A Series of Unfortunate Cooking Lessons
Coming 2/10/17
We are excited to announce that THIS FRIDAY we are launching a completely NEW Series of Unfortunate Recipes as a companion to the books and new Netflix series!
This new series has been created for unfortunate fans of every age. (Yes, that includes you, sophisticated grownups).
If you are the sort of person who enjoys thinking of happy schoolchildren learning to cook, you can follow along with the original series below. But if for some reason you enjoy hearing dreadful tales of misery, and cooking the foods encountered by the Baudelaires as they tried to escape the clutches of Count Olaf, you may want to use the purple box to sign up for the newsletter. But probably not.
A Series of Unfortunate Events was dutifully written by Lemony Snicket to tell the woeful tale of misery endured by Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire, and to clear his own name. In 2015, it was my grim duty to read the entire tragic series myself, in order to create these cooking lessons for people who prefer to spend their time eating good food in the company of pleasant dining companions. You may choose to keep reading if you also prefer that sort of thing.
We begin at The Bad Beginning by making Puttanesca Sauce, just like the Baudelaires did. Since we are not currently toiling in the kitchen of an evil villain, it turns out to be a very Good Beginning after all.
Rich and delicious, our Coconut Cream Cake is just as magnificent as the one enjoyed by Violet, Klaus and Sunny at the home of their new guardian in Book 2: The Reptile Room. We hope they won't have to share any with the mysterious stranger who is about to arrive.
Lesson the Third -
Not Aunt Josephine's Chilled Cucumber Soup
Our class didn't meet this week due to the woeful early dismissal schedule at the school, but you can still experience Chilled Cucumber Soup, as Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire were served on their first evening with Aunt Josephine in Book 3: The Wide Window. Except ours tastes much better.
Our Chilled Cucumber Soup has "a delicious minty taste, as if you are drinking something as well as eating it," just as Lemony Snicket says a well-prepared version of this dish should. If only Aunt Josephine had made ours instead.
The time the Baudelaires spent working at The Miserable Mill was too terrible to discuss on this website. Instead, we travel with Violet, Klaus and Sunny first to boarding school at Prufrock Preparatory School, and then to the stylish penthouse apartment of Jerome and Esme Squalor.
Delicious and easy to make, our Salmon Puffs are guaranteed to make your next party as fashionable as Esme (but not nearly as evil).
Lessons The Seventh and Eighth -
Enchiladas, Anagrams and Muffins on the Run
We don't know what type of sauce Hector used for his Chicken Enchiladas in Book 7, The Vile Village, but since he tells the Baudelaire children that Mexican food is his specialty, we figure it must have been delicious. In our recipe, we use an Arizona-style red enchilada sauce, like the kind I grew up with in that state.
Later, due to the treachery of Count Olaf and the irresponsible journalism of the local newspaper, Violet, Klaus and Sunny are in hiding, running from the law and wearing disguises. Freshly-baked Cranberry Muffins are one of the few bright spots - or perhaps, warm and delicious spots - in Book 8, The Hostile Hospital.
Intoxicatingly aromatic Thai ingredients simmered in a coconut-chicken broth make Tom Kha Gai an unforgettably delicious dish. You'll want to rave about it to all your friends, unless you are currently in disguise to evade capture by your enemies. In which case you may prefer to whisper.
This food is perhaps the most enjoyable part of the otherwise dreadful tale of treachery found in The Carnivorous Carnival and The Slippery Slope (Books 9 and 10). Since there were no evil villains lurking on a nearby mountaintop during our class, we had fun making and eating this dish.
Lessons the Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth -
Mushrooms, Snicket Salad, Ceviche and The Bitter End
It's not too late to turn back, dear Reader. Although The End is the end of this book series and The End is also the end of these cooking lessons, you can simply stop reading now and end The End before reading to the miserable end of The End.
If you're the type of person who enjoys happy endings, you might prefer to make our recipes for thoroughly delicious and fully-flavored Ceviche, Snicket Salad, Homemade Applesauce and Sauteed Shallot Mushrooms. While you're at it, you can peruse our pictures of carefree schoolchildren, imagining that Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire happily ate all these dishes as well.
Beatrice.
The end.
Dear Reader,
If you have thus far avoided enrolling in the cooking classes that I teach in the town of Montclair, New Jersey, you may be considering following along at home, by means of this website.
You might imagine all the happy schoolchildren and the carefree cooking classes they have taken with me. Perhaps you may choose a few recipes to make at home. You might even choose to believe that the Baudelaires' story is filled with delicious food and interesting dinnertime conversation. It's not, of course, but if you're the kind of person who likes happy endings, you may choose to believe it anyway.
The three Baudelaire youngsters were charming and witty, with well-developed palates, a word which here means they enjoyed eating delicious food as much as the next person. But they were extremely unlucky, and nearly every one of their meals included badly-prepared food or unpleasant dining companions, or both.
If for some reason you desire to learn the true and woeful tale of how all of this food finds its way into the unfortunate lives of the Baudelaires, then you’ll have no choice but to read A Series of Unfortunate Events yourself. I simply cannot bear to retell the miserable story in its entirety on this website. And it has nothing to do with the fact that my enemies at HarperCollins may be plotting to sue me.
With all due respect,
Lynley Jones
Proprietress, Adventure Kitchen
Read my Parent-to-Parent review of the A Series of Unfortunate Events book series.