'Call her Green and the Winters cannot fade her'
Joni Mitchell
It always seems a long time coming; Spring. The long Winter nights take an age to shorten, unless you keep watch. Day on day, noting the five or ten minutes extra in the garden, or before lighting up the house. Nature creeps around with her shawl keeping out the wind - a scatter of early blossom here, a twist of little green there, on buds on the end of frondy twigs, bending to the breeze. The flowering currant is our first arrival, beckoning us out into the wasteland.
Further over by the dry stone wall, clumps of rhubarb are making headway before a random snowfall can slow them back. I am playing the old chain letter game and passing on a severed crown to Sally at work. She is in need of rhubarb, and I have enough to spare. The best kind of gardening is like this - plants passed on from friend to friend, neighbour to neighbour. At certain times of the year I can pass through the village and note the same flowers, species and type, in every other garden. Gardening was once always like this; generously given, not hoarded and labelled, the latest purchases from the garden centre for personal enjoyment only.
Today, I am making a Vegan soup of 'Celery and Cashew' for my Meditation Teacher who has a persistent cough she can't get rid of. I like to use food as medicine when at all possible, following Ayurvedic medicinal guidelines and current nutritional knowledge. So, the celery has anti-inflammatory properties and both this and the garlic help support the immune system. My Teacher's particular constitution, under the Ayurvedic system, will welcome the cooked vegetables and the sweetness of the creamed cashews. This is a good soup to take. I make some for home, too, because it has excellent detoxing properties, always useful at this time of year when the body is sluggish, like Moley taking his first look out of his burrow at the bright daylight outside. And, despite all these worthy properties it is also, first and foremost, a very tasty soup.
Celery and Cashew Nut Soup
3tblsp Rapeseed oil (or virgin olive oil)
2 heads of celery, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
150g unsalted cashew nuts
1.5 litres vegetable stock (I use Marigold Vegan stock granules)
Method:
1. Heat the oil in a soup pan.
2. Add the celery and garlic. Cover and cook gently for 20 mins.
3. Chop the nuts finely in a food processor. Add them to the pan with the vegetable stock.
4. Cover, bring to the boil, and simmer for 30 mins.
5. Blend until smooth.
There are other signs of life appearing outside too. Small lambs are being plonked in fields after being born inside. They are bigger than the waif-like things on unsteady legs I've seen in previous years. Perhaps it was the several scatterings of snow we've had these past couple of months, or perhaps, more darkly, the rise in rural sheep crime we've seen. Only a week or so ago, a farmer just a couple of miles from me had over seventy ewes about to lamb stolen from a field near Hartington.
Kittens too are inquisitive at this time of year. Willow sits under the bird feeder looking longingly at the seed-studded fat balls and cylinder of bird seed. She wonders were the birds have all gone and why they don't want to play. The other night she stayed out all night for the first time. I tried not to worry, but by the second night it was playing on my mind. I called and called, and nothing. And then, as I passed a locked up shed and called, a single sad meow came from within. I don't know whether she will be any the less inquisitive in future, but at least I shall know where to look for her.
Although we make lots of cakes and scones at the cafe - for the mid morning and the four o'clock crowd - I'm not a huge cake lover myself. I'm more of a biscuit eater, really; although these days it is rare for me to eat either. But, one of my favourite cakes when I do bake for myself is a 'Rhubarb Crumble cake'. At this time of year with the new rhubarb about to land on our lap, it makes economical sense to do what we all should have done ages ago, dig deep in the freezer and unearth the bags of chopped rhubarb from last year's crop. Who hasn't got such a bag sitting there waiting its time? So now its time has come, and your new, delicately forced or champagne rhubarb can be gently poached and enjoyed on its own with a little yoghurt perhaps, and last year's robust main crop enjoyed in this cake.
Rhubarb Crumble Cake
175g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
150g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt
100g ground almonds
3 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
150g soured cream
300g rhubarb
3tblsp caster sugar
crumble topping:
75g cold butter, chopped
125g plain flour
75g demerara sugar.
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees centigrade.
2.Wash the rhubarb, blot dry and cut into 1" pieces.
3.Line a roasting tin. Toss rhubarb with 3tblsp caster sugar. Cover with foil. Roast for about 15 mins.
4. Uncover. Cook for 5 mins. Cool and drain off the juices.
5. Turn the oven down to 180 degrees centigrade. Grease and line an 8" loose bottomed deep cake tin.
6. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
7. Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix.
8. Add the almonds, eggs, vanilla extract and sour cream. Beat well.
9. Put half the mixture in the tin. Scatter over half the rhubarb. Add the rest of the mixture and then the rest of the rhubarb.
10. Make the crumble topping in a separate bowl by rubbing the butter into the flour and then stirring in the sugar.
11. Scatter the crumble topping over the cake, and bake for 30 mins.
12. Turn down the oven to 160 degrees centigrade and bake for a further 30 mins. Leave to cool in the tin. (This cake needs to be kept in the fridge because it is moist).
Life in the vegetarian cafe where I work is busy and full-on for most of the day. See us at 4.30pm, when we all sit down together for a cup of tea, and you might be forgiven for thinking that we live the life of Reilly; but come earlier at lunchtime and you would see why we earn our cup of tea. In the midst of all this busyness, there is a small and caring community who look after and support each other constantly. Each one of us has 'issues'/family/home life problems. The great thing about the mill is that every problem is important. When I needed to change a shift because of a school inset day, someone immediately offered to swap. Some of our older cooks can't run up and down steps with hot meals, so they bake or tend to something on the stove.
At the moment I am carrying a torn tendon in my arm (which will take about four months to heal I'm told). Not working isn't really an option, so we work around it. I don't carry heavy trays back. Last week I made soda bread rolls and scones. The right hand compensates for the weak left one constantly. And yet we manage, somehow.
I think, 'Is this how it is, day in day out, for so many people in our society who have to live with their disability?' Like everything, it's not until life knocks you, yet again, that you realise truly just how much you take for granted. You can say it. You can even think it, sometimes; but how often do we really get inside those shoes and understand just what it actually means?
Of course, all this isn't much use when it comes to playing your fiddle at the pub - but then you can't have everything, I suppose.
Love Martha x
