Death Below Stairs Quotes

“Simple explanations are usually the wisest ones - a person can complicate a straightforward situation with unnecessary dramatics and end up in a complete mess.”
― Jennifer Ashley, Death Below Stairs

“. . . I easily put together turbot in a butter sauce and an almond soup made from mutton I'd left to boil with spices, pulverized almonds, and leftover chopped boiled eggs from breakfast. No food need be wasted when it can be turned into a tasty soup.

For meat I gave the family pork cutlets that had been boiled then fried quickly with breadcrumbs and butter and a little onion Mary had chopped. Then greens - dandelion, chervil, and lettuce - served warm with butter and a sprinkling of new cheese, peas with a bit of ham, all accompanied by my crusty bread that Mary had baked at the correct time. She was learning quickly, I was happy to see.

For pudding I sent up fruit and cheese as I'd had no time to prepare a tart or cake. I could only do so much.”
― Jennifer Ashley, Death Below Stairs

“For breakfast, I sliced leftover bread from the day before, set Mary to toasting it, and then put the slices, slathered with butter, on a rack and sent them upstairs. Ham and boiled eggs in their shells went with them, as well as a serving of breakfast cakes made with bicarbonate of soda, flour, and milk.

For the servants, I pounded together scraps of leftover ham and chicken with butter, a pinch of nutmeg, mace, and salt, as well as a smidgen of cayenne pepper. This I spread on the remainder of the toasted bread and set it before them, along with a hash of leftover potatoes and vegetables, and the rest of the eggs in the house.”
― Jennifer Ashley, Death Below Stairs

“London after dark is a different place than in daylight. There is as much hustle-bustle as always, but now the gentry are out and about as well as less salubrious members of society - the inebriated, the ruffians, and the ladies looking to entice a man from the straight and narrow.”
― Jennifer Ashley, Death Below Stairs

“At last the meal was ready to go up, the cream of carrot soup resting in its tureen; the fish pale in its butter sauce; the beef proudly browned and crackling with heat, its sauce of wine, demi-glace, and shallots poured around its base; the potatoes crisp; the greens resting in a bowl with a light sprinkling of a wine and lemon sauce; the lemon tart to be set on the sideboard for after,”
― Jennifer Ashley, Death Below Stairs

“phaeton,”
― Jennifer Ashley, Death Below Stairs