Cornflower

The intoxicating freedom of the needle

    An exhibition of 650 quilts, all just red and white!

    I'm referring to Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts currently on show in New York (but it ends today, I believe, so NY readers will have to rush to the Park Avenue Armory to catch it; the rest of us may like to download the free app - click on the link above for details).

     "Sheer sensory riot", "ecstatic retinal shock", says Simon Schama in his exuberant FT piece on the exhibition.

    But no blue ...?      

On the menu tonight ...

... Joanne's casserole with Matt's bread. I wish I could transmit the aromas wafting up from the kitchen just now - tomatoes, herbs, red wine, and newly baked bread (a very simple meal, but extremely good).

Books and cakes - 39

    Much significance attaches to the use of poppy syrup in Ellis Peters's A Morbid Taste for Bones, as the herbalist monk Brother Cadfael's supply of the sedative and analgesic is employed at various crucial points in the book (which the CBG has been reading).

    What better to make, then, to go with the book than something involving poppy seeds, and Pam Corbin's Cakes (from which I made the dog biscuits earlier in the week) includes these lovely lemon and poppy seed muffins.

Made with buttermilk (but you can substitute a mixture of runny yogurt and milk) and flavoured with lemon zest, they are drizzled with sweetened lemon juice when you take them from the oven.

    If the book has failed to satisfy (see Dark Puss's comment), perhaps the cakes will hit the spot?

Simple pleasures

    "I find myself getting up earlier and earlier each day, intoxicated by the colours and shapes and smells of the spring. Every year it's like seeing it for the first time: the vibrant yellows and blues of daffodils and scillas, here and there the brilliant red of an early tulip, overhead the white foam of plum and pear blossom.

The air is a tantalising multi-layered compound of scents: hyacinths, grass, the foxy stench of crown imperials, the aroma of moist sun-warmed soil (like hot-cross buns straight from the oven - yeasty, spicy, full of promise), the smell of daffodils, too - the aniseed of the big doubles, the mossy 'green' smell of the little pseudonarcissus, the freesia-like perfume of the double campernelles. Somehow I never really believe it will happen, and when it does, my dreary winter spirits rise like the bubbles in champagne."

From The Morville Year by Katherine Swift.

Great food

   
    Penguin are about to publish a wonderful series called Great Food, twenty books which bring together "the sharpest, funniest, most delicious writing about food from the past four hundred years." Celebrating food writing as writing, and not just as a means to convey instructions, the series ranges from Gervase Markham whose The Well-kept Kitchen (1615) is a handbook for housewives, to Alice Waters, founder of the slow food movement, whose Recipes and Lessons from a Delicious Cooking Revolution brings us right up to date.

 
    From Agnes Jekyll and Isabella Beeton to Claudia Roden and Elizabeth David, Samuel Pepys, Alexis Soyer and more, writers share their hunger and enthusiasm, their particular pleasures and predilections, to inform and entertain. Whether you're a foodie, have a keen interest in social history, or just enjoy fine writing, there will be something here for you, and if you're like me, you'll covet the entire set!

    I have advance copies of two of the series here, Love in a Dish and Other Pieces by M.F.K. Fisher, who is a great favourite of mine, and A Dissertation upon Roast Pig, and Other Essays by Charles Lamb which explores the joys of food and our complicated social relationship with it in playful, sensuous, mocking and mischievous manner.

    I'll come back to these books soon when I've had a chance to digest their contents, but I can't leave the series just now without commenting on their beautiful covers; to see the whole set, click here.

Grand music

    iPlayer is wonderful for catching programmes you missed when broadcast, but they tend not to be available for very long, and while you are nonchalantly thinking you'll watch or listen 'tomorrow', you find they've been and gone. I was vexed, recently, to miss the edition of Radio 3's excellent series Private Passions which featured historian Amanda Vickery as I so enjoyed her book Behind Closed Doors, and the accompanying television series, (you can still see what music she chose, though).

    Happily, I was not as lackadaisical where Michael Berkeley's most recent guest - Monty Don - was concerned, and until Sunday you can hear about his passions by clicking here. I mention this because the music he chose is grand and moving, often uplifting (he talks of Bach's "cosmic gaiety"), and always worth listening to, and because the only piece I wasn't already familiar with is Tom Waits' Green Grass which is an interesting discovery. So, don't let the, er, grass grow under your feet...and stay tuned for this week's guest, the author Nicole Krauss.

Baking ... for dogs

    I'm not sure what this says about me, but on getting a new cookery book yesterday, the first recipe I earmarked to try was the one for dog biscuits.

    No reflection on Pam Corbin's most appetising-looking Cakes (the latest in the River Cottage Handbook series), in fact quite the opposite as no other cookbook I own contains a dog biscuit recipe, so full marks to this one for including something so wholesome for the canine members of the family, as well as much deliciousness for the rest of us.

    You mix together wholemeal flour, oats and oatmeal, flavour with grated carrot, caraway seeds and parsley, and bind with sunflower oil and beaten egg, then you roll out the dough and cut it into shapes - I don't have a 'bone' biscuit cutter (as used in the book) so I just made little stars and small balls. Baking takes about 50 minutes in a slowish oven.

    I've sampled one and it was jolly good indeed, in a nice, toasty, oaty way; you could easily serve them to humans with the addition of a little salt or maybe some grated Parmesan or a touch of cayenne pepper. Naturally, as soon as they had cooled I gave a couple each to Mollie and Pippin for proper consumer testing, and there was much wagging of tails and licking every last crumb off the floor, so we can safely pronounce them a success.

    If you think that making biscuits for dogs is just a step too far, rest assured I'll be doing more conventional baking from the book soon ... salt caramel shortbread, perhaps, or banana and chocolate cake (which uses up those overripe bananas that no-one wants to eat), maybe Somerset cider cake with hazelnut topping ...

Road work - 2

    As requested, here's a little more information on The Crossroads Model, which I was talking about on Sunday, one of the exercises from The Decision Book (click there for details): when you've answered the first set of questions (given in Sunday's post), look at what you've written and see whether anything appears to be missing or is standing out in some way. "Now look at the roads that lie ahead of you... Imagine each one:

1. The road that beckons - what have you always wanted to try?

2. The road you imagine in your wildest dreams, regardless of whether it is achievable or not - what do you dream of?

3. The road that seems most sensible to you, the one that people whose opinion you value would suggest to you.

4. The road not travelled - one you have never considered before.

5. The road you have already been down.

6. The road back, to a place you once felt safe.

    Then you decide on your direction!

    If you find this at all useful, do please let us know how you get on with it - in general terms, that is, as I wouldn't dream of asking anyone to divulge specifics in such a personal matter.  

    Good luck, and may the road rise to meet you!

Two cooks and a cabbage

    My thanks to Fi Bird for the link to this 1941 film - how things have changed. Note that it's the girls who are summoned in to help prepare lunch while the boys play on ...

A portrait in the attic

 

    "The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn."

    Thus begins the Cornflower Book Group's April book. Would you like to join us in reading it? Full details here.

(The cover image is a detail from The Earl of Dalhousie, 1900, by John Singer Sargent; in Brechin Castle).

Road work

 

   If you've read Friday's post on Cornflower Books you'll have seen that I'm testing The Decision Book, using some of the models given there to help with decision-making on both a small scale and a larger one.

    One exercise which I thought I'd outline here may be of use to you if you're wondering which path to take next in your life. It's called The Crossroads Model and it's simple enough but could well point up some factor you may have overlooked, or just make you see your choices or dilemma in a new way. (NB the book goes into slightly more detail).

 

    Using 'keywords', or the first thoughts that come into your head, answers these questions:

Where have you come from? Decisions, events, obstacles, influences, etc. which have brought you to where you are.

What is really important to you? First three things - no details.

Which people are important to you? Those who influence you or are affected by your decisions; those you like, those you fear.

What is hindering you? What gets in the way of thinking about important things?

What are you afraid of? What worries you or robs you of your strength?

    Now look at the various 'roads' which could lie ahead (see top of the picture there - click to enlarge), and plot their directions as they'd apply to you. Now you decide which one to take!

    I've just gone through this process very qickly and while I shall certainly have to think about all my answers and the various options the questions have revealed, they have clarified the picture for me, so that's a worthwhile result in itself.

False modesty

    "Funny how some plants are modest. Of course size has something to do with it but not always. Daisies aren't modest, and neither are aconites or muscari. Of course the added coyness of hanging flower heads helps - think of hellebores [above] and snakeshead fritillaries - but that is all false humility. Lift the flowers up and they shout their beauty at you."

From The Ivington Diaries by Monty Don.

The bibliophile's cookbook

 

    How to classify this book? Is it a cookbook for 'readers', or a book about writers - with recipes? Well, Table of Contents: From Breakfast with Anita Diamant to Dessert with James Patterson by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp is subtitled "a generous helping of recipes, writings and insights from today's bestselling authors", and as I link food to books every month with the Books and Cakes feature here (tying in with whatever the Cornflower Book Group is reading), I was particularly drawn to this way of doing something similar, albeit on a much grander scale.

    Let me quote from the introduction:

"Food is often used as a plot device, a way of establishing historical or cultural context, or a method for revealing character in literature. But what we find most fascinating are the stories behind these references. Why did a certain dish appear in a certain scene? Did the author simply imagine the dish? Was it a family recipe? ... In short, was there a reason a particular food or recipe worked its way into their writing? Authors answered these questions, and through recipes and notes shared their family histories, interests and ambitions, the origin of their characters, or the meaning of their books' settings.."

    Fifty authors are featured, some are big names, others are up-and-coming, and a number may be better known to an American readership, but let's take two of the British ones as an example of the book's style.

    One of our most popular historical novelists is Philippa Gregory, and in Table of Contents she reveals something of her writing process, talks a little about The Cousins' War series of novels she's currently working on - beginning with The White Queen - and lists those writers she particularly loves or has been influenced by. Then it's on to the food and here she gives a recipe for Medieval Gingerbread, both an original one taken from a fifteenth century cookery book, and a modern adaptation which anyone unfamiliar with instructions such as "take a quart of hony, & sethe it, & skeme it clene ..." and the like can happily use.

    For Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, what else but a fabulously rich chocolate cake, one used in the book and in the film version and named Gâteau Lawrence after Joanne's brother who devised it. But it's not all sweet things for she also gives a recipe for Lentil and Toulouse Sausage Casserole, one of those hearty but fragrant country dishes which evoke rural France. Away from food, Joanne talks of her sources of inspiration and lists the books which have influenced her, the wonderful Gormenghast Trilogy among them.

    I'm dipping into Table of Contents, earmarking recipes I'd like to try and novels I want to read. It's a great combination, perfect for a quiet browse, useful if you like to know how writers work, ideal for anyone who loves to read about food and its place in fiction.

Earning your stripes

 

     Marmande tomatoes, perfectly ripe when green and striped, past their best when uniform red.

Worth trying if you can find them - sliced, seasoned, drizzled with olive oil, accompanied by good bread.

Yes, it's Sticky Toffee Rhubarb Cake

    B.R. Wombat suggested making a version of Toffee Apple Cake with rhubarb, so I did -

    Into the frying pan went enough chopped rhubarb to give a generous layer in the cake tin (in this instance an 8"/20cm round one), a good knob of butter, approx. 3 dessertspoons of muscovado sugar, 3 pieces of stem ginger (because that's all I had left in the ginger jar) and some of its syrup. Cook that over a low heat to soften the rhubarb and make a deliciously sticky toffee sauce - see above - then leave to cool while you make the sponge.

    Cream 6oz. each of butter and caster sugar, then add 3oz. of ground almonds and 3oz. of plain flour, 2 tsps. baking powder, 3 large eggs, and put that mixture in the prepared tin with the cooked rhubarb on top, but be aware that it will sink down.

    I baked it for 40 minutes on the lowest rungs of the Aga baking oven - or approx. gas 4 - and had to cover the top with foil for the last 10 minutes as it was browning too fast. The finished article isn't much to look at, but it tastes very good. Thankyou to the Wombat for the great idea!