Waiter, there’s something in my… retro classic

Ladies and gentlemen, please forgive me – I have been a bad, bad blogger.  I swanned off on holiday leaving you only a few Saturday Snapshots.  I actively avoided internet cafes and computers for the 17 days that I was away.  I neglected my Google reader, my friends’ blogs, and CookSister.

And, worst of all, I missed participating in Waiter, There’s Something in my Pineapple!

Oh, the shame.  

Ironically, I did actually make a perfectly pineapply dish on Sat 4 April – maybe I will send it to Andrew when I post it to add as a footnote…

But let’s not dwell on past misdemeanours!  It’s a new month and I’m back with a vengeance.  My WTSIM co-founders and co-hosts Johanna and Andrew inform me that it’s my turn to host, and I am ready to step up to bat.

Remember the 1970s? The flares, the platform heels, the car keys in a bowl?  Umm, maybe not so much the last one…!  Moving along.  I was a kid in the 1970’s and remember watching this fantastically glamorous world passing below me at my parents’ parties while my brother and I hid in the mezzanine level study and watched.  I also remember vividly the dishes that were served up and how endlessly chic they seemed to me.  Melba toast, steak Diane, baked Alaska, avocado ritz… the stuff of dreams and impossibly sophisticated from my pre-teen perspective.

Today, it would take a brave man to put these on a menu, unless it was in a sorta kinda post-modernist, witty and ironic way.  But what I’m asking YOU to do this month is to embrace the retro chef inside who’s dying to get out.  The challenge for Waiter, There’s Something in My… for April is to prepare a retro classic of your choice.  It can be a starter, main course, dessert or snack – let your imagination run wild!  Cast your tastebuds back to the 1970s and see what they remember.

Here is the fineprint:

1. Write up your retro classic dish on your blog, remembering to include a link back to this announcement in your post.  Please do not submit an old post – dishes should be made specifically for this event.

2.  E-mail me.  Please make sure that Waiter there’s something in my features in the subject line.

3. In the e-mail please include:

• your name
• your blog’s name and URL
• the URL of your entry
• the name of the dish
• your approximate location

4.  The deadline for entries is Monday 4 May and I hope to have the roundup posted later that week.

5.  When the roundup is posted, please also include a link to that in your post.

So why don’t you put some ABBA on the stereo (on vinyl, of course!) and let your imagination run riot in the retro-tastic favourites of yesteryear.