FTC Disclaimer: the cookbook and the calendar were given to me for review purposes.
First up for Downton Friday, we have Larry Edwards’s Edwardian Cooking: 80 Recipes Inspired by Downton Abbey’s Elegant Meals. This is neatly bound, with a lovely dust jacket and pages filled with period illustrations of ingredients, cooking apparatuses, and utensils. The recipes range from tea sandwiches and cookies, to savouries and desserts, and to dinner dishes. Edwards’ has a flair for creating delicious-sounding dishes, and manages to bring the spirit of Edwardian cooking (a mixture of plain English cooking and French-inspired dishes) to modern-day American palates. If you’re looking for replicas of Mrs. Beeton, or even a mention of dishes cooked by Mrs. Patmore on the show, you won’t really find them here. The only issues I have with the cookbook are the lack of photographs and the unexciting commentary (my teeth began to grate whenever Edwards went on and on about “abbeys”), both of which hampered my enjoyment as I read the book from cover to cover. Nevertheless, this is worth a glance for Downton fans who would like to try their hand at a fancy Edwardian-style dinner party.
Next up, we have the official 2013 Calendar. Thankfully it begins in September 2012, so if you purchase it now, you don’t have to wait for January 2013 to roll around. There’s a nice mix of photos from S1 and S2 (including the Christmas special), and fittingly, Thomas and O’Brien mark the month of October. This is an excellent stocking stuffer or, even a little gift for yourself. If you purchase from PBS, all proceeds go directly to funding programs like Downton Abbey!
Lastly, I have two copies of the calendar to giveaway. Unfortunately, since the producers of this calendar only have the rights to sell this in North America, this giveaway is restricted to residents of the United States and Canada. Leave a comment below between now and Wednesday, October 31st, to be entered into the drawing.
Thanks, Evangeline, for all the wonderful insights and reviews you share with us! I’m also an author writing books set in this time period, so your blog has been very helpful to me! I’ve also enjoyed your Pocket Guide to Edwardian England. The calendar and cookbook look great!
thanks for this giveaway!
This is a lovely blog!
We have just formed a small Edwardian Society here is Northeast Florida and we have found this site to be very important to us.
Thank you for all your efforts to inform people about this era.
Please keep up the GREAT work.
Downton Abbey is the VERY best! I can’t wait to cook from this cookbook & fill the calander with my special events!
I’d love to be entered. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for bringing neat things like this to our attention! Please enter me in the drawing!
i cant wait for season 3!!!
Someone must buy me the calendar for Xmas!
By the way, have you read the FitzOsborne series by Michelle Cooper? Reading book 3 and crying my eyes out. You would like it.
I have not! Thank you for the rec!
Aw, no cookbook giveaway? I can’t believe that guy kept referring to abbeys. Very suspicious! I might have to find this book somewhere so I can be annoyed. :p
lol. I’m on the fence about giving it away. I might change my mind around Christmas. 😛
I would love to win this calendar. I am so looking forward to season 3!
I’d love to get a copy of this calendar to hang in my computer room! Love the series and I’d like to get a copy of the cookbook as well, but there was no link to where it can be purchased!
I am a subscriber through Amazon and I love the great information you publish in your blogs. Currently I am working on a novel that takes place in the late Victorian/early Edwardian era. I have to tell you that every article you publish is a real gem. By the way, I would love the calendar.
I love this blog!
Love this blog! 🙂
Oh, how I love Downton. Winning the calendar would bring even more it into my life.
Thank you for the drawing.
Laurie
subscribe to your blog and just love all things downton I actually had a giveaway for tickets to the Heiress on broadway with Dan Stevens from the show. would love to win the calendar! Thank you and love the blog!
Would love to try my hand at some of these recipes !!!
Hi. Downtown, a time that has slipped away but from it much can be reminded about values and character. An idea. How abut a “Top Chef” cooking show only using the recipes in the Edwardian Cooking book?
Dear Madam,
I would love to enter both of your marvelous contests.
My cook is a disaster and she needs a cookbook badly….my husband says her meals are atrocious.
I need the calendar as my season is packed and my secretary resigned last week, taking all of the invitations with her! Dreadful woman! If I had a calendar, I think I could figure out when the cotillion is, along with the presentations at court, my dress fittings and when I have to go to Paris to see Mr. Worth.
Thank you for all that you do to keep the world a bit saner and civil.
Yours,
Lynn-Jane Countess of Discontent.
I would love to win either one. What a fun giveaway!
What a lovely giveaway 😀
I just found this website today. What a treat! That calendar would be a lovely present just in time for season 3 coming to pbs in January.