Cornflower

Anyone for tennis?

     I'm off to Wimbledon today for my first ever visit, and my mother and I have tickets for the Centre Court so we shall be watching Roger Federer play, then Andy Murray.

 

     Mum says she's waited around fifty years to get the chance to go to this tournament, ever since she first saw it on television, so I hope it lives up to expectations but I feel sure it will. See you later!

Just poppying in ...

... to say I haven't even put the scissors to the length of linen yet, let alone begun to stitch (and no prospect of same for some days as I'm gallivanting, among other things), but aren't the colours those of that newly-opened poppy?

Free cake

   This is a gluten-free, dairy-free carrot cake, made not for reasons of intolerance but just to see what it's like. This one mixes lots of ground hazelnuts with the grated carrot and flavours it with lemon juice and zest and some optional Kirsch.

     The picture above is from the book (The Popina Book of Baking), but the ones top and bottom are of my effort - always gratifying when something turns out looking much as it's supposed to.

 

     The icing is lemon flavoured, too (though I found it took the juice of one and a half lemons, not three as specified) and the whole thing is very moist and good. Next time I shall grind my hazelnuts more finely and perhaps toast them first, and I might add some sultanas, but otherwise stick to the instructions. If avoiding flour and butter, etc. is something you have to do, this should make a good addition to your baking repertoire.

Yet buying something other

     I went shopping for felt, but came home with linen.

 

    Happily, the sewing box yields embroidery thread the right shade,

    and this book is going to tell me what to make and how.

It's been a while since I did any sewing (remember these?) so I'm looking forward to a bit of gentle stitching with a useful household article at the end of it.

Mock orange

    The scent of this philadelphus will - according to the description of the corresponding 'lifestyle fragrance' - "enhance your personal space". The shrub itself is at the front door, no doubt lending tone to the general ambience, but I've brought a sprig inside for that interior je ne sais quoi. In Jo Malone-speak, it's an olfactory journey, or "a blossom story"....

NB

  

     Just in case you're thinking of making the cable plait hot water bottle cover from Simple Knitting by Erika Knight (I began it the other day), there's an error in the cable pattern: row 9 should begin P3, not P4.

    That may be obvious to all, but I tend to put my faith in books, assuming they have been carefully proof-read (hah!), and going by instructions as given on the basis that they have been written by someone who knows more than I do; as a result I usually doubt myself rather than the author/editor.

Knitting under the stars

      

     The following comes from the letters page of the current issue of The Knitter magazine - a lady writes that she has become addicted to colourwork since buying Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting (and I quite see why). She goes on, "I find the interplay of colour, the fineness of the stitches and the need to be very accurate so enthralling. Is this a Virgo thing, and do other knitters find themselves influenced in colour and choice of pattern/yarn by their star sign?"

     Interesting question. For what it's worth, I'm a Virgo, and I find stranded colourwork absolutely engrossing.

Sweet

     You might call this 'sunshine in a cake' - these are Summer Fruit and White Chocolate Muffins from The Popina Book of Baking, and Isidora Popovic describes them as "an indulgent treat with a mid-morning coffee"; well I've just had two (testing for quality control purposes, you understand), and that while listening to Frank Delaney, and "treat" is the word!

    These are full of fruit - with even more used for the topping - and their consistency is just right. I gave them twenty minutes on the lowest rungs of the Aga* baking oven, but I made a dozen small ones rather than the six large ones the book specifies, and I had people wanting to eat them as soon as they were out, trying to cool them down with willpower alone.

 

*Speaking of Agas, do you remember Posh Nosh? There's a good Aga reference at about 3 mins. 25 secs. in this episode.

The sky at night

Eleven o'clock last night, and still just enough light to read by.

Savoury

     I've been baking again, but something savoury as a change from the usual sweet things. These are Parmesan and Seed Crackers from The Popina Book of Baking by Isidora Popovic - piquant and perfect with drinks, very moreish, in fact.

    In her introduction to the book, Isidora (whose wares you may already know) says, "Popina is about imagination, seasonality and a love of making great food, simply", and as far as I can see from looking through her lovely book, that is exactly what it's all about.

 

   If time permits today I'm going to try out one of the sweet recipes, so stand by for that, but meanwhile, enjoy - vicariously at least - these savoury treats.

Diversion

    Today's post proper will be up later, but in the meantime, you might like to have a look at this lovely place.

A garden full of books

     This is part of the garden at Harmony in Melrose, home this last weekend to the Borders Book Festival - where I was on Friday.

    With a view of the Abbey and the Eildon Hills, 

it's a really lovely, peaceful spot, though contrary to what the pictures might have you believe, there were a lot of people there. The marquee whose white door you can just see on the left of that shot above held the former deputy prime minister and other politicians, a well known "after-religionist" bishop, sundry writers, publishers, critics, et moi (but only on the coat-tails of my more important husband).

But never mind the litterati and the great and the quite good, at what other venue would I be showing you the car park -

 

an orchard looking across the River Tweed to the hills behind Gattonside.

Scenic Scotland.

Let's dance

  "I tell [my mother] that at my friend Mike's house I've been listening to the new single by David Bowie, 'Let's Dance'. I had always considered Bowie to be too weird, not very melodic. But there's something about this song that I really love."

    That's from Matt McAllester's book Bittersweet: Lessons from My Mother's Kitchen, (which I wrote about here and from which we started a bit of bread-making mania). Matt goes on to talk about Bowie's Edinburgh concert, later that summer, which he went to -

"The rain begins to shower down on the 40,000 people there ... 'I could play the wild mutation as a rock 'n' roll star,' he sings in the opening song, and I think to myself that I've found a world through this music and this singer that offers me an escape, a way to change things. It feels like the most important day of my life. Within two years I have every record Bowie has ever made.

"Years later, at a swanky party in an Upper East Side apartment full of famous artists and paintings by famous artists, I was helping myself to roast ham at the buffet table when I realized David Bowie was standing next to me, filling his plate. I scrambled for something to say: 'That ham looks really tasty', or 'Your music still provides me with a deep sense of comfort that will probably be with me for life'. I took a spoonful of potato salad and said nothing."

   I'm quoting that passage because I was reminded of it when, in relation to my choice of Heroes in the alphabet of songs post, Barbara said she wouldn't have had me down as a Bowie fan. Well, I wasn't at the concert Matt went to, but I heard all of it because my family home was about a quarter of a mile up the hill from Murrayfield Stadium and I just had to stand in the garden (in the rain) and listen - and as soon as they played Let's Dance I wished I'd actually gone. Here's the song (start at three minutes in if you're short of time), and just for good measure, here's Absolute Beginners, too.

Sea-dark purple

   

     "It was like a great violet velvet mantle thrown down in the sun; all the shades that the dyers and weavers of Italy and France strove for through centuries, the violet that is full of rose colour and is yet not lavender; the blue that becomes almost pink and then retreats again into sea-dark purple - the true episcopal colour and countless variations of it."

     More 'purple prose' and the CBG's thoughts on Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop are to be found here.

Alphabet of songs

      This is a musical meme from Call me Madam:

Comment on this post and I'll assign you a letter.

List (and upload if you like) five songs which begin with that letter.

Post them on your blog, or list them here if you haven't an internet home of your own.

   I was allotted the letter H so my songs, plucked from hither and yon, are -

Help, The Beatles

How do you solve a problem like Maria?, Rogers & Hammerstein

Heroes, David Bowie - he's singing it there with Queen, minus - alas - Freddie, but in this version he has a better hairstyle! 

Heart of Glass, Blondie

Heart on my Sleeve, Gallagher & Lyle

    If you'd like to have a go, please leave a comment and I shall dip into the Scrabble bag and see which letter comes out for you.