Dinner at Ruth's...Reinterpreted!

by Libby

‘I left a note for you,’ said Gabri. ‘Since the bistro’s closed we’re all going out for dinner and you’re invited.’ ‘Peter and Clara’s again?’ asked Gamache. ‘No. Ruth,’ said Gabri and was rewarded with their stunned looks. He’d have thought someone had drawn a gun on the two large Sûreté officers. Chief Inspector Gamache looked surprised but Beauvoir looked afraid. (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.159)

Ruth's appetisers, reinterpreted

Ruth's main course, reinterpreted

Dinner at Ruth's? The surprise and trepidation that Gamache and Beauvoir experience is rightly deserved. Jean-Guy finds it prudent not to attend. Ruth is far too unsettling for him. She has become something of a nemesis! But he doesn't entirely miss out. This is the start of Ruth feeding him a steady diet of couplets of verse, that are out of order and don't rhyme. Which is bound to do his head in! 

In fact she does everyone's head in at the dinner with her seemingly bizarre food choices and 'kitsch' theatricals; Ruth is decked out and channelling genteel Britishness while serving food of dubious 'taste' and origin, Rosa the duck wears a dress! Little wonder that the Three Pines' friends are feeling unnerved. 

‘For pity’s sake, did you bring your gun?’...‘They’re dangerous. Why do you want it?’ ‘So you can shoot her. She’s trying to kill us.’ Myrna grabbed Gamache’s sleeve and pointed to Ruth who was circulating among her guests wearing a frilly apron and carrying a bright orange plastic tray. (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.160) 

The humour in this meal is wonderfully orchestrated, and contrasts with the pathos of Olivier's predicament. And we get to glimpse Ruth without a sting, but with a heart that has great capacity for kindness when she offers whispered support to Olivier. 

‘Give it time. It’ll be all right, you know that, don’t you?’ (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.73) 

In our quest to recreate the food in the Louise Penny series, this was one meal that begged for reinterpretation. Well, there are standards! Though I did admire Ruth's unique conception of the main course...putting all the things she liked into one bowl! In the end, I took Ruth's menu and rejigged the ingredients into a more 'palatable' and slightly more sophisticated version.

Ruth's menu -- Reinterpreted menu 

Appetisers 

Salteen crackers with peanut butter -- Spicy peanut dip with crudités and crackers 

Celery sticks stuffed with Velveeta -- Celery sticks with Roquefort, caramelised onion and walnuts

Balls (lard?) covered with seeds -- Fried Haloumi cheese with sesame seeds and coriander 

Olives stuffed with canned mandarin orange -- Green olives with lemon and coriander 

Main course 

Canned peaches, bacon, cheese, Gummi Bears, Scotch -- Apple, pear and fennel salad, smoked salmon, quark cheese, with Gummi Bears and Scotch on the side

Gamache could see salteen crackers sliding around...smeared with brown stuff he hoped was peanut butter. (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.160) 

A spicy peanut dip was my version of this appetiser. It is gently spiced and is a flavoursome accompaniment to crudités and crackers.

200g/7oz of natural (no additives) crunchy, peanut butter

1 large garlic clove, finely sliced

2 heaped tablespoons of caramelised onion

1 teaspoon of dried chilli flakes

1 teaspoon of Asian shrimp paste, or mild red curry paste

1 and a half tbls of soy sauce

1 and a half tbls of lemon juice

1 teaspoon raw sugar

peanut oil, or other

1.  Fry the slices of garlic in a little oil over medium heat until golden. Drain on kitchen paper.

2. Gently fry the chilli flakes until crisp.

3. Gently heat a quarter cup of oil and fry shrimp paste, soy sauce, lemon juice and sugar.

4.  Remove from the heat and mix in the peanut butter, crumbled garlic slices, caramelised onion and chilli flakes. Taste and adjust the balance of flavours if necessary.

5. Serve with crudités and crackers.

Ruth had put down the peanut-buttered crackers and was now offering celery sticks stuffed with Velveeta. (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.161) 

 

I had never heard of Velveeta processed cheese until reading this book. I decided to use a cheese that marries beautifully with celery, Roquefort. Now if this blue cheese is not really your thing you might be surprised at the pleasing flavours when it's mixed with certain other ingredients into a spread.

Caramelising onion, sauteing walnuts

The piquancy of the cheese is balanced with the sweet savouriness of caramelised onion, creme fraiche (for a luscious texture),  sautéed walnuts (for their crunch and tangy flavour) and black pepper. Spread onto tender stalks from the heart of the celery. 

‘Would you like one?’ Clara offered him a ball covered with what looked like seeds. (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.161) 

Ruth's seed balls seemed like something that might be more fitting for birds. This version is definitely for human consumption. 

Haloumi cheese (or another cheese that can be fried) is cut into bite-sized pieces, coated with a mixture of sesame seeds, ground coriander seeds and a little all purpose flour and fried in extra virgin olive oil until golden brown. 

Finished with a generous squeeze of lemon juice before leaving the pan, the haloumi is then drained on kitchen paper before being served warm. It pairs nicely with citrus-flavoured olives.

‘May I help?’ Gamache asked from the door. ‘Well, aren’t you a love.’ Gamache winced, expecting her to throw a cleaver after that. But she just smiled and handed him a plate of olives, each stuffed with a section of canned mandarin orange. (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.162)

Now Ruth almost has something going here, pairing olives with citrus. Black olives mixed with a little grated orange rind, chopped rosemary, crushed garlic, black pepper and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil are delicious.

In this instance though, I chose big green olives and combined them with the juice and some fine slivers of lemon, crushed coriander seeds and garlic, and extra-virgin olive oil. Served with the fried Haloumi they are quite delicious.

‘Hi ho, dinner everyone,’ sang Ruth...Gamache looked at the contents of his bowl. He could make out canned peaches, bacon, cheese and Gummi Bears. ‘They’re all the things I love,’ said Ruth, smiling...‘Scotch?’ Ruth asked. ‘Please.’ Six glasses were thrust forward and Ruth poured each a Scotch, into their dinners. (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.164,165) 

Ruth's main course reinterpreted

 
Perhaps Ruth's instincts for serving certain foods together wasn't completely off the mark.  Just a little fine tuning was needed, including Gummi Bears and Scotch being kept STRICTLY on the side!

Fruit and smoked meats actually work well together, the sweet acidity of one balancing with the salty smokiness of the other. The creamy texture of cheese adds a nice contrast. I chose to work with apples, pears, smoked salmon (smoked chicken or bacon would work well too) and quark (though another curd cheese could be used, or even cream cheese as a richer alternative).

Quite simply, a salad of very finely sliced apples, pears and fennel bulb and fresh herbs (mint, watercress, fennel, rocket/arugula), dressed with a vinaigrette of extra virgin olive oil, apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard and crushed garlic accompanied fine slices of smoked salmon, generous dobs of quark, watercress sprigs and more vinaigrette. It's a good balance of flavours and textures.

What a wonderful character Louise Penny has created in Ruth. She perceives more deeply than most, if her razor-sharp insights are any indication. The foreshadowing in her haunting poetry makes her something of a seer. When Olivier comes to Ruth and confesses all that he has done over the years, she wants to comfort him but in that moment, in the face of his greed and duplicity, and with a striking sense of inevitability, she is driven to write a foreboding verse that speaks not only of losing Rosa but I think, Olivier too.

She rose up into the air and the jilted earth let out a sigh. She rose up past telephone poles and rooftops of houses where the earthbound hid. She rose up but remembered to politely wave goodbye … (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.353)

Ruth understands 'damaged' and that allows her to recognise it, or see its potential in others. Is this what motivates her interest in, and 'hounding' of Beauvoir? Does she recognise something of herself? She senses his needs before he is conscious of them himself. What a slow and astounding 'reveal' as Beauvoir resists and then struggles with making sense of the couplets with which she plies him. Hilariously, just when he hoped he had received the last of them... 'What upset him the most was the comma. It meant there was more.' 

As Jean-Guy wrestles with the meaning and order of Ruth's verses, feelings emerge that had been tucked away; prised out now with the help of a stuffed lion, an old Weaver's tune and wishful thinking of someone who will '...lick you clean of fever, and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck and caress you into darkness and paradise.' 

Louise Penny's The Brutal Telling is a complex work. It is a book full of revelations and life-changing loss through a series of brutal tellings, more than at first meet the eye: the artist Emily Carr experienced one at the hands of her father; the fearsome story that Olivier, motivated by his greed, told the hermit; Clara's struggle with, and eventual challenge of the gallery owner Fortin for his homophobic behaviour, and so forfeiting her opportunity to exhibit; Peter, wrestling with himself on a pathway to dissolution and the horrible truth that the career he knew as an artist is over, as Clara's ascends; Ruth's couplets of verse to Beauvoir, foreshadowing tribulations to be faced and an avenue to succour; Ruth's haunting farewell to Rosa and Olivier; Gamache's eventual arrest of Olivier. 

It was time for his own brutal telling. He stood. ‘Olivier Brulé,’ said Chief Inspector Gamache, his voice weary and his face grim, ‘I’m arresting you on a charge of murder.’ (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.480)

And at the heart of all the lies and justifications, shame, fear and guilt is conscience and the resounding impact it has when it falters or is lost; when greed, jealousy, the need for recognition and success, and even indifference (am I sparing a thought for Enid here), prevail. It's a precarious balance between motives, desires and the dictates of conscience.

But there was no hiding from Conscience...Which was why, Gamache knew, it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you. (The Brutal Telling, Kindle, p.502)

This book certainly gave me pause.

And how many of us finished it, more than just a little astounded, with the echoes of our voices screaming in our heads, "Oh no, Olivier!" ... "Jean-Guy, Annie, aaah!!