Cornflower

Cooking the books

    In terms of value for money - cost per recipe used - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Veg Every Day is worth every penny. I've lost count of the number of dishes from it which have become part of our regular repertoire, and we're still finding new ones to try. Last night's supper was a warm salad of green beans, new potatoes and olives, a simple, speedy collation of vegetables, very summery, very fresh, very tasty, and with enough left over for my lunch today.

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    If books on food history and baking are more to your taste, then look out for Great British Bakes: Forgotten treasures for modern bakers by Mary-Anne Boermans which is to be published in November. Many of us know Mary-Anne as one of the finalists in the 2011 series of The Great British Bake-Off, and in her new book she presents "tempting delights such as Gamrie Knotties, Marlborough Pudding and Almond Flory, and reveals the stories behind the bakes, such as the fruit-laden Wood Street Cake Lady Anne Murray purchased for the 14-year-old Duke of York (the future James II) after his escape from St James’s Palace in 1648, or the crisp gingerbread Parliament Cakes, named for the politicians and notable gentlemen of 18th-century Edinburgh who came to Mrs Flockhart’s tavern on the Potterow to partake of her fine fare".

17 pianos and a large stone ball

    I used to enjoy watching Through the Keyhole in the olden days when it was David Frost and Loyd Grossman, the latter giving a guided tour of some famous person's house while the panel back in the studio had to guess whose it was.

    Along the same lines, if I were to ask you who might live in the Rome apartment, part of which you see above, you might be stumped until I offered the picture below along with a clue: two people who have seventeen pianos between them.

    The answer is of course Katia and Marielle Labèque, and here is a short film of their striking and quite minimalist home designed by Axel Vervoordt. Amazingly, the sisters are now in their sixties but they look as youthful and glamorous as ever (I've seen them play here in Edinburgh a few times), and here they are with some Ravel.

The man who collected the world

   

    Watch if you can Kirsty Wark's programme on Sir William Burrell and his fabulous collection of art and antiquities: 9,000 objects spanning 4,000 years, a great passion pursued, money spent carefully, cannily, and with an eye for quality. It's quite a few years since I visited the collection and my favourite items then included the tapestries and other textiles, the medieval stained glass and stonework such as the magnificent portals; in addition to those, the programme covers many pieces including the Wagner Garden Carpet which are not usually on display - less than half of the total is on show.

Books and cakes - 60

    "There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort," Elliott added sententiously. The old Duchesse d'Uzès used to tell me that the most recalcitrant male becomes amenable to suggestion in these conditions. What will you give them for luncheon?"

    "Stuffed eggs and a chicken sandwich."

    "Nonsense. You can't have a picnic without pâté de foie gras. You must give them curried shrimps to start with, breast of chicken in aspic, with a heart-of-lettuce salad for which I'll make the dressing myself, and after the pâté if you like, as a concession to your American habits, an apple pie."

    For our sixtieth pairing of books and food, I've taken Elliott Templeton's advice and made an apple pie to go with W. Somerset Maugham's marvellous novel The Razor's Edge. I suspect that pudding was a favourite with Maugham himself as later in the book, he (for as you'll see here he is a character in his own right) takes Elliott's niece Isabel for lunch near Hampton Court, and their "homely English fare" includes a deep-dish apple pie with Devonshire cream, but I've gone for a more modern version, a puff pastry apple tart glazed with salted caramel (recipe here). I hope Maugham would have approved.

Friday flowers - pale and interesting

A bit of fun

 

    There's a 'books and gardens' meme over at Cornflower Books. Do have a go at it yourself.

Wet wood, old books and dried roses

    I'd have sworn that it was much more recently than five years ago that Narcissus poeticus or Pheasant's Eye Narcissus appeared on these pages, but apparently it is that long ago, and how time flies. I bought three bunches of these flowers for £2 each in the supermarket yesterday, which makes me wonder how much the grower makes - I'd be happy to pay more for their charm and that lovely scent.

    I didn't know until I looked it up just now that the essential oil from this narcissus is used in many perfumes including my own favourite Samsara (do you remember this rather fun post/comments?), and that led me to look for another 'review' of the fragrance to see how it would compare to the one I quoted in the perfumes post, the auditorium-filling "full, vast white floral chord". This very nice piece likens the scent to the "wet wood, old books and dried roses" of Mughal palaces, so perhaps that's why I like it.

    Incidentally, if as I do you love the idea that a fragrance can capture a place or an experience, go and read the descriptions of Christopher Brosius's perfumes at CB I Hate Perfume - e.g. To See a Flower, In the Library, Black March (inspired by a poem by Stevie Smith), Winter 1972,

Tulips in the rain, and a writer in the garden

    It is an exceptionally rainy day here today, perfect weather - in my book - for visiting a garden, which is what we did and where I snapped these tulips.

    My writer friend Sarah Salway is visiting lots of London gardens just now as part of the Chelsea Fringe, and she's documenting her visits in words and pictures over at Writer in the Garden - do pop over and follow her.

Friday flowers: Lily-of-the-valley

    "The tiny, almost bashful Lily-of-the-valley lives in shady woodland and is a miracle to come upon. Delicate, graceful and spare, like the bridesmaid to a virgin queen, its restrained display is worth crossing the country to see ... Its vanilla honey scent is by far the sweetest of any British native - a pure gift."

Sarah Raven's Wild Flowers

    Associated with the Virgin Mary, with Ostara the goddess of spring in Germanic mythology and with Maia the mother of Mercury, the flowers signify the return of happiness.

    Here is a version by Fabergé.

16,414,462

 

    An email today from Penguin Books highlighted Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life by Sir Ken Robinson, and it reminded me that I hadn't yet watched Sir Ken's celebrated TED talk, i.e. the most viewed talk in TED's history, the one which at last count had been seen 16,414,462 times. It's about education and intelligence and creativity, it's thought-provoking and very entertaining, and I'm glad I took twenty minutes to watch it (and his later appearances, too - here* and here).

    *"Life is not linear, it's organic. We create our lives symbiotically as we explore our talents in relation to the circumstances they help to create for us."

Spring is sprung

   
   

    The Scottish Poetry Library have made a series of posters, free to download and print. I've chosen a few seasonal ones, from top left:

Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins (which we had on May Day); Another Spring by Christina Rossetti; The Waking Earth, Rilke, translated by Don Paterson; Suddenly Spring by Alan Spence; Kiss Me by Edwin Morgan; Listen. Put on morning by W.S. Graham.

Jessie Marion King

Waist buckle designed by Jessie M. King for Liberty, 1906; silver and enamel.

    Just a quick pointer for anyone who, like Liz - see the comments on Thursday's post, hadn't come across the work of Jessie M. King before and would like to see more. There is a short video here and a couple of sites showing something of her range here and here, while this one gives more on her life.

    If you're interested in the wider subject, I can recommend Hand, Heart and Soul: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland by Elizabeth Cumming, though perhaps try the library first as it's out of print and copies are expensive.

Loving films

    A few months ago I took out a subscription to Lovefilm, and it's been money well spent as every week a film I've requested pops through the door, and we settle down to a pleasant evening's viewing.

    We've chosen a lot of old films so far, some we've seen before, others which are new to us, and most have been excellent entertainment. Among the classics we've had are Rebecca, Roman Holiday, Guess who's coming to dinner, North by Nothwest, with the only 'dud' so far being The Big Sleep which I couldn't follow at all and found utterly boring (I don't think I shall ever be a Bogart fan). There have been newer films too such as The King's Speech (marvellous), and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Ewan McGregor is very good as Fred, and although the plot differs from that of the book, Paul Torday told me he is happy with it), and the excellent Girl with a Pearl Earring.

    Last night's film was Hitchcock's Spellbound starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman, a piece which must have been advanced for its era in its employment of psychoanalysis to solve a crime and determine an amnesiac's true identity - it even features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali.

    Back to more recent times and television films, and with Lewis apparently now over for good (shame!) and Endeavour having reached the end of the current series, I've discovered we can continue our regular intake of Oxford crime as all the Inspector Morse episodes are available at Lovefilm and we can watch them again in order.

Liverleaf

    One last Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh flower for the week,



 and one last 'Glaswegian version': this is Anemone Hepatica by Mary Newbery Sturrock (daughter of Jessie Newbery, one of The Glasgow Girls - along with Jessie M. King, whose work we had yesterday - and friend of Charles Rennie Mackintosh whose fritillaries appeared on Wednesday).

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough

    Malus hupehensis at the RBGE.

    Apple blossom by Jessie M. King.