Monday 16 October 2017

Pilfering from the Duchess and Stew in the Rain

Dear Nigel,



It is a beautiful Autumn day and my friend Jules and I decide to go to Chatsworth to see a display of Sculptures dotted around the gardens. The golds and reds of the Autumn leaves as we approach the bridge over the river in front of the house are simply stunning, gilded in hue by a touch of sunshine which has bathed the whole landscape in a warm and restful repose. There is a huge horse chestnut tree by the river which is all skirt and no blouse; the leaves having completely fallen from the top half, yet full on the bottom, as if someone has imposed two photographs in a scrapbook, the half of one, the half of another.

In the gardens there is movement everywhere. The house, itself, is still partly covered in a veil of scaffolding, with workers all over the place. Further in the gardens there is a huge digger moving boulders to create a 'natural' garden. It reminds me of the Highland Garden at Biddulph Grange, nearby, which was created by one of the great Victorian Plant Hunters over a hundred years ago. But this one is being made today by young lads with beards and top knots and a large JCB.

We decide to walk through the coal tunnel which goes quite some distance under the grounds, built so that a previous Duke wouldn't have to see his workers. There is a sign designed, it seems, to put people off at present. It says that the tunnel is flooded, which is true, but it is only a couple of inches deep. It seems a good opportunity to put my waterproof leather boots to the test.

The tunnel is arced by small white lights all the way along. And, because it is flooded there is a still plate of deep reflection along the whole length of the tunnel, giving the appearance of walking through a series of hoops. It is cool and silent, not a popular place at present, and that makes it all the more magical.

As we come out of the tunnel we bump into the present Duke and Duchess coming the opposite way. The Duchess in a vivid green skirt and wellies. She says Hello and glances down to see what I am holding in my hands. As it happens I am caught red-handed, pilfering from the Duke's Estate. I am holding a large bundle of coloured leaves and the prickly casings of sweet chestnuts, cracking open to reveal the smooth-skinned nuts inside. I am taken by the two-tone colours of lime green and bronze of the prickly casings which have been lying discarded on the ground beneath the imposing boughs of the Chestnut tree. Like a bag of Chocolate and Lime sweets from the Old-fashioned Sweet shop in Tissington. Or the fine writing, I remember once, on an exquisite Patisserie Box from Laduree. The prickles dig deep into my palms and I bite my lip. The Duchess says nothing. They go to see the progress the men with diggers have been making. As we sit on a bench later, admiring the view, I consider the irony of a situation in which the coal tunnel, built by one Duke to avoid having to see ordinary workers is, perhaps, being used by another Duke to avoid the plethora of ordinary tourists.

It starts to rain, quite heavily now. And, although there is brilliant sunshine illuminating the landscape, we are sitting in the dry on a bench under a large tree watching a townscape of people with black umbrellas going hurriedly from left to right and right to left along the paths in all directions. I expect to see bowler hats appearing any minute now. It is quite surreal. I am presuming the umbrellas have been handed out by staff in the grounds. But we are dry, in our own little summerhouse beneath the tree, and supping on mugs of Sweet Potato and Black Bean Stew. And a 'creative' Salad (if I say so myself) made of all the left overs in the fridge and on the Dresser - pomegranates and goats cheese, avocado and toasted pumpkin seeds. Sometimes, recipes simply make themselves).

It has been a lovely day and we have caught the best of the Autumn colour, before the winds come to whip the leaves away and pile them into heaps for small children to run through, kicking high into the air and shrieking as they go. What is it with this slick of red leaves, brushed across the grass; thin laces of lacerating wind that whips and taunts? What is it with the dazzle that quickens the blood, makes children shriek; that busies the gardener, the squirrel, the returning Robin? Autumn in all her finery paints magic across the landscape wherever you turn. Fleeting, temporary, like Sotheby's visiting statues of sword hilts seemingly dug into the fine lawns of Chatsworth. Tomorrow there will be change. But just for today there is something to savour. Just as it is in the kitchen: Today's meal is tomorrow's memory.

Love Martha

Saturday 23 September 2017

On the Trail of The Homity Pie

Dear Nigel,





I am on the Trail of The Homity Pie. This is a simple pastry case filled with potatoes, leek, onion, cheese and herbs which originated with the Land Girls during the second world war.

I come across it first whilst writing a chapter for a book on days out in the Peak District. I am sitting in a cafe in a bookshop in the small village of Cromford eating Homity Pie and writing about it. From there I decide that it would be nice to work at said bookshop, Scarthin Books, and serve this Homity Pie.

And so I start to work in the cafe, serving and cooking. But not The Homity Pie. This, it seems, comes in from outside - from the cold, as it were; like a spy melding into the background seamlessly. And so I am off again, hunting down the origin of The Homity Pie. I trace it back to its source - 'Peak Feast', in the nearby village of Youlgreave.

So, here I am; working in this small craft bakery in the pretty little village of Youlgreave, making cakes and vegetarian ready-meals for nearby cafes and delis. And making The Homity Pie.

Some days I am 'onioned out' with crying. And I am working on the principle that such quantities of onions must surely result in a cast iron immune system over the coming season of colds and sniffles. I hope so.

It is nice to be involved in the therapeutic process of cooking and baking. There is a rhythm to it and it is a pleasant place to work and the people are friendly. There are tables outside and passing walkers come in for a coffee and a slice. Some don't seem quite to understand that this is not a cafe but a working bakery and I am doing several jobs at once. They may like to chat and linger as they choose their cakes to takeaway, but I may be half-way through a batch of six large Gooseberry and Elderflower cakes which cannot wait, and need to get into the oven.

Autumn has arrived without a doubt, and I have put away all sign of Summer. As I pass down the valley towards Hartington on my way to work I see the leaves are already turning to red and gold. There is a natural frost pocket at the base of the hill and over in the field a large horse chestnut tree which is always the first to change colour. It has become for me a kind of marker of the season.

The Blackberries are picked and in the freezer now awaiting the day I make the Apple and Blackberry crumbles. I pick them early before the birds get them all, and before they become watery and tasteless. I like to have a reminder of the Autumn over the Christmas season, just as I like to have a reminder of Summer with a Summer Pudding filled with redcurrants and raspberries from the garden.

School is back with sharpened pencils and new books. And this term there has been a complete change of uniform for the whole school. There are blazers and shirts and clip-on ties to replace the sweatshirts and polo shirts of last year. I am up for hours with needle and thread sewing in name tags.

Sophie and Molly look very smart, though, as I walk them to the end of the lane to catch the bus. We catch sight of the work of a busy spider amongst the brambles, its webs dew-laden and sparkling in the early morning sunlight. There is a low-lying mist and the cows on the other bank of the stream are ghostly beings from the underworld looking menacingly at us from out of their shroud.

The bakery I work in is a vegetarian bakery and the dishes I have been making for home have mainly been vegetarian too of late. I see this trait being described as flexitarianism. I just seem to eat a lot less meat. Perhaps it is the bakery. Perhaps it is the yoga practise which has become a part of my life. I don't know. It's not intentional; I just notice it and ponder on what is guiding the choices inside me. But I'm with Gandhi on this one, who very pointedly said that if he was at the house of someone who had made a dinner of meat then he would eat it. As was the case when visiting my mum a few weeks ago. Why should I make it hard for her to do what she has always done and whose concept of vegetarian cooking is vegetables missing the important meat bit. She doesn't need to learn new tricks and as I am not ethically stuck in this matter, I don't need to make a fuss.

My favourite dish at the moment is a recipe for a casserole of 'Spiced Sweet Potato, Spinach and black beans'. I make large quantities and freeze it in individual ready-meals, because when I come in on the days I work, from cooking all day, I can barely summon the energy to lift a can opener. And I can see foodie principles going out of the window faster than a badly behaved Tabby cat who doesn't want to get caught.

I heave a large pan onto the stove and chop sweet potatoes and red pepper into small chunks. The vegetables cook in the liquid from the tins of tomatoes, along with a mixture of warm spices and miso paste. The black beans and spinach are added at the end of the cooking process. It is a wonderfully warming dish that brings life back into the body after having been on your feet all day. It is the sort of dish to come home to after a damp walk in the park, or having been caught in the rain and arriving miserably home with soaking wet trousers and the heating not yet on.

We are working our way through the wood pile at a rate of knots and it will soon be time to get Stuart to deliver another load of logs. Last year we read a book on Scandinavian woodpiles - a work of Art - and it was fascinating. I have no such pretensions for my own woodshed, but I do find find it very satisfying to lay the wood up in layers and to look out upon our stored bounty. I am like a squirrel laying in provisions for the cruel winter months ahead.

And should the power fail us, perhaps under a heavy load of snow, then we will not be caught out. There is nothing finer than walking through the village on a silent snow-bound day and seeing straight plumes of wood smoke coming from almost every cottage in the village. It is like the scene from an old tea-stained oil painting, caught as a bad 1970s place mat in a charity shop - Olde England as it never was, and yet somehow is, at times.

To Autumn, then, and to looking forward to sitting in front of the fire with a copy of your new book, 'The Christmas Chronicles', which you are kindly sending me. Thank you, Nigel.

Love Martha x



Spiced Sweet Potato, Spinach and Black Beans.

600g Sweet Potatoes
1 Red Pepper
2x400g cans of chopped tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp coriander
2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tblsp miso paste
salt and pepper
400g tin of Black Beans, drained and rinsed
200g Spinach

Method:
Peel and chop the sweet potatoes into small 2cm pieces
Chop the red pepper into similar sized pieces
Place them both in a large pan with the chopped tomatoes and 600ml boiling water.
Bring to the boil.
Add garlic, chilli, cumin, coriander, miso paste, salt and black pepper.
Simmer for an hour (stirring every 5 minutes or so).
Add the black beans and spinach.
Serve with rice, or quinoa (which is higher in protein).








Tuesday 27 June 2017

Gooseberries for a Fool

Dear Nigel,




Summer has taken a sideways slant and the dull cool days send me back in to the kitchen to cook. I have been making soup in a vegetarian cafe in a quirky little bookshop in Cromford. It is a lovely place to work and has a great feel about it. Everyone who works in the kitchen seems to be a writer. The other staff all pop in for their lunch and to discuss the book group, or the Bob Dylan Society, or the Philosophy group. It's an interesting place to be.

Back home I'm working on more vegetarian recipes. We eat less meat these days - flexitarian, I'm told, by my new friends from Friends of the Earth. Partly, it is an initiative to do my bit to help the planet: Friends of the Earth tell me that livestock production causes almost 15% of all climate changing gases. Every meal in which you substitute vegetables for meat counts. It's not an either/or approach - just as every plastic bottle recycled instead of binned makes a difference. The world is made of small things and small deeds, but collectively we are strong and we are many. And partly, too, it is because vegetarian food is healthier and I generally feel better for it. But I am interested in taste, primarily, and new flavours, and am not interested in meat substitutes - I would rather eat meat.

Today I am making a salad of 'Bean, Fennel and Feta'. There are toasted pine nuts to add crunch and more protein and a zingy fresh dressing made of lemon juice, Dijon mustard and olive oil. I am doing what we do in the cafe and keeping the salads in plastic boxes in the fridge - so much nicer to be able to have three different types on one plate, along with salad leaves, tomatoes and pepper slices. The salad keeps well for a few days.


Bean, Fennel and Feta Salad.

200g french beans
1 head of fennel
1 bunch of flat-leaved parsley
100g feta cheese
100g toasted pine nuts

dressing:
11/2tsp Dijon mustard
50ml lemon juice
100ml olive oil
salt and pepper

method:
1. Boil a large pan of water. Add the beans (topped and tailed first) and blanch for 4 mins.
2. Set aside to cool.
3.Finely shred the fennel using a mandolin, or sharp knife.
4.Whisk the dressing ingredients together.
5. Put the beans, fennel, chopped parsley, crumbled feta cheese and toasted pine nuts in a bowl.
6. Toss with the dressing and season well.

The Gooseberries are swollen and plentiful on their prickly stems outside. I pick and pick (studding my thumbs with pricks of blood) and still there is more to come. They freeze well, top and tailed, and will be there at a later date to make coulis for a Fool and one of the best ice creams I have ever made - Gooseberry ice cream, perhaps with a little elderflower cordial to beat off the tartness. It is nice to be able to take Summer into the Autumn and serve with friends.

Food is how we show the people we love that we love them. Every mug of rich soup to take to work, every vegetable curry waiting on the stove is a labour of love, when a pizza from the freezer would be so easy, it seems. But if we can invest just a little of ourselves in showing we care, then somehow, somewhere, the world is a better place for our being there.

The other week, it seems, we were away in Scarborough, looking out over the huge sweep of the bay. Gingerly, we climb out of our roof-top window and perch on our balcony-which-is-not-a-balcony, to feel the wind on our faces and hear the steady rhythmic lap, lap, lap of the waves below. Red Valerian, my favourite flower (which clings on to life in all the most unlikely places) is flowering on either side of the railings. And a hummingbird hawk-moth - the like of which I have never seen before - hovers nearby, slipping its long proboscis in to feed and gorge on nectar from the tiny deep pink flower heads . It hovers only inches away from our faces, paying us no attention at all as it busies itself in its work, its wings, like an electric toothbrush, a haze of blur surrounding it.

Little speed boats come in, go out, round and back again. The funfair stands lit up over by the lighthouse, and strings of pearly lights loop along the coast road. Children write their names in the sand below, and a comic seagull walks past imitating that nodding walk of Basil Fawlty, daring us to laugh at him. Not funny, he says. Not funny. The sun has been hot and has burnt the top of my shoulders. The fish and chips we bought in the bay lies heavily in our stomachs as we dust the sand from our feet and smell the raw night air, fresh with the tang of salt, which will lull us to sleep with the steady lap, lap, lap upon the shore.

It all seems such a long time ago now. The wind has changed, sending flower petals, stringless balloons and dust towards an uncertain future. Politics jangles. Towers burn and tempers flare and nothing feels solid anymore. I reach out to touch and my hand closes on nothing. I head to the kitchen to make Hummus, to eat with pitta breads, warm from the oven. There is comfort to be had in the solidity of warm food.


Hummus


1x400g tin of chickpeas
2 garlic cloves (crushed)
2 lemons (juiced)
2tblsp tahini
salt and pepper
olive oil to dress
pinch of hot paprika

method:
1. Place the chickpeas and the liquid from the can, garlic, lemon juice, tahini, salt and black pepper in a blender or food processor. Blitz until smooth.
2. Pour into a  bowl and drizzle with olive oil and then sprinkle over some hot paprika.
(Keeps well in the fridge for a few days with clingfilm over it).


Molly moo's Birthday falls on the weekend of a small music festival near here at Stainsby in Derbyshire. Older than Glastonbury festival, itself, Stainsby is run on a shoe-string by volunteers and is TRULY not-for-profit. It has a lovely, caring, family feel to it, which we so loved last year. And so I thought that this year it would make a lovely Birthday for my baby girl, just turning ten years old this Summer. We will have bunting around the door of the tent and a cake with candles kept in a coolbox until the time. She will no doubt have flowers in her hair and face paints on her cheeks and be running around in the willow circle with her hair streaming out, chasing the other children in their games. This is Summer. And before the Summer's out it will return once more, bringing smiles to the children's faces. Snowy Bear will come and Rudolph, tucked inside sleeping bags to ward off the night. And the music will play until the last star has left the sky, chased away by the morning crow, and it is time to bed down and drift away on a cloud of possibilities and new beginnings.

Love Martha x






Tuesday 6 June 2017

Slipping into Summer

Dear Nigel,


 


One minute, it seems, you are turning up the heating again and wearing socks in bed, and the next it's too impossibly hot to sit and read and you are falling, like a bear with a sore head, towards the nearest piece of shade, trying not to grumble about the heat.

Summer comes, slipping into your hand like a child, catching you unaware as you dress too warmly, and causing a sudden emergency situation in the greenhouse. Suddenly, everything is growing everywhere - grass, weeds, seedlings - and everything demands your attention at the same time. Plants are like a class of five year olds each holding up their hand; each bursting to tell you all about themselves. Chelsea may be five days of tall poppies but the true show stoppers are hiding under a bushel, lurking beside the weeds, and a little attention is needed if they are to shine.

I go to pick flowers for the house and find that deep pink peonies are flowering beneath a heap of greenery, almost hidden to the eye. In the house they bloom and pout like the hussies they are, soon dropping their petals piecemeal across the windowsill and chest of drawers. But I like this trail of fallen petals, random and scattered, like discarded silken underwear in a Jilly Cooper novel. It belongs with the relaxing of standards that the warm weather brings. When is there a better time to kick off your shoes and walk barefoot across the grass before breakfast to see the world is at its best? The heavy sweet scent which I cannot at first trace turns out to be Hawthorne blossom, packed into every hedgerow. May is at its best in May and is nature's decadence. The bees seem happy and relaxed in their busyness.

A barn owl hovers in an almost ungainly manner over a field of willow. Its wings are far larger than I expect them to be and I am a little unsure at first that this is him back again. But nature likes her hidden space and is far better seen from a high window at this early hour. A hare plays in the lane making circles over the grass and weaving back and forward to his own pattern, unaware of the scent of human beings that would send him scurrying back into the undergrowth. Another morning we spy a young deer standing oh so close, grazing unaware. She does not know she is being watched and moves peacefully on with the grace of entitlement surrounding her. The day has not yet begun for us and yet nature has tumbled out of bed and done a full day's work before we are even up. The birds have sung their hearts out. And it is wonderful to be able to lie in bed and listen to the cacophony of voices in the trees outside. It is early morning in a busy fruit market and all the birds are setting out their stalls. We listen to the call and answer as they chatter away amongst themselves, calling to their mates, seeing off unwanted guests.

I am experimenting in the kitchen with savoury tarts. Some I want to freeze as a batch to save time and energy at a later date. These are some of the loveliest things to pack in foil and take on a picnic. Ideal hot or cold, depending on the weather and your inclination, they are always welcome and substantial. Today I am making 'Butternut squash, red onion and parmesan' and another version with 'aubergine, red pepper and tomato'. They are old favourites. I am also knocking out an Aubergine and sweet potato lasagne for supper. I am submerging myself in the bright colours of Mediterranean vegetables and the scent of basil and the grassy smell of a heap of freshly chopped parsley. The chopping process is steady and meditative and leaves me the time to consider the new day outside. The gooseberries are starting to swell and turn pink and the second flush of rhubarb is fairly screaming for attention. I don't want it to start flowering so I must get in there quick.

Just down the road there is a round building, a kind of church, where on a weekend grown men go to escape their women-folk, dress up in unconventional dress and worship the god of heavy metal. This is Britain's last surviving working Roundhouse Engine shed where steam trains are sent from all over the country for maintenance. Today it has become even more a little boys' playground as they are hosting a huge beer festival: Beer, Steam engines and music - every little boy over the age of about thirty five is sure to be here.

We turn up early in the afternoon and it is clear that this is a 'serious' beer festival. There is an engine turning round and round on a turntable in the centre, like a pole dancer in a seedy club, and four long bars have been set up in front of other giant steam engines with rows and rows of barrels behind them, each with a scrappy name attached, mostly from local breweries. It is still only three o'clock in the afternoon and yet serious work is being done here. The regulars know that all the best beers will run out long before the evening shadows encroach upon the sooty cobbled floor. We sit in a guard's van watching a Deltic diesel engine going up and down on another line, pulling coaches full of great beaming faces and waving hands. The serious drinkers remain guarding their glasses and hovering around in the Roundhouse. There are bands and people dancing but for the seriously committed this is secondary to the beer.

We surmise that this one event probably keeps the charity going for the rest of the year. And it is hugely popular, it seems. Old Leyland buses, - not pretty vintage ones but old throw backs from the seventies - bus people in from Chesterfield and elsewhere further afield. We have walked along footpaths and hedged lanes to get here and plan to make a day of it like everyone else it seems.

The Cider bar is packed with dodgy ciders, I think. I am quickly aware that the quality control in this domain is not a patch on that demanded by the rising tide of new brewers on the beer counters. I am careful to try each cider before purchasing, and many are almost undrinkable. Quite why this should be I am not sure. David is making serious inroads in sampling most of the beers it seems to me. The afternoon is starting to mellow into a haze of mellow stupor and I am vaguely aware that there are no remaining seats and that it will be several hours more of this before the beer runs dry and we will be allowed to leave. It is perhaps only seven o'clock and already I am floating around in a dream. The serious drinkers just stand and look on as the music plays and the dancing revs up.

Summer has returned, it seems.

Love Martha x


Aubergine, tomato and red pepper tart.

200g plain flour
100g unsalted butter
1 egg
1tsp salt
1tblsp water

160g aubergines
2 red peppers
1 large red onion
50ml olive oil (and extra to drizzle)
1 tsp salt
1/2tsp ground black pepper
100g cherry tomatoes
1 tblsp. leaf parsley (chopped)
60g + 200g cheddar cheese (grated)
150g full fat Greek yoghurt

Method:
Blitz all the pastry ingredients in a food processor.
Grease a 23cm diam deep quiche tin.
Roll out the pastry and line the tin.
Chill for 20 mins.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade
Chop the aubergines, red peppers and red onion. Roast on a tray drizzled with oil and salt and pepper; covered with aluminium foil. Bake for 20 mins until just soft.
Leave to cool. Drain any juice.
Stir in the Parsley and 60g cheese.
In a separate bowl, mix the yoghurt and 200g cheese. Line the pastry with this.
Scatter over the roast vegetables. Bake for 30 mins at 170 degrees centigrade.

Tuesday 28 March 2017

Life in the Greenhouse and FREE glass

Dear Nigel,



There's something about the word 'FREE'...really free that is just lovely. Not 'free', but we're going to charge you a massive delivery charge, or 'free' but please make a donation you think is appropriate, but 'free' as in - we made the effort to store this glass, we made the effort to put up the sign, and we want NOTHING off you in return. How refreshing. How lovely. And doesn't it make you want to pass that feeling on somehow? I've never tried free-cycle myself but I'm guessing that the feeling is the same.

So, we are out visiting someone else's garden, looking at the early Magnolias and Rhododendrons. David takes one back for the hall. We've filled up looking at the treetops alive with giant mopheads and are winding our way back home. There it is again, that sign: FREE glass - a whole large greenhouse dismantled. The farmer seems more than pleased that good honest stuff won't end up needlessly in a skip. The greenhouse at the farm can also be mended, and the large glasshouses at the
hall will always be in need of more glass.

It is the new economy. We live in an era where we are sucked into being consumers, often whether we want it or not. To be content with less, to spend less, to desire less, is not allowed. There is a whole army of media out there convincing us we are wrong, making us feel inadequate, failing. Yet when we do, often as not we are dissatisfied the minute our consumption high has worn off. We are addicts looking for our next fix, comparing ourselves to others, letting others erode our sense of self.
We need to reclaim our individuality, our right to be different, to be unique. Our truth is as valid as any other. Often more so, being honest.

So back to the Greenhouse, where the tiny seeds we sowed only a fortnight ago are pushing up against their glass covers, thrusting towards the sun. They are reliable vegetables like leeks and chard and courgettes. The friable soil here is easy to weed and we are lifting out the last of last year's crops, adding it to the day's dinner, and preparing the ground for this year's offering. There is an honest therapeutic effect in this. And Free sunshine - as long as we look after it with care and treat it with respect.

And I am learning more and more each day about the change in climate. Once, it was just a small voice at the back of my mind reminding me to recycle plastic bottles and cardboard. The deeper I look, the more concerned I become. And what concerns me most of all is the way that mild-mannered scientists who dare to flag up their research findings, are being vilified and threatened in their own homes. It is like the worst days of McCarthyism. I google this to find Wikapedia has a definition for McCarthyism which is 'the practise of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence.'

This is what I believe is being perpetrated by climate-change deniers. We like to think we live in a society that regards free speech as important. We may not agree with it or like it, but we allow it. Our default setting is for honesty. We tend to believe things automatically. And any 'expert' claiming to be a scientist is treated with gravitas and respect initially. Even if he is simply an actor and his research credentials are nil. And this is what the other side - the climate deniers - are putting up against legitimate, independent research. We are being manipulated in ways we barely comprehend and our emotions tugged. We recently watched a wonderful, thought-provoking documentary called 'Merchants of Doubt' (available on You Tube) which was simply eye opening. I like to think that I will be perhaps a little more sceptical next time, but the mind is so easily fooled.

Back in the kitchen I have found an up-to-date recipe for the perfect Cauliflower Cheese. It is one of those old stalwarts that perhaps you used to make, and then it lost favour, and now you no longer make it. Until now. This is midweek vegetarian meals for a new generation. It is tasty and quick and doesn't deserve it's tarnished image. Try it. I will be making this one again. The combination of Gruyere cheese and creme fraiche and mustard makes a lovely topping to the roast cauliflower. Thoughts of slimy cheese sauce couldn't be further from your mind. It takes a bit of 'reinventing the wheel' mentality to replace one image with another in your own mind; but I promise you, if you try this you won't be disappointed.

Having a fluid and flexible mind is a fine thing, and one which is devilishly difficult to obtain. The more adamant we are that we are questioning, thinking individuals, the more entrenched we have often seamlessly become as we age, and no longer realise it. Children are the most flexible in their thinking. Often, when dealing with an obstinate toddler this can seem not to be the case, but they are capable of leaps of understanding and thinking, mental gymnastics, whilst we who are so bogged down in our own doubts and prejudices are often incapable of making that leap of faith that leads eventually to a higher understanding. Obviously, I am talking here about a simple vision of Cauliflower Cheese, but it applies equally to our understanding about climate change, or many a new progressive issue.

love Martha x


Cauliflower Cheese

Ingredients:
1 large cauliflower
2tblsp olive oil
4tsp maple syrup
salt and pepper
350g creme fraiche
50g Gruyere cheese
2tsp Dijon mustard
1tblsp Parmesan (grated)
1tblsp chopped chives (fresh)

Method:
1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade.
2. Cut the cauliflower into florets. Place in a large bowl and toss with the the oil and maple syrup.
3. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Place in a roasting tin and roast for 30 mins. until tender.
5. Put the creme fraiche, mustard and grated gruyere cheese in a bowl and combine.
6. Tip in the roasted cauliflower and mix until coated.
7. Place in a fresh roasting tin and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
8. Cook in the oven for 15-20 mins. until golden.
9. Sprinkle with chives and serve.




Friday 10 March 2017

Plastic lambs, Crocuses and ...More Green Soup

Dear Nigel,



I knew that Spring had finally sprung when I saw my first lamb this week, standing in the middle of a grassy field in its pristine white coat looking like a plastic Britain's model circa 1968. It seemed completely out of place to me as I drove past avoiding the deep mud-filled potholes and churned up verges everywhere. There has been so much rainfall here lately. Down by the Manifold Inn there are several large duck-sized pools where people like to camp in the Summer months near the bridge over the river, iconic country Inn on one side, village shop on the other. The car looks like a paint balling accident only hours after being washed. I walk about only in my wellies at the moment; the mud is knee deep in places.

David sends me photos of the swathes of crocuses out at Renishaw Hall, where he is Head Gardener. Here, there is only a bank of snowdrops on the other side of the stream from my kitchen window and the sturdy reliable thrust of new rhubarb breaking through the earth with all the vigour of a well-defined bicep. I make a mental note to seek out last year's bags in the freezer to use up before I am inundated with copious amounts. Would that we eat a lot of rhubarb and ginger jam, or trout with rhubarb, or something, but we don't. Crumble is the preferred option, and that is for Sundays only. We've weaned ourselves off puddings on waistline grounds - mine not his, unfortunately. How lovely it would be to have the sort of constitution that required you to eat more of the things you love. The very slim people amongst my family and friends all have that rather annoying habit of either being rather in love with their emaciated shapes or claiming to only like savoury stuff. Unfair; most unfair.

I take a friend out for lunch for her Birthday. We go to a quirky secondhand bookshop with its own vegetarian cafe on the top floor. Scarthin Books in Cromford is my kind of place. There are new books and old, an artist in residence and the dish of the day is homity pie - and very good it is too. There is a community of people who meet for philosophical discussions, babies being changed somewhere out the back and the sort of displays angled to entice, so that you are led to books that might interest you, rather than have to go and search for one by someone whose name momentarily escapes you. I've come here with friends, with children, with my partner; and sometimes I've brought myself here alone and lodged myself somewhere behind a curved door full of books that becomes invisible once shut. Once, libraries used to have that feel to them. I remember ours (in the little village of St. Bees in the Lake District, where I grew up) was a single room below the pub, with warm, fogged up windows and a small librarian and small shelves. It felt cosy. These days I want a library or bookshop to sell coffee. I want a comfortable seat and time to while away. I am a demanding punter, I know, but I've tasted the good life in book places and seen that it can be done.

Scarthin books, then, sits on one side of a picturesque mill pond. Two swans nearby were busy making a fuss about their precocious youngster, who probably started learning the piano at three, and eating olives and pasta with black truffle shavings (- whilst proclaiming their virtues extremely loudly -), whilst the couple on the next table struggled to get their offspring to choose between fish fingers and chicken nuggets. (Or is that just me?) With pictures flashing through my head of swans and broken arms, we left them to their precious little darling and headed over to Cromford Studio and Gallery - a lovely, vibrant art gallery housed in an old bakehouse, where Martin Sloman works and teaches and loves a good chat; especially on a lovely sunny morning like today.

I am starting to compile 'stuff from the Peak District' for a chapter for a book which I've been invited to submit to a local publisher. This is up my street too: Things I know about the Peak District - I have a hive of useless but potentially useful stuff (to some people - walkers and visitors and the like) from years of getting to know the area like the back of my hand. Like a ball of wool I cross and recross its boundaries in all directions, adding to the ball like Ariadne's thread. My friend is constantly amazed that our journeys out usually involve me commenting on this gate and that path, the pub in this village, the post office in that, the view from over that hill, the renovation of that barn. And I am constantly amazed that I have so many friends who live so close yet rarely venture out even a couple of miles to some of the best walks in the country. Do we all have such treasures on our doorstop we never stop to gaze upon, whilst focussing all our efforts and energy in planning the next holiday to somewhere far away where there is something amazing we 'simply must see'? My older daughter, Hannah, is a case in point. Before she toddled off to China for a year, she would come here from out of the city, moan about how boring the countryside is and then swan off to America to take in 'this AMAZING scenery.' - Hills and trees; we've got them here too, you know?

I am sending you a bowl of Green Soup - more green soup, actually. This one is 'Lettuce and Spring onion'. It needs some pepping up (- more lemon juice, I discover). I seem to be wading through tides of green soup, in a new year's austerity programme of both body and pocket; and a succession of vegetarian curries, on the look out for those one or two which will become the regular curry-to-go-to for a midweek meal when I just to cook without thinking, and eat. But first I have to do the thinking - which one - and plant it firmly in the memory of my hands, the automatic shopping list and the taste buds of all concerned, so that it fits easily into family life.

Hoping Spring is coming to where you are too,

Love Martha x

Wednesday 15 February 2017

February Blues and Red Raw Knuckles

Dear Nigel,




Everyone's least favourite month, February is blowing true to form, rolling out huge clouds of fog like polyester wadding bursting from a badly-made soft toy. It lines the base of the valleys, seeping into your very bones as you make your way up the damp hillsides. It chaps knuckles raw and seers pain against the delicate whites of your eyes as you struggle to focus on a 'view'.

'Here comes the Sun', I mutter, reminding myself of the old Beatles song and the much-drooled-over 'Holiday' programmes on the tele, when all my childhood holidays were spent in windy Whitley Bay on the east coast, pressing for sugar cones from my Dad from 'The Rendezvous Cafe' on the promenade; carrying a sticky, sandy bucket and spade made of rainbow-swirled rubber (not like the plastic ones that came later). I wore an aqua and chocolate striped towelling bathing costume that soaked up water like a sponge and sagged glaringly as I pretended not to notice, dripping a trail that could be wee behind me. I flicked my too short boys' haircut and ran away from my embarrassment across the hard ridges of sand, which jarred my feet with every footfall ; telling myself that only sissies cry. I always was more of a tomboy in those days. I remember my life in cine film; soundless, with the accompanying whirring/flapping noise that only those who remember cine film will know instantly.

I am perfecting another soup at home for the soup empire I aspire to make. Today we will be eating a sweet potato and orange soup. The thought spurs me on though the damp tears at my lungs and makes me wheeze as I walk. I am collecting all my best soup recipes together. My notes against them are so numerous now that I am quite severe in my criticism of even my own cooking. Last week's Roasted butternut squash soup, which took ages to make, was bland and boring, and I ended up pepping it up with some smoked paprika. It has been consigned to the back end of history together with the others that fell along the way. I am copying out the recipes from here, there and everywhere in a cookery journal dedicated only to soups. It appeals to my sense of order. I have another entitled 'suppers', and another for 'sweet things and puddings': It is not very scientific, but it seems to work for me.

My bookcases of cookery books have now reached the echelons of the far landing and I am in danger of losing Lindsey Bareham and Claudia Roden to the back bedroom. You are safe, though, on the main rungs of the kitchen bookcase, which takes the place of what probably ought to be useful cupboards in this pint-sized kitchen of mine. But we all have our priorities and books and a place to read them in is more important to me than where to store the food processor (which only comes out to make pastry, I've noticed). Even my new toy, a cordless hand blender, a Christmas present from my parents (to replace the much-loved old Braun one which lasted 30 years and was died orange with the sheer quantity of pureed carrot needed to feed seven hungry babies), has had to find a place in the other room under the DVD player in some pointless niche which I have yet to excavate. This one comes with a surgeon's battery of tools and lights up and speeds up to whisk and froth and chop nuts.

Right now, I just need it to blend soups without causing a huge fuss and demanding privileges it is not yet entitled to, like a place on the limited worktop where I like to put flowers because they cheer me up; and I can always chop underneath them and hoick them up to use the microwave, whose only use appears to be in softening butter these days. I hate to make my kitchen staff redundant, but it's a very large space for an employee who only softens butter, and occasionally reheats my cold coffee when I'm feeling especially lazy. I could consign it to the top of the fridge in the porch, except that the girls would probably require a small stepladder to make their hot chocolate, and that would have to live somewhere, I suppose. I never did like the idea of a 'work triangle'. It seemed to imply to me the idea that I would choose to walk back and forth in the same lines, wearing black rubber marks into the crinkles of the kitchen tiles, like some demented weather person in one of those little wooden alpine chalets  that predict the sun and rain.

Supper tonight is 'Aubergine Fesenjan'. David and I are working at being part-time vegetarians. We keep resorting to meat, usually when we are eating out, and the Sunday Roast (which seems an almost impossible mountain to get around - and one which I'm not sure we want to venture: What would we do with all those trees of brussel sprouts which he keeps inflicting on me? I have one, to show support and to try and educate my uncompromising taste buds). The resulting dish is basically slices of roast aubergine in a lovely sauce and handful of pomegranate seeds on top. We love it. It tastes good and it's Persian background takes my cooking in a different direction. Then I sit down and read in Jane Baxter and Henry Dimbleby's 'Leon - fast vegetarian' that 'people often go one of two ways with vegetables. They either try to make them more approachable - more meat-like -...or they turn to the exotic, relying on specialist ingredients and fistful of pomegranate seeds.' I feel my hand slapped for daring to leave the leeks and kale in the ground today and wishing to be transported to a warmer, sunnier place. I like the tiny jewel-like pomegranate seeds that I have only recently learnt to liberate with ease (turn half a pomegranate over a large bowl and simply bang hard on the back with a wooden spoon). It saves the 'rivers of blood' look that used to be an afternoon feature in my kitchen on these occasions.

Sometimes, when the glumness outside chases you all the way back home to toast your toes by a warm fire and sit in over-large jumpers and ridiculous large 'home-knit' donegal socks drinking some 'winter tonic', you are looking for transportation of the senses. At least until the sun does deign to shine on us once more.

Love Martha x


Aubergine Fesenjan

120g walnuts
4 medium sized aubergines
rapeseed oil
1 pomegranate (seeded)
250ml vegetable stock
2tblsp pomegranate molasses
1tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp chilli powder
11/2tblsp honey
3 cloves of garlic
2 large red onions
Fresh coriander

Method:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Cut the aubergines into slices, toss with the oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast on the baking tray for 25 mins until soft.
In a frying pan put 3tblsp. of oil, heat and add the the sliced red onions. Fry for about 15 mins, stirring regularly. Add the crushed garlic and fry for another couple of minutes.
Add the honey, chilli powder, cinnamon, salt and pepper, walnuts (blitzed) and the pomegranate molasses. Stir well . Add the vegetable stock and cook for around 10 minutes until it 'comes together' nicely.
When the aubergines are cooked, pour the sauce into a serving dish, put the aubergines on top and scatter with the pomegranate seeds and fresh coriander. Serve with rice.

(Your dish will come out looking much better than mine - I used a brown-looking vegetable stock I'd made and the result makes it look a bit sludgy. However, it still tasted wonderful, and that's the main thing.
The pomegranate molasses, which I'd never heard of before, I found in Waitrose. Hopefully, your supermarket will sell it too.)

Wednesday 18 January 2017

To go on with courage and hope

Dear Nigel,




There has been a blip in our communication of late, I know. Christmas took the lion's share, with all its associated comings and goings, lots of people to feed and bedding to wash. But added to that a tragedy - for me, anyway. My dear Dad died the week before. I felt as if the whole thing were somehow on hold until after Christmas. I couldn't even let myself think about him.

Writing the eulogy which I read at his funeral and organising a film show of family snaps from over the years brought it all firmly back home again. David was amazing and stopped me falling apart. I wasn't sure whether I would be strong-enough to read at my own father's funeral, but I did. I miss my Dad so much and yet there is a feeling of acceptance there too. My dear wonderful Dad died because he simply didn't want to be here anymore. He gave up the struggle - as many do - and simply faded away. It's easy to cast around to lay the blame but ultimately he was in a place mentally where no one could reach him and he simply made a choice. I don't think he ever really came to terms with my brother's death eight years ago. So how can I blame him for choosing what he wanted? He's at peace now and no one can take the wonderful memories away that I have of him. I wish he could be here now to share the present and the future with us, but he can't.

And oddly, it's not the memories of the last couple of years which I have of him, when he was only a shell of a man. It is memories of a vibrant, happy man with vivre and life coursing through his veins. When I sat there trying to compose his eulogy I found myself banging against a brick wall mentally. I wanted to tell the truth, and the truth was the wrong thing to say. I could hardly stand up at my own Dad's funeral and tell people that he wanted to die, could I? And yet it is no less true. But then the memories started flooding out of tear ducts - happy things, important things, tiny moments and fragments in time unnoticed by anyone else. It is these truly deep connections - a squeeze of a hand, a pointed comment, a look for you and you alone - that keeps us bound to each other. And no mere thing like death will ever tear that from us.

And so I do what I always do when times are hard: I make soup - that comfort food that nourishes and protects like no other. I make a Jerusalem artichoke and spinach soup which manages to be both grounding and light. Perhaps there are less artichokes in than normal and a better balance with the spinach for lightness in this recipe than in the soup I normally make. Anyway, it does the trick.

We go to Sherwood Forest to protest. They want to frack under Robin Hood's tree. They want to dig deep below the roots of the oldest oak trees in England, a preserved forest, an S.S.S.I, to start fracking. It seems that all the things that we hold dear are suddenly up for grabs. But there at Sherwood we encounter other families, old couples hand-in-hand in padded jackets, middle aged women with dogs, young lads in combat trousers. It feels safe to be there with the girls; everyone with a kind of shared horror. Hamish McRae, the economist, once made this rather telling statement: 'Enduring prosperity requires societies which are stable, ordered and honest....Put bluntly, if countries wish to continue becoming richer, their people will have to learn to behave better.' There is no more apt a time to apply this than now.

Life in The Park is the normal grimy kind of January you might expect to see. There is more mud than vehicles and fog hangs around heavily most mornings. We did have a brief flurry of snow last Friday. And, everything in extremes, a few hours blocked the roads and gave the children delight as all school buses were cancelled and they were able to sledge and build snowmen. But it was soon gone, dropping from the tall forbidding pine trees opposite like batter from a whisk.

We braved the meadows, taking delight at being the first footprints on a new landscape. The sun was out but winds had blown drifts several feet deep. It doesn't take much around here. We are on the point where the Peak District meets the Moorlands and strong winds drive quick and fast. I am snug in my Canadian snow boots which I love for their sheer impracticability for any other situation. The children seem ringed by some far-off readybrek glow and stay out for hours. It is good to see them away from all things electric and behaving like children once more. The carrot for the snowman's nose soon falls to the ground and by the time I get back from the weekend at David's there is but a tiny heap of snow and a knitted burgundy scarf to remind me.

Fat cat lies along the top of the sofa, spreading her fur out like honey on toast and flexing her claws as if yawning. She basks in the warmth of the extra heat. The wood burner is stocked with drying split logs and outside the woodshed is replenished. I don't want to be caught short. Being cut off in the snow is a wonderful, magical thing but only if you are prepared for it and have nowhere especially that you need to go.Then, I like nothing more than walking around the village listening keenly to the silence and seeing tiny spirals of woodsmoke drifting upwards from chimneys everywhere in the valley.

Happy New Year,

Love Martha x


Jerusalem artichoke and Spinach Soup:

200g spinach leaves
25g butter
1 onion (chopped)
350g Jerusalem artichokes, sliced finely
275ml milk
570ml chicken stock
nutmeg
4tblsp double cream

Method:
Melt the butter in a large pan. Add the onion and cook gently, covered, until soft.
Add the artichokes and cook for 15 mins, stirring occasionally.
Add the chicken stock and season with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.
Bring to the boil and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes until the artichokes are tender.
Add the spinach leaves and let them wilt. Blend the soup and add the milk and double cream.
Reheat and adjust seasoning, if necessary.