to let us know their names are Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick, Whick and inexplicably Quee. They unload some top quality jewels and silver dust they mined at work and then have a comic scene where Quee gives them all a wash by flicking them in the face with a wet towel followed by a dry towel. Quee himself does not wash (this will be important later.) They realise someone has lazily swept the kitchen and eaten some of their food. However, they say like the three bears that someone has eaten their porridge and used a knife to cut some bread—neither of which she actually did.

They find her asleep and a curious exchange occurs. First, they wonder will “it” wake up. Then one of them declares it is a “she” not an “it.” Another claims that “girls can’t talk.” Then a creepy one says, “I wish she’d stay with us just so we could look at her.” Being subtitled it is hard to tell who is the dodgy one, but my bets are on Quee. They decide to bribe her with gifts to stay so lay things of value by her sleeping head. The reject the idea of diamonds as too common and instead leave a jack knife, a thimble and an almanac. Yup, that’s what I said.

Then they decide that Quee really stinks as he hasn’t had a bath in 50 years, so they force him into a barrel of water. She wakes up long enough to say “Sorry I ate your food, and I am really tired so I will tell you my story tomorrow. Goodnight.” Everyone is OK with this and Quee has to sleep in the barrel as she is in his bed.

Then we go back to the Queen ordering the Huntsman to be arrested. I thought it was because she had discovered the heart was not Snow Whites but apparently, she’s just a bitch. We see him imprisoned in the tower and he can see his children in an adjoining cell. He shows off his super strength by bending the iron bars, but he still cannot reach them. Luckily, our plucky little brown bird appears with a comically long piece of string with a little trapeze-y handle at the end like you use on a zip wire. The Huntsman uses this to hoist his kids through the bent bars and then suspends the jailer with the string and steals his keys and they escape.

Meanwhile, the evil Queen bring the heart to the witch who adds it to a watering can and has her furry familiar water her head with it. If this had been the heart of a beautiful girl then she would have a grown a headful of luscious locks, but instead in a very good time lapse effect curly pigs tails grow out of her scalp because it as the heart of a wild pig. Too bad he didn’t kill the unexplained lion—she could have had a head of hair like Tina Turner.

They agree to kill Snow White and the evil Queen is changed into “a different looking person altogether with the means to dispose of Snow White that the dwarfs can’t trace back to [her].” She is given a basket of wares—ribbons and laces which allude to the original Grimms’ story, but most importantly a poisoned comb that must stay in her hair for the count of 100 to kill her. This will be important later.

Snow White being the kind soul she is doesn’t recognise her stepmother (it looks as if it actually played by another actor for once) and lets her in and allows her to put the comb in her hair. Snow White grabs her head like she has a migraine and then stumbles about and finally crashes into the table, falling under the table somehow. The evil Queen begins to count. Here we have the threat of a ticking clock and we only have until 100 until she is dead. Luckily, that little brown bird is on the case. It sees the poison comb, tells a rabbit (as you do) who hops down the mine and tells the dwarfs (of course it does) who rush in at the last minute somewhere in the 90s and remove the comb. Then they all play a game of Blind Man’s Bluff like nothing ever happened.

Next the Queen disguises herself as a one-eyed male pie seller and Snow White eats the poison apple and snuffs it. Meanwhile the Huntsman and the Prince join forces to find Snow White and find her dead body. Here he sees her and loves her because he knows her and not because she is some random dead chick he fancies. He takes her body not to have necrophiliac sex with her but to take it to stepmother as proof of her crimes. They arrive at the palace and the Prince does the mime version of “J’accuse!” since it is a silent film. The journey to the palace knocks the apple loose from Snow White’s windpipe and she sits up alive then drops the piece of already been chewed apple casually on the floor like she has no manners.

The next title card says, "When the Queen broke the magic mirror her evil face showed itself and the witch finally received the hair she wanted.” This was my last laugh of the film. We see the evil Queen horrified that she has the big conk again and she is wearing one of those rolled up cones with a floaty scarf on her head like no real people probably ever wore but you see a lot in fairy tales. The witch now has hair down to her bum and dances gleefully.

There is a wedding and Snow White says that all the dwarfs can stay at the palace with them without asking her husband if he is Ok with that, which doesn’t bode well for the marriage in my opinion.

My verdict: The film is quite long, but is beautifully and artfully shot and well worth watching. You can see it below. Be sure to turn up the sound. There is a faint musical undercurrent…almost discordant in places…that hums along and enhances the story.

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for Betty Boop as Snow White.

Fairy Tale Friday--Revolting Rhymes (Roald Dahl, 1982)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

Last week we looked at a serious poetic version of our classic tale, but this week we look at a more humorous one. This comes from the book Revolting Rhymes in 1982 by beloved children’s author Roald Dahl. Dahl is responsible for many modern classics such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda. James and the Giant Peach—just to name a few. He is also responsible for some of the best dark short stories with a twist for adults like Lamb to the Slaughter.

This is more like a fractured fairy tale in that we do have some elements you would expect—evil stepmother with a magic mirror who is jealous of Snow White, a Huntsman sent to kill her and bring back her heart, consuming the heart etc. (I only hope she cooked it well.Boiled heart can be as tough as hell) 

In other stories it is always her beauty that makes people feel sorry for her—the Huntsman won’t kill her because she is too beautiful, the dwarfs vow to care for her because she is pretty, the prince wants to marry her despite being dead—because she is good looking. This story plays upon that idea. She knows full well that she is pretty and uses her looks to hitchhike into the city where she takes up with seven jockeys with a gambling problem. They are forever skint after blowing their cash at the racetrack. In this one she steals the magic mirror which gives them the winner of each race and they all get rich. No one dies. No one tries to get revenge. No prince comes along and tries to commit necrophilia.  Just one crafty lady who uses her looks and gets rich by cheating for her height challenged friends. The moral of the tale? Gambling’s not a sin. Provided that you always win.

source

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs source

When little Snow-White’s mother died

The King, her father, up and cried

“Oh, what a nuisance! What a life!

Now I must find another wife.”

(It’s never easy for a King

To find himself that sort of thing.)

He wrote to every magazine

And said, “I’m looking for a Queen.”

At least ten thousand girls replied

And begged to be the royal bride

The king said with a shifty smile

“I’d like to give each one a trial.”

However, in the end he chose

A lady called Miss Maclahose

Who brought along a curious toy

That seemed to give her endless joy.

This was a mirror framed in brass-

A MAGIC TALKING LOOKING GLASS.

Ask it something day or night

It always got the answer right.

For instance, if you were to say

“Oh Mirror, what’s for lunch today?”

The thing would answer in a trice

“Today it’s scrambled eggs and rice.”

Now every day, week in week out

The spoiled and stupid Queen would shout

“Oh Mirror Mirror on the wall

Who is the fairest of them all?”

The Mirror answered every time

“Oh Madam, you’re the Queen sublime

You are the only one to charm us

Queen, you are the cat’s pyjamas.”

 

For ten whole years the silly Queen

Repeated this absurd routine

Then suddenly, one awful day

She heard the Magic Mirror say

“From now on Queen, you’re number two

Snow-White is prettier than you.”

The Queen went absolutely wild

She yelled, “I’m going to scrag that child.”

“I’ll cook her flaming goose, I’ll skin her

I’ll have her rotten guts for dinner.”

She called the Huntsman to her study

She shouted at him, “Listen, buddy,

You drag that filthy girl outside

And see you take her for a ride

Thereafter slit her ribs apart

And bring me back her bleeding heart.”

The Huntsman dragged the lovely child

Deep deep into the forest wild.

Fearing the worst, poor Snow-White spake

She cried, “Oh please give me a break.”

The knife was poised, the arm was strong

She cried again, “I’ve done no wrong.”

The Huntsman’s heart began to flutter

It melted like a pound of butter.

He murmured, “Okay, beat it, kid.”

And you can bet your life she did.

Later, the Huntsman made a stop

Within the local butcher’s shop

And there he bought, for safety’s sake

A bullocks heart and one nice steak.

“Oh Majesty! Oh Queen,” he cried

“That rotten little girl has died.

And just to prove I didn’t cheat

I’ve brought along these bits of meat.”

The Queen cried out, “Bravissimo

I trust you killed her nice and slow.”

Then (this is the disgusting part)

The Queen sat down and ate the heart.

(I only hope she cooked it well

Boiled heart can be as tough as hell)

 

While all this was going on

Oh where, oh where had Snow-White gone?

She’d found it easy, being pretty

To hitch a ride into the city

And there she’d got a job, unpaid

As general cook and parlour-maid

With seven funny little men-

Each one not more than three foot ten.

Ex horse-race jockeys, all of them.

These seven dwarfs, though awfully nice

Were guilty of one shocking vice.

They squandered all of their resources

At the race-track backing horses.

(When they hadn’t backed a winner

None of them got any dinner)

One evening, Snow-White said, “Look here,

I think I’ve got a great idea

Just leave it all to me, okay,

And no more gambling till I say.”

That very night, at eventide

Young Snow-White hitched another ride

And then, when it was very late

She slipped in through the Palace gate

The King was in his counting house

Counting out his money.

The Queen was in the parlour

Eating bread and honey.

The footmen and the servants slept

So no one saw her as she crept

On tip-toe through the mighty hall

And grabbed THE MIRROR off the wall.

 

As soon as she had got it home

She told the Senior Dwarf (or Gnome)

To ask it what he wished to know

“Go on,” she shouted, “Have a go.”

He said, “Oh Mirror, please don’t joke

Each of us is stony broke

Which horse will win tomorrow’s race,

The Ascot Gold Cup Steeple-chase?”

The Mirror whispered sweet and low

“The horse’s name is Mistletoe.”

The Dwarfs went absolutely daft.

They kissed young Snow-White fore and aft

Then rushed away to raise some dough

With which to back old Mistletoe.

They pawned their watches, sold the car

They borrowed money near and far.

(For much of it they had to thank

The Manager of Barclays Bank)

 

They went to Ascot and of course

For once they backed the winning horse

Thereafter, every single day

The Mirror made the bookies pay

Each Dwarf and Snow-White got a share

And each was soon a millionaire

Which shows that gambling’s not a sin

Provided that you always win.

As an added bonus, you can listen to this story dramatised by Timothy West and Prunella Scales (Mrs Fawlty from Fawlty Towers) 

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week as we begin to look at Snow White on film.

What We Ate Wednesday--Lemon Tamari Yum over Polenta

 Hello lovelies! We seem to eat a lot of "whatever is left over in the fridge" on top of polenta lately...and that's ok! We call the these "fag end" meals because they are the remnants of other meals that aren't enough on their own, but together make something spectacular. 

This is what we had, but use whatever you have:

1 red onion

1 slice of red pepper as wide as three fingers

1 smallish sweet potato

tin of chickpeas

1 lemon

kale

polenta

I should just like to note that my computer keeps trying to auto-correct POLENTA into TADPOLE. This is a vegan blog....no tadpoles were harmed in the making of this meal! 

Lemon Tamari Yum over Polenta

Preheat your oven to 200C/400F/ In a large roasting pan add the following:

1 red onion, diced

1 slice of red pepper as wide as three fingers, diced

1 smallish sweet potato, diced

tin of chickpeas,drained and rinsed

Juice of  half a lemon (save the other half for later in the recipe) 

1 TB olive oil

Mix all together and top with  pepper. Roast for 15 minutes then stir. Then roast for another 15 minutes.

When you start the second 15 minutes, work on the kale and polenta.

In a large pot cook 100g kale (a few handfuls) in a splash of water until bright green and reduced. Set aside with a lid to keep warm.

In another pot make the tadpoles  polenta.

4 cups vegetable stock

1 cup polenta

splash of non dairy milk

batch Vegan parmesan cheese (3 TB nutritional yeast flakes, 3 TB ground almonds, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp garlic powder) 

Bring the stock to the boil. I like to boil 3.5 cups water in the kettle and then add some stock powder/cube to 1/2 cup that you heat in your pot whilst the kettle boils. then add the boiled kettle and it all comes to the boil much quicker than waiting for it come to boil from a cold pot. Does that make sense? 

Stream in the polenta to the boiling stock and whisk constantly until it thickens. When it starts to spit, take it off the heat and add a splash of milk and the parmesan. If it seems too stodgy, add another splash of milk then return to heat and make sure it is heated and then remove from heat, add a lid and let sit until the veg is roasted.

When the veg is roasted:

Add it to the kale you already cooked and add the juice of the other half of the lemon and a good splash of tamari or soy sauce. Keep stirring until everything is hot. Serve over polenta. 

This was delicious--the polenta was savoury and the lemon and tamari gave the veg a real tangy taste. The chickpeas go all chewy and a bit crispy when roasted so it nice textures. Nom nom nom! 

What We Ate Wednesday--Tapenade Pizza

 Hello lovelies! I make no secret of my love for pizza. I make my own dough out of spelt as i can tolerate it, as opposed to wheat which makes my tummy swell up like I have eaten a basketball. But you can make a strictly gluten free crust...or you can even buy a crust and just add toppings. Do whatever you like, but do try this pizza! 

Like last week, this is a kind of use up the odds and ends sort of meal. We don't normally have vegan cheese, but we had a little Violife in the fridge so I grated it and threw it on. 

We had a large punnet of cherry tomatoes that I had used the night before on a pasta, but before I cooked them I saved out 6 small tomatoes for the pizza. 

I made a big batch of my WALNUT AND OLIVE TAPENADE (click on the link to read how to make it) and froze it for later meals. I normally freeze it in 1 cup servings, but I divided one of the cups in half and froze enough for 2 pizzas. These days, I don't even bother to put the olive oil in the recipe and it is fine. A little more crumbly and less paste-y...but it still tastes delicious. 

You can use any tapenade you have...homemade or store bought. You just need half a cup of it. 

My crust needs to be cooked 5 minutes at 250C/500F and then add the toppings. Then cook for another 12 minutes. But if yours just goes straight in the oven put your toppings on straightaway and cook according to package directions. 

 

Tapenade Pizza

1 pizza crust 

1 red onion, cut into rainbows

a bit of red pepper, diced small

2 mushrooms sliced thin

6 cherry tomatoes cut in half

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

4 TB tomato puree

3-4 cloves of garlic, grated

half a cup olive tapenade

1/3 to 1/2 cup grated vegan cheese

rosemary

Cook the onion in a splash of water or vegetable stock until softened then set aside.

Marinate the cut cherry tomatoes in the balsamic vinegar.

In a small bowl, add your garlic to your tomato puree and add a splash of water to thin it out. 

Layer your pizza like this:

tomato garlic paste

tapenade (press into tomato garlic paste with back of a spoon)

cooked red onion

mushrooms and peppers

tomatoes, cut side down around the edge

sprinkle cheese in the middle

sprinkle on copious amounts of rosemary on the top and any remaining balsamic vinegar from the tomatoes. Grind on black pepper. 

Bake in a very hot oven according to package directions. 

This was really delicious...lots of umami flavour going on. The cheese was just enough. In my carnivore days I was an extra cheese kind of gal. Half cup cheese almost felt like too much. How times have changed. I used to use cheese to drown out stuff...now I like to taste the flavours of everything underneath. 

Fairy Tale Friday--Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Anne Sexton, 1971)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

This week we look at a poem by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Anne Sexton from her marvellous collection of poem-stories entitled Transformations. This 1971 collection includes strange and interesting retellings of Grimms fairy tales including including Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, The Frog Prince, and Red Riding Hood.

Anne Sexton was a very gifted poet who struggled with bipolar disorder and eventually committed suicide in 1974 by locking herself in her garage and turning on her car engine, thus ending her life by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Transformations was a huge influence on me when I wrote my book Wounds: New Openings Into Old Stories. You can see the influence clearly in her style of formatting with the long thin column of text.

I love the way she writes, bringing old ideas in with new such as cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper  and her lacings were as tight as an Ace bandage. This is one of the few works that thinks like I think—Snow White is a dumb bunny to continually fall for the trickery of her stepmother in disguise. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I am clearly a dumb bunny who deserves a poison apple.

It also ends in a way that I would have loved as a slightly gruesome child—with not only the dancing of the stepmother in the hot iron shoes, but a full description of her torment.

But the true ending, with Snow White a perfect china doll consulting her own mirror until a time appears that she too is eaten by age and the cycle continues.

source

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs source

No matter what life you lead
the virgin is a lovely number:
cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper,
arms and legs made of Limoges,
lips like Vin Du Rhône,
rolling her china-blue doll eyes
open and shut.
Open to say,
Good Day Mama,
and shut for the thrust
of the unicorn.
She is unsoiled.
She is as white as a bonefish.

Once there was a lovely virgin
called Snow White.
Say she was thirteen.
Her stepmother,
a beauty in her own right,
though eaten, of course, by age,
would hear of no beauty surpassing her own.
Beauty is a simple passion,
but, oh my friends, in the end
you will dance the fire dance in iron shoes.
The stepmother had a mirror to which she referred--
something like the weather forecast--
a mirror that proclaimed
the one beauty of the land.
She would ask,
Looking glass upon the wall,
who is fairest of us all?
And the mirror would reply,
You are the fairest of us all.
Pride pumped in her like poison.

Suddenly one day the mirror replied,
Queen, you are full fair, 'tis true,
but Snow White is fairer than you.
Until that moment Snow White
had been no more important
than a dust mouse under the bed.
But now the queen saw brown spots on her hand
and four whiskers over her lip
so she condemned Snow White
to be hacked to death.
Bring me her heart, she said to the hunter,
and I will salt it and eat it.
The hunter, however, let his prisoner go
and brought a boar's heart back to the castle.
The queen chewed it up like a cube steak.
Now I am fairest, she said,
lapping her slim white fingers.

Snow White walked in the wildwood
for weeks and weeks.
At each turn there were twenty doorways
and at each stood a hungry wolf,
his tongue lolling out like a worm.
The birds called out lewdly,
talking like pink parrots,
and the snakes hung down in loops,
each a noose for her sweet white neck.
On the seventh week
she came to the seventh mountain
and there she found the dwarf house.
It was as droll as a honeymoon cottage
and completely equipped with
seven beds, seven chairs, seven forks
and seven chamber pots.
Snow White ate seven chicken livers
and lay down, at last, to sleep.

The dwarfs, those little hot dogs,
walked three times around Snow White,
the sleeping virgin.  They were wise
and wattled like small czars.
Yes.  It's a good omen,
they said, and will bring us luck.
They stood on tiptoes to watch
Snow White wake up.  She told them
about the mirror and the killer-queen
and they asked her to stay and keep house.
Beware of your stepmother,
they said.
Soon she will know you are here.
While we are away in the mines
during the day, you must not
open the door.

Looking glass upon the wall . . .
The mirror told
and so the queen dressed herself in rags
and went out like a peddler to trap Snow White.
She went across seven mountains.
She came to the dwarf house
and Snow White opened the door
and bought a bit of lacing.
The queen fastened it tightly
around her bodice,
as tight as an Ace bandage,
so tight that Snow White swooned.
She lay on the floor, a plucked daisy.
When the dwarfs came home they undid the lace
and she revived miraculously.
She was as full of life as soda pop.
Beware of your stepmother,
they said.
She will try once more.

Looking glass upon the wall. . .
Once more the mirror told
and once more the queen dressed in rags
and once more Snow White opened the door.
This time she bought a poison comb,
a curved eight-inch scorpion,
and put it in her hair and swooned again.
The dwarfs returned and took out the comb
and she revived miraculously.
She opened her eyes as wide as Orphan Annie.
Beware, beware, they said,
but the mirror told,
the queen came,
Snow White, the dumb bunny,
opened the door
and she bit into a poison apple
and fell down for the final time.
When the dwarfs returned
they undid her bodice,
they looked for a comb,
but it did no good.
Though they washed her with wine
and rubbed her with butter
it was to no avail.
She lay as still as a gold piece.

The seven dwarfs could not bring themselves
to bury her in the black ground
so they made a glass coffin
and set it upon the seventh mountain
so that all who passed by
could peek in upon her beauty.
A prince came one June day
and would not budge.
He stayed so long his hair turned green
and still he would not leave.
The dwarfs took pity upon him
and gave him the glass Snow White--
its doll's eyes shut forever--
to keep in his far-off castle.
As the prince's men carried the coffin
they stumbled and dropped it
and the chunk of apple flew out
of her throat and she woke up miraculously.

And thus Snow White became the prince's bride.
The wicked queen was invited to the wedding feast
and when she arrived there were
red-hot iron shoes,
in the manner of red-hot roller skates,
clamped upon her feet.
First your toes will smoke
and then your heels will turn black
and you will fry upward like a frog,
she was told.
And so she danced until she was dead,
a subterranean figure,
her tongue flicking in and out
like a gas jet.
Meanwhile Snow White held court,
rolling her china-blue doll eyes open and shut
and sometimes referring to her mirror
as women do.

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for a jollier poem version of our classic story.

What We Ate Wednesday--Easy Peasy Curry

 Hello lovelies! I cannot believe I have never written about this. I was sure I had. But I searched all the the key word combinations I could and I never found it. It may be there but it is deeply buried, so I thought I would resurrect it.

We eat this curry a lot because it is cheap and easy and makes enough for about 6 bowls if you serve it with brown rice. Curry paste makes it happen in a snap. The original recipe was something I found in a free magazine from Waitrose...it may have been a Jamie Oliver recipe. It definitely used Balti curry paste, but now we just chuck in whatever curry paste we have on hand. It's all good. This curry is very forgiving. 

Easy Peasy Curry

1 onion, diced

half a red pepper, diced

garlic

1 TB chopped ginger root

1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 tin tomatoes

4 TB curry paste

600g potatoes, cubed

200g (about 2 heaping cups) frozen peas, run under hot water to take the ice off

brown rice to serve

1. Chop the potatoes and boil them until easily pierced by a knife, Drain and reserve.

2. Meanwhile in another large pot, cook the onion and garlic and ginger in a splash of oil or vegetable stock until softened. Add the chickpeas, tinned tomatoes and curry paste and turn up the heat and when it starts to bubble turn the heat back down and simmer with the lid on, stirring occasionally. 

3. When the rice is nearly done, add the potatoes and defrosted peas to the curry and heat until piping hot. Taste for salt and pepper. Serve over rice.

That is literally it. We have it the first night with rice and the second night with cream-style corn which you can either buy in a tin or whack some sweetcorn and milk in a blender and make.