On another note...

Those two dead birds? Nothing to it really - just like peeling a satsuma. Do use the kitchen floor (a much under-utilised work surface) with newspaper, and a pair of good scissors. There was no blood. Apparently these aristocratic creatures don't have any - that way there is no need to make brain cells either...and i'm sure we've all met a few like that at parties.

December 29th - Great Expectations and the Christmas Wasteland

Dear Nigel,

I hope you had a good Christmas. Did you? I'm not sure whether i did or not. The problem is that thing called EXPECTATIONS. We all have them  - huge inflated things, impossibly sentimental and romantic things.

Sitting in my Christmas Wasteland amid the half-eaten pudding, the Turkey leftovers and the wreckage of fading decorations, bits of children's toys and mess, i begin to amass a list of all the obstacles to a decent family Christmas this year:

1. Illness.
My family and i, and half the country it seems, spent most of the run-up to the main event either being sick or groaning over a heavy cold and not being able to do anything in the way of Christmas preparations, particularly food ones. The normally heaving freezer and tins of smug mince pies gave way to hurried boxes of something not quite as worthy - however expensively packaged - and the  annual battle in the supermarket requiring medicinal compensation of the alcoholic variety.

2. Weather
Whether it was debilitating floods altering the travel plans of loved ones, emptying flood-alert homes just  at Christmastime, or simply rain, rain and more bloody rain, dark days and damp spirits; it came. Christmas cards  tell us that the natural weather for this time of year is bright skies, snow-laden landscapes and ethereal beauty - not many cards depicting cars being washed away under bridges it seems. Yet. I feel a new generation of Christmas cards being invented as we speak: sarcastic realism...remember the year the dog took the turkey off the side while you were busy laying the table and it had to be rescued, reformed and one leg removed in the interests of hygiene?...etc

3. Difficult Teenagers.
You may not have had the pleasure of this one, but i can assure you that this sub-species has the power to crack Christmas wide open with its minimal words and grunts. The plea (almost hysterical ) to get the family to the Christmas table at just the right moment, being met with a 'Just going for a shower now' boils the blood instantly - at least mine. Don't think Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsey have this trouble with their brood; it's all those sharpened knives, you know....dinner will be served now, won't it?

On the plus side, apparently the presents were acceptable, the stockings up to scratch and the dinner did at least all make it on the same day...and i jest not. But i'm still left sitting in a puddle of destruction with an appetite for nothing it seems.

I turn to your diary to see what you're up to.

December 27th: 'With snow still on the ground and mercifully little to do, three of us sit at the kitchen hob making warm hotcakes of sweet mincemeat and brandy butter.' Here maybe lies my answer. Instead of me sweating over things i don't wish to cook and don't wish to eat, a communal activity of conveyor belt eating. Like pancake day marathons, there is much to be said for the clamour for the next one fresh from the pan. Perhaps with the added attraction of an appetite formulated on a walk in the rain. Sophie is desperate to use her new umbrella with its kitten handle, so what the heck, out with the wellies. Teenagers have a habit of waking up when they smell food. Like dogs really. The little mincemeat hot cakes you make (like drop scones) will use up the leftover mincemeat nicely and a couple of clementines knocking around in the fruit bowl. Shopping aversion has set in. There is a deep split in a nation of those living to shop and those shopping to live if pictures on the news are to be believed.

I have put away my Turkey now. Made the stock for soup, made the traditional Turkey curry, and cold meats and pickles for a Boxing Day cooks rebellion; 'the day those working 'below stairs' would open their presents and count the tips box' (...still waiting for that tips box...) You enjoy the annual ritual of stripping the Turkey from the joint, and, i have to admit there is something very therapeutic about slipping the flesh from the bones and frugally easing off each minute morsel to add to the pile on the table. Your chosen recipe for leftovers this year is a Christmas bubble and squeak (page 512) made with red cabbage - leftovers if possible - an apple, and goose or turkey trimmings. This will be tasty-enough for me to be able to cope with the red cabbage. And fried again. This is not the time for New Year penance and self-flagellation.

Best wishes for a really good year next year. Think we probably both deserve it.

Martha

December 14th - Two dead birds in the shed

Dear Nigel,

There are two dead birds in my shed. No, it's not the latest crime fiction on tele, these two were live and kicking  until fairly recently and running around in their fine rust feathers.

I came home from the school run to find them tied by the necks to my garden gate. If this were a place where they celebrated witchcraft and the local vicar was seen helping the villagers create a wicker man with a slightly unhinged manic look on her face, my heart might be starting to race a little. As it was, the gamekeeper next door came round again to give me a lesson in quick pheasant plucking - don't bother, just take off the skin and cut out the crown. Having only ever been faced with a nicely plucked, dressed and sealed-in-cellophane bird from the farmers market i am feeling a bit dubious about my Christmas casserole.

I decide to shelve the problem temporarily and hang them in the shed until I'm feeling a little braver - after all, aren't they supposed to be hung for a good while? Eventually, i think, i will set to for the massacre with newspaper on a clean kitchen floor and a pair of scissors to get inside the skin. (Not many recipe books, i suppose, start their recipe with '...now first clean your kitchen floor', but the thought of rivers of blood streaming off my worktops rather puts me off.)

I turn to see what you have been up to lately and find that you have been considering the prune (page 487), a wonderful edition to so many recipes at this time of year. You like to use those half-dried prunes that require no soaking, adding them to casseroles and other slow-cooked dishes. I notice that you recommend them for Beef, pork, rabbit and game, so this might be a possibility for my brace of pheasants when i get round to it. They add a deep richness to the sauce, and, as you say 'any slow-cooked dish where prunes have been added will be better...for a night in the fridge.' You use them in a casserole of oxtail and prunes. I'm not a great fan of oxtail, and nor, by your admission are most of your friends. Your recipe is for two people as you 'can't imagine ever getting four oxtail-loving people around the table at the same time.' Nor me.

Your Mincemeat cheesecake (page 486) is much more to my liking, and it gives that welcome lift (which cheesecakes so often need) from their overbearing richness. I like your use of shortbread biscuits for the base and the addition of soured cream to the cream cheese mixture to help temper the sweetness. All-in-all, i think this could be the recipe i have been looking for - something a bit different yet festive and popular with all ages. Thank you for that.

We are definitely in agreement when it comes to canapes, however. I refuse to make them as they seem so pointless and time-consuming: if ever there was a time to nip into M&S now is definitely your moment. You declare that 'if there is a part of the festivities that depresses me, it is the thought of making bits to go with drinks.'
Let's the two of us declare war on canapes with a bowl of olives and a rich brown casserole.

With Best wishes and Seasons greetings,

Martha

December 4th - Best laid plans....

Dear Nigel,

Are you a list person? I am a list person. There's the Christmas card list (-I've written three), the Christmas present list (easier since the advent of one-click-and-it's-yours), and, of course, the Christmas food list. The latter started off as a pleasant evening perusing all my favourite recipe books and deciding what people wanted to eat this Christmas. There were requested favourites such as Millionaire's shortbread for Tom, Smoked Salmon soup for James, Traditionals such as my Granny Burn's Christmas cake (for which no Christmas could possibly happen without), and other inspiring or useful recipes. So, QED; and i went to bed feeling I'd sorted - and actually already done - Christmas.

Now, here we are first-footing into December and the items cooked and stored are lagging behind the advancing days on the calendar. I count them up and realise that unless i make one extra dish every day of the week from now until Christmas then Christmas is not going to happen. Like some ridiculous horse race we put ourselves through it every year.

 Alison Pearson may have smashed up some bought mince pies to make them look homemade but this is nothing compared to the expectations of  family members that this year must be at least as good, if not better, than last year. I may feel like i want to retire to bed with a bottle of sloe gin and a half-read book but other members of the family would soon put a stop to that. Christmas may be for everybody but you'd better make sure you want what everyone else wants. My second son, Christopher, declared last year 'the best Christmas ever' - so however am i going to top that?

I return to THE LIST and decide to make mince pies with the little ones. This is one of those areas where imperfection is almost a requirement. I manage to knock out a few dozen mince pies on one end of the table whilst Sophie is busy hammering pastry into submission at the other. Once levered off the table into tins they are being over-generously filled ( supermarkets' ideas of 'generous fillings' and my kids' seem to differ somewhat), and stamped with carpet-sized stars.

 I stop for a moment and catch  a look of deep concentration as Molly carefully paints each star with a whitewash of floury milk. And it is at this point that all the lists and panic and pressure of Christmas goes completely out the window. This is what it's all about, and if there are huge gaps in the Christmas menu and we are resorting to opening a packet of cheese straws on Boxing day then nobody will really care.

I turn to your diary for December 1st and see that you, too, feel the change in the air. 'Unlike so many other meals, Christmas cannot be left to chance. Planning, rarely part of my kitchen life, is essential.' The reason you give is that 'you tend to remember every Christmas'....and that 'every dish that fails or disappoints will be mentioned at every Christmas from now till kingdom come.' I think you are perfectly right here. I still recall very well the turkey from a friend that was still being plucked at nine o'clock Christmas eve and that was so huge that we had to fairly ram it in the Aga to make it fit.

You serve up a warming dish of mashed cumin and paprika-spiced parsnip croquettes in a tomato sauce enlivened with sherry vinegar (page 473) to chase out the  cold on a bone-chilling evening. I hadn't noticed the cumin in here before but am keen to give it a go now. I seem to have made several cumin-based recipes lately in a bid to ward away the fog of colds that seem to pass endlessly around at this time of year. Some say 15 raw garlic cloves works a treat, and i expect it does if you want to be billy-no-mates.

Bored with the usual Christmas cake you concoct a version of the french Buche de Noel that is more to your liking. There is something distinctly naff about the arrangement of two swiss rolls pretending to be a log - as made by every girl guide doing their cookery badge in the 70's. Your version contains a homemade  praline - a festive 'crown of glistening, caramel-coated hazelnuts' and a butter cream made with Nutella (pg 476). I will, of course, be making the TRADITIONAL version. And, as is traditional, it will probably still be sitting there half - eaten until well into January. Perhaps if there were not small children around who consider it their right to decorate it, i could possibly get away with it. Maybe in a few years time...It's not as if it's most people's first choice from the table anyway, but then it does have its uses when someone drops by unexpectedly.

Best wishes for a stress-free run up to Christmas,

Martha

November 20th - The kitchen Diaries volume 2, and grave robbers in the night.

Dear Nigel,

A whole year has passed since we started corresponding. Some would say that time has flown past, but for me this has been a long and difficult year. The churning mud and thick fog on the moorlands outside seem symbolic of my progress at the moment. Stoic, perhaps, but ever optimistic that a new spring is only hiding away behind the winter that will surely follow.

There was a funeral in the village church a few days ago. There had been much mutterings by the bus shelter as we waited for our offspring from the 'honker bus' about dates and family. In a small village like this where nearly everybody seems to be related, it was inevitable. And, as i drove through the village it was wall to wall  with vehicles - more vehicles than houses - as relatives came by from the nearby villages of Sheen, Hartington and Onecote. The churchyard is full of Salts and their names can be followed from one generation to another. I passed by  a bit later and all the cars had gone. The watery sun had dropped low in the sky and the fog was drifting in once again. Over in the churchyard a lone figure in a flat cap was digging in the vast silence. Like a scene from a Sherlock Holmes film: another life moving on, another bit of history added to the tapestry.

You are by your kitchen door gazing lovingly at the rich Autumn hues of your two pear trees - 'the Doyenne du Comice..a mass of copper and orange...the Winter Nellis (with) crimson leaves as slim and fine as a feather.' As you gaze around you are caught by the 'romantic melancholy' which is the beauty and poetry in a garden which has been left to blow over,- to seed, to fossilize on the stalk, as the structure for a winter rime is embroidered on the canvas.

You celebrate the beauty with a hazelnut-scented pear cake.It has a lovely cinnamon-dusted crumble to make a contrast of textures and a drizzle of syrup for indulgence. I have always played shy of using pears because of their notoriously fine ripeness window - either like raw potato or slush - but this cake just seems so fitting for a place not quite winter yet  past the first flush of Autumn's new pencils and Halloween revelries.The gentle poaching removes that problem and it will make a nice change from the onslaught of apple-based puddings of late.

I return to a bowl of soup made yesterday and kept on the hob. It is roasted sweet potato, scattered with ground cumin, and blended with lemon juice, yoghurt and stock. It is a hearty Autumn feast and will feed a crowd.

The pie you are making is of dried mushrooms and spinach, with a 'proper' pastry crust enriched with Parmesan. How sad that we have to remark on proper pastry these days, as opposed to the whipped-out-of-the-packet frozen puff pastry (which has its place, but is too often substituted by a lazy chef). This will make a substantial  and welcoming non-meat alternative for my vegie friends. The spinach is mixed with creme fraiche for a creamy filling. I welcome the opportunity to use my pie dish and the old Blackbird sitting on the dresser: It is a reminder of something older than me, of memories of my childhood and Granny Burn's pies, and of making something ever fashionable and completely out of date. I see you are making an arrangement of overlapping squares for its coat - like some mondrian block art fixture that will be demolished in seconds. Sometimes only the cook knows what love is poured into the food we eat - or maybe it is simply the parmesan making the pastry too short to roll out in one piece?

Martha

 

October 27th - Bread of life

Dear Nigel,

It's been a little while since i was in any kind of regular routine of bread making, and it's amazing how quickly you forget the little things that make it special. Like the smell of fermenting yeast and dough - instantly memorable yet forgetable. And the weight. Hold a homemade loaf in your hand and the comparison is stunning. Weight for weight you are paying a small fortune for fresh air when you buy an ordinary loaf from the supermarket. Even the artisanal bread on offer seems somehow insubstantial. It's not that I'm in the habit of making rock-hard doorstops, you understand, but homemade bread is generally denser and more chewy and you need less of it to feel satisfied.

We had the first proper hard frost today followed by a blue blue sky with copper beech trees glowing in the sunlight - a sight to rival any Autumn in New England.The Lebanese lentil and chickpea soup i made is left uneaten by my lentil-hating, chickpea-hating sons. Bet you don't have this trouble when folks come to lunch! The second row of logs are stacked and we are ready for all a hard winter can throw at us.I am finding all those junk mail catalogues very useful as firelighters.

You, too, have been using lentils to make supper, but green ones rather than the ordinary red ones i poured into my soup.Your supper is a simple dish of boiled green lentils with red wine vinegar, olive oil and parsley, eaten with slices of ash-rolled goat's cheese. It's probably a good thing you have no inclination to invite my sons for supper, unless you have a very hungry dog to polish up the plates.

I am very taken with your Raspberry vanilla ice-cream cake (pg 316) which relies on nothing more than bought sponge cake, bought ice cream, Raspberries and icing sugar, which is then moulded back and refrozen as a cake.The result reminds me fondly of those simple jam and cream sponge cakes that my mum sometimes bought us for Birthday cakes and that we ate half-frozen with the cream still solid at the centre, rather like those arctic rolls which also hailed from that era and are no longer eaten. A variation you suggest would be to use brioche or panettone instead.

This would be a good recipe for the dark days of January when there is usually a panettone sitting around in a tin wondering what to do with itself. They have an amazing life-expectancy, those crown shaped loaves. I've occasionally come across one lurking in a tin six or more months later, still looking like it could be used, if you dared.Whatever they are embalmed in, i don't know, but if it could be bottled as an anti-ageing formula, some little baker in Italy would be very rich. I love the colourful  tins the Panettone come in. Each year i add one to my collection at the start of my preparations for the Christmas season. Sometimes, when there is so much rich food and chocolate on offer, you start to crave the  plain and simple as a kind of rebellion against mince pies. These are the days when you head out into the hills for a walk when all around you are sunk into sofas and glued to the box. Ahh, the family at Christmas; another tale.

Martha

October 17th - Robbie Williams' apple juice and a weaver of fairy tales

Dear Nigel,

There's only one fruit, to my knowledge, so universally used and abused (see Halloween) and given a day all to itself, as the humble apple. From apple bobbing to apple crumble we all love this simple fruit. A few days ago the nation celebrated Apple day. I took the children along to a farm near Longnor where there was to be   an open-invitation celebration of the apple.

Over in a disused barn a couple from Transition Leek had set up a beautiful wooden Vigo Apple press. They  told me that thanks to Robbie Williams (or rather a grant foundation he set up to help initiatives in Staffordshire), they were able to purchase this press. They travelled around various markets and other venues and simply pressed batches of apples that individuals brought in from their own gardens and mini-orchards into first class apple juice for them to take back home with them. We tasted some of the local apple  juice and it was sublime - unlike any single variety posh bottled juice I've ever tasted. Whether it was because there was no oxidising agent added - and it was starting to look like a mature cider from the outset - or because it was completely fresh, i have no idea, but it was an eye-opener.

We toured around the orchard looking at all the different varieties growing. An old, wizened (man-looks-like-his-apple) expert was guarding his table of precious fruit over to one side. We were allowed to sample some of the rarer, local varieties. I was looking for an apple that would grow well in our fairly harsh climate, and, more to the point, would produce fruit. Most apple trees need another apple tree to pollinate them and the chances of a bee from the one apple tree next door flying over to my tree seem fairly remote. In the end we  decided that the more common Egremont Russet, which is a wonderful burnished gold and a particular favourite of mine, would be an ideal candidate since it is self-fertile. It seems a good thing to do to plant an apple tree to begin a new life of plenty.

The bees were still flying into the hives though their numbers are down. The bumble bee can survive in temperatures 10% lower than the honey bee - must be those luxurious thick fur coats of theirs. We tramp back across the bottom of the valley to the kitchen where a huge array of apple cakes, strudels and cider bread are on offer. In true spirit there is no charge for anything today and donations are for Bat preservation.

Perhaps it is the unseasonal golden sunshine that colours the side of the valley, or the look of glee as a young boy emerges from a tub of ice cold water with a small apple between his teeth, but there is magic in the air and everyone around can somehow sense it. There is a buzz around the craft table where apple fairies are being crafted and small children perch on hay bales listening to suitably gory tales from a storyteller-par-extraordinaire in a merlinesque cloak and flowing beard. I find a smile twitching as i watch the very-PC parents squirming as the story man tells of hacking off the giant's limbs, their offspring entranced on the mat.

Back home i look for a favourite apple cake recipe and i find one in my spattered and battered, well-thumbed copy of Mary Berry's 'Ultimate Cake Book'. Her Devonshire Apple Cake is a simple classic. Apple cakes can be a bit heavy and stodgy when cold, but are just made to be served warm with cream. True comfort food for the season.

You have been in apple mood, too. You have planted apple trees - a Blenheim Orange and a Discovery, but neither have fruited well this season. My neighbour was bemoaning the sparseness of his crop this year. I think the heavy rains we had at the beginning of the summer stopped much of the pollination as bees don't fly when it's raining.You are entranced by the smell '..the pear-drop notes of the honey-skinned Russets', but what you really like is a crunch 'so crisp they make your gums ache.'

I turn to your diary having already made my apple cake and find that you have been making.....English apple cake. Slightly apologetic for not having made this my first port of call i compare the two recipes. Like Mary Berry this 'slim, moist cake (is) best served warm...(and) will keep for a day or two wrapped in foil', which is  a good tip. Mary's recipe contains almond essence and flaked almonds whereas you plump for cinnamon and demerara to toss your apples in - a match made in heaven....perhaps we need a little more comfort food here to drum the mizzy weather away.

The season is your chance to pig out on one of your favourite meats, pork, of which you say: 'My appetite for pork is what stops me being a vegetarian.' You make pork ribs with honey and anise, and roast pork with grapes, juniper and vin santo with meat from wonderful old breeds like Tamworth and Gloucester Old Spot.

The logs are being delivered tomorrow, the apple cake is in the tin. Time to cuddle up on the sofa and read a good book,

Martha