Some Fun With Vinnie

Today is Vincent Price's 100 birthday.  He was a man of many characters.  As a horror actor he was a big as Christopher Lee (also born today), but didn't have nearly as many roles as Lee in the genre. In fact, though he did make appearances in films that included early horror gods like Boris Karloff, such as 

Tower of London (1939), his early career is more typified by roles in Films Noir.  He sort of stumbled into his role of horror icon, but after his appearance in House of Wax (1953) was followed up by his iconic role in The Fly some 5 years later (after numerous television roles and a smallish part in The Ten Commandments (1956)), and then on to a starring role in William Castle's House On Haunted Hill (1959), his horror credentials were firmly established (he did ultimately record for BBC radio horror in the early 1970's).  With directors and producers like Roger Corman coming in the 1960's as American counterparts to the British Hammer institution, Price found himself in world of endless, garishly colored horror  roles.  From there he just seemed to have fun with the notion of being a "horror icon."  If anyone has seen his stint in the Canadian TV production The Hilarious House of Frankenstein (1971), his fun with the notion of being a "horror actor" is clear--I saw this as a re-run here in the States years later and it remains a favorite role for me as a Price fan.  He had always expressed a desire to play a Shakespearean role; yet when the outrageous role of Edward Kendal Sheridan Lionhart came up in a film called Theater of Blood (1973) he didn't shirk from assaying the role of a really bad actor of Shakespearean material.  A serious sense of humour was at work.  Ultimately, Price would end his career in the animation and film-work of a young director who grew up feasting his eyes on classic Universal horror films--Tim Burton.

Vincent Price was less known for his love of serious food, nonetheless, he was a very discerning gourmet.  He even had a short lived television program in 1971, "Cooking Price Wise."  His cookbook with his second wife Mary Grant Price,  A Treasury of Great Recipes, published in 1965 is considered an international classic.  I am privileged to own a family copy of the book gifted to me from my mother -in law.  This semi-formally trained chef be featuring some of Mr. Price's food insight throughout this Friday.

Scream And Scream Again

It is only fitting that we start our celebration of Vincent Price's 100th birthday with a deliciously garish Brit Horror that also stars the great Christopher Lee, who's birthday is also today (he turns 89).  It doesn't get talked about a lot, but this is really a movie that falls into the Frankenstein theme.  It features a mad scientist (Price as Dr. Browning) hell bent on "saving" the planet by peopling it with his "composites," creatures of his own making that possess super human strength. 

It also reaches into the British mind of horror, by featuring a nice big vat of acid; which in 1970 would easily conjure up memories of the real Acid Bath Killer.  The film is essentially a serial killer mystery that also stars Peter Cushing as the detective charged with finding the so-called "vampire killer." Of course, the killer turns out to be a composite, so again the Frankenstein theme is invoked.  All in all it ultimately a fun little film, if you are inclined to find Brit Horrors of the early 1970's that feature spy music.

!00 Years

Sweeney Todd

We'll see....  I love the Sweeney Todd story and have been a fan of other films, and musicals (Angela Landsbury does rock) on the subject.  Haven't seen it--so here's the trailer.  Hope it's better than Alice.  Where the hell was the original story???  Or, the original weirdness??

The New Alice In Wonderland

I haven't seen this, so obviously I don't have anything to say about it, same for Sweeney Todd (family trouble kept me from seeing in the theatre); I will say that The Peanut is very, very interested in the case art--so even if the grownups aern't keen on it, I'm sure he will be (he's not big on other versions and he loves Burton animation).  I am a bit intrigued by the combo of live action and animation on such a grand Burton-like scale.

Ed Wood

This is one of my 3 favorite Tim Burton feature lengths, along with Beetlejuice and Sleepy Hollow (Frankenweenie has also always been a favorite, but obsviously it's a short).  Every time I see this movie, it reminds me how accomplished Burton is with black and white.  He is known for his flamboyant color schemes and brightly colored skewed set pieces--see films like Beetlejuice or Batman or even Edward Scissorhands, and it is hard to imagine that a director with such a colorful vision would seemingly work so effortlessly with black and white (that is until you see Frankenweenie (1984)).  I know that Burton said that working the story of Ed Wood (liberally) out in color would not make sense, I agree.  Maybe it's a bad idea, I would still like to see him work with B&W again--in a different medium.  Something like a Burton take on a classic styled Universal horror vehicle.

Corpse Bride

This is SO COOL!

Recipe

In honor of Wonka's Chocolate Factory, well this week's Friday Fright related recipe had to be CHOCOLATE!

Chocolate Factory Truffles

Homemade chocolate truffles sound difficult, but really they are not.  ....and they are sooo good.  It's fun to make this type of candy at some time other than around the holidays, so this is a good time of year to whip some up.  The following recipe is basic and cobbled together by me from several sources; there are also variations that are as easy as the plain ones.

8 oz.  good UNSWEETENED chocolate*

About 1 & 1/2 tbsp water

1/4 cup whipping (heavy) cream

3 to 4 oz. soft butter (about 1 stick)

2 to 4 tbsp. sugar (depends on your sweet tooth)

2 large egg yolks

2 tbsp. kirsch or favorite liqueur

1/4 cup good cocoa powder (unsweetened if you like the traditional

     bitter or sweet for a richer truffle)

1.  Carefully melt the chocolate with the water (a double boiler or a hot water bath works with a glass bowl in hot water works well for this), the heat should not be too high.

2.  Add the cream, butter and sugar and whisk well until the chocolate is super shinny, remove from heat and let cool 7 to 10 minutes, stirring a few times to release the heat (I would go into a lot of mumbo-jumbo about candy thermometers, but I rarely use them, I find my finger works just as well).  

3.  While chocolate is cooling, beat the eggs with the kirsch or other flavored liqueur of choice (if you really want to get your chocolate on, get a chocolate liqueur!).  Gently stir this mixture into the chocolate, and beat until very, very shinny.  Let cool for at least 3 hours.  

4.  Scoop up and form into balls like you would a meatball.  Then roll into the cocoa powder and place on a plate (or in storage box) and refrigerate.  Really, that wasn't so hard--and they are GOOD!

*Ghirardelli is widely available.  Online Amazon sells baking chocolate and then there is the wonderful chocolatesource.com

VARIATIONS:

Really, there are endless variations on truffles, as any visit to an high end candy boutique's website will attest too.  You can flavor these with anything that you like the taste of.  A few things that people don't think of that candy makers clean up on include:

Pure Ground Chile

Curry Powders of all sorts

Peppercorns

Various Dried Herbs

Gourmet Salts

Salted Chopped Nuts

The list goes on.

Some of the easiest ways to vary these include:

Changing up the liquor used (flavored vodkas can be useful)

Adding powdered or ground spices to the basic mixture

Adding in citrus zest

Rolling the plain truffles in powdered or ground spices, herbs or nuts

Making them mocha by adding coffee.

Adding in some flavored tea (you do this with cold tea, and use it to melt the chocolate instead of using water

Rolling them in other kinds of chocolate, like shavings.  Or mixing up the toppings like, powdered sugar and cinnamon, or chocolate and coconut or several colors of chocolate.

Adding syrups in place of the sugar (like maple, etc.)

And then there are the molds....

There are all types of molds available for chocolate formations.  The ones above are very cool, very old and very expensive on the secondary market, but plastic molds work just as well.  And there are some nice spooky ones out there!

To use a mold with truffles, you simply pour the chocolate into the molds after whisking in the egg and liqueur mixture and let them stand for 4 hours.  Refrigerate for 15 minutes and them unmold.  Molded truffles don't really need to the rolled in anything, but they can be decorated.  Some folks got really creative with chocolate below for Halloween!

Plastic Frankenstein candy molds