Cornflower

In pieces

    Here's something to while away a few idle moments (and let it not be said that I encourage people to neglect their duties and start playing with images and textiles and what have you ... would I do such a thing myself?): when you have time, go to the V&A's patchwork pattern maker, upload a picture and have it converted into a patchwork quilt. That's part of my cornflower above, and I chose the fifteen colour and medium complexity options for it, but there's scope for many variations and lots of fun to be had.

Wordy Wednesday

    Neuroknitter usually does a lovely 'Wordless Wednesday' post with her beauiful photographs, and others follow suit, but I'm taking the opposite tack here with a collection of wordier bits and pieces which have caught my fancy.

   Sarah's post on London libraries makes very interesting reading, even for a country mouse like me, but you locals might be able to go along and try out most of them.

   Here's a book which came up on my radar yesterday (another reason to use Twitter), Gardening Women: Their Stories from 1600 to the Present by Catherine Horwood will be out next week. Among many other things, Catherine is consultant to the Geffrye Museum exhibition A Garden within Doors, and her Gardening Women site looks well worth keeping an eye on, too.

   There's much talk of the new John Lewis ad (have a look there if you haven't seen it), and Rowan Pelling says in today's paper, "... if the UK had a John Lewis party, it would take every female vote and win by a landslide"!

   Food, glorious food, and Copenhagen's Noma has been named the finest restaurant in the world. Cloudberries, birch sap, cowslip are on the menu ...it sounds wonderful.

  Lastly, my just discovered, delightful television programme of the week is Monty Halls' Great Hebridean Escape which features Monty (and his lovely and completely mad dog Reuben) living on North Uist as a volunteer wildlife ranger. An irrepressible enthusiast, a canine companion and glorious scenery - what more could you want?

Just a minute

    I must resist the siren-song of the book piles this morning and go and do paperwork, specifically the typing of minutes. This involves a considerable effort of will as I'm inclined to say a petulant "shan't" and turn to something else, but there's really no avoiding it so I'll just have to get on.

    The other thing calling me are all the great comments on yesterday's C. Books post. As Claire says, I seem to have started a stramash, but I hope to avoid a stooshie or a rammie as I do want to pick up some of the points raised and take them a bit further.

   Meanwhile it's back to duty, Stern Daughter of the Voice of God... with perhaps a little reward when I finish. Do you have any 'carrots' to get you through the chores? All incentive ideas gratefully received.

Today we have ironing of kilts

... and shining of shoes, and whitening of spats.

 

    Not the famous Henry Reed poem, but the preparations of the Tayforth Universities Officers Training Corps for their Passing-Off Parade last Saturday.

      Allow me a moment of maternal pride as my son is one of these cadets (middle of the group on the right), all of whom have completed the first part of the Military Leadership Development Programme. Though Will is currently a Law student, it's a career in the army that he intends to take up, and if he joins a Scottish regiment he'll be a dab hand at steaming those pleats!

Books and cakes - 28

      Tarquin Winot pronounces on a variety of dishes as he travels south through France, though cakes as such aren't mentioned as far as I recall. He provides a recipe for Queen of Puddings, admits to an embarrassment of scones at Fortnum's, but otherwise leaves us craving some sweetness - in more ways than one!

He does recall a meal with his mother at La Coupole in Paris at which they shared a lemon tart - "and this is something for which I am not going to be bothered to give a recipe: simply purchase the relevant pudding from someone authoritative", he says.

To make this classic tart, which Tarquin includes in a menu as "intended to give a sense of warmth and sunlight ...", I've gone back to Jane Grigson's Fruit Book and the recipe I've used countless times.

Mrs. Grigson introduces it with a line or two which might have been Tarquin's own: "The best lemon tart I know. The recipe comes from our young doctor at Trôo, whose governess used to make it regularly. What a happy childhood! The three children devoted to each other, kindly if remote parents and a gastronomic governess. Never, it seems, did she give them prunes and rice pudding."

      Lacking time and being a couple of lemons short of the required number, I've made the simple, unadorned version. I expect Tarquin would approve.

Cornflower Book Group - The Debt to Pleasure

  

    "I myself have always disliked being called a 'genius'. It is fascinating to notice how quick people have been to intuit this aversion and avoid using the term."

    That's the wonderfully dreadful Tarquin Winot speaking, and genius or otherwise, we'll be talking about him over at Cornflower Books.

   The cake to go with the book will be here later.

Nice work if you can get it

    On the 'to do' list today: reading the above (review due on Monday), writing tomorrow's CBG post, and baking something from the book (no mushrooms will be used!). As you can see, it's a tough day here, but someone's got to do these things. I hope your Friday is similarly enjoyable. 

Cooking on the phone

    Many of you will know far more about this than I do but I see that up-to-date people can now get a Nigella 'app' (tsk tsk) for their iPhone.

   I am way behind the times here (as in most things) because my mobile phone is so old it's barely more sophisticated than two coconuts and a piece of string. But for those who embrace technology it seems that the phone can now give inspiration for meals, a shopping list and recipe information, even videos of how to do it! This won't replace our trusty cookbooks, but how often have you stood in the supermarket thinking "what shall we have for supper?", or holding some ingredient and wondering what new, interesting and tasty thing you might do with it; app-arently your phone can tell you.

   If you've tried this sort of thing, please do tell us what you think of it.

Injection of fun

    Icing syringe by Lakeland.

   Cakes by Cornflower Junior.

Suffused with a rosy glow

     The camellia - later than ever this year!

Croissants!

   

    Yesterday's mysterious baking - all done by Harriet with the odd bit of moral support from us - was a fine batch of croissants!

    The recipe is from Mastering the Art of French Cooking: v. 2, and Julia Child and Simone Beck take ten pages to explain the procedure, complete with illustrations and diagrams, so these are not something you can throw together in an idle moment.

   Over around twelve hours there was mixing, rising, rolling in the butter, resting, turning, shaping, and so on, the bin bag and bath towel I referred to yesterday being specified as coverings for the bowl during the first and second rises.

 

    Eventually they were baked (imagine the smells coming from the kitchen) and sampled last night almost straight from the oven, most of them being enjoyed for breakfast this morning.

   Why go to all that trouble for something you can find in any supermarket? Because the process is interesting, the results worthwhile, and the sense of achievement Harriet got from it not inconsiderable.

Baking with a bin bag and a bath towel

    What is being made chez Cornflower aujourd'hui? Begun around 10 this morning, these baked goods involve the use of a bin bag and a bath towel, but they won't be ready for consumption until the middle of Foyle's War this evening ...

The writing's on the wall

     

    Yes, I can see it was inevitable: as if Twitter and tweets weren't enough,  I've now got a wall and people are writing on it!

    This time yesterday I wouldn't have had a clue what that meant, but as of last night I am to be found on Facebook (gasp!) and am finding my way around another virtual world. Do please be-friend me if you want to - search for Karen Howlett - and forgive me for any breaches of etiquette as I get the hang of things!

The portrait of a lady

    The portrait which made Sargent's name: Lady Agnew of Lochnaw; to be seen at the National Gallery of Scotland here in Edinburgh.

Three sisters

    One of the highlights of my visit to the Tate Gallery last week, The Misses Hunter by John Singer Sargent.