Cornflower

Remembrance of cakes past

    Looking back through our book group books led me to revisiting the cakes I made to go with them, remembering the fun of finding food references and choosing something with direct significance to the text, or 'interpreting' the book in some way by means of baked goods. There were a number of highlights from which I've chosen the following few:

    Passion Fruit Custard Cake for All Passion Spent

    Maple and Roast Macadamia Blondies (firmly part of our repertoire now) for Alias Grace

    Wensleydale and Fruit Cake for A Month in the Country

    Ritz Mock Apple Pie - amazingly! - for Breathing Lessons

    Pecan Puffs for Fifth Business

    Midsummer Cake for I Capture the Castle

    Mulberry Bakewell Tart for The Tortoise and the Hare

    Thyme and Lemon Cake for Bel Canto

 

The bowl comes from Fenella Smith.

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Refreshing

   

    I've been busy refreshing the 'Places to visit' list down there in the right hand sidebar. Many blogs I follow avidly weren't included before as it's been some time since it was updated, so you may find something new alongside the familiar.

    Likewise, if you have a favourite site which falls broadly within the arts/crafts/houses/gardens/food/lifestyle/etc. ambit, please let us know in a comment so that we can visit there too. Book blog recommendations can go over here.

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Recipe of the day

    This old favourite.

Observing

   

    Alice's observations struck a chord with me.

                              ~~~~~

    On another subject, I've made a few of my own here.

Snippets

    Better gardeners and flower arrangers than I am take part in the lovely In a Vase on Monday meme - see for instance Julie's posts, Cathy's, and Sam's - but inspired by them I thought I'd see what's what in my own small plot today and put together, if not a vase as such, then a tiny bunch to fill the old ink bottle which always sits on my desk.

    The hellebores are well on their way to opening, and there's Autumn cherry blossom which I couldn't reach as I nipped out wearing shoes (and the ground is very muddy); elsewhere the first of the bulbs are pushing through and there are fat leaf buds on a couple of shrubs, so things are moving, but cherry apart, flower-wise this was it: geranium 'Jolly Bee', erigeron, winter jasmine, and primrose, backed by some sprigs of rosemary and box which are still fresh despite having been in the Christmas wreath for almost three weeks. Not much, but a cheering sight nonetheless.

                                            ~~~~~

    There's a bookish snippet over here.

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On the slow train

    Unwittingly I must have boarded the slow train when I cast on these Railway Children-inspired socks  as they took me an age to make - nothing to do with Kay Jones' clear pattern or Skein Queen's beautiful blue wool, simply my own lack of steam. Glad to have drawn into the station at last!

    Three Chimneys Socks, inspired by the Waterbury family's Yorkshire home in E. Nesbit's novel.

    Skein Queen 'Crush' (merino/nylon) in Soft Cornflower.

    I couldn't mention a slow train without posting this much-loved, poignant Flanders & Swann song.

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