Cornflower

House-work

     Today's post on Cornflower Books is one of those which could sit equally happily on either site as it concerns a book about a house. Its subject is Knole, vast and labyrinthine, birthplace of Vita-Sackville West, and home of the original Knole settee!

    If houses, their contents - and their owners - fascinate you, or if you want to know more about Vita's unusual family, this book should appeal. 

Just what the doctor ordered

 

    Following on from yesterday's post extolling the Scots tea-table, I had to make something that might possibly grace that groaning board. There are so many good things in F. Marian McNeill's classic book The Scots Kitchen (first published in 1929 but newly - and beautifully - re-issued), recipes I've never come across before, not to mention a wealth of fascinating cultural and historical detail about food, its lore and traditions; it was hard to choose, but being short of time and using ingredients I had to hand I made a batch of Abernethy Biscuits.

    I'll put the gist of the recipe below, but it's their origin which particularly interested me, and here's the author's note:

"Abernethy biscuits got their name not from the Perthshire burgh, but from a family name that derives from the place-name. The Abernethys moved from Scotland via Ireland to London, where one of the family, Dr. John Abernethy (1764-1831), became chief surgeon to St. Batholomew's Hospital and the real founder of the medical school attached to 'Bart's'. He used to take lunch at a baker's shop kept by John Caldwell (another Scottish name), where he ate ordinary 'captain's biscuits'. He suggested the addition of sugar and caraways, and the baker gave the new biscuit his patron's name."

 Take 8oz. plain flour, sifted, and rub in 3 oz. butter. Add 3oz. caster sugar, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, and a small teaspoonful of caraway seeds (this is optional, but I included them and the results are excellent). Add a beaten egg and 1 tblsp. milk and mix well without over-working. Roll out on a floured board, cut into rounds (I got 25) and bake on a greased or lined baking sheet for 10-15 mins. in a moderate oven.

Note: keep an eye on these when you take them from the oven - my family would have eaten the lot before they'd properly cooled if I hadn't stepped in and taken a firm line!

Everything stops for tea

 

     "The ideal setting for tea is a cosy interior on a grey winter day. The tea equipage on a low table beside a glowing fire - the delicate china on the finely embroidered tea-cloth, the polished silver reflecting the dancing flames - the hot buttered toast, freshly baked scones and tempting home-made cakes - for many of us these made the tea hour the pleasantest of the day.

    And the farmhouse tea! How one used to tuck in after a long tramp over the hill! There is no tea like it, plain or high, with its oatcakes, its variety of scones, its velvet-textured sponges spread with strawberries (or other berries in season) and whipped cream, or with home-made jam, or fresh lemon curd: its chunks of thick, crisp shortbread; its rich almond-studded fruit cake (known to the world as Dundee); its small crystal dishes of jams and jellies, red, green and amber; and the big brown teapot - as couthie and comforting as any tappit-hen - the very symbol of feminine conviviality."

From The Scots Kitchen by F. Marian McNeill, illustrated by Iain McIntosh.

(A tappit-hen is a pewter quart measure of ale or claret). 

Habit-forming

   Don't they say that it takes thirty days to form a new habit? Does it work in reverse, that is, if you don't do something for about a month, have you lost the habit? If so, I'd better pick up my needles pretty sharpish because it's the 28th. of January and I have not knitted since the year dawned! Even as we speak, wool is gathering dust, and I'll have forgotten what to do with it.

    I did do some stitching last week as I said I would, and I hope everyone who contributed to that post made some progress on their projects, too, but today's little goal is to get on with my dovegrey sock (above). "What's grey about that?", I hear you ask - the yarn (Mountain Colors Bearfoot) was a kind gift from the Dovegrey One herself back in the summer, and I cast on while watching coverage of the royal engagement, turned the heel while glued to the snow/travel chaos news before Christmas and then came to a dead stop. I obviously need some other compelling viewing to get me back in the habit.

Unwinding

    It's been a long day and I'm in need of a break away from my desk and paperwork - even my books! I'm off to the kitchen to make a sauce for pasta - nothing fancy, just whatever the cupboards and fridge will yield, so something with tomatoes, garlic, olives, capers, wine, and French sausage for the carnivores, I think. I'll stand and stir as it simmers gently, and while the pasta may remain tightly coiled, I shall unwind.

The English country house

    Thanks to that treasure-store of images, Bridgeman, I've discovered the work of artist Rebecca Campbell. Above is a detail from her End of a Dynasty, but go to her own site and you can see many other delightful, witty paintings - how about Brunch, Great Expectations (it's a bit like that in this house) and Tea Time!

Good lines: the tools for the job

 

  "Woodblock printing goes back thousands of years to ancient China, and, over the long centuries, specialized tools have evolved to cut exactly the shape or line needed. A scorper, square- or round-ended, is used to clear broad areas; the spitsticker cuts curved lines; and the bullsticker does curved lines and stabbing marks. Gravers or burins are used for cutting straight lines and diamond-shaped pocking marks; tint tools are very slightly tapered and cut straight lines of equal proportions. And then there are chisels, which are small versions of those a carpenter would use."

From Angie Lewin: Plants and Places, text by Leslie Geddes-Brown.

Fresh fields

  

 

     A spring clean of the "Places to Visit" list down there in the right-hand sidebar is long overdue; there are new sites to add and some dormant or dead ones to remove. Just today I heard about a blog begun by Elizabeth, a long-time Cornflower reader. Taking the plunge can require a bit of courage - or a big push - but there's nothing like having a loyal readership to help build confidence and let you find your voice, so if you have a moment, pop over to The Olive Garden, read Elizabeth's first post and then go back for more on olives, books, gardens, food, embroidery and knitting - a fine combination!

    I'd love the Places list to include links to the blogs of all those who visit this site, but I fear it might be unwieldy, so how about, if you have your own site, leave a comment on this post with its name and url and a brief word about its typical subject-matter, and if you don't have one of your own maybe you could mention a favourite to visit so that we have a choice of links here on this post to take us all to pastures new?

These little piggies

   This is something of a first for Cornflower: if you visit Cornflower Books regularly you'll know that the postie frequently staggers to my door under the weight of parcels containing books for review, and this is a constant source of delight and excitement to me, but it came as a surprise when I was asked - in connection with this site - if I'd be interested in reviewing something else, namely bacon!

    I said yes to this inquiry (and cue the postie with another package) because food is a major part of things both here on the blog and in family life and we do take it seriously. Our bacon has to be good, not insipid, not watery, not flaccid, and so we tend to buy something towards the expensive end of the supermarket range, or - when we're at the farmers' market - Ballencrieff Rare Pedigree Pigs' bacon which is produced just outside Edinburgh by a family we know whose pork products - from Berkshire, Saddleback and Gloucester Old Spot pigs - are truly excellent.  But it's flattering to be asked for an opinion on anything and so I said I'd be very happy to try some Denhay bacon and see how it measures up to our usual stuff; thus over the last few days I have carried out extensive comparative tastings and I'm now happy to report on my findings.

    So, just in time for Farmhouse Breakfast Week, when something hearty and tasty may well feature on your tables (last year I offered granola), I can tell you that I've tried Denhay smoked and unsmoked back, both the hand dry cure and the Wiltshire cure, and the wonderfully named Spoilt Pig, and I can wholeheartedly recommend the lot. All were fried in a dry pan (and the pan remained dry as no water is added during the curing process), all are very meaty - that's to say, the texture is just as it should be - succulent, not too salty, and 'sweet'. Mr. C. compared the flavours to those of his favourite single malt whiskies, and he says that while Ballencrieff, at the more assertive end of the scale, is akin to Laphroaig, Denhay equates to the mellower Glenmorangie or The Macallan; in short, it's excellent.

    I see that Denhay produce bacon for the Duchy Originals range, which happens to be one of our favourites from the supermarket, so that's a strong recommendation in its own right, but under their own label I would certainly not hesitate to buy it and enjoy it as we have done which, for the record, is on its own, with a fried egg, and with pancakes and maple syrup; grand breakfasts all of them, whether or not you live in a farmhouse!

(Re. the pigs in the picture, the little one was found in an antiques shop,) while the bigger one is from Stephen Pearce in Shanagarry, Co. Cork).

Dear Madam,

 

      "I should like to wish you well. In my great-grandfather's time there was a bookseller in the High Street who, I believe, knocked down one of the customers with a folio when he grew too quarrelsome. There had been some delay in the arrival of the latest instalment of a new novel - I think, Dombey and Son. From that day to this, no one has been courageous enough to sell books in Hardborough. You are doing us an honour ...

Yours obediently, Edmund Brundish."

    There may be no awkwardness over Dickens but Florence Green has other things to contend with as she turns the medieval (and haunted) Old House into a bookshop, in a small English seaside town in 1959. Penelope Fitzgerald's wonderful novel The Bookshop is up for discussion on Cornflower Books today.

Friday crafts?

 

 

    We've got a Friday reads post on Cornflower Books today, so how about a "Friday knits/bakes/stitches/paints/etc." one here?

    As we're talking about what we're reading over there, why not share what else we may be doing here? Are you currently knitting anything, or do you plan to bake today, or are you being creative or constructive in other ways?

    I'll kick off and say that the arrival of the Ehrman sale brochure has prompted me to pick up a piece of needlepoint (I have several at various stages, all rather neglected since I took up knitting again) and admitting that may spur me on to make some progress later today.

    How about you? Anything you want to start - or finish? Anything you're inspired to try?

See what you get if you practise!

   I love that line of Liberace's as he showed off his extravagantly be-ringed fingers to his adoring fans, and of course his long hours at the piano perfecting his technique brought him fame and fortune, but for those of us who are not natural showmen or destined for the concert platform, what does learning to play an instrument mean?

    About four years ago I wrote a post on taking music lessons as a child and that 'struck a chord' with readers, but my - and I suspect - your experience is as nothing compared to that of the daughters of Amy Chua whose look at the Chinese method of parenting as applied to her own family is the subject of today's post on Cornflower Books. To say that music is taken seriously in that household is to make light of a practice schedule which would make a professional feel tired. The Chua/Rubenfeld daughters play for hours every day - every day - and that includes holidays, so no matter where they are and what else they might like to do, music comes first:

"I don't know how my daughters will look back on this twenty years from now. Will they tell their own children, 'my mother was a controlling fanatic who even in India made us practise before we could see Bombay and New Delhi'? Or will they have softer memories? Perhaps Lulu will recall playing the first movement of the Bruch Violin Concerto beautifully in Agra, in front of an arched hotel window that looked straight out to the Taj Mahal; we didn't fight that day for some reason - probably jet lag. Will Sophia recall with bitterness the time I laid into her at a piano in Barcelona because her fingers were not kicking high enough? If so, I hope she also remembers Rocquebrune, a village perched on a cliff in France, were the manager of our hotel heard Sophia practising and invited her to perform for the entire restaurant that evening. In a ...room overlooking the Mediterranean, Sophia played Mendelssohn's Rondo Capriccioso, and got bravos and hugs from all the guests."

   That excerpt from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother gives you some idea of the relentless discipline inherent in Amy Chua's approach to music and of what it means for her daughters. Right or wrong, she gets results, and it's a compelling story, but for me the book raised more questions than it answers - that's an observation rather than a criticism because at this stage in her daughters' lives no definitive answer is possible, but I wonder what you all feel about this - should learning an instrument be fun, should it be for its own sake, for the joy of playing competently to a reasonable standard and of giving pleasure to yourself or friends and family, should it be a useful part of learning to work as a group (a necessary skill), or should it be about striving for perfection and never settling for second best?

Flowers!

     It feels like months since we had any flowers in the garden or the house.

This is just a pot of supermarket hyacinths, but they brighten up the place,

especially when the sun shines.

".. look into the blue of the hyacinths. And the spring!"

Rilke, as quoted by Edmund de Waal in The Hare With Amber Eyes.

Books and (slightly burnt) cakes - 37

      "The dining-room was straight through, with French windows closed on the garden. The view outside was blocked by a beech hedge, still hanging with brown leaves, heavy in the November damp. A mahogany table stretched from end to end of the room. Florence felt sad to think of anyone eating alone at such a table. It was laid, evidently for the occasion, with an assortment of huge blue-and-white earthenware dishes, looking like prizes at a fairground. Lost among them was a fruit-cake, a bottle of milk and an unpleasantly pink ham, still in its tin."

    That fruit-cake, commissioned from Mrs. Gipping for the occasion, is eventually cut by Florence "to reassure herself of her independence" when her ally Mr. Brundish pronounces on the question of the bookshop's stocking Lolita: "It is a good book and therefore you should try to sell it to the inhabitants of Hardborough. They won't understand it, but that is all to the good. Understanding makes the mind lazy."

    Taking that passage from Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop (which the Cornflower Book Group will discussing from Saturday) I've made a fruit-cake - a Dundee cake, in fact, and not just any old one but an authentic version. I've used the recipe in Monty and Sarah Don's The Home Cookbook as Monty Don is descended from the Keillers of Dundee, "renowned marmalade makers and also inventors of the Dundee cake, the rich, buttery, sultana cake decorated with concentric circles of golden almonds."

    The instructions say to bake this at 180C/Gas 4 for about 90 minutes. I checked mine after an hour and it was done - over-done on top, actually, though perfectly cooked inside; as my oven is pretty fast, I should have thought to look sooner and cover the cake with foil, but I'll know next time. Slight well-firedness apart, this is a good cake, and one that would have sustained Florence in her hour of need, I feel!

Pippin's progress

     Three months old now, Pippin is doing very well indeed. She had her first walk yesterday and was off the lead today for a while, happy to stay close to us and Mollie and come when called. She's quite a character and she's giving us all lots of fun!