I bought the Official Downton Abbey Cookbook last week, and cooked from it yesterday.To begin with, these are the recipes I made:Oysters au GratinLobster CutletsSole à la FlorentineRaspberry Meringues (aka Pavlovas)Champagne JellyI made all of these the same day, for the same dinner, to essentially create a ‘Downton Abbey Dinner for Two.’None of the recipes were exceptionally difficult, and if I had been making these individually (not on the same day), I think I would have felt they were extremely manageable.Doing them all in the same 8-hour period required a little work and planning, since I don’t have a kitchen staff to assist me. I do have my husband and Dachshund…but they’re more help than hindrance ( they mean well).In a nutshell, I liked all of the dishes.There are things I would have done differently – less sauce on my fillets, making sure my fruit didn’t bob to the top of the mold (or what ends up being the bottom)– maybe my fruit pieces were sliced too thin and hence too light? I also had to put the jelly in the freezer for an hour because I didn’t see the part about the jelly being in the fridge for at least 8 hours. It worked, and the Champagne Jelly really does end up keeping the Champagne taste (or Prosecco in my case).For the Lobster Cutlets, I used a mix of lobster from the Seafood counter and canned crab meat (as the author said was an acceptable substitution in the book). I DID want the little ‘legs’ though, and I didn’t have any claws, so I used the reddish part of the lobster meat and sliced thin sticks to somewhat resemble what was shown in the book’s photo.I thought the cutlets were really good.If I were to have a party in the future, I might make mini versions and serve them as appetizers. I think some kind of seafood-y dip would go well with these.The Meringues were delicious, and the Raspberry Fool that fills them is very easy to make, and very light and tasty.Make sure you set your oven to the right temp, I accidentally baked my first batch at 250 vs 200 and ended up with mocha colored meringues (still very good, and I’ll use them with chocolate ice cream). But I did have to make them over for this dinner.The Sole Florentine is easy to make, and very delicious. I liked the poaching in wine method the author advised. I used my leftover Champagne Jelly Prosecco for poaching (I still had some leftover after pouring myself a glass, also author advised ‘if the time of day is right.’I would make any of these dishes again.And next time, it would be much easier.Just a note, I always like things I can make ahead of time, and most of these recipes had components that could partially be done the day before, or at least earlier in the day, were you to have a dinner party.I’m looking forward to using this book quite a lot.