The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club: The Roundup

It's time for the roundup of Cook the Books' Club April-May edition for which we read the novel The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson. 

As I've done in the past, I will present our club members' contributions as a menu organized in courses. For each dish, I will give you the official information (author, blog name and post title) and a quote from it, a taste: follow the link and read the author's take of the book and how the reading inspired the cooking. 

Cook the Books Club's The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club-Inspired Menu 

Appetizer:

Anchovy Pesto Toast

Bread:

Potato Bread

Main dish:

Spinach and Paneer Pulao

Sandwich:

Woven Bacon Sandwich with Onion Jam

Side dish:

Fava beans and peas 

Dessert:

Chocolate Eclairs

Make yourself comfortable and enjoy the menu.

---

Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm prepared Anchovy Pesto Toast

"High Tea is served each day and on one of those occasions, Anchovy Toast, was served. This was the inspiration for the recipe that I am sharing today. I enjoyed this novel, which is, in essence, a love story... I had never heard of Anchovy Toast and wanted to confirm it was a thing. A Google search turned up numerous recipes. I decided to create my own, and it was pretty darn good." 

---

Amy of Amy's Cooking Adventures baked Potato Bread 

"It was a nice little historical fiction that managed to combine levity with the harsh realities facing survivors of WWI... Since some rationing was still in place just after the war, when this story took place, I started wondering if I could find any recipes specifically from that era... [Win the War Cook Book], published in 1918, was just what I was looking for with hundreds of war time recipes. I started reading and was so pleased when I found this recipe for potato bread!"

---

Claudia of Honey from Rock made Paneer
and used it to prepare Spinach and Paneer Pulao

"I decided to feature Basu and Pandora, who, is revealed, after putting aside his more ordinary honorific, to be the new young Maharaja of Kochi Benar. Then of course there is a quite hypocritical turn around, a Royal welcome! And he is able to help with the exciting developments and resolution of the storyline. So, in remembrance, a delicious curry and cheese in their honor!"

---

Debra of Eliot's Eats cooked Woven Bacon Sandwich with Onion Jam

"There is a lot of standard British fare—tea, sardines and toast, Dover sole, cheese sandwiches and scones. Champagne, cocktails and wine flow, too... I had to go with a version of Tilly’s Famous Bacon Sandwich (with sauteed onions). I was going to just recreate the recipe from the back of the book but then I ran across an onion jam recipe in by Heart by Hailee Gatalano and I had to try a version of that on this sandwich. This is a great recipe for bacon sandwiches before summer tomatoes are ripe." 

---

Simona of briciole (your host) prepared Fava beans and peas

"The book inspired me to look at a food from my upbringing, something not only Italian, but from my family traditions. When I was in Italy last month, the smell of roasted chestnuts... reminded me of my mother. Every October, she would buy a large amount of chestnuts from someone in Casperia, the village in central Italy where she grew up. Then, in the following weeks, we would eat them often, as dessert at the end of dinner, alternatively roasted and boiled... The side dish is earthy and sweet (almost dessert-like) and it's vegan."

---

Marg of The Intrepid Reader prepared Chocolate Eclairs

"Once again Helen Simonson has given us a book which feels lighthearted, and yet covers many serious topics including racism, the effects of war, class differences and social change, and asks questions like how should the end of WWI, or indeed any war, be commemorated the year after it ended. She does it with a gentle humour and wry observations about society and class... My husband has been asking me to make eclairs for the longest time... I have made choux pastry once before, but not eclairs, but now is the time for it to happen."

---

A great Thank you! to everyone who joined in this edition of Cook the Books.

I believe all the submissions I have received are presented in the roundup. If you find anything missing or in need of amendment anywhere in the roundup, please do let me know.

And now, I’ll pass the baton to Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm who is hosting the June-July edition in which we are reading the novel A Bakery in Paris by Aimie Runyan.

Arrivederci a presto!

Simona, of briciole

April/May selection: The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club

For the April / May 2025 edition I chose the novel The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson (May 2024)

At some point last year, upon returning a book to the library via the Libby app, I was offered the option to "skip the line" and borrow a sought-after novel with a long, intriguing title. I accepted the offer and soon I found myself drawn to the story and even more so to its historical background: the period post-WWI and Spansh flu pandemic, and the challenges the time posed to women, war veterans and the UK at large.

It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel...

But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.

I enjoyed Simonson's style so much that after finishing this novel, I borrowed her earlier ones: The Summer Before the War (where again the war in question is WWI) and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.

While the novel i selected is not food-oriented, it includes a number of references to foods. I hope it will provide inspiration and, above all, an interesting read.

Simona, briciole

Deadline for contributing your post: Saturday, May 31, 2025.

 

Leave a comment below with a link to your post or email me at simosite AT mac DOT com

---

Remember that membership in our book club is open to anyone and we hope you will join us by reading these selections and creating inspired recipes. New participants are always welcome and so are returning ones. For more information about participating, click here.  

Announcement: Our Next Four Selections

It's that time of our virtual book club's cycle when we unveil the next four books selected by the co-hosts. This time, however, there is a twist: read on and you'll know more.
As always, we hope the reading will delight and inspire you. Ready? Let's go!

---

Claudia (Honey from Rock) opens the series: for the December 2024 / January 2025 edition, she chose C Pam Zhang’s novel Land of Milk and Honey (September 2023)

I had almost gone with another selection when I read some reviews on this book. Though outside of my usual reading choices, dystopian/ sci-fi, it just provoked such curiosity and interest, that I thought you all might want to give it a try as well! This is not a pandemic novel per se, but it did grow out of the pandemic. Unfolding in a near future. 

From the Publishers: 

A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world's troubles. There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body. In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef's boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

Claudia, Honey From Rock

Deadline for contributing your post is Friday, January 31, 2025

---

For the February / March 2025 edition, Debra (Eliot's Eats) has chosen the memoir Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten (October 2024)

I really hadn’t thought of Ina Garten much these past few years and then this summer I reviewed Cooking in Real Life by Lidey Heuck. (Lidey was an assistant for Ina for many years.) Then I heard a recent interview with Ina on Fresh Air promoting her upcoming memoir. I pre-ordered it. I had no idea that she had worked in the White House, that she spontaneously bought a specialty food shop in the Hamptons, and that she was a very reluctant FoodNetwork Star. I guess I wasn’t much of a fan girl back in the days of The Barefoot Contessa. Long story short… my selection is Ina’s most recent book. From the publisher:

Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose. From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.

I hope you’re inspired by one of her personal tales like “1000 Baguettes” or “It’s Always Cocktail Hour in a Crisis." Perhaps you’ll choose a recipe from one of her thirteen cookbooks! Regardless, I think this will be a fun and interesting read.

Debra, Eliot's Eats

Deadline for contributing your post is Monday, March 31, 2025

---

For the April / May 2025 edition Simona (briciole) chose the novel The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson (May 2024)

Recently, upon returning a book to the library via the Libby app, I was offered the option to "skip the line" and borrow a sought-after novel with a long, intriguing title. I accepted the offer and soon I found myself drawn to the story and even more so to its historical background: the period post-WWI and the challenges it posed to women, war veterans and the UK at large.

From the publisher:

It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel... 

But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked. 

While the novel is not food-oriented, it includes a number of references to foods. I hope it will provide inspiration and above all an interesting reading. 

Simona, briciole

Deadline for contributing your post: Saturday, May 31, 2025.

---

To round up the list of selections, for the June / July 2025 edition, guest host Wendy (A Day in the Life on the Farm) chose the historical novel A Bakery in Paris by Aimie Runyan (August 2023)

From Goodreads: 

This captivating historical novel set in nineteenth-century and post–World War II Paris follows two fierce women of the same family, generations apart, who find that their futures lie in the four walls of a simple bakery in a tiny corner of Montmartre.

The first story is set in 1870 and the parallel story is set in 1946.  Historical fiction is my favorite genre and this novel has the additional lure of being a "foodie" read.

Wendy, A Day in the Life on the Farm

Deadline for contributing your post: Thursday, July 31, 2025.

---

Remember that membership in our book club is open to anyone and we hope you will join us by reading these selections and creating inspired recipes. For more information about participating, click here.  

As always, specific announcement posts can be found at Cook the Books at the beginning of each two-month period and the current selection is always shown on the right side of the homepage.

To recap:

---

December 2024 / January 2025: Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang (hosted by Claudia at Honey from Rock)

February / March 2025: Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten (hosted by Debra at Eliot's Eats)

April / May 2025: The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson (hosted by Simona at briciole)

June / July 2025: A Bakery in Paris by Aimie Runyan (hosted by Wendy, A Day in the Life on the Farm)

Happy reading and cooking!