The Cook of Castamar

The Cook of Castamar

The Story Arc for the first episode introduces the beautiful setting of Castamar.  Nick Reese prepared an outline of the elements needed to craft better tweets.

The Setting:

It is a “period piece” set in Spain around 1720. The widowed Duke of Castamar is going to get romantically involved with Clara, the new cook at his castle.

The costumes, sets and scenery are incredibly beautiful.  It is, quite literally, a feast for your eyes. And the castle and gardens of Castamar are pretentious and befitting of “royalty”. Since La Cocinera de Castamar (the Cook of Castamar) is a Spanish production, it has been dubbed in English.  Don’t get caught up in lip reading.

The characters: The first episode is called The Essential Ingredient.  It introduces Duke Diego, still in mourning two years after the death of his wife, and Cook Clara who has been raised cooking in an orphanage and is agoraphobic. There are many other characters and story lines and subplots, so many that it becomes confusing. It’s hard to keep every character and their roles straight but my assumption is they will each have some sort of impact on Duke Diego or Clara, the cook.

The conflicts: Duke Diego has been called by the King🤴 to assume a powerful position in the Court. Diego is still in mourning for his wife and initially refuses the Kings order. He is very resistant to returning to public life.

The people around Duke Diego, including his mother, want him to put aside his grieving.  They also want him to find someone else to care about and marry. 👰The Duke is completely uninterested.

The bad guys, Enrique de Arcona, Marquis of Soto and Lady Sol Montijos, are intent on destroying the Duke, for reasons as yet undetermined.

In this episode, the bad guys collude on getting the Duke involved with Lady Emilia Castro, who has a disgraceful secret past, discovered by the evil Count Enrique.  He uses this information to gain Lady Emilia’s co-operation with his plan to ensnare the Duke.

There is a big gala planned at Castamar and the king🤴 is to attend. Clara, through hard work and culinary skill has garnered the position of head cook.  She has managed thus far to hide her agoraphobia.

The ending: It turns out the King is quite Looney Tunes 😱and he goes missing on the way to the gala. The worry is he has been kidnapped since there is so much civil unrest within the country.

The episode ends with a large search party going out, lead by Diego.  Not exactly the PARTY the guests had expected as they are all ushered into the safety of the castle.

All the elements of a good story have been combined to make an entertaining first episode of the Cook of Castamar. Really an enjoyable story set in early 18th century Spain. Loved it!!!💖

See Twitter thread here: https://twitter.com/wordsmith732/status/1457069534729228288