Cornflower

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou are not so unkind As man's ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou are not seen, Although thy breath be rude.

Hey-ho! sing, hey-ho! unto the green holly,

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly;

Then hey-ho, the holly, This life is most jolly.

 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot.

Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not.

Hey-ho, sing hey-ho, unto the green holly,

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly;

Then hey-ho, the holly, This life is most jolly.

                             *

Shakespeare, As You Like It, II.7.

(The middle picture is a disc of ice from the dogs' rainwater bowl!)

A gaelic blessing

   This piece was played (though not sung) at a carol service I was at the other day, and as we haven't had any music posts here for a while and this is lovely, I thought I'd put it up. It's not just a Christmas song of course, though it's for his Christmas music that the composer John Rutter is best known, and while you can read more about him in this profile, here's the passage I particularly wanted to quote:

"... carols are actually a very old art-form. They are the first form of vernacular choral literature that we have in this country, because back in the 15th century when Latin was used for everything else in church, English was permitted for carols. Obviously the medieval clergy, stern though they no doubt were, had a soft spot for Christmas.

"Carols are a form of miniature and I like miniatures. I thought they were a charming, limited little art-form that reached out to people. A lot of people who are not touched by choral music for the rest of the year often find that Christmas music touches their heart."

(For John Rutter in different mood, you might like to listen to his Gloria with its wonderful brass part).

Shepherds' delight

    Seeing as the last few posts have been a bit on the grey side, it's time for some colour -

all natural, not re-touched in any way, the afternoon sky and the view from the bathroom window!

Dalliance

    It started as a mild flirtation, nothing more. Then, in all innocence, I got the book. With that I entered dangerous waters, was swept away by the rip-tide of passion and before I could stop myself I had cast on,

and what you see here really is but a trifle, though it may resemble this hat, in which case you might conclude that I have started making the matching scarf, but I couldn't possibly comment except to say that I told you it could get serious ....

Edinburgh fog

    With dense fog here in Edinburgh on Friday and visibility in this part of town reduced to about fifty yards, a journey across the city was quite eerie as statues and buildings loomed out of the gloom. Above is George IV, next is the dome of the Bank of Scotland,

 

and also on The Mound, the Black Watch Memorial:

 

But Edinburgh fog is not just a meteorological condition pertaining to the Athens of the North, it is also a pudding!

The happy medium

    

     "Do you know 'happy medium' are two words which mean 'miserable mediocrity'? I say, go first class or third; marry a duchess or her kitchenmaid. The happy medium means respectability, and respectability means insipidness. Does it not, Mr. Pooter?"

Gosh! For more from The Diary of a Nobody, have a look here. 

Books and cakes - 24

     I ought to be sending out for a bottle of Jackson Frères to celebrate the eventual successful unmoulding of the blancmange! For yes, to go with The Diary of a Nobody I made that rather old-fashioned pudding, but my first attempt at turning out the 'shape', as Melody has it below, was infelicitous; my beautifully contoured antique china jelly mould would not give up its contents easily - there was an ominous slithering sound which presaged the arrival of a gloopy mess upon the waiting plate.

    What to do? I returned the mixture to the pan and its semi-liquid state, then poured it into the little owl and those dinky bowls and hoped for the best. A bit of gentle coaxing this morning - I seem to have the knack now  - and out they came and all is well!

"In spite of my instructions, that blancmange was brought up again for supper. To make matters worse, there had been an attempt to disguise it, by placing it in a glass dish with jam around it... I told Carrie ... if that blancmange were placed on the table again I should walk out of the house." 

     Poor Mr. Pooter, beset even by the frequent reappearance of a pudding! Which recipe was Sarah using, though, and did Carrie have her make it at the behest of Mrs. James, of Sutton? Was it this quite posh one, or the simpler, humbler version I tried - perhaps more fitting for The Laurels, Brickfield Terrace, Holloway? I omitted the lemon and didn't have vodka but I used a splash of vanilla essence and 4 tbsps. of cooking Kirsch instead. After all the faff it actually tastes very good!

Oh, Mr. Pooter, what shall I do?

    A slight mishap in the Cornflower kitchen means that 'books and cakes' will appear a bit later than planned.

    Back soon .... hopefully.

Advent Calendar

  
      Pause for a moment and read Rowan Williams' poem here on Justine's site.

Winter blossom

     "Only when you've exhausted your immediate surroundings should you go shopping," says Sarah Raven in her beauiful and inspirational book Sarah Raven's Complete Christmas,

and she's talking about flowers, of course, and using what's to hand and thus in season. So I shall be trying to breach this viburnum's dogwood defences to cut a few branches for the house, as the scent is lovely.

As the petals are prone to drop readily, Sarah recommends searing the stems by plunging them in boiling water for 30 seconds or so.

Persephone books and cakes - 3

     Not a sudden snowfall in the Cornflower kitchen, just a dusting of icing sugar to top off a suitably seasonal offering from Agnes Jekyll's marvellous Kitchen Essays. While you read what Lynne has to say about the book, can I offer you a cup of tea and a slice of Stollen Cake?

It's not as rich as a festive fruit cake, but it has far more character to it than a simple currant loaf, and while Lady Jekyll earmarks it "for the hungry Schoolroom, when friends come to tea", she goes on to say that "if treated more lavishly in the matter of candied peel and raisins [as above], there is no board it might not suitably adorn."

    Enjoy a virtual piece of this Christmas confection while you ponder her ladyship's words: "... the true spiritual home of the tea-pot is surely in a softly-lighted room, between a deep armchair and a sofa cushioned with Asiatic charm, two cups only, and these of thinnest china, awaiting their fragrant infusion whilst the clock points nearer to six than five, and a wood fire flickers sympathetically on the hearth."

Doodling in the nude

    Here's a modest addition to the knitting supplies basket,

Yarn Yard 'Clan' (100% merino) in 'Doodle' - the grey, and 'Nude', undyed.

I have Endpaper Mitts in mind for these at the moment, though that may change, but also from The Yarn Yard comes this handbag/knitting bag-sized Leuchtturm notebook, the perfect place to keep track of ideas, materials and works-in-progress.

Wool and stationery: exciting, eh?

Radio days

    The CBG (in a manner of speaking) and I have been at the BBC today! Click here for the full story.

Blue sky

 

   A welcome sight in these short, dark days.

Golden moments

     A new favourite here: cornbread. Some of this accompanied a casserole, while some of it was simply toasted in front of the fire. Either way it is very good; extremely quick to make, with a nutty bite to it and a pleasantly free, non-stodgy texture.

    Another gold star for Hugh!

Postcards from Penguin

     Remember this, and this? I was lucky to get my set when I did as they now seem to be sold out 'everywhere' and there's still a big demand for them. However, don't despair if you're on the hunt as the V&A shop appears to have them in stock (and look, there's an online discount). Please form an orderly queue!

Update: Amazon have stock again.

Knitting sunshine

     "It was the custom of Lady Bostock, when the weather was fine, to sit in a garden chair on the terrace of Ashenden Manor after luncheon, knitting socks for the deserving poor. A believer, like Lord Ickenham, in spreading sweetness and light, she considered, possibly correctly, that there is nothing that brings the sunshine into grey lives like a sock or two."

From Uncle Dynamite by P.G. Wodehouse.

Meatballs!

    

   

     We've been using Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Everyday frequently since we got it and everything we've cooked from it has been a winner. If you follow that link there and scroll down a bit you can watch a very brief clip of Hugh talking about the book and listing a few of his favourite dishes, and coincidentally I shall be making the shin of beef with ginger and soy which he mentions for supper tonight.

    But the recipe we've used most often so far has been his Tupperware Mexican chorizo meatballs, and they are just excellent! You combine all the ingredients (and you can make it as hot or as mild as you like) and leave it for several hours or overnight for the flavours to develop, and then you just cook it as usual, making mini meatballs or bigger 'burgers' as suits.

   

    We've had them with homemade bread, a tomato sauce and various greens, and then what's left of the mixture - because it's best to make a decent quantity and save some for another day - becomes 'chorizo carbonara', "a cross-cultural recipe .....[and] a remarkably delicious and quick dish". Indeed it is!   

   I must say that the book earns its title 'Everyday', because every dish (remember this cake?) is appetising, straightforward and doesn't break the bank, so from breakfast on you could be cooking - and eating - simple, wholesome food with great pleasure.

Frosted roses

 With temperatures dropping, the morning sees a delicate icing of frost on the last of the roses.

 

I thought I'd try to preserve them by crystallising a few petals to use later. The instructions I followed suggested using tweezers to grip each one and dip it into lightly beaten egg white and then caster sugar; elsewhere I've read you could use an artist's brush to paint on the egg, and that might have been easier, especially given the size of these Blush Noisette petals (Ispahan would be better).

However, a few hours drying in a warm place and here they are, far from perfect, but pretty all the same. Just the thing for nibbling while reading this book?

Just to remind you ...

... that if you haven't bought

your Christmas cards yet,

you might like to visit Mindroom

and see our specially commissioned designs.