[Food in Books] The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game #1) - Evelyn Skye

• Ch. 1
• A tray of oreshki cookies, and the caramel-walnut confections
• What Vika carried

Ludmila laughed as she fetched a Borodinsky loaf, the dense Russian black bread that was Sergei’s daily staple. She wrapped the bread in brown paper, creased the corners, and tied it with cotton twine.

Vika paid and tucked the bread into her basket, which contained a few sausages from the butcher and a jar of dill pickles from the grocer two streets down, where she had stopped earlier.

• Ch. 4
• Several crates of apples

• Ch. 10
• Kvass
• A stale slice of bread

• Ch. 16
• A tray laden with bouillon, chicken à l’estragon, and apple tarts

• Ch. 17
• A croissant spread with strawberry jam

• Ch. 21
• A pitcher of beer
• An ice-cold bottle of vodka
• A cutting board filled with rye bread, smoked fish, and cucumber pickles
(all from the Magpie and the Fox)

• Ch. 24
• Ludmila's visit

The following morning, Vika’s apartment brimmed with the smells she had so missed: the sour tang of the Borodinsky bread starter in its pot in the kitchen corner, the sweet richness of farmer’s cheese for the vatrushka pastry filling, and the brightness of fresh pears cooking down into jam.

• A piece of blini

• Ch. 27
• Chocolate truffles

“Here,” she said, pointing at the bottom row, “we have chocolate truffles filled not with ganache, but with steaming-hot cocoa that doesn’t cool until it touches your tongue.”

• A pear pie

“Next, we have a pear pie, but as you can see, it’s no ordinary pie, for the pastry is shaped like the fruit itself.”

“Exquisite.” The pie was not merely shaped with pear-like curved edges. It looked truly like a three-dimensional pear, round and tall and narrowing at the stem, the kind you could pick off a tree and bite into. The large crystals of sugar on its “peel” even approximated morning dew. Magic, indeed. The laws of gravity would not allow such a pie to bake without falling.

• Cream puffs

“And finally”—Ludmila pointed at the top shelf—“we have cream puffs light as air.”

Pasha gasped because they were indeed as light as air, or even lighter, for the puffs floated and had to be tied to the shelf with colorful strings, like mini pâte à choux balloons.

(all what Ludmila brought from Cinderella Bakery to Pasha)

• Ch. 29
• A pot of caramel
• Macarons filled with pistachio curd and fig jam

• Ch. 30
• Quiches and petits fours and coffee and tea

• Ch. 32
• Ludmila's dress

[...] a lady dressed in a rich brown dress that, from Nikolai’s vantage point, seemed to be made of actual chocolate [...]

• Ch. 35
• A steaming bowl of borscht (dark-red)

• Ch. 43
• What Renata brought for Nikolai

A pot of tea, a section of baguette next to a dish of butter and jam, and a tiny pastry shaped like a swan. The swan swam in a dish of butterscotch. It literally swam.

• Ch. 54
• Bread and smoked salmon (from the Magpie and the Fox)