In an early draft of A Groom Of One’s Own there was a scene where the characters planned the menu for the wedding breakfast. It got cut because nothing particularly interesting happened and I never really fixed it up because I kept getting hungry and wandering away from my computer for “nuppin to eat” as my toddler sister would say.

I also got distracted researching Regency era recipes, and wondering if I could try making a few or if I even wanted to. In my fantasy life, where I have free time, I would do an entire series of blogs about my attempts to recreate Regency cuisine a la Julie & Julia.

If you’re interested, The Jane Austen Cookbook was particularly interesting. The biscuit recipes sound delicious, the curry sounds interesting and the fricassee of turnips or celery ragout less so. Or you can find more Regency recipes here.

In real life, the menu planning for my own wedding is quite fun. My fiancé and I hate all the same foods, which is one of the things we bonded over early on. We knew we wanted very rustic, country cooking (there will be grills!). We’re planning for our September wedding now because a lot of the food will be grown on my grandmother’s organic farm, where the wedding and reception will take place. This way, we know what to plant and with the guest list done, we’ll have a good idea of how much to plant. I am very much looking forward to helping with the planting, weeding and harvesting because it makes the food taste even better.

As for the cake…oh, there will be cake! I had a paragraph about cake tasting (setting off outrageous cravings) but that, too, got cut. My fiancé and I did disagree about this. I want vanilla with butter cream frosting and he wants some traditional English cake that is mostly raisins (blech). So we are going to compromise—by having both!