Recipe & Review: The Courtyard of the Others and The World of the Others, Anne Bishop
The Courtyard of the Others: The foundation series featuring Meg Corbyn, for the best reading experience start with the first book Written in Red and follow the series order.
The World of the Others: Series set in the Others universe outside of the Lakeside Courtyard, Lake Silence should be read after reading Marked in Flesh and Wild Country should be read after Etched in Bone to preserve the timeline.
Series Review: The Courtyard of the Others and The World of the Others, Anne Bishop
The question that dominates this series is simple yet terrifying: How much human will the Others keep?
The terra indigene or the Others are creatures from myth and legend that rule the waters and lands of the world. Usually humanity can keep an uneasy truce with the terra indigene by providing goods and services in exchange for leasing land. However, humans have been getting greedy and are forgetting that they are not the primary predators to walk this earth.
The question of human survival is focused on the city of Lakeside, specifically the Lakeside Courtyard, where terra indigene overseeing the city dwell. Simon Wolfguard, wolfshifter and leader of the Lakeside Courtyard, hired Meg Corbyn to be their new human liaison. Meg is a fugitive hiding her status as a blood prophet. The cassandra sangue are a rare type of human with prophesies floating in their blood. To release a prophesy, the skin must be cut deep enough to scar. As Meg learns what is means to be a free human, her interactions with the citizens of the Courtyard and with Simon change the dynamic between humans and Others in positive ways. But the question still remains, will it be enough for the Eldar terra indigene to want to keep humans.
Even with the question haunting the series, it is not a dark and brooding urban fantasy. The majority of light moments come from Meg exploring her new found freedom and bringing her unique perspective to the Others. One of of the most memorable scenes comes from Meg giving Simon’s nephew, Sam, “wolf cookies” while babysitting him in puppy form in Written in Red. The renamed dog biscuits pop up again in the second book, Murder of Crows, when Meg asks a bakery to make fresh wolf cookies for the Courtyard when the supply from the local pet store dries up due to prejudice. In the chapter where the cookie samples arrive: there are cow shaped beef cookies, turkey shaped poultry cookies, human shaped chamomile cookies and bar shaped honey cookies. A later chapter noted that the chamomile cookies were very calming for the wolves to the point of putting one of the juvenile wolves to sleep. Although the wolves weren’t particularly interested in the honey bar cookies, Meg thought that Henry whose alternate form was a bear would enjoy the treat with his earth native tea.
Below is a honey biscotti recipe that can be shaped into bars for your spirit bears to enjoy while reading.
Honey Biscotti for People and Shifters in People Form
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup butter (room temperature)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup honey (use a stronger flavor such as orange flower rather than clover or wild flower)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional: 1/4 teaspoon orange extract and/or 1 teaspoon cinnamon)
- 2 3/4 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup almonds or nut of your choice (optional: 1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries)
- 2 Tablespoons orange juice (to drip in slowly, only need to use enough to form the dough ball)
Directions:
- Preheat oven 350 degrees
- Cream together in stand mixer butter and sugar
- Add the rest of the ingredients in the order of the list. Let each ingredient be fully incorporated into the mix before adding the next. Depending on the humidity level you may not need to add all of the orange juice.
- Divide the sticky dough into at least 2 parts and roll into a log.
- Bake the logs for 25 mins
- While the logs are still warm from the oven, cut into individual slices. This is a messy process, a high end pizza cutter maybe more efficient than a bread or chief’s knife.
- Finish baking the cookies to crispness for 20 more minutes. Depending on how hot your oven runs, you may need to lower the temperature to 325 and monitor appropriately
Great with tea and coffee!
Rose Levy Beranbaum includes a healthy hard textured pet cookie that was contributed by Barbara Vanderbuilt in her book Rose’s Christmas Cookies. That recipe is rather intense but yields a professional quality product more along the lines of the bakery cookies in the novel. Below is a very basic wolf cookie recipe that you can adapt to your pets tastes with additional ingredients such as bacon bits or grated cheese.
Wolf Cookies for Not Humans
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp. beef or chicken bouillon
- ½ cup hot water/stock
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Dissolve bouillon into hot water/stock
- Pulse rolled oats in a food processor until a course flour is formed
- Add remaining ingredients and pulse till a dough is formed
- Knead dough until it forms a ball
- Roll dough until ½ inch thick
- Cut into slices or use cookie cutters for interesting shapes (to avoid traumatizing your delivery man and other humans lacking a sense of humor, you may want to avoid people shaped cookies)
- Place dough pieces on lightly greased cookie sheet
- Bake for 30 minutes
Also see:
Recipe & Review: Teatime with Diana Bishop, All Souls Trilogy, Deborah Harkness
Recipe & Review : Teatime with Mary Russell, Laurie R. King
Recipe & Review: The Courtyard of the Others and The World of the Others, Anne Bishop