The Menu: Mad Honey
Beekeeping is central to Olivia’s life, and honey appears throughout the story in both practical and symbolic ways. During the trial, she also begins filling a notebook with recipes connected to memories from her past. Some of those recipes appear in the back of the book and in Jodi Picoult’s book club guide. But for this menu, I built an entire meal around honey, from the cocktail to dessert. Mad honey refers to a rare, toxic variety made from rhododendron nectar. Don’t worry, this menu skips the toxic stuff and sticks to the sweet side of honey.
Drinks
Start with a Bee’s Knees, a Prohibition-era cocktail made with gin, lemon juice, and honey syrup. The cocktail gets its name from 1920s slang for “the best.” The honey softens the tart lemon and adds a light floral sweetness without making it overly sugary. This Liquor.com version uses a simple honey syrup that blends easily into the cocktail.
Appetizer
For a warm, easy starter, try baked honey thyme brie. Drizzle a wheel of brie with honey, sprinkle with fresh thyme, and bake until gooey. Serve with crackers or sliced baguette while it’s still warm. You can find the recipe at Cooking With a Wallflower. Or take inspiration from Lily and Maya’s time in Point Reyes and put together a cheese plate from local Cowgirl Creamery. Try Wagon Wheel or Devil’s Gulch for mellow, crowd-pleasing options. Red Hawk packs a much bigger punch, but it will definitely bee remembered. (it’s super strong)
Salad
Keep the next course simple with a crisp green salad and homemade honey mustard dressing. This five-ingredient version from Love & Lemons balances honey, Dijon mustard, olive oil, vinegar, and garlic. Toss it with your favorite greens and add cucumbers, radishes, or another crunchy vegetable for texture.
Main
For the main course, make honey garlic glazed salmon from The Chunky Chef. The glaze combines honey, soy sauce, garlic, and lemon to create a sweet, savory sauce that caramelizes around the salmon as it cooks. It comes together in under 30 minutes, making it an easy centerpiece for a book club dinner. Serve it with rice or mashed potatoes to catch the extra glaze.
Side
When Asher is released to house arrest, he asks Olivia to make honey-glazed carrots. Amid everything surrounding the trial, the familiar dish becomes a small way for Olivia to care for her son. This Pinch of Yum version roasts the carrots until tender, coats them in warm honey, and finishes them with a garlicky yogurt sauce. The sweet carrots pair especially well with the savory honey garlic salmon.
Dessert
Finish with lavender honey posset, a creamy no-bake dessert made with cream, honey, citrus, and dried lavender. This version from The Adventure Bite is easy to prepare ahead of time and adds one last floral note to the honey theme. Or take a direct cue from the book and serve mint chocolate chip ice cream, the flavor Olivia brings to Asher during the trial. It is an easy alternative if you want one course that requires no recipe at all.
This menu nods to Olivia’s bees, her recipe notebook, and the role honey plays throughout the story. But Mad Honey also reminds us that life can be messy and complicated, and that the people we love can still surprise us. Even so, there’s still room for something sweet along the way.
