Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish - reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!
Last week, I reviewed two movie thrillers: The Courier and The Good Liar. Tina reviewed The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, an unusual novel exploring the paths one might have taken but didn't.
This Sunday, February 6, will mark 70 years since Queen Elizabeth became the monarch of the UK and the Commonwealth Realm. By Wikipedia's count, she'll be the sixteenth monarch in the history of the world, and the first British monarch, to reach her Platinum Jubilee year.
The main celebration of the Platinum Jubilee will take place over a four-day holiday for the first weekend in June. The celebrations will include a concert, a thanksgiving service, and a pageant along the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace.
Today is the final day to submit your entry to Fortnum & Mason's Platinum Pudding Competition. F&M graciously made a page called So What is a Pudding? to help us Americans understand the point that "not all puddings are desserts, while all desserts are puddings in the modern sense of the word."
The competition is only open to UK residents who, presumably, are pretty well-versed on the modern British meaning of the word 'pudding.' The panel of judges will be led by Dame Mary Berry who even Americans know as one of the original judges on the Great British Baking Show.
I think it's going to be a tricky competition. The winning entry will be fit to serve a Queen, because it will be. It will also be easy enough for home bakers, because the hope is that everyone across the country will enjoy this dessert on the same day as the Queen.
What would you enter to the Platinum Pudding Competition, if you were eligible? I make some delicious fruity bread puddings, but they aren't very pretty. Other than that, my dessert-making skills are rusty since desserts aren't a good fit in our healthy eating plan. My greatest dessert triumphs, ever, were the pumpkin pies that I used to bring to holiday gatherings, following Julia Child's recipe. Pumpkin pie, though, seems too American for the occasion. Do you have a better idea?
About Joy Weese Moll
a librarian writing about books
