Making mincemeat

Oh, my poor garden. It looks so sad and neglected - a combination of my procrastination, being busy, busy, busy and sodding awful weather. It's fine, I go out and hack about in the undergrowth for a while. It rains. I get wet. I come in.

I make mincemeat. Perhaps the inclement weather has made me more inclined towards kitcheny things. Had you noticed?

Anyway, making mince meat is one of those satisfying seasonal tasks which I expect well-organised folk got out of the way weeks ago. Well-organised folk probably have all their ingredients to hand as well - me? I have to rummage at the back of cupboards and under trees and make several trips to buy forgotten essentials. Still, eventually everything is lined up ready to be weighed and measured, grated or squeezed. I have big bowls, little bowls and my largest wooden spoon - oh, and because I can never remember from year to year which recipe I used last, a copy of Delia Smith's 'Christmas'.
It's a bit of a long-winded recipe and apparently will keep indefinitely - hardly likely when the Trelystan mince-pie production line gets under way. I stir all my ingredients together - except the brandy - and let the flavours mingle overnight. Then it's into the oven (at a very low temperature) for 3 hours to melt the suet. Finally that brandy goes in and I stir all together for one last time.

The day can be foul outside - and it is - but indoors the kitchen is imbued with such a sense of well-being. Sugar and spice and brandy scent the air better than any seasonal candle I think.

A quick meme

As if she's not busy enough already altering the sleeves of my winter coat and whipping up dear little felt animals, wipso has found time to forward this pesky meme. I'd better do as I'm told or I might end up with sleeves of differing lengths - and that would never do. Here goes:

1. Where is your mobile phone? In my bag, charged and ready for phone action.

2. Your hair? Blonde (ahem).

3. Your mother? dead

4. Your father? ditto

5. Your favorite food? Toast

6. Your dream last night? Travelling, always travelling.

7. Your favorite drink? Sauvignon Blanc

8. Your dream/goal? Time alone

9. What room are you in? Our study

10. Your hobby? Not sure I have one - maybe exploring the minutiae of the world around me. The devil is in the detail.

11. Your fear? That somebody films The Archers

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Here will be fine.

13. Where were you last night? Here.

14. Something that you aren't? Pessimistic

15. Muffins? English and toasted please.

16. Wish list item? Sunshine followed by long and balmy nights.

17. Where did you grow up? On a farm in mid-Warwickshire

18. Last thing you did? Ate a chocolate chip cookie. Felt guilty

19. What are you wearing? My vest, untucked. Live dangerously.

20. Your TV? Off

21. Your pets? Giving a good impression of being sleeping dogs but actually very much on the q.v.

22. Friends? Many acquaintances, but only a few true friends I think.

23. Your life? Good

24. Your mood? Content

25. Missing someone? Yes. And?

26. Vehicle? Audi

27. Something you’re not wearing? Right now or in general?

28. Your favorite store? Probably French Sole in Marylebone for pretty and impractical shoes.

29. Your favorite colour? Blue

30. When was the last time you laughed? Yesterday

31. Last time you cried? Can't remember.

32. Your best friend? That would be telling.

33. One place that I go to over and over? Paxos

34. Facebook? Yes

35. Favourite place to eat? Round the kitchen table

Phew, that wasn't too difficult. If you'd like to have a go at this just cut, paste and supply your own answers. Go on, you know you want to.

The Trelystan Hoard

Psst. Don't let on but I'm a bit worried about the Glamorous Ass.

He's buying money.

He's discovered eBay and 'silver joeys'.

We all know what happens to men when they get a bee in their bonnet don't we? A chance acquisition becomes the start of a collection born out of loyalty. A mild case might mean the purchase of every Bob Dylan album ever (even the rubbish ones) or every detective story in a series while extremely fanatical cases might entail collecting franked postage stamps for every day in 1907 (for example). Or it might be tanks, or pistons, stationary engines, steam rollers......or Star Wars. Or worse if that is imagineable. It's the minutiae that seems important, that and the variety. An example of each and every variant is essential. It's just as well then that the G.A.'s current interest is a. fairly innocent and b. won't take up too much space.

It's not that bad yet, but each time the post van draws up another little envelope with silver coins inside drops into the palace's über-kool stainless steel mailbox. Ok, the coins are very sweet and very small and likeable. I don't think the old silver thru'penny bit was in circulation when I was young so my memories of them are of a tiny, archaic and useless coin. (I remember that clunky 12-sided coin with the young Queen Elizabeth's head on one side and the aptly named 'Thrift' plant (Armeria maritima) on the other. Half-crowns, florins, pennies the size of soup-plates... Ah, back in the day coinage was substantial wasn't it?) The Glam Ass, however, seems to have fond memories of them though....tomorrow I shall ask just what he did with his pocket money. The latest to arrive was minted in the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth. I'm quite impressed by that. It's battered, a little twisted and slightly worn - obviously showing its age but not bad for something around 400 years old. In the manner of an old-fashioned school essay title 'A Day in the Life of a Thru'penny Bit' I try to imagine the insides of pockets and purses it has seen.

I wish though he'd start collecting something more well, immediately spendable. Fivers say - how about 'buy one, get one free'?

Well known phrases and sayings - No 6

...In which I doubt that the game is worth the candle. (I've been here before, on a similarly long-winded culinary mission. This isn't quite the same. Hmm.)

As mentioned previously the Trelystan quince crop has been excellent this year. Jelly has been made, fruit have been given away and still we find ourselves with a load to process - and there are yet more on the tree.

I rootle around for inspiration in my big book of 'Things to do with Quince'. Quince vodka doesn't quite hit the spot so early in the day - and only requires 2 fruit. I could use another to flavour an apple crumble (that's 3) and maybe puree half a dozen to make a quince pie. That's maybe used up 9 or so. Could try jam or cheese - wait, Dulce de Membrillo: 'Take 4kgs of quince...' That's more like it.

Membrillo. The very word brings to mind the torrid heat of the Spanish plain, the click of cicadas and a plate of nutty manchego cheese served with a wedge of this deep red 'paste'. Perhaps a glass of something chilled too....

I follow Jane Grigson's recipe - probably because I am a lazy person and there is no mention of peeling and coring - I assume all pips and skin get lost in the sieving process. My slide show shows the process; the pictures are nothing to boast about - green sludgy purée turns into sticky red brick.

From start to finish, probably about 5 hours of simmering, straining, sieving, stirring and stirring and stirring. I do my best to interpret Jane Grigson - she is a cookery writer whom I trust - her words are both descriptive and amusing. Therefore I boil and stir until the mixture thickens and candies and leaves the sides of the pan and turns a deep red. I am not surprised when it explodes and pops with what J describes as 'an occasional fat burp'. The fruit and sugar spits ferociously at first and I have to put on my new and clean gardening gloves to avoid being burnt by molten sugar. The whole panfull is a bit volcanic except of smelling of sulphur the kitchen is sweet and perfumed.

After about 2 hours of bubbling and stirring I've had enough, got arm-ache, and scrape the now nearly solid paste into tins to set. Amazingly I've managed to avoid the pan or paste burning. Gosh, it's remarkably sticky and just a little chewy. The flavour? Well, it's sweet but there is also a little acidic tang - a brightness. It definitely tastes of Quince too, even after all that cooking.

Jane Grigson notes that it will keep, stored in granulated sugar in an air-tight box for up to two years. Just as well because this isn't something I'll be making again in a hurry.

My idea of the worst job in the world

The caption below the photograph on the front of today's Times read:

'For every fallen soldier, a poppy. Some of the 60,000 crosses planted in the field of Remembrance outside Westminster Abbey. For the first year there are dedicated plots for the 229 killed in Afghanistan and the 179 in Iraq, each with a photograph attached'.

The photograph caught my eye, it had a certain pattern - a closely cropped sea of little wooden crosses, each with its own red poppy and passport sized picture attached - each representing a man of woman killed in action. Each little cross had a soldier's name and age written on it too. I began to read.

(I should know better of course. The enormity of this death toll hits home soon and hard. I am devastated by such loss of life - the deaths of these young people; sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands, wives and lovers. All so young; most younger than my own lovely men for whom I feel boundless love - and cannot contemplate their loss.)

Those names were each carefully written in the same hand. What kind of day's work is that? Who had the job of doing that? Take a cross, attach a poppy, stick on a photograph, write a name and an age to left and right. Do it with care. Repeat 408 times, each time seeing a life stopped in its prime.

I would find that job very difficult to do.

Cake Fest

Marton WI held its AGM last night, here, around the kitchen table at my house.

There were only 11 of us so while it was a bit of a squeeze it was quite do-able and cozy. After the interminable business - the Minutes, the Committee, the Reports and the Financial Statements had been got out of the way we could get down to the real point of the evening. Eating cake.

It's true what they say about the WI I think - almost without exception members are damned fine bakers. If there was an Institute made up of 12 year old extra-terrestials, even their pastry would melt in the mouth and their Victoria sponges be as light as air. I'll bet the yummy mummies of the Clapham Common branch and the students from Goldsmith's College are no exception either. It's the way it is. It goes with the territory.

Last night then, when everybody brought a dish of food - savouries and desserts - we were in for a treat.

The little cheesecakes above were my contribution. They came from the Sunday Times 'Style' section - where I was so beguiled by the pretty picture that I took the trouble to tear out the recipe. I usually reserve an enormous amount of contempt for this part of the newspaper, considering it to be overly metro-centric and generally speaking full of tosh. If the truth were told the article accompanying my recipe probably falls into this category; viz: bijou London vintage couture shop serves cake to well-heeled fashionistas. I quote 'R. built a business from knowing what makes women feel good, so it makes sense that cakes and chocolate have filled the gap left by undies.' Blah. Blah. Blah.

Well, if there is any space in your undies, any slack at all, eating any more than a nibble of these innocent cakes will put paid to that.

Cream cheese, sugar, eggs, white chocolate and double cream - and here's the healthy bit - fresh berries - quantities as below: I made mine in little cup cake cases and the mixture made 24. Some bright spark can work out the calorific content of each. (Probably a chastening amount. Sigh) Gratifyingly they did end up looking very similar to the ones illustrated above and even if I say it myself tasted yummy. The sort of thing where one is not quite enough and two, too many.

And that was the trouble. Last night there were just too many things to try; a bit of this and a bit of that adds up to quite a lot. Worth it though. Well worth it.

The wild weather of the past few days has made the season feel, well, seasonably and appropriately Novemberish. Looking down the dingle from my window as I type this I'm treated to a wide open space bounded by skeletal, now leafless trees - and while the sun is shining on the last vestiges of gold and green of the crinkle-crankle hornbeam hedge it's quite a pretty sight. I'm making the most of it.

I did have a thought though the other day, as the rain was lashing down, the wind was whistling round the eaves and the light levels were low, low, low - that this is it until the spring. Short dark, dank days when man and beast turn their backs to the wind.

There are still plenty of jobs to do in the garden. On one hand we are 'putting it to bed for the winter' while on the other, getting into gear for next year's crops. Spreading and digging muck in, mulching, tidying, burning and staking (sounds positively medieval does it not?). That's gardening and gardeners - what optimists we are. There's always the next season - whatever happened this year, whatever was blighted, slugged, snailed or failed, well, next year will be different. This year I did manage melons bigger than tennis balls - next I feel I will have ambitions in the swede department....

This week, and perhaps a tad late, I have planted the onions and garlic; that's about 100 sets of Sturon and a similar amount of garlic Germidor. I have also planted 3 nifty little whirligig windmills in an attempt to scare off the birds (damned pheasants) which delight in unplanting newly planted onions.

No gardening today though. Some serious housework is necessary. The WI is meeting here this evening as we are currently 'between' village halls - the old one has been demolished and carted away and the new one is not quite ready for use. I'm not going to get away with my usual laisez faire approach - so neatly summed up by this little button:


So just why am I sitting here touring the internets?.....

Post No 601 - Choosing the curtains for the new village hall

Or, as it happens, NOT choosing the curtains.

On reflection I think this was the only outcome possible when 11 people forgather (8 women and 3 men) and are faced with 3 big books of fabric swatches. An exercise doomed to fail from the outset. The fabric designs were, without exception, some of the most horrid known to mankind - either big 'n' bold or big 'n' bland. Throw into the pot a half acre of floor the colour of a mushy pea and a choice of chairs upholstered in blue, gold or claret and the potential combinations become mind boggling...

In truth I expect any of the fabrics would work - I mean, who actually studies the curtains in village halls? Very few people I expect - except when the evening's speaker is so dull that counting the floor tiles or repeats on the fabric is a more attractive option than listening. I have done that.

Tonight nobody could make their mind up or be assertive enough to insist on fabric 'A' with chair 'C' rather than fabric 'B' and chair 'D'. Should it be orangey-sand or sandy-orange with swirls. With a little green. Not blue. Definitely NOT blue. And nobody, but nobody, likes pink with orange. A lone voice pipes up in favour of blue. And blue chairs......to be shouted down. Gold chairs. With black legs. It is after all a Big Decision. I really don't know what the answer is - I suppose I will go with the majority decision - this isn't the time and place for mouthing off design-wise, it's their village, their hall and I'm no'but a relative incomer.

Two hours in and with no decision made we are all losing the will to live and wilting - the heating system is running at full bore, being tested maybe. Little sub-groups of red-faced people have formed and cluster around open windows to gulp gratefully at the cool night air. (It's good to know that the heating is working so well. It is like spending an evening in the tropics without the luxury of the Indian Ocean to dip in.) One by one people drift away homewards, nothing chosen.

I leave too. Looking back as I climb the lane onto Marton Crest I see the new building in the valley below me, still lit against the night sky. The village's only street light which stood at the end of the old hall has been demolished so the new building is now the only source of light and this is probably one of the only times to date it has been lit at night. That's why it looks so unusual I suppose - we're not used to it being there, occupying this bit of space, not quite settled in the landscape. It's rather exciting, this wonderful new facility, seeing it take shape and looking forward to when we can actually use it and call it our own.

PS 601 posts since February 2006. I was in the village hall that night as well. Looks like I really should get out more....

Quince Jelly

This week in the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan we are getting to grips with our quince harvest. The Nation's jam pan has come off the shelf and been dusted down for some jelly-making action.
Of our 3 small trees, all of which we planted not quite 4 years ago, 2 have fruited abundantly. The furry, yellow fruits hang heavily and with this week's windy weather have been ripe enough to fall. Time to get picking. Just gathering those from the ground and those within easy reach yielded a good sized basketful. I dust off the curious downy coating and chop them into chunks. No need to peel. Cover with water and lob in a squeezed lemon or two. (Just In Case. I can't remember if they are rich in pectin or not.) Let them bubble away gently until they 'fall'. The kitchen is infused with their sweet honeyed perfume - far prettier and more exotic than that of the apple.

The Quince is a fruit with history, greatly revered in ancient times - its cultivation may well pre-date that of the apple. Were quince the 'golden apples', the paradisal fruit, in the Garden of the Hesperides or the apples in the Song of Solomon? Even in Britain, not too many centuries ago its taste and fragrance were much admired - but like so many things which take time and patience in preparation quince seem to have gone out of fashion. What a shame that is - they are the most wonderous of fruit. I treasure our little trees - not only at this time of year when they reward us with fruit but in the springtime too when delicate, papery, pink petals unfold over waxy dark leaves. Heavenly.


I've gone off at a tangent....

What next? We let the softened fruit drip through a jelly bag overnight - the resultant juice is pink and clear and fragrant. Sugar is added, stirred and dissolved. It takes about 10 minutes at a wonderful rolling boil to reach setting point - at last the jelly flakes off the spoon. I know it will set now. All is well. But just why does a golden yellow fruit become a crystal clear red jelly?

My basket of fruit makes 12 jars of Quince Jelly, now neatly labelled, to go on the shelves to eat with scones or toast, or alongside pork or poultry - something bright to lighten the long dark days of winter.

How to cook one's goose...

Go on. Ask me a question. Anything. (Well, try and avoid anything mathematical, scientific or about cars obviously.)

How about something to do with roasting meat? Thanks to my new useful little gadget I can probably come up with the answer. Temperatures, cooking times and suggested accompaniments. My teensiest complaint is that the temperatures are not in celsius - but back in the day no one trusted foreign muck like olive oil, garlic and metrification.
Doesn't it just knock spots off the give-aways in today's papers and magazines? CDs and DVDs, multi-size summer flip-flops, Directories of Decorating Ideas, Free Seeds and gee-gaws galour - all transient dross. Look, it even has a little hole so it will hang on a handy nail next to the cooker. How old is it? Something about the graphics suggests Festival of Britain - those brave new world Formica colours, neat tri-colour pointer and charcteristic type face. (I think it's one of the Modern family of fonts - can anyone confirm that?) So 1950s perhaps. Perhaps though, having read 'Woman and Home' magazine and concluded it's never actually been at the forefront of trendy living I could confidently add 2 decades to that.

Still, 50p well spent I think.

A walk in the woods - or where the wild things might be.

Alan says 'Take a stick'.

I don't think I'll need to fend anything off but I ask the question anyway, 'Why? Do you think there might be tigers or something in there?'

'No,' he replies 'but it's useful and will make walking easier. Take one of my beating sticks.'

Whatever. I forget.We've lived here for more than 4 years now and been around for something like 7 but I don't think in all that time I've hopped over the fence at the bottom of the field and done a proper bit of exploring in Badnage Wood. I've lurked around the edges and dabbled in the stream that forms its boundary. I've listened to the wind sighing through its dark conifers and watched twists of cloud wind across its face, I've heard the birds and beasts that make it their home and basically, well - just loved it being there.

We'd like to believe its name 'Badnage Wood' came from that of St Padarn. A native of France’s Bretagne region, Padarn journeyed to the British Isles, and settled in Wales as a monk sometime in the 6th century - not hereabouts but at Llanbadarn Fawr, Aberystwyth. The link is tenuous and hard to prove. More certain is the fact that this area has been associated with religious practices for well over a millenium. The little church at Trelystan which sits alone, way across a field on the edge of Badnage Wood, was most probably founded in the 9th century, and, we might speculate on a site of a pre-Christian significance. It feels to me like a place which has secrets and holds them close. Old too. Who did walk this land? There is more to tell of course - but this is not for here. You'll have to buy The Book.*

Sorry, sorry. Got waylaid by a bit of history. Anyway, today I promised myself I'd get amongst it and explore.
Over the little stile and into the dingle - don't get confused - there are loads of dingles round here. Think steep wooded valley (any size) and stream (s, m or l) therein.
I decide against walking along the stream which would be the best route. Wet feet and all that. I struggle up onto the slope and try and make a path there. It is my plan to follow the dingle and discover what lies in the hidden clefts and hollows of our landscape; the bits we do not see from the road. It's hard going - I stumble over fallen and felled branches and am tripped where brambles have taken hold and thrown out snaky grabbing tendrils which snatch at my ankles. Pitfalls are many; mouse and vole have made runs through the forest bed of soft pine needles and when I am not being tripped I plunge into their holes and tunnels. There is little to grab - sticks and stalks are either rotten of spiky. My route takes much planning and much studying of potential paths. There is time to stand and lean and look up through the tree canopy to the sky.

I know I am not alone. I just sense it. Little eyes, ears and noses, hunkered down for the day are tracking my passage most certainly. I think I am creeping along but this is a quiet place and each step I take snaps a twig with an earthshattering CRACK. I alarm a couple of buzzards and a raven which wheel and cry above me. Reassuringly there is nowhere for anything large, and with sharp teeth, to hide. I think.
Away from the stream and the light it's a dead place - little grows in the gloom beneath the conifers. Under the canopy of these tall slim trees is a thick acidic bed of pine needles. A few deciduous trees cling to life - ash, birch, and mountain ash - others have given up and fallen like a mega-game of 'pick-up-sticks'.

It's quite interesting here but I must say that after about 100m of this environment I'd had enough. By 50m in I'd decided that I'd be crushed by a falling tree in the next storm, nibbled by voles or starve to death if I found myself here post-apocalypse. Nothing for it then but to trudge on...
The conifers gave way - after what seemed like miles but in reality was only metres - to grassy broadleaf woodland, to oak and holly and, over a rickety fence, pastureland. I stroked this tree for a while. Just how often does one meet a woolly tree? Bless.

The way home - the easiest way home that is - was over the stream and up a logging path to the road. We're in shooting country here and young pheasants were in abundance, hanging around the release pens. I did my best not to alarm them too much, hating the idea of a wood-full of shrieking terrified birds taking off around my head. There were guinea fowl as well - a rasp? a confusion? - the watch dogs of the bird world and here to give voice if the fox comes too close I imagine. I crept around them too.
Finally there is a gate to the road and these bits of wood awaiting collection. Can anyone suggest a better collective name than 'Things wot to stand a Christmas tree up in'?

Yes, we have them here. In October. In Badnage Wood. Christmas is coming folks!

* 'Marton - The Story of a Shropshire Village' to be published spring 2010.

Bird orchestra

6.43pm. Dusk, time to shut the hens in. Grey fleecy clouds puff about overhead. There is a gentle 'plip' or two as leaves fall from the sycamores in the dingle and my feet scuffle through those already fallen. Do I need a torch? I have one anyway.

In essence the evening is still, but what is that racket? Over in the dark conifers of Badnage Wood it sounds like a birdie riot has broken out. The panicky cries of a thousand pheasants going to roost and the metallic 'caws' and 'gronks' of rook and raven split the air. In the nano-seconds between screech, caw and gronk there's the merest 'whoo' of owl too. I listen carefully - this time to the sounds from the garden. The whistle of a wren in the logpile and unidentified tweets from titmice in the trees are delicate grace notes in this crazy bird symphony.

I listen up for the mew of a buzzard - but that's the sound of daytime and here we are at dusk. On some nights like this a vixen yelps too; an eerie, eerie sound that makes me shiver at the thought of the wildness out there.

We, who are so clever, think we have this world tamed, but even in this small corner the night is still a terrifying place for the denizens of field and forest; the prospect of sharp tooth and claw ever present.

I shut my hens in most carefully.

Catch it while you can...

Now you see it........and now you see through it.
...and probably tomorrow it will be gone. Flattened. A space where a shape used to be. Marton Village Hall, loved but unlovely; the scene of many happy memories for village folk. Can't really count myself amongst them but I do know what ghosts a musty, dusty space can muster.

A weekend in Harrogate

'Don't do it kids' we say, 'How d'ya know that the cyber chums you've chatted with over the months won't turn out to be axe murderers and/or perverts?' After all, tales of sweet young things being beguiled by horny old geezers off the internet are the stuff of legend.

We've all warned our children and yet here we are, not heeding our own advice.....

'Here' was Harrogate, for a weekend with a group of intelligent, witty and kind fellow bloggers who turn out to be as good company as anticipated. We are by no means strangers, having blogged about most things over the past 3 years - homes and families, the happy, the sad, the tragic and the embarrassing. Some of us have met already and have fitted faces and real names to avatars and blog titles but there are still some surprises; the little blond lady who should be tall and dark and the brunette I envisaged as a slinky blonde. No matter. Those names now have real faces and personalities.

There was a morning for shopping and an afternoon strolling through the gardens at RHS Harlow Carr where the the autumn colours were rich and glowing. (I resolved to try harder in my own garden.) So much to see, so much to do and so much left undone. I am now a Harrogate fan.

The wonderful Betty's Tea Room drew us like a magnet. SBS and I drank tea on arrival and drooled over the patisserie and Halloween treats in the window. We had tea and cakes at Betty's Tea House at Harlow Carr and finally, on Sunday morning back in Harrogate, indulged in a big Betty's breakfast accompanied by a tinkling piano. How very, very civilised.
Then all too soon it was time to zip back to Shropshire which basked in a gloriously sunny afternoon. Back in the reality of home it was as if the weekend had never been - as if it had existed only in the vague-ness of cyber-space.

Did it really happen? Was I really there? Well yes, and I have the little felt bracelet to prove it.