I will watch any movie with Vincent Price. His presence is the cinematic equivalent of a perfect spice mix—adding intriguing, nuanced elements of flavor with dashing saltiness and hints of sweetness. Even with bit parts in films like Leave Her To Heaven (1945) he adds a tall hint of camp. 

I never let October go by without watching spooky movies with Vincent Price (who was also in plenty of non-spooky ones too, as I mentioned last week). A few years ago I found a used copy of A Treasury of Great Recipes, a book he wrote in collaboration with his wife Mary, published in 1965. Wow, 60 years ago! I try to cook at least one recipe from it during the holiday season. 

For those unfamiliar, it’s technically a cookbook, but it’s also a precious mid-20th century travel and food diary. It lives up to its name. The Prices had the luxury of being globetrotters and adventurous eaters who loved food, but also appreciated great company and hospitality. The book showcases menus (the original menu designs, not just a listing of the bill of fare) and memories of favorite restaurant meals from around the world, with several previously unpublished signature recipes from each that are somewhat simplified and pared down for the home chef. 

Think about 1965: La Tour D’Argent in Paris, Scandia in Los Angeles, Sobrino de Botín in Madrid, Soley in Barcelona, Woburn Alley in Buckinghamshire, Belle Terrasse in Copenhagen, Rivoli in Mexico City, Dorado Beach Hotel in Puerto Rico, Tre Scalini in Rome, Antoine’s in New Orleans, Bush Garden in Portland, and dozens of others. In New York City alone there’s the likes of Lüchow’s, Sardi’s, the original Four Seasons, House of Chan, Trader Vic’s, Forum of the Twelve Caesar’s, the Pierre Grill in the Hotel Pierre when it was one of the first luxury Indian—not French!—restaurants in the city, and even Gage & Tollner (then spelled with an apostrophe “s”). These are serious, way off the grid menus with recipes to covet. Not to mention pricing: $3.75 for Turbot, Saute Belle Meuniere at The Whitehall Club in Chicago. But to get to Chicago from their home town of Los Angeles, they took the Sante Fe railroad, so there’s a menu and recipes from that too. 

The back of the book is even more special, with “Specialties of Our House” (Vincent and Mary’s own, including something called a “Sherbet Castle”), and tips for home entertaining, including how to fold napkins for dinner parties, favorite sauces to blitz in the blender (“Blender Magic”), foods to prepare and freeze so they’re always on hand (“Frozen Assets”: stocks, clarified butter, various pastry doughs) joining the usual lists of weights and measures, herbs and spices, etc. 

The whole book is dedicated to people who fed and hosted Vincent and Mary Price, and guidance for ways to open one’s own home by their example. It’s just lovely. 

Although, yeah, in keeping with Vincent’s milieu, some of the ingredients and instructions are downright scary. The Iced Coffee calls for decaffeinated instant coffee with saccharin tablets, for instance. And the Sardi’s meat sauce is something I love to make and keep in the freezer for the winter—the addition of ground mushroom is umami game-changing—but I do not recommend cooking the ground meat in a single slab on a baking sheet unless you like fragrant pools of grease that collect at the bottom of the oven that, even if you clean it up, you will smell for months every time you light it. Even if you use a drip tray. 

Fitting, I guess. The ghost of Sardi’s meat sauce. Cue evil Vincent Price laugh. 

Anyway, here are three recipes I’d like to make this season, translated from 1960s Recipe-ish.

Steak Diane from the Whitehall Club, Chicago

This is a classic dish you almost never see anymore, probably because yeah, that’s a lot of butter. The best steakhouse dishes have a lot of butter in them. 

• 4 steaks, 6 oz each (the text says sirloin, but pick your favorite cut)

• 8 tablespoons butter

• 4 tablespoons chopped shallots

• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

• Chopped parsley (2 tablespoons and extra for garnish) 

Pound the steaks in wax paper to ⅓ inch thinness. Heat 2 TB butter in a saucepan over low heat till melted, then add 2 TB parsley and the shallots, cooking till the shallots are lightly browned. Add the Worcestershire sauce and “heat to bubbling” and “keep the sauce hot”. (I’m guessing this means bring to a simmer and keep on low but don’t let it burn.) 

Heat a 12-inch skillet or chafing dish (hey, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em) then add remaining 6 tablespoons of butter. As it begins to brown (so I’m guessing this is low to medium heat), add the steaks and brown on one side, then flip and brown the other. Cook to desired temperature. 

Add to a serving dish, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add the sauce over the steaks and flourish with more chopped parsley. 

Baked Saffron Rice from The Pierre Grill, New York City

This is an excellent side dish or base for add-ins (like veggies, shrimp, chicken, or lamb) to have in rotation. I would also suggest using a few whole cardamom pods and discarding them before serving, just add to the rice before the final bake. 

• 2 cups “raw rice” (uncooked long grain rice)

• ½ tsp saffron threads

• ½ cup butter 

• 1 onion, chopped

• 1 clove garlic, chopped

Price method: Soak the saffron in a cup of cold water for about 2 hours. 

(Or you could steep them in hot—not boiling—water for about 20 minutes, maybe crush them with a mortar and pestle first. And use a bit more than that amount. I’d use at least a tsp.) 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. In a heavy casserole or baking dish or dutch oven, melt the butter (I presume on the stove on medium heat), then add the onion and cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Then add the garlic and combine for one minute. 

Add the rice and coat with the butter mixture. Add the saffron with the steeping water and bring to a boil. Cover tightly and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove the cover and mix thoroughly. 

Add 2 cups of boiling water, cover, return to the oven, and continue to bake for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, remove cover, fluff rice with fork. Serve. 

Rock Cornish Game Hens with Grapes, from Sobrino de Botín, Madrid

It is not a 1960s cookbook without a game hen recipe. Make it. They’re fun. And there’s cream and booze and fried bread. Life is too short for it to be the final quarter of this hellish 2025 and you didn’t have people over to cook ridiculous small birds with bacon, cognac, and port cream sauce (an entire cup of booze in all).

That you light on fire. 

• 2 Rock Cornish Game Hens (or whatever silly little bird you can find at your butcher or grocery store) (Note, the book also suggests a whole pheasant as a substitute. Yes, it’s a Vincent Price book, but please don’t cook ravens.)

• 6 slices of bacon, halved

• Butter (they don’t specify how much this time, but it’s at least 5 tablespoons) 

• 2 slices of bread, cut into triangles (not specified, but I would use a good sturdy sourdough or the like, not sandwich bread, which will disappear into sogginess) 

• ½ cup of cognac (or other aged grape brandy)

• ½ cup of cream 

• 2 scallions, white and light green parts, sliced thin (reserve the greenest parts for garnish) 

• one 8 ½ oz can of light seedless grapes. That’s what it says. A can of light grapes. Again, you do you, probably with fresh grapes seedless grapes or even better, fresh or frozen currants. 

• ½ cup of ruby or white port 

• Dash cayenne pepper (or other hot pepper of choice, such as Aleppo or chili flakes) 

• Fresh lemon, cut into quarters

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Spread butter in a shallow roasting pan or baking dish. Pat the hens dry with paper towels, sprinkle them with salt and pepper and arrange them in the pan. Cover each 3 half slices of bacon. Roast for 50 minutes, basting occasionally. 

Meanwhile, take the triangle (oval is probably fine too) bread slices and sauté them in 2 tablespoons of hot butter until golden on each side (oh yeah!). Drain on paper towels. 

Remove the hens from the oven. Let rest for about 5 minutes, then cut in half and arrange on a platter over the fried bread, one half hen on each piece of bread. Keep warm. 

Make the sauce.

Put the roasting pan on the stove over medium heat. Add the cognac and reduce to half. Add the cream and simmer until combined and silky. 

In a saucepan add 2 more tablespoons of butter and the scallions and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the grapes or currants and ½ cup of port. Ignite it and say “whoooooooooo!!!!” (this is an important step. You can’t light a butter port sauce on fire without it.) and allow the flames to die out on their own. They will. (But have a backup plan just in case. Safety first.)

Strain the creamy gravy from the roasting pan into the grape sauce, and add salt and pepper to taste along with a dash (or two) of hot pepper. Squeeze a quarter lemon over. 

Pour all of this over the hens and garnish with green scallion parts, or if you’re fancy like Vincent and Mary, watercress. 

Happy Halloween weekend!

As always, I welcome your comments, questions, suggestions, and if you like what you read, I would really appreciate it if you would spread the word.

-Amanda