About Dining with Destiny

Dining with Destiny is a series in search of a publisher. The stories and recipes on this website are small tasters drawn from the 11 volumes of Destiny, containing delicious and remarkable recipes and accompanying anecdotes which bring the tastes of the famous, and infamous, to your own dinner table.  Food biography is born! There is a book to suit the interests of every reader. Based on the findings of gastro-detective Fiona Ross, each volume contains a set of key icons drawn from various spheres of life and history, thematically grouped and chosen to appeal to a transatlantic readership. Pictures of icons grace the real-life anecdotes and recipes.

The Dining with Destiny series has something for everyone. You can have a slice of history.

Monarchists can bite into the Queen’s banana sandwiches, courtesy of The Upper Crust; lovers can share a Dodi and Di supper. Mistresses could try out a Wallace Simpson raspberry soufflé from Love at First Bite on the man they want to catch. Or who could resist a Valentine’s meal cooked up by Casanova? Those who want to tie the knot Madonna-style need look no further than Love at First Bite to replicate the same wedding feast. If you are a regular both at the altar and in the divorce courts then Liz Taylor’s many weddings allow you to eat your way up the aisle – as many times as you could wish.

Fans of heroes can consult The Bold and the Beautiful and read hilarious accounts of their take on what’s eatable. For a treat, they can cook up a Gandhi feast, have a Voyage of the Beagle dinner Darwin-style, lunch with Scott of the Antarctic or cook up some of Martin Luther King’s soul food. The Way of All Flesh will have you frying fish like Steinbeck and baking cakes with George Orwell.

Power Lunches and Meals with a Bang appeal to every political perspective: would-be revolutionaries can make Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island seafood stew or bite into Marx’s jam tarts. After an evening watching ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ you can top up your appetite for Che Guevara with a dish of the humitas he ate in Bolivia. Or how about an anarchic barbeque chez Saddam? Power Lunches exposes hitherto unknown facts to the public – for instance the Nazi-fuelled myth of Hitler’s vegetarianism; when we find out that Hitler liked a bit of leg (the feathered kind) a crucial hypocrisy is laid bare. Or, at a more personal level, if there’s dictator in your life then what better gift can they receive than their very own dish? Those with milder appetites could look inside Political Steaks to eat Grantham Gingerbreads with Margaret Thatcher, or pretzels with George Bush.

The silver screen shimmers and simmers in a whole new way with Some Like It Hot and all that it reveals about Marilyn’s last supper, John Wayne’s Peruvian wooing or Deitrich’s soup to cure the blues. Lyrical Lunches offers music lovers the opportunity to serve up Satchmo’s recipe for rice and beans or get high on the Rolling Stone's brownies while The Art of Eating allows arty types access to Picasso’s kitchen. Horoscope readers will want to know all about Nostradamus’ cherry jellies and his uncanny pig prediction in Name Your Poison. Even Satanists get a look in at Aleister Crowley’s table. But we advise no one to try making the Marquis de Sade’s compromising bonbons!