If you had all the money in the world, wouldn’t you want an Aslan-shaped cake for your next celebration? Aslan Cakes Royal Roar A red velvet cake sculpted in the form of a three-dimensional lion’s head with interior layers of mascarpone cream. It is covered with yellow and gold fondant airbrushed with lifelike details. …
Tag: Food and Recipes
Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/6/25: Foods of Archenland (Narnia LXX)
Like the Seven Isles, not much is known about Archenland. In the books it serves as Narnia’s steadfast ally, a typical Medieval European country ruled by humans that lacks the magic ** and the Talking Beasts of Narnia. It figures most prominently in The Horse and His Boy. Lewis gives it a few quirky details, …
Worldbuilding Wednesday 7/2/25: A Calormene Feast (Narnia LXV)
In the Chronicles life in Tashbaan is presented as one of decadent, ostentatious luxury. That would include the foods on which the nobles dined. Lewis doesn’t mention which foods, with the exception of garlic and the cool sherbet Aravis and Shasta dream about when crossing the Great Desert. But we can infer from descriptions of …
Worldbuilding Wednesday 2/5/25: Polish Cuisine
How did a sweet, delectable Polish doughnut called paczki, whom most people have never heard of, come to be sold in supermarkets in the weeks before Mardi Gras? Paczkis (pronounced Poon-chshee) are a traditional Polish treat made to use up all the extra flour, sugar, and eggs in the weeks before Lent, as a last …
Passing Obsessions 11-24
Former Korean actor now lives inside an amusement park he built himself. Sounds like an ideal life, myself! The Rhunic language created for The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime (it’s a lot like Hungarian). Author Diana Paxson pulled into the child sexual abuse reckoning taking place in the SCA, Berkeley, and Marion Zimmer Bradley …
Passing Obsessions 10-24
Culinary Class Wars on Netflix aims to popularize Korean cooking with a hyper-competititve, grueling reality show challenge between master chefs. In that vein, what is Bibimbap? Ursula K. LeGuin criticizes J. K. Rowling for using her “Magic School” concept. Well, yeah, more people shoulda said this. And shares her thoughts on gendered writing. The …
Farewell to the 2024 Summer of Narnia
It ended sooner than I wanted. However there is lots of leftover material for next year’s three-month extravaganza! I’ll close with this delicious AI-generated version of The White Witch’s bento box. Made of polished and ornamented silver, it contains plenty of raw fish (tuna and salmon filets), hardboiled eggs, roe, oysters, pickled garlic, and nuts …








