Cornflower

As I was going to St. Ives

 
    I've just spent a thoroughly relaxing and stimulating ninety minutes watching The Art of Cornwall presented by Dr. James Fox - it's a programme I'd have missed had it not been for Mary's timeous link, so many thanks to her.

Do catch it if you can, though it's not available to watch for much longer.

Books and cakes - 43

    "I am a rather greedy man; I have a taste for good cookery and a watering tooth at the mere sound of the names of certain comestibles."

Pity, then, that John Dowell, narrator of The Good Soldier, doesn't give us any foodie details in his extensive ramblings; I was left to come at the book from a different angle in order to provide the requisite baked goods to go with it.

    As you'll see from my post on the novel (follow the link above) - and it's a view shared by some, though not all, who have commented so far - I found it to be a hopeless jumble of a thing, so to sweeten the experience a bit, I've made Chocolate Jumbles.

They are going down well here.  

Friday flowers - sweet peas

    We continue the Friday flowers theme on Cornflower books, and according to the floral dictionary mentioned there, sweet peas signify 'delicate pleasures'.

Magic stronger than stone

    "'Welcome to this house, lad,' the doorkeeper said, and without saying more led him through halls and corridors to an open court far inside the walls of the building. The court was paved with stone, but was roofless, and on a grass-plot a fountain played under young trees in the sunlight. There Ged waited alone some while.

He stood still, and his heart beat hard, for it seemed to him that he felt presences and powers at work unseen about him here, and he knew that this place was built not only of stone but of magic stronger than stone. He stood in the innermost room of the House of the Wise, and it was open to the sky.

Then suddenly he was aware of a man clothed in white who watched him through the falling water of the fountain."

    That's an excerpt from the Cornflower Book Group September book. If you'd like to join us in reading it you'll find all the details here.

Pesto scones

    Pesto scones with goats' cheese, still warm from the oven, to be eaten with tomato and mascarpone soup (not homemade) for lunch, though not alfresco as the picture suggests - when I took them outside to photograph them at quite low level, there was considerable interest from my canine companions.

    Human tasters here give them the thumbs up, though Harriet, not mad keen on pesto anyway and a cheese-hater of the highest order, is dubious, but I think they're great.

Blackadder winners - 1

    Thankyou to veryone who entered the draw for the Elizabeth Blackadder postcards; the random number generator did the job of picking the winners, so the set shown above will go to Michel, while Gill gets the ones below.

    If you entered the bookmarks draw as well, the winners are here.

PS If you haven't yet had your fill, you may like a preview of the forthcoming exhibition of new work by Elizabeth Blackadder at The Scottish Gallery.

A Kashmir shawl

    "Mair slid open the bottom drawer of the chest [...] When she folded back [the tissue paper] her first impression was of wonderful colours. Silvery blues and greens sprang at her, like a distillation of lake water and spring skies, with starbursts of lavender and vermilion flowers caught in the depths. She looked more closely and saw the intricacy of the woven pattern; the sumptuous curved teardrop shapes with curled tips, the ferny fronds and branched stems and tiny five-petalled flowers. [...] Mair shook out the layers of soft wool. It was so light that it seemed to float on the air."

    That's a passage from Rosie Thomas's new novel The Kashmir Shawl, and there's more on the book here, but when I read that scene I thought immediately of my Kashmir shawl (or scarf, to be exact, pictured here) which has seen better days but which must once have been as lovely as the one described.

    Mine was brought home from India at the end of the war by my uncle who was serving there with the Gurkhas. He gave it to my grandmother, and I don't know whether she ever wore it, but I remember it vividly from my childhood as, despite its being cashmere adorned with fine embroidery, it was used to wrap around throats or across chests - which had been liberally coated with VicksVaporub - whenever we had colds or flu! Frequent washing has seen its colours fade from the blues and greens I remember to the nacreous shades you can see today, and while for a long, long time I thought of it as just 'the Vick cloth', now I can admire and appreciate it for what it really is.

Curvy - 2

    Yes, the mystery object is Tom Pellereau's nailfile, available here, and it's worth mentioning that I placed my order on Monday morning and the parcel arrived just two days later, which, given the huge volume of orders they'd had due to Tom's Apprentice win (I heard that from his PA) is pretty impressive.

    I bought the nailfile (and one each for my daughters) because I was curious - it does do a very good job and it's quicker than an ordinary one, though it feels unusual at first - but my interest was mainly because we all thought Tom was super throughout and wanted to support him in a tiny way by buying his product. Lord Sugar has made a wise decision in taking him as his business partner as his amiable nature will be a powerful asset. We've touched on service over on the books blog today, and how important a pleasant manner is. Tom has that, and good luck to him.

Curvy

    No prizes, but can you guess what this is?

Raunchy

    Basil, garlic, sea salt, olive oil, pine nuts, Parmiggiano Reggiano, all pounded and ground and mixed to make pesto. It's a summer staple here, and always served with pasta, but look what I discovered in that marvellous book The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit: pesto scones -
"In tomato and mozzarella salad, basil's all ring-a-ding sweetness and light, but in rougher company it can turn quite raunchy, as in pesto. Pair it with a lusty goat's cheese [might that apostrophe be better placed after the 's' ?] - preferably something piquant, well chilled, and soft enough to be spread on pesto scones."

    I'd try these right now if I had any pesto left - you need 4 tablespoons to add to the scone mixture made with 375g of flour - but next time we make it we'll double the quantity and give the scones a go.

    The book offers another interesting tip, i.e. what to do when your basil is on the puny side and doesn't quite make the raunchy grade. As some of the herb's spiciness comes from eugenol, which gives cloves their distinctive flavour, Italian housewives sometimes add a pinch of ground cloves to their pesto "if the basil isn't pulling its weight".

Spam

    Over the last week or so I've been deluged with spam emails, dozens of them a day. Most are in my inbox and have to be weeded out, while some go to the spam folder where they obscure the odd 'real' message which the mail system has put there - I know I've deleted at least one proper email by mistake as a result.

    Add to that the extreme clunkiness of BT Yahoo mail at the moment - I'm on the new version which is billed as being twice as fast, having even better spam protection and being a breeze to use, but in my experience it is none of these things - and mail-wise things are very slow here indeed, so if you've contacted me and not had a reply yet, that's most likely why.

    I've noticed an increase in spam comments on this site, too, but frankly, spammers, I wouldn't bother if I were you as I delete your pesky offerings pretty sharpish.

Blackadder lucky dip - 1

    I've been back to the Elizabeth Blackadder exhibition, and this time I bought some postcards to give away.

    Since EVB is so well known for her flower paintings, if you'd like one of the sets of three cards, just leave a comment on this post telling us what your favourite flower is (I shan't be offended if no-one mentions cornflowers), and I'll draw a name from the hat soon. Everyone is welcome to enter, no matter where in the world you are, but that's not all because if you'd like the chance to win a couple of Blackadder bookmarks as well, just click here.

    (Mr. C., who is in London today, popped in to Bonhams to view their forthcoming Scottish sale which happens to include some Blackadders; they are a wee bit pricier than the cards).   

Geek god

 

    Hurrah for Tom Pellereau (whose own site is here) delightful winner of The Apprentice, gentlemanly, geeky, genuinely nice!

Napery flummery

   

 

    All the talk of napkin rings in yesterday's post reminded me of the famous Lord Curzon story, which you can read in this article by Michael Gove, a piece which goes some way to redress the balance in favour of the kitchen-paper school!

    Proving that, in terms of the Curzon scale, poverty still exists here, we used to use wooden napkin rings until dear old Bess, when a puppy, chewed them (that familiar theme again), the fancy ones shown here go with the white linen when we have guests, but as the everyday harlequin napkins are colour-coded, i.e. I have the blackcurrant and the rose pink, Mr. C. has mint and grass green, and so on, there's no need for identifying rings.

Statistic of the day

   

 

     Only 15% of British households use napkins these days - according to a survey. Ours is part of that minority with smart white ones for special occasions and two sets of colourful French cotton ones for everyday (I've had them for years, they are in constant use, and still look as good as new - except for the two chewed by Pippin the bad - and yes, I do iron them!).