Saturday, March 03, 2018

Weekend Cooking: Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan

Recently I have been listening to the audiobook of Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan. If I am to believe Goodreads I actually started reading this book four years ago. I remember getting it out of the library and then returning it, but I don't remember actually starting it. The timing must be right now though because I have found myself sitting in the driveway listening to the book (just to get to the end of the chapter) and I very much enjoyed the experience.

Rosie Hopkins lives in London and loves it. She loves the city, the noise, her boyfriend Gerard who she has been with for years and is still waiting for him to ask the big question, she loves her work as a nurse, even if it is only as an agency nurse working on a casual basis. So she isn't really that thrilled when her mum asks her to temporarily move to the Derbyshire country side to look after her elderly aunt Lilian. Lilian is elderly and needs to be moved into an aged care facility and for her lolly shop to be sold off as a going concern.

Rosie is ill-equipped to live in the country. Her clothes and shoes are all wrong, she can't get a telephone signal and she knows nothing about running a sweet shop.

I have no idea if it is still a thing or not, but once upon a time there was a whole genre that was classified as chick-lit, and to my mind, a lot of good chick-lit was British, and this book has all the hallmarks of one of these books. There are improbable situations and a whole village full of handsome, single men just for starters, but it also has a secondary storyline featuring Aunt Lilian.

Whilst we see the here and now realities of aging from both Rosie and Lilian's perspectives, we also get to know a much younger Lilian, about her war time experience, why she never married and, as a consequence, lived her life running her father's sweet shop in a small village.

Throughout the novel, we are also treated to excerpts of the self published book that Lilian had written all about sweets, small glimpses telling us about the history of certain chocolates (did you know that Mars Bars were first made in the 1930's), about the evils of chewing gum (Lilian can get quite opinionated on some subjects), recipes for marshmallows and many more. One was a recipe for Coconut Ice which had an instruction that said it would keep for weeks if stored correctly, but if it lasted for weeks you hadn't made it correctly in the first place. Made me laugh!

I listened to the audio version, narrated by Jane Collingwood, and I did enjoy the reading. At times, I thought that Rosie sounded a little young, but for the most part I did enjoy it, especially the portrayal of Lilian. At times she was brittle, at other times sarcastic,  sometimes scared amongst other emotions.

One of things that I did find myself thinking about at several points in this book was the role of food in memories about meals, about places, about people. I have posted several times in the past about memorable meals, but on this occasion, I found myself thinking about my grandfather.

One of the excerpts from Lilian's book was about the joys of licorice. My grandfather enjoyed sweet things, and there was always a tin filled with lollies by the side of his chair. One of his favourites was licorice allsorts, but he also always had a tin of Kool Mints within easy reach in the car.  Just that small passage had me feeling like he was still there, probably as he was when I was growing up. Lolly tin there waiting to be raided, telephone nearby, and more likely than not, him asleep in his chair as he "watched" TV. And no, he most definitely was not snoring.

As a result of this book I found myself craving licorice allsorts and so I ended up buying a bag, but I must confess that when I ate them, I didn't pull them apart layer by layer as I once would have done! I also ended up buying Crunchies for a couple of days and would have quite happily gone an bought other things that were mentioned as well, but I thought I should probably leave it at that.

 There are now 2 other books in the Rosie Hopkins series, and I think I will most likely try to listen to them at some point too, although my audiobook wishlist is a bit out of control at the moment. Who knows when that will happen!



Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.



15 comments:

  1. licorice allsorts are my favorite - used to eat them all the time until I became gluten free ( Licorice is made with wheat) nice review

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    1. It never occurred to me that lollies wouldn't be gluten free!

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  2. Your question about the history of Mars bars is intriguing. There's a whole book on the history of Mars and Hershey's and their rivalry through the decades -- my culinary reading group read the book. Both companies were founded more than 100 years ago!

    I hope you keep enjoying your sweet series!

    best...mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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    1. I like the sound of a culinary reading group

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  3. Jenny Colgan has certainly written a lot of similarly themed books in the past few years.

    https://readerbuzz.blogspot.com/2018/02/cooking-with-nonna-part-one-nonnas-four.html

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    1. This was my first Jenny Colgan novel but from the blurbs and covers it does seem as though she has a pretty stable formula that works for her.

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  4. I also get food cravings from seeing food talked about in books!

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  5. I usually really enjoy Jenny Colgan books. I haven't read this one yet. AND I *love* allsorts and love licorice. I know what I'm buying next time I'm in the grocery!

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    1. I was at an afternoon tea yesterday and they were there. It was difficult to stop eating them!!

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  6. I've read and enjoyed Jenny Colgan's books, but have yet to read this one. Sweets, not so much, I'm more the salty chips type, even my chocolate needs to be dark.

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  7. I recently read this one and enjoyed it. Jenny Colgan books are always such a great escape and I always end up craving sweets or baked goods when I read them. ;-)

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  8. I have not had those licorice candies in years.

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