The Art of Film Magic – 20 Years of Weta delves into the incredible work of the folks at Weta Workshop and Weta Digital, and how they’ve built Weta into one of the world’s leaders when it comes to making movies amazing. If you been thinking about grabbing this two-book set, here’s your chance to add it to your collection.
The book is organized in order of how a typical Hobbit would go through their culinary day. Among many other recipes, Breakfast includes mushroom, and bacon hash and apple and cherry griddle cakes. Second Breakfast includes recipes for pork and apple hand pies for Hobbits on the go. By Elevenses it’s time for honey cakes, seed cakes, and other sweet treats. On to Luncheon with delectable baked scotch eggs, steak and ale pie, and strawberries and cream bread. Of course, no self-respecting Hobbit would miss their scones and country ginger snaps for Afternoon Tea. Supper recipes feature venison cobbler and rosemary skillet peas, and there’s not a Hobbit to be found that wouldn’t be proud to ‘fill up the corners’ with dinner recipes such as savory bread pudding with mushrooms, and boxty on the griddle!
Luncheon Selections
Is your mouth watering yet? Ours certainly were, so we decided to try a few of the recipes in TheOneRing.net’s test kitchen. Greendragon was taken with the baked scotch eggs, rosemary skillet peas and lavender and lemon bread. “I love peas and rosemary – cook with them both a lot – but would never have thought to put them together, nor to cook the peas in a frying pan. (Sam would be proud)!” Kelvahrin and I both tried the steak and ale pie to raves from our respective families. I also made the strawberries and cream bread which was just as tasty and fragrant when we finished the last slice as when we cut the first one.
Chris really did her homework, researching the kinds of foods that would have been available around the late Victorian era when Tolkien was a young man; many of the same ingredients that made their way through his writings to The Shire.
From Chris: “[the research].. was the most fun – falling deep down a research rabbit hole. I have a MA in History, so honestly this was like candy for me. Once I compiled way too many historically suitable recipes I made myself (mostly) stop the research and focus on testing. A lot of people think of Middle Earth as a faux medieval realm, but The Professor was very clear that the Shire was his homage to the disappearing way of life he loved from his late Victorian childhood.”
The result is that the recipes stick to basic ingredients such as butter, fresh fruits and vegetables, and meat. One of the best things about the cookbook, is that most of the recipes that contain butter and meat as ingredients also include clear instructions for how to make them vegetarian, and even some vegan. There are also gluten-free recipes and paleo/primal-friendly recipes. Many of the recipes also include suggestions on using leftovers for later meals, though all of us at TheOneRing.net’s test kitchen can’t imagine leftovers ever being a problem!
Lavender and Lemon Bread
Again from Chris: “As for the dietary restrictions – that’s a real passion of mine. Food brings us together. I see it as part of my job to ensure there’s a place for everyone around the nerdy table. The vegetarian recipes were pretty easy. Most baked goods are accidentally vegetarian, and once you have a little practice, it’s not hard to veganize most vegetarian recipes. Getting the gluten free options in there was the most work since these recipes come from an era when bread really was the staple of life, so I bought in some northern English (mostly Scottish influenced) recipes with oats and made sure that there were some roasts as well as the popular hearty meat pies of the era.”
Steak and Ale Pie
As you can see, Chris has a way with words which also makes the cookbook fun to read. Top it off with fabulous pictures of the food, and metric conversions for all measured ingredients, and Chris’ book offers Tolkien fans everywhere a Middle-earth adventure, right in your own kitchen!
Join us in Los Angeles in February at The One Last Party
We’re hosting a Party of Special Magnificence next February — a final toast to all SIX movies, both The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy.
We’re inviting you to join us and make it happen through our Indiegogo campaign — so we can all celebrate Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth movies together!
Now that the last of The Hobbit Trilogy has been released with early showings tonight the many tie-in products are starting to hit the shelves. One of these is the next in the amazing set of production books on these movies by our friends at Weta Workshop, which have all been published by our friends at HarperCollins.
The next book in this series is The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Chronicles: Art & Design, which covers just a portion of the amazing insider details that it took to bring this movie to the big screen. You can order this fantastic book right now from HarperCollins for a special price right now of $33.75 to give to your favorite Tolkien fan for the holidays.
Join us in Los Angeles in February at The One Last Party
We’re hosting a Party of Special Magnificence next February — a final toast to all SIX movies, both The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy.
We’re inviting you to join us and make it happen through our Indiegogo campaign — so we can all celebrate Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth movies together!
Have you finished all of your Christmas shopping yet? Or are you yet to start? If you’re like us, you’ll definitely have a few more things on your list and what better way to complete the task than buying some Hobbity presents. TORn’s staffers deej, Elessar and Kelvarhin scoured the internet to find the perfect presents to celebrate the holidays and the release of “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” and we were astounded by how many wonderful choices there are. So, without further ado, here are some lovely gift suggestions for your favourite Hobbit fan (even if that happens to be you). Prices are in U.S. dollars, except the Golden Smaug Pop Figurine and the presentation pack of stamps.
“Empire likes movies, and for that reason I have always liked Empire. As Editor-In-Chief for this issue, it’s certainly been an interesting experience — signing off pages and approving photo shoots for Empire, at the same time as I’m signing off visual effects shots and approving sound mixes for The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies.
Coming to the end of such an unexpected, unforgettable journey fills me with a mixture of pride, relief, sadness, fun and satisfaction. Middle-earth is such a fascinating, rich world to explore and one that never leaves you, even if you leave it.”
Our staff have been doing a little bit of digging through the various movie tie-in books that have just been released for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and have come up with a few more nuggets of gold to keep us all thinking.
The Art of Film Magic – 20 Years of Weta delves into the incredible work of the folks at Weta Workshop and Weta Digital, and how they’ve built Weta into one of the world’s leaders when it comes to making movies amazing. If you been thinking about grabbing this two-book set, here’s your chance to add it to your collection.
Have you finished all of your Christmas shopping yet? Or are you yet to start? If you’re like us, you’ll definitely have a few more things on your list and what better way to complete the task than buying some Hobbity presents. TORn’s staffers deej, Elessar and Kelvarhin scoured the internet to find the perfect presents to celebrate the holidays and the release of “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” and we were astounded by how many wonderful choices there are. So, without further ado, here are some lovely gift suggestions for your favourite Hobbit fan (even if that happens to be you). Prices are in U.S. dollars, except the Golden Smaug Pop Figurine and the presentation pack of stamps.
Peter Jackson 
Our staff have been doing a little bit of digging through the various movie tie-in books that have just been released for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and have come up with a few more nuggets of gold to keep us all thinking.