Today, 18 February, is the birthday of Len Deighton, inspiration for the Deighton Dossier blog on all things spy fiction.
I'm sure the many readers of his fiction around the world wish him 'Many Happy Returns'.
In his 1989 book The ABC of French Food Deighton has this to say on the subject of how a gourmet should celebrate a birthday:
"Pate a choux is hot-water pastry that is piped into shape while still warm, like icing on to a cake. Best known as the éclair or the profiterole, or cheese-filled appetizers. Such pastry filled puffballs are stuck together with caramel and assembled to become a tall pyramid (the croquembouche) or the St Honoré that was at one time the Frenchman's traditional birthday cake. Now my local patissiere tells me birthdays are celebrated with 'American style' layer cakes."
What's the betting Mrs Deighton's whipping up a St Honoré today?
This is a blog about the books, film and world of British thriller and spy novel author Len Deighton, writer of The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, SS-GB, Bomber, Berlin Game and many other books. This blog also covers the spy thriller genre and the Cold War more widely. It is a companion website to the main Deighton Dossier archive (link on the right). It is the only website + blog endorsed by the author himself! Content (c) Rob Mallows 2008-22 unless otherwise stated.
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