tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76140192390846866672024-02-18T23:54:14.464-08:00Letters to Nigel SlaterMartha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.comBlogger242125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-41665475834818071902019-06-19T12:54:00.001-07:002019-06-19T13:15:38.812-07:00'Greenfeast' and GooseberriesDear Nigel,<br />
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It is a green Summer this year, I think. The constant rain of late has raised the water table and made the weeds grow in abundance. Over in the vegetable garden I am feeding an army of obese slugs with tiny salad seedlings. The petals of a newly opened clump of blue geraniums lie dashed against the ground from the last downpour. More than anything I dislike the sense of heaviness in the air before a clap of thunder releases the tension.<br />
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You have a new book out: 'Greenfeast'. I take my copy to the fireside to savour with my cup of coffee. This is a book that speaks to the way I also choose to eat these days. I have my meat days, and my meat-free days. I like both. The meat-free days make me feel generally lighter over all, as the mere idea of dieting to stay the same weight (an age thing, I'm told) fills me with abject misery.<br />
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My days in the garden are dealing with triffids as the weeds take hold. I am scything down huge branches of rhubarb and chopping them into bags for the freezer. But first, I realise, there is still a whole pile of last year's assorted produce stacked in there waiting to be used. So I make some jam. 'Gooseberry and Elderflower Jam'. This year's gooseberries are not quite ripe, so it is good to deal with last year's excess first. The recipe is a simple one and uses elderflower cordial for ease. (Lovely, I know, to go and pick elderflowers when in flower, but sometimes it is just 'another thing' which puts the whole operation into jeopardy.)<br />
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As I stand there stirring my jam, waiting for the set, I realise that it has actually been a great many years since I last made Jam. I like to THINK I make it - and at one time I made it all the time - but not lately, it seems. And elderflowers go so well in recipes with gooseberries. At the artisan bakery I used to work at we made a wonderful gooseberry cake, adding the elderflower cordial to the icing sugar instead of water to ice the top.<br />
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Gooseberry and Elderflower Jam<br />
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2 kg gooseberries<br />
200ml elderflower cordial<br />
1800g granulated sugar<br />
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Method:<br />
1. Place the gooseberries in a preserving pan with 500ml water and the sugar.<br />
2. Cook over a low heat, stirring now and then, until the sugar is dissolved.<br />
3. Turn up the heat and boil for about 15 mins. Stir regularly so that it doesn't stick and burn.<br />
4. Use a stack of small plates placed briefly in the freezer to check for a good set with 'the wrinkle test',<br />
5. When it seems right to you, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the elderflower cordial.<br />
6. Leave to cool a bit. Meanwhile sterilise your jam jars in a warm oven.<br />
7. When sufficiently cool, decant into jam jars, place a waxed disc on top (if you have them, or make your own) and take pride in writing your Homemade labels. I did.<br />
8.Feel virtuous.<br />
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I find my first recipe that I want to cook from 'Greenfeast'. It is 'Baked Ricotta, Asparagus.' Unusually, this year I have not over-done the British Asparagus thing. Sometimes, I think I see the small window of seasonality (May really) as a kind of call to eat, whatever else is planned; as if to refrain would mean you might be missing out in some way, be impoverished. We are children let loose in a sweet shop and sometimes we don't know when to stop.<br />
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This recipe is comfort food for a wet weather day. It is 'more pudding than souffle, but nevertheless light and airy.' There is a little thyme to remind us that it is actually the height of summer, and a sprinkling of Parmesan to gild the baked top. You opt for a tomato salad to accompany it. I am thinking that a large hunk of sourdough bread to mop up would fit the mood right now.<br />
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You were right about the tomatoes; though, as we sat there eating it I was craving a plate of fried cherry tomatoes (possibly the weather again), slightly caramelised at the edges.<br />
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Working in a Vegetarian cafe, there is always a constant tweaking of recipes to suit the season. There is nearly always a quiche on, for instance. I had made a 'Courgette, Feta and Mint' soup at home for a friend visiting us. It was both warming and light and Summery at the same time. We decided to try the three key ingredients in a quiche at the cafe. It is nice to take one idea or taste and use it elsewhere. I didn't get to try the quiche as I wasn't working that day, but normally we would be keen to try things for our own staff lunches to check that this was something we would enjoy eating and like to put on the specials board again.<br />
<br />
Courgette, Feta and Mint Soup<br />
<br />
10 courgettes, cut into large chunks.<br />
4tblsp Olive oil<br />
2 cloves of garlic (crushed)<br />
1200ml vegetable stock<br />
100ml double cream<br />
150g feta cheese<br />
2 tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Heat the oil in a soup pan.<br />
2. Add the courgettes and garlic and cook over a medium heat for 20 mins. until soft and lightly browned (stir regularly), keeping the lid off the pan.<br />
3. Add the stock and simmer for 5 minutes.<br />
4. Add the mint and feta cheese, and stir over a low heat until the feta has almost melted.<br />
5. Blend until smooth.<br />
6. Reheat gently and add the cream. Stir well.<br />
7. Season with salt and pepper.<br />
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Last Sunday was 'Open Farm Sunday.' We went to an organic farm near us in Hartington. Lower Hurst Farm has about 300 acres of stunning pastures, and it was good to be driven around the farm on the back of a trailer and to see all our normal haunts from a slightly different angle. The cattle there are beautiful Herefords and it all seems fairly idyllic from a farming perspective with its rolling pastures and hand-carved rocks picturing sheep and cows.<br />
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(Not that all farming around here is like that. There are many many small hill farms with 'make do and mend' philosophies; and everything tied together with baler twine. I notice this most markedly at harvest time when every tractor - however old - that ever lived and breathed, is brought out coughing and wheezing and pressed into service; along with every old farmer, his wife, grandkids and anyone else nearby.)<br />
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The main market for Lower Hurst Farm is Waitrose, and, until fairly recently, they were supplying Jamie Oliver's Restaurants with all their kids beefburgers and meatballs. My children like these beefburgers too so I buy their catering boxes to keep in the freezer at home. I think it is good for children to be able to see the animals properly cared for and having a good life. This isn't an argument for or against vegetarianism, but I do know that I like to see a countryside populated by sheep and cows and a great deal of the hills and moorlands around us are not really suited for anything but sheep.<br />
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(I took this photo and my older children joked - 'Rock on Sophie'....it's not quite Glastonbury...I remind them they were all country kids once.)<br />
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Over in the barn we watch a young girl deftly shearing a sheep. It is some kind of rare breed with almost a full clump of dreadlocks going on. There are three ladies spinning nearby and the prize bull on the other side (father of 95% of the herd) looks like he is enjoying a well-earned rest. I am fascinated to see the sheep placed back in a small pen with its lamb once more. The lamb is bleating for its mother. Even when she is in the pen - and it's a small pen - he continues to bleat for some time. He cannot seem to smell his mother now that her coat has been removed.<br />
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I am waging war, back at home, with two large crows and a Magpie. I have this very nice metal hoop arrangement hanging from the bird feeder. It has a little metal plate and a spike on which to put a fat seed ball. It looks very nice; but day after day I have turned my back for five minutes and the fresh seed ball has completely disappeared. The other day I caught the culprits in the act. A large crow was using his pneumatic beak to hammer through the ball, taking it out in quarters. I have tried tying the feeder on to the bird table with gardening wire, and tying the seed ball to the feeder with wire. I am determined not to be outwitted by this black hooded duo and their more flamboyant accomplice. My next move, I think, is to get one of those little net bags that nuts used to come in and put the seed ball in that and wire it on to the spike. One way or another they are not about to win this one.<br />
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Back to the slug patrol. I am picking the little blighters up and flinging them across the stream, presuming that they haven't been training for swimming the channel, to get back and polish off what they left behind. Gardening means war in this climate; never mind the Pimms.<br />
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Love Martha x<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-83475152214718541272019-03-24T14:48:00.000-07:002019-03-24T14:48:07.781-07:00Little GreenDear Nigel,<br />
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<br />
'Call her Green and the Winters cannot fade her'<br />
Joni Mitchell<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<br />
Celery and Cashew Nut Soup<br />
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3tblsp Rapeseed oil (or virgin olive oil)<br />
2 heads of celery, chopped<br />
4 cloves of garlic, crushed<br />
150g unsalted cashew nuts<br />
1.5 litres vegetable stock (I use Marigold Vegan stock granules)<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Heat the oil in a soup pan.<br />
2. Add the celery and garlic. Cover and cook gently for 20 mins.<br />
3. Chop the nuts finely in a food processor. Add them to the pan with the vegetable stock.<br />
4. Cover, bring to the boil, and simmer for 30 mins.<br />
5. Blend until smooth.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<br />
Rhubarb Crumble Cake<br />
<br />
175g unsalted butter<br />
175g caster sugar<br />
150g self-raising flour<br />
1tsp baking powder<br />
1/4tsp salt<br />
100g ground almonds<br />
3 eggs<br />
1tsp vanilla extract<br />
150g soured cream<br />
300g rhubarb<br />
3tblsp caster sugar<br />
<br />
crumble topping:<br />
75g cold butter, chopped<br />
125g plain flour<br />
75g demerara sugar.<br />
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Method:<br />
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees centigrade.<br />
2.Wash the rhubarb, blot dry and cut into 1" pieces.<br />
3.Line a roasting tin. Toss rhubarb with 3tblsp caster sugar. Cover with foil. Roast for about 15 mins.<br />
4. Uncover. Cook for 5 mins. Cool and drain off the juices.<br />
5. Turn the oven down to 180 degrees centigrade. Grease and line an 8" loose bottomed deep cake tin.<br />
6. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.<br />
7. Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix.<br />
8. Add the almonds, eggs, vanilla extract and sour cream. Beat well.<br />
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.<br />
10. Make the crumble topping in a separate bowl by rubbing the butter into the flour and then stirring in the sugar.<br />
11. Scatter the crumble topping over the cake, and bake for 30 mins.<br />
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).<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
<br />
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?<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-76765384329563684292019-01-31T12:44:00.000-08:002019-01-31T12:44:46.227-08:00New Year - new you?Dear Nigel,<br />
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I like to think that we are slowly moving away from the notion of draconian New Year's Resolutions in which everything good, rich and indulgent, which we have been quite happy to nibble on these past few weeks, is suddenly turfed out and deemed 'other' as we don Lycra and hit the streets running. Hopefully, for most of us, those kind of self-flagellating days are over and a new kind of balance has emerged: One that allows for holidays and celebrations and then just gently pulls things into line without guilt, like the draw string on a school PE bag, the letters of a name carefully worked in chain stitch in a contrasting silk.<br />
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You are making a 'Spiced Red Lentil Soup' to blow away the cobwebs. I am eating the leftovers from Christmas - Turkey bits with chilli jam in a sandwich and trying to find uses for all the myriad pieces of different cheeses I seem to have amassed. There is a piece of Tallegio cheese in a box by itself in the fridge which I am almost too frightened to go near...<br />
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My version of blowing away the cobwebs involves lots of Winter walks in my favourite places like the stream at Milldale. Even on dull Winter days there is plenty to see if you open your eyes. I love to see the bones of nature silhouetted against a sunset. At this time of year, before the new growth starts, you can trace the energy path of strings of ivy weaving themselves into the corrugated bark on the outside of thick trunks, or the way a young branch has twisted and turned to get towards the light or away from the wind.<br />
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It is Nature's yoga - going with the flow, bending, stretching, making room for the new through growth. As I get back to my mat again and my regular home practise and weekly Iyengar class, where repetition both embeds and creates growth, I read in your book, 'The comfort of ritual, the reassurance of the familiar, is important to me. Doing repetitive, domestic things - kneading bread, stirring soup - on the same day each year helps me feel grounded. But that repetition must be seasoned with the new. I don't ever want to stand still. That way lies a score of missed opportunities, not to mention a certain atrophy, physical, emotional and culinary.'<br />
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I am watching a whole host of younger people throwing out their whole lives in a mad, decluttering frenzy. There is a beauty in simplicity and minimalism, I agree. And the space created allows a building to breathe and the energy to flow, on feng shui principles. There is great power in the ability to let go and allow room for the new. But sometimes even this is allowed to dictate too much. Everything is thrown out in order to recreate a new you, to create a vacuum that itches to be filled. Contentment is a better place to start. Like you, there is a domestic element in this, and cleaning your space is the best place to start.<br />
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The cafe I work in was closed all this week. The staff still went in to completely clean and dust and paint and repair. On Monday, I was up a step ladder cleaning the ceilings, scrubbing the sticky residue of steam and oil and dust from hard-to-get-to places ready for painting. Next week, when I go back, I know that I will breathe more freely, feel a little lighter, move a little faster. And our homes can be like that too.<br />
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My son's fiance, Beatriz, is telling me about a small Japanese woman she saw on Netflix who helps you file your clothes, neatly folded, like vertical files. I wonder whether there is a point at which the amount of energy involved to create something so perfect becomes a chore in itself. They have a six month old baby and are short on sleep and the time to get jobs done between his needs.<br />
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It is like the perfect book I read about a Japanese monk and the cleaning routine that the monks would undertake in the temple. It was beautiful and perfect and I could feel the energy it released on every page. And yet I was conveniently making myself forget that this cleaning ritual was undertaken by a great many individuals on one building. And this made up the bulk of their daily lives.<br />
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If yoga teaches us about balance, then there must be balance in all things. A tree that only grows tall without growing deep will be upended in a storm. How often have you passed such a tree, hugely long against the grass and marvelled at the almost plate-like end of shallow roots? No one can blame the tree for this, but if we want to grow taller we would do well to tend to the things that cannot be seen as well as those that can.<br />
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In Asana (yoga) practise, I have learnt, that a stretch works two ways. Often, when you bend into a stretch like warrior pose, where one knee is bent and you point along the bended knee in both directions (hopeless depiction but I hope you get the gist), there is a tendency to do too much in one direction. This is the ego talking to you, showing pride in achievement. But much is being lost in not stretching in the opposite direction too. From a point of contentment we are able to look at things more objectively, without attachment, and hopefully make better choices....whether with your wardrobe of clothes, an improved eating plan, or any other change we might want to make.<br />
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Back in the Kitchen. I am making 'Granny's Warm Apple Cake'. I love this cake for its sheer unctuousness, the way it almost sticks to the roof of your mouth as you sink into it. It is very nice cold, but in our house we like it warm with a puddle of cream on top. It is a good choice for dark, miserable days, without smacking of the kind of over-indulgence of the last month.<br />
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Granny's Warm Apple Cake<br />
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225g self- raising flour<br />
1 tsp baking powder<br />
225g caster sugar<br />
2 eggs<br />
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon<br />
150g butter (melted)<br />
350g cooking apples, peeled and cored<br />
25g flaked almonds<br />
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Method:<br />
1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C<br />
2. Grease and line the bottom of a deep 8 inch loose-bottomed cake tin.<br />
3. Measure the flour. baking powder, sugar, eggs, cinnamon and melted butter into a bowl and beat well.<br />
4.Spread half the mixture in the prepared tin.<br />
5. Thickly slice the apples and pile into the tin, mainly in a heap in the middle.<br />
6. Use two desert spoons to spoon the remaining mixture on top as best you can, trying to make sure that the middle at least gets covered,<br />
7. Sprinkle with the almonds.<br />
8. Bake for 11/4 - 11/2 hours until golden.<br />
9. Eat warm with double cream. - my cure for the January blues.<br />
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The New Year brings other new beginnings with it: my first Granddaughter is born - Evie Isabella. She is, like all babies, perfect. Molly bakes biscuits to welcome the new family.<br />
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It is my son Tom's first baby and he is at sixes and sevens. I go over to help them, bringing a Shepherds pie with me, and end up taking Tom and Jayden to the supermarket to stock up on food and nappies.<br />
'DO WE NEED MILK', I say, holding each item in front of him...he doesn't know...we should have made a list. After unloading the trolley into the car, he takes the trolley back and then opens the door of the car next to me and tries to get in (- the couple sitting in the car find it all highly amusing)...lack of sleep and the sheer enormity of it all has completely overwhelmed him.<br />
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Back home, once more, I am making a 'Butternut Squash and Parmesan Tart'. It is part of a Birthday present of home-cooked dinners for Bea, who is in an anti-stuff mode...food, hopefully, being an exception. It is a favourite of mine. Sometimes we have it hot, and in the Summer I often wrap it in foil to take on a picnic.<br />
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Butternut Squash and Parmesan Tart<br />
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200g plain strong flour<br />
100g unsalted butter<br />
1 egg<br />
1 tsp salt<br />
1 tbsp water<br />
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1 red onion<br />
400g Butternut squash<br />
2 large eggs<br />
6 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese<br />
2 tsp salt<br />
1 tsp ground black pepper<br />
400ml double cream<br />
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Method<br />
1. Put all the pastry ingredients in a food processor and blitz until it forms a ball.<br />
2. Chill the pastry for 20 mins.<br />
3. Roll out and line a 23cm flan tin. Chill for 20 mins.<br />
Put the onion (thinly sliced) and Butternut squash (cut into matchsticks) in a mixing bowl and mix well together.<br />
4. In a separate bowl put the cream, eggs, cheese, salt and pepper and whisk well.<br />
5. Put half the cream mixture into the flan tin. Scatter over the onion and butternut squash mixture.<br />
6. Pour over the remaining cream mixture and bake at 170 degrees C for 35 mins, or a little longer, if necessary.<br />
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But, the food presents must wait another day as we are snowed in over night. So I freeze them to take over another time.<br />
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There is nothing for it when the weather rules but to accept it, to change ones plans, and to enjoy the new thing which has been thrown in your path.<br />
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With snow, this is easy; to go out and enjoy, to walk, to play. When there is nowhere you HAVE to be, when everyone is safely home, when the cupboards are stocked and there is wood in the woodshed, then Here, Right Now (as Ram Dass told us) is a perfect place to 'just be'.<br />
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Love Martha x<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-38064770612019797112018-12-02T16:23:00.000-08:002018-12-02T16:23:53.015-08:00March of The Mince PiesDear Nigel,<br />
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Why cook at Christmas time when the farmers markets are heaving with so much of somebody else's homemade produce? Why indeed. And yes, I did pick up a lovely jar of fig and cinnamon chutney at the Christmas market at Chatsworth the other day - I am no different to anyone else. So cooking and baking for Christmas has got to be about something else; something undefinable but meaningful to you.<br />
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Each year I let the girls take charge of mince pie making. Like a machine, they knock out dozens and we freeze them in boxes to always have something in for friends and family calling. But often I am so busy cooking elsewhere that I opt for a 'quality' jar of mincemeat instead of making my own: just one more chore to add to the list, I tell myself. But this year I find I want to make less but 'more' - more meaning to the things I choose. I want to sit down to a glass of sloe gin and a mince pie that tastes different - one that I know and can taste has been made lovingly at home. There were some fine examples at the fair, to be sure, but I am looking for the space that goes into the taste - before you bite in - that whistles memories through your head, half-heard carols and laughter and voices echoing from all points of your past, all zooming in to that split-second gap, and gone in a trice as the taste bursts over your taste buds and you are back in the present once more.<br />
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The making of the mincemeat fills a quiet evening for Sophie and I. We listen to music and weigh and stir in a relaxed manner, talking about nothing in particular in muted voices. It is very pleasant, calm and a lovely thing to do together. I light candles and the cat crawls over to sleep on the wooden chair. She sleeps on a woollen cushion that is her favourite. I made it from a sleeveless fair isle top that I never wore, and did up the buttons and sewed into a cushion cover. For the cat, it turns out. She is as languid as we are; like mercury stretched along a bench she melds. Would that we could all relax that deeply, as a cat.<br />
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The recipe we follow for the mincemeat is your 'Classic brandy mincemeat' (pg 65). You are obviously in a more philosophical mood too as you make your own mincemeat. You say, 'the task takes barely an hour. I spin it out because I like the smell that is filling the kitchen. The scent of Christmases, past. Better than that, of Christmas to come.'<br />
As I sit here munching on one of the 'rejects', I realise how different it is to the mincemeat I have made in latter years. I am used to a heavily orange and cinnamon based mincemeat (no idea who's recipe), but this is like the ones I remember from years and years ago - more appley and with a more balanced spice base of clove and nutmeg too. It is heavier on the tradition front, and, with all the new 'interpretations' of the mince pie that seem to pop up everywhere, and on every supermarket shelf, I have almost forgotten the taste. I grind the cloves in a pestle and mortar and they shine through the gentle apple.<br />
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Like my children, the best part of Christmas for me comes before. It is the whole tingle factor that drew you to write 'The Christmas Chronicles'. The lighting of the Advent candle, paper calendars with doors without chocolates (or expensive bottles of perfume and Gin these days, I see! - another marketing opportunity)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSOG9MZiy9y_upLBhhIyrJBYwjXLBXaGAiPNKfrfj7ufIoIS4o95o_0_GBOnSjVUaSnu_f9H9SM8MyektJa3_l2YJFBfPXHcUv1jyYiifDwKqhu08vkfeVERLB8wbdLDc0u8mDiPMo8PME/s1600/IMG_0450.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSOG9MZiy9y_upLBhhIyrJBYwjXLBXaGAiPNKfrfj7ufIoIS4o95o_0_GBOnSjVUaSnu_f9H9SM8MyektJa3_l2YJFBfPXHcUv1jyYiifDwKqhu08vkfeVERLB8wbdLDc0u8mDiPMo8PME/s400/IMG_0450.JPG" width="300" /></a>So in this vein we like to go and watch the switching on of the Christmas lights. This year, in the neighbouring town of Ashbourne. We take my second son, Chris, his fiancee and my baby Grandson Leo. There is no TV star or minor celebrity to turn on the lights; just Santa and his real remarkably well-behaved reindeer. They pose for pictures with children young and old and Santa forgets to ask Sophie what she'd like for Christmas. She is unimpressed by this, but they seem to be sharing a private joke anyway.<br />
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Ashbourne is a lovely sleepy little town, come alive with a few dotted strings of lights and a huge Christmas tree in the <br />
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market place, on the cobbles. The girls go shopping with a long list of presents to buy and very little cash. They are very inventive, my children - a useful trait Santa would do well to emulate in this age of austerity - he may be feeling the pinch too.<br />
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The older children go off Christmas shopping for themselves, instead. This is what adults do, I notice. They go out shopping for other people and come back with a stack of goodies for themselves. Advertising in the shops encourages us to 'Treat yourself' - why? Is no one going to buy you a present this year?<br />
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I start making the Christmas cards with a photograph taken this time last year. We <br />
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were Knee deep in snow in a Winter Wonderland scene. There were sledges and woolly jumpers and a small baby kitten wrapped in the warmth inside, nestling down beside the fire. This year it's been blanket fog lately and hard to feel in the mood for Christmas, at times. I travel over to the candle lady in Tissington who refills my candle bowls for me each year, and there is blanket white fog, like a scene from a Sherlock Holmes serial. Murder in <br />
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Tissington. You can almost hear the horses hooves as the carriage swings round the corner and in through the main gates of the Hall to Sir Richard FitzHerbert. My children like this annual pilgrimage because there is a wonderful old fashioned sweet shop tucked up a little lane, like stepping into 1940s. David, who owns 'Edward and Vintage' is usually wearing exactly the kind of tank top I made into a cushion, and other 1940s regalia. We love it, and David is always very attentive to some of his most regular little customers. The Internet is great because it allows small rural businesses like these to survive when 'passing trade' is a poor joke.<br />
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Stuart delivers a load of logs for the woodshed and I spend a happy morning stacking them and saving the bark wrappings that flake off for kindling.<br />
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Dinner tonight is an old favourite of yours from a few years back that I make often. It is 'Lamb stuffed sweet potatoes'. The sweet potatoes are baked and the filling of minced lamb, onion, red chilli and fresh mint leaves has become a regular mid-week highlight in this house. Will, particularly, asks for it when he comes over. It is a recipe where using the right ingredient - ie. lamb mince and not beef - makes all the difference. It is an ideal dish to keep out the damp and the London smog and the clopping of horses hooves...<br />
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Love Martha x<br />
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Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-6718365665830747052018-10-26T08:01:00.001-07:002018-10-26T08:01:07.388-07:00Opening the Page on 'The Christmas Chronicles'Dear Nigel,<br />
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Christmas may be the highlight, placed centre stage, but this Season of Slumber is like a comfort blanket that you snuggle into and bed down in until the change of light. It starts with the first 'icy prickle across your face', as if a frosted bejewelled spider has traced a distant memory across your cheek.<br />
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You can sense a coming home with the trickle of falling leaves; and in the damp and pungent scent that rises as you sink your Wellington boots into the piles of leafy softness. Pretty fungi, frilling over themselves to decorate a rotting bough, trees eager to outdo each other in their display of fanfare colour, like peacocks in their vanity.<br />
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And home to Home, and warmth, and fire, and cocoa, and thick socks and blankets tossed on sofas. We line our underground caves like little moles, put by provisions for a hard and long hibernation - even if there is a supermarket at the end of the road. Such urges come from the past, from the part of our genes that we share with other creatures of the earth, more primitive than primitive man, more unknown than the memories and habits we realise.<br />
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And in this vein, Sophie and I are out in Biggin dale (one of the lesser known, and certainly less frequented dales around here). We are picking sloes from the old bushes in the depths of the valley, tucked away behind other trees, fruiting in their dimness, gathering the richness of the soil at this point and converting it into bluish purple berries. We pick solidly, peacefully for a good couple of hours. Not a soul is to be heard. The valley has sunk into a late afternoon peacefulness, and the therapeutic pulling and dropping into plastic boxes is the only sound, broken by the occasional random thought or comment. It is good to be immersed in this shared venture.<br />
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At home, I freeze the sloes to simulate a frost, so that they will bleed. I lean over to see what you are up to and find that you are making your favourite winter drink, damson gin, so that, like us, it will be ready to drink by Christmas. For you, it is a pile of damsons in a basket at the greengrocer's. For us, the Christmas baubles of blue and purple dotted at random over a tree.<br />
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I take the sloes out, cover them in sugar and gin in large glass jars, and daily I give them a shake and watch them bleed. There is plenty here - more than we will need (I hope!) and I will squirrel some away when they are bottled for next year, when they will taste even better.<br />
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Last night I finished the last drop of a damson gin that my brother had made for me. He died ten years ago, this year. And each year since I have taken a tiny etched green glass and toasted him, outside, late at night, with a milky moon and stars untainted by any streetlights.<br />
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And Winter is like that: A time to toast the treasures of our past, to remember, to assimilate the feelings that another year has laid over the old. We are like trees; each year we make another ring around ourselves. We are not the same as we were the year before. We move forward, continuously, and so this season of retraction is a very necessary one. Without it we would run aimlessly in all directions, following sunbeams and the edges of rainbows.<br />
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Feeling better after having made the sloe gin, I find that I want to start making something for the freezer, to put away. There is always that first long intake of breath before I am able to start. And though I love the season I can't quite put my finger on why this unease is there. And then last night it came to me; it is a feeling of shapelessness about this year's Christmas, which unnerves me. Like someone has handed you a present tied with string and you can't find the end to untie. Once I have started it is paint on a canvas, before that it is simply a formless ghost.<br />
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So I start with the recipe which is not a recipe. At least, to me it is a cheat and not a proper recipe at all, and I feel embarrassed to put it down. And yet, for all that, it is the number one requested recipe by all my children (bar the youngest), and has to be made every year without fail. And, though my friends and acquaintances who have dined on a bowl of this, would not find themselves presenting Michelin stars to anyone, all have raved about this particular recipe, whilst I hide almost shame-faced behind my apron.<br />
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Smoked Salmon Soup<br />
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50g butter<br />
2 large onions<br />
2 tbsp plain flour<br />
300g smoked salmon pieces (I use 'trimmings' as these are so much cheaper and quite adequate in this recipe)<br />
300g garlic and herb Boursin cheese<br />
4 pints of fish stock<br />
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Method:<br />
1. Melt the butter in a soup pan.<br />
2. Chop the onions and fry gently until soft but not brown.<br />
3. Add the flour and stir until it bubbles.<br />
4. Add the stock a little at a time and stir continuously.<br />
5. Bring to the boil. Take off the heat and stir in the soft cheese and smoked salmon.<br />
6. Cook gently for 5 minutes and then blend until smooth.<br />
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In our house it is usually Boxing Day soup. But this year I have also whittled a small box away for a small quiet lunch for two on a perfectly quiet midwinter day.<br />
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I have been cooking elsewhere too. In a new job - a vegetarian cafe at an old converted flour mill near Bakewell. It is a wonderfully idyllic spot where you can gaze out of large picture windows at fields of sheep with ducks on the river swimming nonchalantly past, and the clanging of a blacksmith across the yard, working with iron as if it were toffee being pulled over a hook.<br />
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It is a good place to be, busy and thriving, yet calm and peaceful. We are 'staff heavy' and so, although it is very busy, no one is allowed to get stressed. We are all close as friends, taking up the slack when it is needed by another; and treating staff and customers as equals. My lunch is as important as theirs. Everyone eats the very best in home cooking - and it is just like home cooking. And it is good to share light-hearted banter with customers who have given themselves the time to sit somewhere lovely and eat the colourful lunches and salads that we provide.<br />
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Supper today needs to be hearty and simple. More than anything else I crave<br />
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warm food, warm drink. I want to try and keep off those creeping winter pounds that hide under baggy jumpers until the Spring, but the season feels against me.<br />
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So, looking through your book for a recipe to fill the gap, I find one for 'Leeks, beans and Italian sausage' (page 42). The leeks are steamed and blended to a cream and mixed with the beans. I make this dinner for my friend and I and am mildly concerned for the lack of a potato, frankly. In much the way I once felt about the vegetarian meal missing a bit of meat, I find my conditioning and upbringing looking for the baked potato in this recipe. But I keep faith with you, and we eat, and it is plentiful and filling. The creamed leeks have become 'the<br />
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mashed potato' element in my mind. And I have learnt something new today. I am satiated, but not bloated by starch, replete and content. This very simple recipe has made a mark on me. I am changing the way that I choose to eat, so that the conscious slips into the unconscious pattern of things.<br />
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My friends Elspeth and Paul over at the 'Dove Valley Centre' near Longnor, put a free event on each year on Apple Day. We take some new friends with us this year to show them what the sharing of the riches is all about.<br />
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As you might expect, Apple Day is everything about apples. There is pressing, and peeling, and drinking and<br />
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eating. People bring apples for identification, or boxes of them for pressing and bottling. There are apply crafts for children, Creeping Toad the storyteller, and someone has brought a slide show of the barn owls nesting in the eves of his barn on the moors.<br />
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The cakes are warm apple cakes, dates and apple crumble slice - some are lovely, some are so so. All are free to eat, and freely donated by volunteers and visitors. It is a celebration of the season. And though, this year, the weather puts paid to the usual storytelling on hay bales outside under a fine crab apple tree, and the splendid walks in the orchard, people have come knowing what to expect, and expecting to have a good time. And so<br />
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they do. I make a mental note to take along some kind of slice next year - my children and their friends seem to have made up for any shortfall caused by a hurried lunch and I shepherd them off upstairs to the barn owl slide show before they polish off the whole table. I am pleasantly gratified to find that they are entranced by this simple slide show of barn owls flying in and out of a small hole, and the enthusiasm of the old man showing it. I have visions of sneaking them out mid-showing when their boredom threshold is reached (these children of the Internet age). But they have proved me wrong. Again.<br />
<br />
Walks in the dales are routine at the moment. As long as the Autumn<br />
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sunshine lasts and I have a scarf around my neck and good boots on there is a reason to be out there; to be away from the stifling indoors. We will see enough of it soon when the light goes.<br />
<br />
The River Dove flows on through many different dales, and different walks I do catch it at different points. Today my walk takes me down the sharp sloping paths of Gypsy bank from the village of Alstonefield to a tiny bridge across the Dove. There is a resident heron here, fishing in the weirs. It is a prize spot this, known for its fine trout fishing. One bank seems almost permanently privately owned, the other footpathed. Fishermen and herons are frequently seen involved in the same sport. There are 177 weirs on<br />
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this stretch of the Dove alone. Most of them built in 1920s and 1930s for keen anglers to stock bigger trout.<br />
<br />
The heron is breezy about my presence, much too intent on his sport. I am a minor annoyance to him. If he thinks I am getting too close he simply hops down to the next weir. And this way we follow each other down this stretch of the river.<br />
<br />
Further upstream (another day, another walk) I glimpse a little of the Fishing Temple between the shedding trees. Here, where Beresford Hall once stood high above Beresford Dale, where <br />
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Charles Cotton once lived, there is a tiny garden building tucked away in the trees down by the river, where he used to entertain his friend Izaak Walton, who wrote probably the most famous fishing book ever written: 'The Compleat Angler', in 1653. There is a trout on the weather vein. And the new owner - a keen fisherman it is believed - has plans to restore it to its former glory. History is everywhere you place your look.<br />
<br />
The dale can be creepy here when the light starts to fade. It is damp and mossy. The trees are like the Green Man waving their angry arms at you and charging through the undergrowth. There is a greater assortment of fungi distributed <br />
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here than I have noticed elsewhere. And this is surely the right time of year to come and observe. Some, like the spinal pages of a book, others with cloche hats tightly pulled down over their pinned curls, and some almost like ric-rac braiding on a vintage 1970s child's dress (-yes, I feel entitled to call all my childhood dresses, the bulk of them whipped up by my Granny on her ancient black Singer, 'vintage' these days. It makes your childhood into a kind of rich plum jam, preserved and richer than the fruit that made it, somehow).<br />
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And so I return home to the best part of the walk which is the homecoming. When there is a certain glow in your cheek and an inner warmth which toasts<br />
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you as you slip into over-thick socks that you couldn't wear anywhere else, an over-sized jumper rather than put the heating on (and here I see you prefer to do the same), and spend a few minutes on my knees in reverent prayer with handfuls of kindling, knots of rolled newspaper (something my boss showed me recently and which is a revelation in fire building to me).<br />
<br />
Halloween is in the air. My friends are preparing to celebrate Samhain and we are off up to Mum's and a wonderful family party at Chillingham Castle, open to all, which has just the right element of ghosts and dungeons and atmospheric lighting. We are taking pumpkins with us to carve the day before - they never seem to last very long once this is done. I have noticed giant ones in the supermarket lately and they have made me smile. Just to see such gluttony in nature reminds me that we are all capable of over-indulgence, pumpkins included. I will search for other suppers like the creamed leeks that balance fullness without heaviness, I think.<br />
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You are busy outside again, sweeping the leaves into net sacks to rot down for leaf mould. I feel a bit guilty that I have done the same today, except my leaves have gone off to the council recycling in the brown bin. I think we are lucky here in that we each have a full-sized dustbin, taken fortnightly, purely for garden waste. It is council-long sightedness, for once, for they see that people living here DO want to keep their environment nice, for themselves, as well as for visitors. In an area dominated by tourism this free work is in the council's best interest. So local people do mow the verges they have no need to mow, scoop up channels of leaves at the side of our pathless lanes, and prune and chop where needed. There is a giving - back, in the mowing of the churchyard, or the tending of flower tubs in the centre. Invisible fingers at work, requiring no additional praise. Mainly, it is the older members of the community, those with time to spare. But I have noticed younger ones taking things on, often to ease the burden from an older relative, and anchoring themselves further in their community. Life is coming full circle for us all, like the year, entering its waning phase.<br />
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Love Martha xMartha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-38231567641037806522018-09-18T10:12:00.000-07:002018-09-18T10:12:53.565-07:00'That time of Year'Dear Nigel,<br />
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<br />
'That time of year thou mayst in me behold<br />
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang<br />
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold.'<br />
<br />
(from Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare)<br />
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There is a richness to Autumn which is a gathering of harvest, both in life and in nature. In all the tiny churches dotted around the hillsides here, Harvest Festivals are being planned - a big thing in small communities which are so heavily dominated by farming and dependent upon the weather. Our most widely read newspaper out here in the sticks is our 'Village and Community Magazine' which keeps us all in touch. And, being a small community with many people related to one another, there is a very personal angle to much of its contents. We all really want to know 'stuff' without appearing to be nosey - not an easy balance to get right at times.<br />
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In the hedgerows there is richness aplenty; rich colours just starting to tinge the trees beautiful shades of carmine and ochre. They parade down the catwalk in their (as yet) abundant outer garments, sweeping their fur coats in our direction, batting their eye lashes saying "look at me, in all my beauty".<br />
<br />
And beauties they are with their clusters of tightly packed nuts in sea urchin wrapping; and small pixies' teacups (- as my Grandpa would have it in his lengthy rambling bedtime stories -) with a shiny acorn in each. Berries blaze in bushes everywhere on Hawthorns dotted along the country lanes as we drive off heading towards Chatsworth.<br />
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I am taking my eldest daughter Hannah out for the day before she heads off to China again for another year or more's teaching and travelling. The Peak District is holding its head high proclaiming its right ALSO to be visited. (All those years of being brought up and living in the countryside and it seems she only learns to appreciate it by going abroad to see someone else's trees and hills!)<br />
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The rains have greened up the hill tops which were parched and bleached only a few weeks ago. The over-abundance of berries everywhere is the plants' response to stress caused by drought. I cannot be the only one to have noticed that this year the Blackberries are HUGE. At first I thought it must be a cultivated plant that had seeded itself by the stream, but no, they are everywhere. A friend of mine made the same remark about the apples on his tree - not the largeness of them but the sheer quantity of apples on each bough. Too much so, in fact; they left each other short of growing space.<br />
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I note that the early sign of Autumn colour is also related to drought, whereas once I had thought it purely temperature dependent. Andrea Thompson, writing in the 'Scientific American' in 2016, says that 'severe drought during the growing season tends to cause trees to begin to turn colour early and not last as long.'<br />
So, we'll enjoy it whilst we can.<br />
<br />
Back home I am in soup mode again. Apart from a blip in the hot Summer months, it is my comfort food of choice, particularly for lunch times. I like to think it is keeping me in trim; but in truth all the best soups seem to involve a large dollop or two of double cream.<br />
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Butternut Squash, Apricot and Ginger Soup<br />
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<br />
2 Butternut Squash<br />
2 tsp fresh root ginger (finely chopped)<br />
100g dried Apricots (diced)<br />
2 Onions (sliced)<br />
700ml Vegetable stock<br />
A knob of butter<br />
8 tbsp double cream<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Melt the butter in a soup pan<br />
2. Add the onions and ginger and cook gently for 10 mins.<br />
3. Add the Butternut Squash, Apricots and Stock.<br />
4. Season to taste<br />
5. Bring to the boil and simmer (covered) for 30 mins.<br />
6. Blend until smooth.<br />
7. Stir in the double cream and reheat gently and serve.<br />
<br />
note: I bought some 'sun-dried' Organic dried Apricots over the Internet from Hatton Hill Organics. They are a darker looking apricot with an intense honey/caramel taste to them. And, added to this soup they give a wonderful extra dimension to the taste. I have tried it with ordinary apricots as well, and this tastes nice too, but I can whole-heartedly recommend searching out the sun-dried type, particularly for this recipe.<br />
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This being the time of year when squashes and pumpkins come into their own, I thought I would also give you my favourite soup recipe, which is also based on the Butternut squash. I find that the texture that this squash gives to soup is such a lovely velvety one that it finds its way into countless of my recipes.<br />
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And these days the soup recipes are requiring a book all to themselves as I find it hard to keep track of my favourites. I see friends downloading recipes or printing them off, but for me there is something sacred about a piece of paper. The recipe books may be dog-eared and stained, my written journals have scribbles and amendments and underlinings (mainly about the time involved or the cost of certain ingredients). But I can look back and see old friends who dropped in to visit, family members home for a brief stay, or lovely sunny Autumn days out with a flask of soup, a wet dog and something hot wrapped in foil. All these come flooding back as I turn the pages. Hopefully, it is the same for you as well.<br />
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Sweet Potato, Butternut Squash and Smoked Chilli Soup<br />
<br />
50g Butter<br />
2 cloves of Garlic<br />
500g Sweet Potato (diced)<br />
2 small Butternut Squash (diced)<br />
2 tsp. Smoked Paprika<br />
2 red chillis (diced)<br />
1.5 litres Vegetable Stock<br />
4 tsp wholegrain mustard<br />
2 tbsp Parmesan (grated)<br />
250ml. double cream<br />
salt and pepper<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Melt the butter in a soup pan.<br />
2. Add the garlic, sweet potato and butternut squash, stir, cover and cook for 10 mins.<br />
3. Add the smoked paprika and chilli. Cook for one minute.<br />
4. Add the stock and bring to the boil.<br />
5. Simmer for 20 mins.<br />
6. Stir in the mustard and Parmesan.<br />
7. Blend until smooth.<br />
8. Add the cream and season to taste.......(I told you all the best soups have cream in them...)<br />
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We are not the only ones enjoying the last of the Summer sunshine as it fades into Autumn. The Butterflies are out everywhere, covering the Buddleia bushes and fanning out their wings against the stone walls of the cottage to catch the last of the sun's rays as they gather in the Summer. Soon they will be hammering on the windows to get in and hibernate in the beams. And then, on a Winter's day, most likely when the heating is on and we are sitting down to eat, they will all waken and dance around our heads like some ethereal fairyland picture by Cicely Mary Barker (her of 'The Flower fairies' fame).<br />
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The garden has been allowed to claim its own and an invisible gardener has been to work with his maverick hands, <br />
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covering the herb garden in a sprinkling of self-sown poppies, all taking the opportunity of the mild weather to flower immediately. They lend a pattern of their own.<br />
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And over in the vegetable patch there are Lolla Rosa lettuces which have bolted and sent up corkscrews of deep red and green frilly leaves, standing proud against a swag of curtain cascading over the path, of peas and pods left unpicked.<br />
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The Autumn fruiting Raspberries are ripening now like faceted rubies hidden under their briar leaves. Sophie picks and eats them all before there is hope for a pudding. It is a child's privilege to pilfer and scrump, and a right of passage every child should taste. How are we otherwise to instill a memory of a taste without the memory? A punnet from the Supermarket will not sit in its place. I see my job as a Mother as a dropper of honey. This is what I want them to be left with, long after everything else is gone. It is part of their harvest, part of the collective harvest that we all share that forms our collective memories, our culture and our understanding. The reason we anticipate and savour the Season is because of this Harvest of stored memories. It is 'the Best Season'; just as each Season is the Best Season as we enter it.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-21553369644964704682018-08-02T09:41:00.000-07:002018-08-02T09:41:23.572-07:00Salad days and HolidaysDear Nigel,<br />
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We decamp for a few days to Grandma's, by the sea in Northumberland. The weather is being very kind to us and even I am finding I can swim in the North Sea without a sharp intake of breath. The kids have their wetsuits and can stay in longer - this IS England after all, even with a dose of Mediterranean sun.<br />
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One of the nicest things about going to the beach is that it tends to make the people in your family, or party, more sociable. My eldest son, James, not known for his social qualities, will happily take up a spade and take control of our military defences against the rising tide (well, he is in the Army). And, armed with a Frisbee or a couple of worn and battered old seaside boule, he doesn't give his younger sisters 'chances'. And such is beach life everywhere. Little scenarios playing out as families are forced to mingle, to co-operate (occasionally) and fight over the best spade, the non-sandy biscuits and who has to carry what back up the windy path to the car. Like Christmas, some things never change.<br />
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Sometimes, we have different figurations of people. This year Molly has a friend who lost her Dad and hasn't had a holiday for three years. It's an easy thing for us to do, to add one more place at the table, another body in the car. And lovely for Molly to be able to show Aurora all our special places, where we go pond dipping, and eat the best fish.<br />
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Northumberland is a land of castles and long sandy beaches and few tourists, comparatively speaking. The beaches are rarely if ever crowded - there is room for everyone here - and places to go to find peace and solitude and breathe the sea air. I read more books on holiday than at any other time. I tend to take paperbacks with me and these are often trashed because I love to read on the beach and hear the seagulls calling overhead. But often the spines of the books get full of fine silver sand and won't close properly. And I'm embarrassed even to take them to the charity shop sometimes.<br />
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We have a good system up here with secondhand books. Housed in the beautiful old Victorian Railway Station in Alnwick (where trains no longer visit) is the most amazing secondhand bookshop. I've watched it over the last twenty years or so get bigger and busier. And still the little model railway tootles around over the top of the bookshelves, the cafe sells tea and there is a real fire and comfy seats on a wet day. So we have a system, my mum and I. She takes in all her lovely new books that she has read (because like me, in general, she likes the feel of a clean unopened new page) and the bookshop makes a tally and there is credit so that when the hoards of Grandchildren arrive, they can all go off and spend Grandma's credit in the children's section, and ride around on over-large ladybirds, whilst the adults are free to wander elsewhere and consider the art work and the first editions and drink coffee in peace.<br />
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James has been working at Alnwick Castle, home of Harry Potter, as any eleven year old will tell you. So we take the children to dress up in Medieval costume and make soap, and then on for Broomstick practise (- not on the Nimbus 2000. This one requires manual lift off to get a good photo, and no interactive theme park wizardry involved). It's amazing what a good sales pitch can do; the kids are quite happy with a pile of old besoms and a piece of grass quadrant.<br />
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Back home, I am amazed to see how the Peak District is draining colour from the hills. As we come down into our village I look over the church spire and see the hills of the Manifold Valley beyond, all quite brown and barren. It looks like I imagine parts of Australia to be. The trees, themselves, are still in green leaf, but the grass behind is brown in contrast. There is nothing for the sheep or cows to eat up there.<br />
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The insects however seem to be inviting themselves inside the house more often this Summer. There are bees on my Oregano which is flowering prettily in a vase in the kitchen, and ladybirds on the last of the redcurrants. The caterpillars on my kale and rocket in the veg patch get less of a welcome. I'd rather they ate the nettles. And something akin to a Horsefly is taking the opportunity to chump on any patch of bare flesh that might be sunbathing in the garden, as Hannah keeps telling me.<br />
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Some of us do not fare well in the sun and the heat - redheads particularly. And this and the tightened restrictions on visas to China is creating an undercurrent of discontent in certain quarters. She has a job to go back to in September but things are taking longer than they should. The rest of us are trying to relax and enjoy the Summer. Always a hard one, relaxing, whilst someone else nearby is creating dust clouds of stress and sending out electric currents that pollute the air and seep into your mind and body even as you are consciously relaxing your muscles and turning up the music (or removing your hearing aids, in my mother's case - no one tells you the benefits of being hard of hearing).<br />
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Food has to be fast and easy and tasty. It is too hot to want to spend a long time in the kitchen whilst everyone else is enjoying themselves outside in the sun. Or in the shade - my favourite spot. There is something delicious about the right level of shade; not too hot and not too cool. I have taken to following the sun around my vegetable patch to make the most of the moving shade. The 'lawn' - if you can call it that, as it has a rather mossy brown artificial look to it at present, and hasn't needed cutting for weeks - is too full on in the sun for me. I can feel myself visibly expanding in every direction; every blood vessel becoming taut as if someone is blowing me up with a bicycle pump; and it feels uncomfortable.<br />
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I make a quick and tasty 'Aubergine, Pomegranate and Mint Salad' which tastes like hard work was involved, but in fact it took minutes to prepare. We eat it with a mixture of leaves out of the garden - lambs lettuce, rocket, baby spinach and lolla rosso and some couscous.<br />
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Aubergine, Pomegranate and Mint Salad<br />
<br />
2 large Aubergine<br />
6 tbsp olive oil<br />
1 tbsp red wine vinegar<br />
1 pomegranate<br />
1 tbsp shredded mint leaves<br />
<br />
Tahini dressing:<br />
2 cloves of garlic (crushed)<br />
1 tbsp tahini paste<br />
125ml natural yogurt<br />
1 lemon (juiced)<br />
1 tbsp honey<br />
pinch of cayenne pepper<br />
pinch of ground cumin<br />
salt and pepper<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Slice the aubergines into discs and fry in the olive oil until lightly browned on both sides.<br />
2. In a blender, add all the dressing ingredients. Blend.<br />
3.Place the aubergine slices on a plate and sprinkle with the vinegar and season well.<br />
4. Drizzle the Tahini dressing over.<br />
5. Remove the pomegranate seeds from their skins. (The best way I have found to do this is to cut the pomegranate in half, place one half over a large bowl and bang on the back with a wooden spoon).<br />
6. Scatter over the pomegranate seeds and chopped mint leaves. Serve with cous cous.<br />
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You can come and sit in the shade with me and we will drink something cool and refreshing and watch the butterflies doing their courtship dance as they whirl and turn around each other, making paths like the strands in a ball of wool. And their 'ball' drifts here and there, as if caught on the different currents of air, and then finally off towards the trees. Gone, like the soap bubble you held in the palm of your hand as a small child.<br />
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Summer's Lease.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-10018071092514915112018-07-16T12:24:00.001-07:002018-07-16T12:24:56.546-07:00The Pleasure of Eating Outside in the GardenDear Nigel,<br />
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The Summer's 'unseasonally' warm and dry weather has been a mixed blessing in the vegetable garden. Watering has been a daily pleasure, or chore, depending who you are talking to. Personally, I've always rather enjoyed that quiet solitary time in the gentle cool of a fading sun when you are busy and occupied and somehow 'not to be disturbed' with a watering can: Much as one would a burglar brandishing a shotgun near you. 'Carry on, I'll go and water my geraniums shall I?'<br />
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Small mixed salad leaves are thriving, anyway, under this gentle care. Rocket, lambs lettuce, salad spinach and Lollo Rossa all give a good mixed salad to go with meals. We are, by nature, a little behind in the growing stakes here, due to the high altitude, but still there is an abundance and I am pleased.<br />
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<br />
The soft fruit is ripening up too in this baking hot sun. We test the black currants, Gooseberries and Red currants regularly for sweetness. Amazing how one bush of Gooseberries can ripen and another, barely three feet away needs another week or more. Today it is the day for harvesting the red currants. Mostly all ripe - leave them a day or two more and the birds will strip them bare.<br />
<br />
So, day after day I find it is pleasant enough to eat outside in the garden. Always a bit more faff, carrying lots of bits from the house, but I like to think that this is what memories are made of. Somehow, you remember a meal because of where you were, who was there, what you ate and that certain 'je ne sais quoi', - that element that made you slow down, look around you and 'be here' in the present enjoying this meal. Eating outside is about the experience as much as anything else. If the meal is burnt on the edges or the barbecue has been 'hammered to death' you will remember this too, as much as the tenderest peach poached in vanilla and cinnamon.<br />
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<br />
The middle of the day is a favourite for salads. Lately I have been picking leaves, adding a walnut and balsamic vinegar dressing (recipe previously), and adding toasted cashews, dark flame raisins and toasted halloumi, now that it is back in the shop. In this manner it is possible to add a little bit of everything you have left in your fridge over the course of a few days, to vary things and be thrifty. It is good to get some kind of balance of sour, sweet, salty and hot (or a combination of two or three of these things). One of my favourite ingredients at the moment for adding a sweet (and almost tart shot) to a salad, is Pomegranate Molasses. I often have a bottle in the fridge to help liven things up. It is particularly nice with salty cheeses like feta and halloumi.<br />
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It is a languid kind of day - everything seems longer and slower. The butterflies seem to move in slow motion to and fro by the Buddleia bush and Willow the kitten thinks her luck is in as she jumps to try and catch them. Of course she has no chance, but there is a kind of gentle acceptance that this is a game. She is the only thing with any animation. The shadows are getting longer, the clock is ticking slower and a bottle of wine can last until every drop is drunk.<br />
<br />
We are at the table eating Butternut Squash and Coriander Falafels with Cucumber yogurt. There is salad and flat breads and it feels like the sort of meal to ponder over and savour the scents that now and then drift over. What was that? Honeysuckle? An old fashioned rose, looking like the tight contents of an overloaded washing machine?<br />
<br />
The evening has drifted on. The cattle come down to the wire and stare, chomping noisily at us. If it were one of my children when they were younger, I'd be telling them to eat with their mouths closed. But these cows have 'Attitude'. They look at you straight as they pull their chewing gum out in one fine long piece, with that 'what you going to do about it?' look on their faces. John has put metal barricades across the stream below my neighbour's cottage - a temporary measure to keep them from heading for their kitchen. They are bored teenagers in the long Summer Holidays, out to cause mischief or trouble - anything for a bit of action in this 'boring' place. Kids always think the countryside is boring when they live in it all the time. Whatever you do, wherever you go - 'Boring', because it's always there. Do we always have to leave or lose something to really appreciate what we had? Is life, however hard we try, always lived in retrospect?<br />
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<br />
Butternut Squash and Coriander Falafel<br />
<br />
3 Butternut Squash (seeded and cubed)<br />
4 tbsp. Olive oil<br />
2 x 400g tin Chickpeas (washed and drained)<br />
4 Garlic cloves (roughly chopped)<br />
1 tsp. Bicarbonate of soda<br />
1 bunch of Parsley (chopped)<br />
1 bunch of Coriander (chopped)<br />
2 tsp. ground coriander<br />
2 ts[. ground cumin<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade.<br />
2. Toss the cubed Butternut Squash in 2 tbsp. Olive oil. Season well and spread out on a baking tray and roast for 35 mins. until soft. Cool.<br />
3. Place the chickpeas in a food processor with garlic, bicarb. of soda, parsley, fresh and ground coriander and cumin. Pulse until a paste forms.<br />
4. Tip into a bowl. Season well with salt and pepper.<br />
5. Crush the Butternut Squash with a fork. Add to the Chickpeas. Fold together. Chill for 30 minutes (important).<br />
6. Scoop desert spoonfuls onto a parchment-lined baking tray. Drizzle with Olive oil. Bake at 200 degrees centigrade for 15 - 20 minutes.<br />
<br />
(As you may notice, my falafels are a bit over-cooked. This is down to a dodgy temperature gauge. Me and my cooker HATE each other. At the minute he is not to be trusted and is being kept on a short lead...)<br />
<br />
Cucumber Yogurt.<br />
<br />
1/2 Cucumber<br />
300g thick natural Yogurt<br />
1 tbsp lemon juice<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Peel the cucumber and grate.<br />
2. Stir the cucumber into the yogurt.<br />
3.Add the lemon juice. Season with salt and Pepper. Chill.<br />
<br />
<br />
My children are no longer at the tiny little first school in Warslow, which had about 50 children at one point. Now they are older and go to Middle School in the nearby town of Leek (about nine miles away). Lucky children that they are, the bus company (which lives at the other end of the village) picks them up from the end of our lane, only yards from their beds.<br />
<br />
The great thing about their school, I think, is the mixing of children. Half the school come, like mine, from tiny farms and hamlets dotted all over the Staffordshire Moorlands - mostly farming children - and the other half are town children, who largely come from the big council estate which the school borders on one side, with rolling hills on the other. The school has its own farm, with pigs and goats and chickens. It is a good melting pot.<br />
<br />
Most of their friends come from the town it seems. Often almost a novelty to them to go playing in the meadows or collect wildflowers for the table. Sometimes, the reality of it has the power to almost shock my complacency. A child arrives wearing dainty jewelled sandals and they want to go walking in the stream. A little Indian girl, Induh, who has only lived over here for two years, has to be rescued from a clump of nettles where she has jumped playing hide and seek, because she has no idea what nettles are. I am appalled at the number of stings on her legs when I cover her in cream, and she is being so very brave.<br />
She tells me 'when you are in pain, think of something worse which it is not.'<br />
I'm not sure that one would work for me. I give her a hug.<br />
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I like their differences, their easy acceptance that they are different and yet the same. They are interested in each other's differences, eager to learn, eager to try on each other's lives. Something to talk about back home, no doubt. Sophie is going for a sleepover at Indhu's. She says, 'we come from Madras - where the curry comes from.' I think, how would I condense this place we come from, that would make sense to an outsider? How would you have to trivialise your own surroundings to make meaning in someone else's mind. I hope one day she will tell us more of the places she has grown up knowing, the things that were part of her everyday life. For now, she is as eager as any to 'fit in'. When I pick her up for Sophie's Birthday treat at the Leisure Pool, there is barely a backward glance for her poor Mum and Dad. They smile indulgently at their precious only child. Mine are part of a large extended family.<br />
<br />
Another day, another meal outside. Can I never get enough of this? Today it is warm but dull and we are eating hot food again. I am on a veggie mission to show my friend - a meat eater - that I can cook something he will like without him thinking, 'yes...but where's the meat?' Vegetarian food just makes you feel that bit lighter, I think. Meat grounds you. I don't want so much of it in this heat.<br />
<br />
I am making 'Black Bean Stew with Chard and a Herb Smash.' The Chard is a Rainbow chard I have bought. I am growing Swiss Chard in the garden but it won't be ready for a while, I think. Still, try this recipe once and maybe next time I will be able to use my own Chard. This is my hope : to use more of the things I grow, and to grow more of the things I actually plan to eat, rather than something that looks lovely on the seed packet but which I end up just looking at in the garden.<br />
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<br />
Black Bean Stew with Chard and Herb Smash<br />
<br />
2 leeks<br />
1 tbsp Coconut oil<br />
2 cloves of Garlic<br />
pinch of chilli powder<br />
2 x 400g tins of Black Beans<br />
1 tsp vegetable stock powder<br />
400ml Passata<br />
good grating of Nutmeg<br />
1 unwaxed Lemon<br />
200g Swiss Chard (or Rainbow Chard)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Herb Smash:<br />
1 bunch of Coriander<br />
2 green Chillies (deseeded)<br />
2 cloves of Garlic<br />
30g Walnut pieces<br />
1 tbsp Maple Syrup (or Honey)<br />
2 tbsp Olive oil<br />
1 lemon (juiced)<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Wash and slice the leeks. Melt the coconut oil in a casserole and add the leeks. Cook gently for 5 minutes until soft. Slice the garlic and add.<br />
2. Add the Chilli powder and cook for 5 minutes.<br />
3. Add the beans and their liquid, stock powder and passata.<br />
4. Bring to the boil and simmer. Add nutmeg and lemon juice and the two lemon halves.<br />
5. Add the Swiss Chard stalks chopped into small pieces. Shred the leaves and reserve. Simmer for 15 minutes. Then add the leaves and season well.<br />
6. Put all the ingredients for the Herb Smash in a Processor and blitz to a paste. Season well with salt and pepper.<br />
<br />
Serve them both with rice or flatbread.<br />
<br />
We need to save up these long Summer days like matches and jealously guard them in our little matchbox. Then one by one, as the dark days draw in we can strike them, like Hans Christian Anderson's 'Little Match girl', to illuminate the darkness and to remind us of brighter days.<br />
<br />
Love Martha xMartha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-59594194388061883042018-07-02T08:20:00.000-07:002018-07-02T08:20:03.280-07:00A Summer of PicnicsDear Nigel,<br />
<br />
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(National Trust Calke Abbey) <br />
'Who would have thought it?' as we sat peering through the window at yet another grim rainy day outside, that the Summer would come - like those Summers long long ago - with the kind of day-on-day- sunshine that becomes to seem almost 'reliable' for a change.<br />
<br />
And what a difference it makes to your spirits and to the whole world around you. It is as if a collective sigh has been heaved and everyone has lost a couple of stone in weight and is now floating round about you, energised, quipping jokes, spreading smiles on slabs of bread and making life all the better for living.<br />
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So, it is picnic time, and barbecue time. And there has been a run on Halloumi by the barbecue brigade, and mangoes. I am a picnic person. I blame it on my mother who never liked to see a weekend, rain or shine, go by without a picnic in one of our beloved spots in the Lake District where I grew up. What I remember are the dozens of tiny Tupperware boxes full of little treats and tastes that poured out of the old washing hamper we took with us. And so it is for me, as a friend kindly pointed out the other day as we sat munching on the picnic blanket. I, too, have hundreds of tiny boxes, once used to prepare endless pureed baby food, and now holding a handful of green and purple olives, a small wet tomato salad, small crispy things. I hadn't really noticed that one before. I'm turning into my Mother; oh no.<br />
<br />
For this picnic I have prepared an 'Aubergine, Red Pepper and Tomato Tart'. It is a meal investment, I agree, but it tastes so lovely, both hot and cold, that it really is worth the effort. I make sure to make the most of it by serving it hot for dinner on another night with new potatoes glistening with butter and chives; the picnic itself; and I still get another lunch for one out of it for a day at home.<br />
<br />
A note about travelling: This tart travels well. She is well-behaved and sturdy. This also means she goes a bit further (amongst your guests), so less is needed. - I shan't take you any further down that route or we will all start to getting into trouble... But what I had really intended to tell all you domestic gods and goddesses out there, is that there is a wonderful type of thick foil roll that comes ready-lined in parchment paper, and this is a godsend for any sticky, awkward or delicate picnic food and I can't recommend it highly enough.<br />
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<br />
Aubergine, Red Pepper and Tomato Tart<br />
<br />
200g plain flour<br />
100g unsalted butter<br />
1 egg<br />
1 tsp salt<br />
1 tbsp water<br />
<br />
160g aubergines<br />
2 red peppers<br />
1 large red onion<br />
50ml olive oil + extra<br />
1 tsp salt<br />
1/2 tsp ground black pepper<br />
100g cherry tomatoes<br />
1 tbsp leaf parsley (chopped)<br />
60g + 200g cheddar cheese (grated)<br />
150g full fat Greek yogurt<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Blitz all the first five pastry ingredients in a food processor until they come together in a ball.<br />
2. Grease a 23cm deep quiche tin.<br />
3. Roll out and line the tin. Chill for 20 mins in the fridge.<br />
4. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade.<br />
5. Chop the aubergines, red peppers and red onion. Roast on a tray, drizzled with oil and salt and pepper for 20 mins until just soft, covered in foil.<br />
6. Leave to cool. Drain any excess juice off.<br />
7. Stir in the chopped parsley and 60g of cheese and the cherry tomatoes (halved).<br />
8. In a separate bowl, mix the yogurt and 200g of cheese. Line the pastry case with this.<br />
9. Scatter over the roast vegetables and bake for 30 mins. at 170 degrees centigrade.<br />
10. Allow to cool in the tin. Lovely warm or cold.<br />
<br />
This picnic is for a rug by the river with a large wet dog with paws that don't understand blankets are for humans. He settles down before long, but before that we are protecting wine glasses and salad bowls from excited snouts. Merlin doesn't understand that food on the ground is not food for dogs. But I am in love with my friend's wonderful black dog - a rescue dog who has come to realise that he is among friends. In between holding wine and food and bowls and trying to settle the dog, a large swarm of flies heads our way. It is late afternoon, perhaps 5 o'clock, a good time to be avoiding other picnickers and walkers, I think. I look in dismay at this vision of spotted loveliness - like your old telly with the rounded screen that was dots and pictures as your dad fiddled away at the back with the knobs, usually making it worse, not better. Wimbledon became a game of spot the ball, or balls. We learnt to live through the snow storm at times, long before blu-ray.<br />
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But the flies are only there, like the rest of us, for a good drink. They slurp and lick the dog dry and then move off again as if they had never been there. This Summer drought has made everyone thirsty it seems. The little brook beside my house, 'The Hoo', which flows into the River Dove, and then on into the River Trent, has been completely dry two days running. I have never seen it like that before. Water comes down from the moors above us, running at speed, so much so that we were nearly flooded two years ago and the course of the river had to be moved over a couple of feet and widened to prevent the possibility.<br />
<br />
The cows also broke into the stream looking for water. I saw them a few days ago mooing and stomping outside my neighbour's back door. She had the door open and washing on the line and these three beasts seem to have forgotten how they got there. They hadn't read the article on climate change.<br />
<br />
I make another lunch. Lunch is good at this time of year. Lunch for my best friend outside in the garden. What could be better? I make Chard and Brie muffins. Fresh from the oven, slathered in butter and bordered by salad. they are very moreish. So much so that the artfully stacked and lined bread basket has only one lonely specimen in it when I realise that I have forgotten to take any photos. So apologies for the lone, lost muffin. He soon joined his fellows I can tell you. But perhaps that's a good recommendation: three of us had happily chomped through eleven substantial muffins without stopping for breath.<br />
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<br />
Chard and Brie Muffins<br />
<br />
25g butter<br />
150g Swiss chard (or spinach)<br />
190g self-raising flour<br />
4 tbsp grated Parmesan<br />
a good grating of nutmeg<br />
175ml milk<br />
1 egg (beaten)<br />
75g brie<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees centigrade.<br />
2. Grease a 12 hole muffin tin.<br />
3. Chop the chard stalks and steam for 5 mins. Add the chopped leaves and steam for a further 2 mins. Turn into a clean tea towel and squeeze out the excess water (very important as it will make your muffins heavy and soggy otherwise).<br />
4. Mix the flour, 2 tbsp Parmesan, pinch of salt and nutmeg in a bowl.<br />
5. Beat the milk, melted butter and egg in a separate bowl.<br />
6. Tip the milk mixture into the flour and stir briefly.<br />
7. Add the cooked chard and brie (cubed). Mix briefly.<br />
8. Spoon into the muffin tin. Sprinkle with 2 tbsp Parmesan.<br />
9. Bake for 15 mins.<br />
10.Cool on a wire rack. Eat warm, or cold on a picnic. Nice buttered.<br />
PS. I used muffin cases, because my recipe told me to - don't bother, they just stick to the paper because of the amount of liquid in the chard.<br />
<br />
The best thing about Summer, I think, is being able to sit in the shade with a good novel and read. There's nothing quite like Summer reading. It's the time to browse in a good bookshop for that pristine copy that feels so perfect in your hand and makes you salivate in anticipation of where you will be, sitting reading your perfect unopened copy; turning the freshly laundered pages with their sharp hospital corners, drinking in the scent of paper and ink and unadulterated newness. And saying to yourself, 'mine, all mine', like a miser - it's never the same once someone's 'been at it', or bought you a book but taken the trouble to read it first before they give it to you...always a rum sort of 'present' I think...<br />
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I am reading Nora Ephron's 'Heartburn'. It is a new edition marking 40 years of Virago Modern Classics, celebrating women writers and broadening the definition of a 'classic'. The series is a baker's dozen with beautiful illustrations, both inside and out, which are a joy to hold, by the illustrator Yehrin Tong.<br />
<br />
Like me, Nora talks of life and love and food and recipes, though perhaps with a more acerbic and amusing tongue. Real life is very thinly disguised under the mantle of a novel.<br />
Of falling in love she says, 'I have friends who begin with pasta, and friends who begin with rice, but whenever I fall in love, I begin with potatoes...I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them.'<br />
She is my kind of woman.<br />
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So take yourself off to a tree in your garden with a bit of dappled shade. Unfold the old striped wooden deckchair that your Dad might have sat in. Pour yourself a cool drink, wear a ridiculously floppy hat and enjoy immersing yourself in Summer, brought to you on a carpet of words and images that just float on by. Delectable.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-56053850015413691022018-06-21T15:49:00.001-07:002018-06-21T15:49:04.812-07:00A Summer Solstice Baby and a Bring-your-own Barbecue.Dear Nigel,<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
It is a beautiful clear Summer's day with sky the bluest of blues. There is a strong breeze in the tree tops which whips through the open door and sends my papers flying all over the table.<br />
<br />
I like to think I'm writing this on my old type writer - the one with the dodgy key that would suddenly leap into the centre of the page, several tabs, (because it was a cheap typewriter, bought as a Christmas present by my ex-husband when we were still teenagers and I had too many words in my head and nowhere to put them). But in actual fact - like everyone else - it is a quiet, well-behaved keyboard with no soul and no life beyond the plug socket.<br />
<br />
Yet today, as I sit here battling a flaring tablecloth and the sudden umbrage of Henry's chickens in the distance (who are less accommodating than they might be, given how well they are fed each day), I am drifting internally on a sea of serene calm and happiness. Today my first little Grandchild has been born and I have moved one step up the ladder and am now 'Granny'.<br />
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I am picturing an old black and white photograph I remember of my own Granny when she was younger than me, apparently. She is sitting in a pony and trap at the beach with my cousin Michael, and me a small baby. She is a more comfortable matronly-type Granny than me, with a felt hat on her head and set grey curls framing her face. She is still very pretty, but very much a Grandmother and Matriarch of her family.<br />
I wonder what kind of Granny I will be?<br />
<br />
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I have been making a vegetable patch in my 'borrowed garden'. I do indeed have a small garden, myself, but it is my borrowed garden with its views over the cows and buttercups in the top meadow and the dip through the trees and down across the stream, where the cattle cross to the high meadows on the other bank, (reminiscent of some old oil painting of Constable's, I like to think), that is the place where I like to be, and think, and work. So, I've moved my old beehive here, and the sundial that once marked time with shadowy rotating fingers in a herb garden far away many Summers ago. There is a simple mellowed wooden bench from where I sit and drink my coffee, and two freshly dug beds zipped together by a narrow stone path in which I have been planting things I may like to eat. One day. If they grow. The climate is a bit harsher here and things take a bit longer and grow a little stockier and sturdier. Or not at all, if they're the fair-weather kind of vegetable. I hope I have just chosen the robust type. I am looking at my little leeks willing them to grow a little stronger. But they have yet time.<br />
<br />
I arrive home from the garden nursery with herbs that I can one day use in the kitchen. I have tried to be more disciplined in my approach this time and send the mints packing to the other end of the garden, near the stream, with their unruly root systems. For fun there is a chocolate mint for Sophie and strawberry plants for her to pilfer at will. As a child I remember the best thing about a garden was either as a place to hide or somewhere to hunker down and stuff your face with raspberries, amongst the thorny canes where no one else could see you. And always the red-stained fingers that gave it all away when you were too full to manage much come dinner time.<br />
<br />
Last week we had a special Birthday celebration for my son Chris's 30th Birthday. Newly moved into his house and with a baby due imminently it didn't seem fair to let them take the brunt of the work, so it became a family affair, which was lovely. What do you take to a barbecue run by vegetarians? Good question. I opted to make a few salads to go with everything; but in the end, being the sort of mixed family we are, we took meat for the meat-eaters, salad for all and they provided beetroot burgers and a Brazilian pudding which nearly finished us all off. The salads which I made were a simple 'Turmeric rice salad' and a refreshing 'Tangy Courgette salad'. I am gradually amassing a blank journal full of salad accompaniments which I can dip into at will - I never seem to find the recipe I want when I want it, and these blank journals (I have another for soups, one for light suppers etc) help me organise and cross reference. God, I am becoming so anal I think - cross referencing - I love it; love order and neatness, notes to self, adaptations, who loves which recipe in particular....there is no end to the thoughts that can accompany a simple dabbling in the kitchen.<br />
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Of course, making lots of salads is time-consuming and unnecessary, in general: one or two will suffice. But if you ever get the chance, take yourself off to Powerscourt House and Gardens in County Wicklow where the Avoca cafe still (hopefully) serves the most amazing range of rainbow salads I've ever seen. Just to be able to choose from so many, so much colour and texture and detail - like a fine embroidered bedspread all laid out before you- is enough to inspire you to get the chickpeas out at home and create with gusto and a sampling spoon. Soon you, too, will have a collection of quick, easy and tasty salads you can rustle up the minute the sun shines (from mainly store cupboard ingredients) and someone utters the word 'barbecue', and you're left thinking 'does this mean muggins is off to the shop when actually I'd like to sit on a terrace and drink something light and fruity served by a very nice man in a white shirt, thank you.'<br />
There is method in this madness.<br />
<br />
<br />
Turmeric Rice Salad<br />
<br />
175g Brown Basmati rice<br />
75g Sultanas<br />
1/2 tsp Turmeric<br />
1 clove of garlic, crushed<br />
4 tbsp french dressing<br />
salt and pepper<br />
chopped parsley to garnish (flat-leaved)<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Cook the rice in boiling water for 30-35 mins. until just tender. Drain.<br />
2. Combine the sultanas, garlic, turmeric and french dressing.<br />
3. Pour over the rice and stir well.<br />
4. Cover and refrigerate.<br />
5. Fork through, adjust seasoning and sprinkle with the chopped Parsley.<br />
<br />
<br />
Tangy Courgette Salad<br />
<br />
450g Courgettes<br />
1 lemon<br />
1 garlic clove, crushed<br />
3 tbsp Olive oil<br />
salt and pepper to taste.<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Thinly slice the courgettes.<br />
2. Pour boiling water over them and leave for 5 minutes. Drain.<br />
3. Grate the lemon rind, add the juice, the garlic and olive oil.<br />
4. Season with salt and pepper.<br />
5. Pour over the courgettes.<br />
6. Leave to cool in the fridge.<br />
<br />
So we arrive at the party with the salads, the meat, the barbecue, the charcoal, the tools, the table, the chairs...and almost the kitchen sink...and Hannah has knocked up another of her fab cakes for the Birthday Boy.<br />
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It is one of those perfect Summer afternoons where everyone chooses to behave and things just tick along nicely and everyone has a lovely time. Sometimes, it is just about possible to have the kind of lovely afternoon you see portrayed in the colour supplements with lots of impossibly lovely people all seemingly having "amazing" fun... but it just wouldn't be England, would it, without 'something bad in the woodshed', or at least a ten year old argument being reenacted over by the he-man fire pit.<br />
Bless 'em.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-41950610900258387442018-06-01T14:09:00.001-07:002018-06-01T14:09:24.363-07:00'One Swallow does not a Summer make'....but three might...Dear Nigel,<br />
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<br />
There is a particularly noisy bird standing on the top of a huge pine tree opposite, as I sit here and write, giving his speech of almost Churchillian proportions to the unimpressed masses below. But no one could doubt his sincerity. He claims that Summer is here, and it's true: bursting from every hedgerow, dripping from every hawthorn tree, this abundance of flower and blossom.<br />
<br />
Summer has come for me too, at last. Like swallows migrating north for the Summer, my little birds have come back home. First my daughter Hannah, from eighteen months in China and East Asia, followed swiftly by my second son, Chris and his fiancee Beatriz, from Germany (where they have been living these past few years). My third little swallow will be my first grandchild, due to arrive at the end of June, dropped by a stork.<br />
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Suddenly there is life and laughter and an abundance of all that is good in this world. Day by day the rhubarb patch is getting out of control as it sucks the richness out of the earth. I like to deal with it outside, partly because the large leaves are unwieldy in my tiny kitchen, but mainly because it is too nice to be stuck indoors in the kitchen. It is time for the kitchen to come outside to play. There is something therapeutic about sticking your hands in a bowl of ice cold water to rub any lingering soil from the pink and green striped chunks. This first lot is to be bagged and off to the freezer for future crumbles and fools.<br />
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I have a mind to start a Children's cookery book - of real food, not just endless sweet cakes - and a willing cook to test it out for me. Sophie has already spied the rhubarb, lurking behind the oil tank, and staked her claim. I will look out my pie dish and give her free rein in the kitchen. Children love to cook; most of them. I never met a child who didn't want to cook something that they particularly wanted to eat. And maybe that is the answer. I am particularly uninspired by the kind of children's cookbooks (usually with overly-vivid photographs of sweets pretending to be food) of the kind my children usually receive at Christmas. And I want to take my little cooks out into the garden and show them how it grows, and when it is just right to harvest, and have them see it as part of nature and of the season and cycle of the year. I want them to taste the onion in a chive blade as they throw it in a simple omelet before the pretty purple flowers make the blades woody and inedible. And down in the woods, where the ransomes grow, I want them to smell the dankness and picture the white flower heads about to carpet the hillside like an over-exuberant Axminster.<br />
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<br />
It is salad season here. Nearly every day I am tempted to 'do the healthy thing' and plate up with a huge mound of salad to go with whatever we are eating. I have taken to experimenting with making different salad dressings to see which I prefer and with what. These are simple things to make and take minutes to prepare.<br />
<br />
My two current favourites are a traditional french walnut oil dressing with balsamic vinegar and a cider vinegar and olive oil one with shallots in it. The cider vinegar one is sharper and cuts through things, and the walnut oil one is thicker and richer and more subtle, and I can't seem to get enough of it. Walnut oil is also incredibly good for you, with its antioxidants, omega 3, melatonin to promote a good night's sleep and seems to promote weight loss (although probably not in the amounts I'm anointing my salads with!)<br />
<br />
<br />
Walnut Oil Vinaigrette<br />
<br />
6 tblsp. Walnut Oil<br />
2 tblsp. Balsamic vinegar<br />
2 tsp. Dijon mustard<br />
1/2 tsp. salt<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
Simply add all the ingredients to a screw top jar and shake well. Or add to a mixing jug and stir with a small whisk until the mixture thickens and 'comes together'.<br />
<br />
<br />
Cider vinegar and shallot dressing<br />
<br />
80 ml Olive oil (need I say extra-virgin these days?)<br />
60 ml Cider vinegar<br />
2 tsp Honey<br />
2 tsp Dijon mustard<br />
1/2 tsp salt<br />
1/4 tsp ground black pepper<br />
1 shallot (finely chopped)<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
Add all the ingredients to a mixing jug and stir well. Pour carefully into an empty dressing bottle.<br />
(Don't use a funnel, as I did, as the chopped shallot just gets stuck, and don't attempt to make this in the salad dressing bottle as the Dijon mustard just gets all over the place and sticks to the side of the bottle instead of combining.)<br />
<br />
I have been using an organic raw and unfiltered cider vinegar which rather poetically claims to 'contain(s) the mother'. The health benefits of cider vinegar are huge, including lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, but I have been taking it daily for some years to help with arthritis. I'm not going to lay any extravagant claims for it here, but all I can say is that the daily pain I was experiencing in my hands has now completely gone. So who's to know?<br />
<br />
I am always happy when I can get two different meals out of something. I made this Goats Cheese, Tomato and Basil Tart the other day to serve warm with the lovely new Jersey potatoes that are around at the moment; and then served it cold as part of a picnic another day. It works well under either guise, and is solid-enough to transport wrapped in foil.<br />
<br />
Goats Cheese, Tomato and Basil Tart<br />
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<br />
Pastry:<br />
200g Strong flour<br />
100g Butter, cubed<br />
1 egg<br />
1/2 tsp salt<br />
1 tblsp water<br />
<br />
Filling:<br />
2 eggs<br />
100g Greek yogurt<br />
100g Goats Cheese<br />
1 tsp Baking powder<br />
50g plain flour<br />
1 tsp salt<br />
1/2 tsp black pepper<br />
2 tblsp finely chopped fresh basil<br />
<br />
Topping:<br />
400g Cherry Tomatoes<br />
50g Goats Cheese<br />
Olive Oil, to drizzle<br />
A few Basil leaves.<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Put the flour, butter, egg and salt in a processor and blitz until it forms a ball.<br />
2. Roll out and line a greased 23cm fluted flan tin.<br />
3. Place in the fridge for 20 mins.<br />
4. Place all the filling ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir well until thoroughly combined and a soft consistency.<br />
5. Spoon the mixture into the tart shell and spread evenly.<br />
6. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half cross ways and arrange cut side up over the filling.<br />
7. Scatter the remaining goats cheese, crumbled, over the filling and drizzle with olive oil and scatter over the remaining basil leaves.<br />
8. Bake at 170 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes.<br />
<br />
<br />
There is something rather lovely about serving up something a little out of the ordinary for a picnic on a day out. My childhood was spent growing up in the Lake District, and every weekend, week in, week out, whatever the weather, we spent picnicking in Wasdale or Ennerdale or one of our favourite hidden 'family' spots, amongst the jungle of bracken.<br />
<br />
My mum had an old washing hamper that my dad's mum had given them, which she filled with tiny blue Tupperware boxes with circles on their transparent lids - hundreds of them, it seemed - and our greatest joy was to unpack them all and peel back the little lids to discover the little treasures held inside. A few slices of hard-boiled egg with cress and mayonnaise or a piece of gingerbread was like Christmas all over again to a starving child with icy wet legs from clambering in the stream in towelling shorts and soaking wet plimsolls.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-77598053532129491582018-04-30T08:19:00.000-07:002018-04-30T08:19:20.276-07:00Where to Start....Dear Nigel,<br />
<br />
March 2018:<br />
Sometimes life just comes, grabbing you by the scruff of the neck, leaving you dangling helplessly in the air, your feet still moving but the ground beneath them somehow missing. Sometimes life is simply like that and it is alright to just hibernate for a while and sit out the winter. But time always turns again. Rhubarb and snowdrops thrust their heads above ground and you are ripped from slumber and stand there naked and shivering in the late Winter sun, wondering where on earth to start again.<br />
<br />
The bright sun here is melting the recent arctic weather; deeper here, I suppose, than most. Last Saturday a friend (another Nigel) dug me out of a deep snow drift with his tractor, only yards from the cottage. Like most folk around here we were prepared for a bad winter, with a well-stocked freezer and plenty of logs in the woodshed; and I was just thankful that we were all home and together while the schools closed and the farmers waited for a break in the weather to start clearing the roads. Nigel took time out from carrying bales of hay to his cows to dig us out and I am very grateful to him for his kindness.<br />
<br />
I start by making some soup. It is always my fallback mechanism; my comfort food of choice, my invitation to the dance. I make a 'Thai Coconut, Sweet Potato and Lemongrass Soup' to remind me of my wayward daughter, Hannah, who is "living the dream", as they say, and travelling around Thailand at present. The soup is dense and thick, something to wallow in and provide that 'readybrek' glow we once knew as small children, when the cold never seemed to touch us and coats were something you threw discarded in a heap as soon as an adult was out of sight.<br />
<br />
Thai Coconut, Sweet Potato and Lemongrass Soup<br />
<br />
Ingredients:<br />
2 onions<br />
3 cloves of garlic<br />
2 carrots<br />
2 red chillies<br />
1" piece of root ginger<br />
1kg sweet potatoes<br />
3tblsp olive oil<br />
3 stalks of lemongrass<br />
2tsp salt<br />
1/2tsp black pepper<br />
2 limes (juiced)<br />
1.5 litres vegetable stock<br />
1 x 400ml tin of coconut milk<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
Heat the oil in a large soup pan.<br />
Chop the onions and carrots and add. Cover and cook gently for 10 mins, stirring occasionally.<br />
Bruise the lemongrass with the back of a knife.<br />
Add to the pan with the garlic (chopped), ginger (grated) and chillies (chopped).<br />
Cook for 5 mins.<br />
Add the sweet potatoes (peeled and chopped into 2cm cubes).<br />
Stir well. Add the salt and pepper and lime juice.<br />
Add the stock and coconut milk and turn up the heat.<br />
Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 mins.<br />
Remove the lemongrass stalks and blend until smooth.<br />
<br />
I take food round to Nigel's to thank him for digging me out and his wife, Melanie, invites me in for tea. She shows me photos on her laptop of the new bells which have been recast or replaced and hung in the steeple of the village church. A new floor had to be made and there are engravings on the bells and on the cradles they sit in marking local bequeaths. The heritage lottery came up trumps although the giant thermometer marking the progress of funds says there is still further to go. I smile each time we drive past it in the churchyard because someone with a wicked sense of humour has drawn the thermometer, with its two bells, to look a little obscene. It would appeal to the sense of humour of some of the old farmers around here, I think.<br />
<br />
So the church is looking for bell ringers and soon there will be a peel of six echoing down the Manifold Valley once more. I wonder when that was last heard. There are many older folk here who have lived here all their lives who would surely remember.<br />
<br />
Apparently, we are in demand now for outings of visiting bell ringing groups. They go on pub crawls, of a type, filling out their eye spy books and ticking off all the churches rung at, one by one. I had no idea that campanology was such a competitive sport.<br />
<br />
April 2018:<br />
Sunshine comes in fits and bursts between the cold spells, the winds and the mist on the moor. It is time to cut the grass for the first time, and look at the poor old Buddleia bush that didn't survive the heavy snows. Every year there are a few casualties to the winter months, a few replacements and holes to fill.<br />
As in life.<br />
<br />
My travel-hungry daughter is set to come home in a couple of weeks, if only for a while. It is over a year and a half since I waved her off to China and I wonder how her travels will have changed her. One thing is certain, she has learnt how to eat. After all these years of being a picky eater and living on pasta and pizza she has had no choice. I remember her ringing to tell me there was no bread to be had in China. But, once she had got over the initial shock, she adapted and thrived.<br />
<br />
Suddenly, all my chicks are coming home at once. Chris and Bea, who have been living in Frankfurt for several years, have decided to return home to be near family as they bring their firstborn into the world next month. Moving day looks set to be a family affair with all hands on deck - like an episode of 'The Waltons'. It will be wonderful to have them living nearby and to watch my first Grandchild grow: the next generation entering the world to replace the last.<br />
<br />
Minds don't really age unless we want them to. Children help us look at the world with new eyes and regard the familiar as a puzzle to solve. They see things that we have become blind to. Colours intensify. A child sees each and every thing with inquisitiveness - a reaction we can no longer find. How wonderful to be allowed to open the door and enter the secret garden once more where all is discovery and things are not lost, only sleeping. Only a child can bring those things to life. Only a child can see the magic that was never lost, only hidden beneath the brambles and the mossy undergrowth. I am looking forward to being Super Granny - curlers and wrinkly stockings aside, this Granny intends to be getting down and dirty in the sandpit at every opportunity.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-28890859443026022692017-10-16T10:16:00.000-07:002017-10-16T10:16:58.649-07:00Pilfering from the Duchess and Stew in the RainDear Nigel,<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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<br />
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).<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Love Martha<br />
<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-11539827508283023012017-09-23T15:22:00.002-07:002017-09-23T15:22:41.310-07:00On the Trail of The Homity PieDear Nigel,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Spiced Sweet Potato, Spinach and Black Beans.<br />
<br />
600g Sweet Potatoes<br />
1 Red Pepper<br />
2x400g cans of chopped tomatoes<br />
2 garlic cloves, crushed<br />
2 tsp coriander<br />
2 tsp chilli powder<br />
2 tsp cumin<br />
1 tblsp miso paste<br />
salt and pepper<br />
400g tin of Black Beans, drained and rinsed<br />
200g Spinach<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
Peel and chop the sweet potatoes into small 2cm pieces<br />
Chop the red pepper into similar sized pieces<br />
Place them both in a large pan with the chopped tomatoes and 600ml boiling water.<br />
Bring to the boil.<br />
Add garlic, chilli, cumin, coriander, miso paste, salt and black pepper.<br />
Simmer for an hour (stirring every 5 minutes or so).<br />
Add the black beans and spinach.<br />
Serve with rice, or quinoa (which is higher in protein).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-10063278967704375962017-06-27T13:21:00.003-07:002017-06-27T13:21:51.419-07:00Gooseberries for a FoolDear Nigel,<br />
<br />
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<br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<br />
Bean, Fennel and Feta Salad.<br />
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<br />
200g french beans<br />
1 head of fennel<br />
1 bunch of flat-leaved parsley<br />
100g feta cheese<br />
100g toasted pine nuts<br />
<br />
dressing:<br />
11/2tsp Dijon mustard<br />
50ml lemon juice<br />
100ml olive oil<br />
salt and pepper<br />
<br />
method:<br />
1. Boil a large pan of water. Add the beans (topped and tailed first) and blanch for 4 mins.<br />
2. Set aside to cool.<br />
3.Finely shred the fennel using a mandolin, or sharp knife.<br />
4.Whisk the dressing ingredients together.<br />
5. Put the beans, fennel, chopped parsley, crumbled feta cheese and toasted pine nuts in a bowl.<br />
6. Toss with the dressing and season well.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<br />
Hummus<br />
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<br />
1x400g tin of chickpeas<br />
2 garlic cloves (crushed)<br />
2 lemons (juiced)<br />
2tblsp tahini<br />
salt and pepper<br />
olive oil to dress<br />
pinch of hot paprika<br />
<br />
method:<br />
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.<br />
2. Pour into a bowl and drizzle with olive oil and then sprinkle over some hot paprika.<br />
(Keeps well in the fridge for a few days with clingfilm over it).<br />
<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-61672292176747140202017-06-06T10:02:00.000-07:002017-06-06T10:02:33.896-07:00Slipping into SummerDear Nigel,<br />
<br />
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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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyCE8UWfBHhNikqMlmxBRZuXEFbfDVlG_TBkHcn90PyF1r1nU-cUWqk40WgnDzAGRWknWWhIpJa_39RcyN4NP_olyy_qbv9qO4p7sKmrXZLw3TmpxiR63IG1FXpzVqEbe_O90D43sRYv7P/s1600/IMG_5922.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyCE8UWfBHhNikqMlmxBRZuXEFbfDVlG_TBkHcn90PyF1r1nU-cUWqk40WgnDzAGRWknWWhIpJa_39RcyN4NP_olyy_qbv9qO4p7sKmrXZLw3TmpxiR63IG1FXpzVqEbe_O90D43sRYv7P/s200/IMG_5922.JPG" width="200" /></a>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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Summer has returned, it seems.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />
Aubergine, tomato and red pepper tart.<br />
<br />
200g plain flour<br />
100g unsalted butter<br />
1 egg<br />
1tsp salt<br />
1tblsp water<br />
<br />
160g aubergines<br />
2 red peppers<br />
1 large red onion<br />
50ml olive oil (and extra to drizzle)<br />
1 tsp salt<br />
1/2tsp ground black pepper<br />
100g cherry tomatoes<br />
1 tblsp. leaf parsley (chopped)<br />
60g + 200g cheddar cheese (grated)<br />
150g full fat Greek yoghurt<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
Blitz all the pastry ingredients in a food processor.<br />
Grease a 23cm diam deep quiche tin.<br />
Roll out the pastry and line the tin.<br />
Chill for 20 mins.<br />
<br />
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade<br />
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.<br />
Leave to cool. Drain any juice.<br />
Stir in the Parsley and 60g cheese.<br />
In a separate bowl, mix the yoghurt and 200g cheese. Line the pastry with this.<br />
Scatter over the roast vegetables. Bake for 30 mins at 170 degrees centigrade.<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-72305546552419323602017-03-28T07:15:00.000-07:002017-05-08T10:14:14.281-07:00Life in the Greenhouse and FREE glass Dear Nigel,<br />
<br />
<br />
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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.<br />
<br />
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<br />
hall will always be in need of more glass.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.'<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />
Cauliflower Cheese<br />
<br />
Ingredients:<br />
1 large cauliflower<br />
2tblsp olive oil<br />
4tsp maple syrup<br />
salt and pepper<br />
350g creme fraiche<br />
50g Gruyere cheese<br />
2tsp Dijon mustard<br />
1tblsp Parmesan (grated)<br />
1tblsp chopped chives (fresh)<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade.<br />
2. Cut the cauliflower into florets. Place in a large bowl and toss with the the oil and maple syrup.<br />
3. Season with salt and pepper.<br />
4. Place in a roasting tin and roast for 30 mins. until tender.<br />
5. Put the creme fraiche, mustard and grated gruyere cheese in a bowl and combine.<br />
6. Tip in the roasted cauliflower and mix until coated.<br />
7. Place in a fresh roasting tin and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.<br />
8. Cook in the oven for 15-20 mins. until golden.<br />
9. Sprinkle with chives and serve.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-43396628701107595302017-03-10T05:21:00.001-08:002017-03-10T05:21:06.021-08:00Plastic lambs, Crocuses and ...More Green SoupDear Nigel,<br />
<br />
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<br />
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.<br />
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<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
<br />
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?<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Hoping Spring is coming to where you are too,<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-58858687521444103122017-02-15T10:21:00.001-08:002017-02-15T10:21:02.454-08:00February Blues and Red Raw KnucklesDear Nigel,<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
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'.<br />
<br />
'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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />
Aubergine Fesenjan<br />
<br />
120g walnuts<br />
4 medium sized aubergines<br />
rapeseed oil<br />
1 pomegranate (seeded)<br />
250ml vegetable stock<br />
2tblsp pomegranate molasses<br />
1tsp ground cinnamon<br />
1 tsp chilli powder<br />
11/2tblsp honey<br />
3 cloves of garlic<br />
2 large red onions<br />
Fresh coriander<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
<br />
(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.<br />
The pomegranate molasses, which I'd never heard of before, I found in Waitrose. Hopefully, your supermarket will sell it too.)Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-85047520502057295112017-01-18T07:44:00.000-08:002017-01-18T07:44:10.172-08:00To go on with courage and hopeDear Nigel,<br />
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<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Happy New Year,<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />
Jerusalem artichoke and Spinach Soup:<br />
<br />
200g spinach leaves<br />
25g butter<br />
1 onion (chopped)<br />
350g Jerusalem artichokes, sliced finely<br />
275ml milk<br />
570ml chicken stock<br />
nutmeg<br />
4tblsp double cream<br />
<br />
Method:<br />
Melt the butter in a large pan. Add the onion and cook gently, covered, until soft.<br />
Add the artichokes and cook for 15 mins, stirring occasionally.<br />
Add the chicken stock and season with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.<br />
Bring to the boil and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes until the artichokes are tender.<br />
Add the spinach leaves and let them wilt. Blend the soup and add the milk and double cream.<br />
Reheat and adjust seasoning, if necessary.<br />
<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-59228098145413005142016-11-15T16:19:00.000-08:002016-11-15T16:19:18.984-08:00Yesterday's TomatoesDear Nigel,<br />
<br />
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<br />
The change in the hour has left the evenings blacker than ink. The few street lamps in our village are up the other end and angled down to keep light pollution to a minimum. Nature sucks back its goodness and crisp and crackly leaves are left to tumble and fall in heaps on the ground just asking to be kicked. I decide to clear the greenhouse where skeleton strings of mainly green tomatoes hang suspended in mid air. It is always a satisfying job to see - order restored and decay removed. It is part of the ritual I enjoy of putting the garden to bed for the winter; like drawing out flannelette sheets and old hot water bottles from the depths of the blanket chest to mark the change in tempo as the year draws slowly to an end.<br />
<br />
It is the hard structure of a garden that frames the view in winter. Over at the farm the willow arch needs pruning back and shaping once more. We started pruning the willow hedge that rings the front boundary the other week - a job that looked like it might take quite some time - when Les came by with his large machinery heading for the fields and polished the job off for us in minutes. It is good to know there are still corners of good neighbourliness around that come free and without expectation. All the more welcome and noted when the world feels as if it is heading into a new kind of dark age: The blackness of men's souls on show everywhere you turn in print and on screen. It makes you want to look inward for the good and create something that is real and nourishing.<br />
<br />
In the kitchen I am 'doing something with mince' - an economy meal in lean times with Christmas just around the corner. It is your 'Lamb kofka' (page 393) but I am using minced beef, an alternative you suggest, because I am interested to know whether this will really work. Not that I doubt you, mind, but 'meals with mince' is usually enough to make me groan and I will go a long way to try and avoid its too frequent occurrence on the menu, if I can.<br />
<br />
The anchovies are roughly chopped and added to the mince along with the ground ginger and coriander, the chopped thyme, rosemary and parsley, and a couple of tablespoons of toasted sesame seeds. I am not naturally a 'hands-in-there' kind of cook when it comes to mixtures of this kind, but there simply isn't a better way to amalgamate and shape the meat to thread on wooden skewers.<br />
<br />
The taste is a revelation as we were both expecting that unmistakable taste of mince-dressed-as-mince; and instead it is interesting and quite pleasing. I think the saltiness of the anchovies and the spices carried the day. We think it is something that we will make again sometime, anyway. Not perhaps a show-stopper, but a good mid-week special that doesn't require too much hard work. However, I would just say that I had to remove my kofka from their skewers after they came out of the fridge. Maybe it is simply the shape of my raised-sided griddle pan but cooking was going to become an issue if I persisted.<br />
<br />
We go for a walk around a nearby lake with the girls. It still feels funny to be walking without a dog out front. Never happy on a lead, our Poppy was always in and out of the water, carrying impossible-sized sticks and wagging her tail with the energy of a troupe of cheerleaders egging you on. I've hardly been without a doggy companion for the last twenty three years and it stil feels strange especially when we are out. Dogs provide the energy you wished you still had, a reason to walk alone, and an upbeat face when the gloom starts to settle like the mist. It is hard to match.<br />
<br />
A flock of Canada geese graze on a nearby grassy bank, but as the light starts to fade and the walkers become more sparse they make their way back noisily towards the edge of the lake. The country park is closing, cars are leaving and nature is crawling back to take charge once more. The noise from the jet skier is silenced as he packs away his kit. Model boats on the far lake and a miniature railway are put to bed. There is a welcome hush though the light is low and distant runners look like washing on a line with only dayglo t-shirts and arms heading towards you. I feel the damp hitting my lungs. It is not a good time to be out if you are prone to wheezing. But the sudden silence is intoxicating; more so because of the contrast.<br />
<br />
We are all so unaware of the background noises in our environment. Even when we come out for a bit of peace and a country walk, there is sound. I relish the two ends of the day and find myself listening intently to the silence. If there is a radio on I switch it off. Even the heating has to go. The washing machine can wait till later. The fan in the bathroom that is linked to the light is left in darkness. A kettle - too loud. The cat snores gently beside me on the sofa. This is the extent of noise pollution I will allow in that small piece of time that I claim as my own when the house is empty and my hearing is super-charged to hear a pin drop if drop it would. I love this time. It is mine.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-58450445221487205952016-10-19T14:22:00.000-07:002016-10-19T14:22:17.495-07:00A Butterfly on the Other Side of the WorldDear Nigel,<br />
<br />
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<br />
Change is in the air again and so I am making Comfort food for the table. It helps ground me and provide comfort against the Autumn winds and energy of red leaves and restlessness around me. I am preparing your 'Split peas and coriander' dal (page 355), whilst you are preparing a more recent version yourself at home. We both have comfort in mind. For me it is the never-ending butterfly effect in my own life. How we deal with the constant changes in our lives is a marker of our own resilience. And there is always change.<br />
<br />
The Clever North Wind is blowing again and my daughter Hannah is picking up her Chinese visa as I write to go and teach English in Southern China for a year or so. It will be a long time until I see her again. Although only newly returned from America and Summer Camp she is keen to be off again, spreading her wings and seeing life on the other side of the world. I marvel at her courage and zest for life and wish her the best of luck whilst keeping my darker feelings under wraps.<br />
<br />
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<br />
You are in a poetic mood I see, saying (of dal),'you heal more rapidly than arnica. You put the world to rights even before you reach the table.' This is what we want, right now. Whilst others are knocking up elaborate cakes and impossibly complicated puddings in the name of comfort food, we are making simple pared down honest foods, to eat.<br />
<br />
The book I am reading at the moment about 'Mindless Eating' echoes these sentiments, showing how our comfort foods can be changed and engineered to include healthier foods in our diet. The big gender divide - women turning to sweet foods and chocolate and men to meat and veg - is partly all in the mind. We each add our own associations and memories to foods and so are also capable of introducing new memories and associations to improve our diet. Soup is a great example of a healthy food with comfort associations attached. Perhaps that is why it is such a mainstay in this house.<br />
<br />
We pick the last of the tomatoes in the greenhouse and I turn them into Fennel, Tomato and Feta soup. The potatoes are lifted and there is an abundance of pink fir apple potatoes to enjoy. The onions are huge unwieldy globes which we lay in boxes of newspaper in the barn. Leeks and Greens are coming into their own right now and we are centering meals around vegetables with meat (rather than the other way round) and exploring vegetarian options to make the most of the season's bounty.<br />
<br />
I am laying down dishes in the freezer to feed an army at Christmas, and trying to include as many home-grown ingredients as possible - like the Apple and Blackcurrant crumble I part-cooked on Tuesday. It feels good to be adding this kind of value to our celebration meals. And the meals themselves have become an extension of the best of Comfort food. I think anything cooked and prepared by hand at home is about providing love and comfort. And the food most requested by family are the old favourites, not the new and untried or novelty factor ingredients. Perhaps a bit more game or alcohol in the dinner, but often it is a recipe that last saw the light of day at a previous Christmas. I try to add a slightly new twist or take on things without risking a full mutiny.<br />
<br />
The split pea dal has a kind of herb paste made with cashew and coriander and basil and lime juice. It adds interest to comfort and an element of 'dazzle'. The turmeric has many ayurvedic benefits including purifying the blood and helping arthritis. I like to think of food as medicine as well as for health. It feels in tune with the rest of my life. If it is commonplace to regard alcohol as relaxing and coffee as a pick-me-up then it should not be such a huge leap to regard individual ingredients for their health benefits when we consider what we want to cook. How do we make those choices anyway? Flicking through the latest recipe book? Eating seasonally? Whim? How in tune with Comfort eating would it be to prepare and cook the sort food that supports the health of those we care about right now - using ginger root perhaps in a stir fry to aid someone fighting the onset of a cold, or chilli and garlic in a spicy curry to clear a stuffy nose.<br />
<br />
Halloween fare is everywhere in the shopping isles at the moment. There are cupcakes with pumpkins on, expensive chocolate heads and eyeballs for trick or treaters. I am taking the children to the same ghostly castle of Chillingham in Northumberland, near their grandparents, which was such a hit last year. I dig out last year's skeleton outfit for Sophie and Molly and I patch together old witch and devil outfits to make a girl vampire costume which is more to her sophisticated taste this year. Out shopping during the day I stop to fiddle with a singing/dancing hand in the supermarket and soon have a following of old age pensioners all keen to play with the toys and make jokes - it's like Christmas in Hamleys.<br />
<br />
The American tradition of trick or treating doesn't really work in a small rural community like this where the few old people lock up their doors, turn out the lights and go to bed as soon as it gets dark, and wouldn't dream of answering the doorbell this late at night. So this year I am taking the girls and a few of their village friends into the town eight miles away so they can have the opportunity to knock on doors and wave a cauldron around. It is not really within my comfort zone but neither is the endless moaning of 'we never get to go round trick or treating..'which endures for some time before being rekindled the following year. So, in order to save my gentle village neighbours any kind of ordeal I'll dress in green and black and shiver and cringe for an hour or two. I hope my children will appreciate the sacrifices I make for them when they're older.<br />
<br />
Love Martha x<br />
<br />
<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-50239544292006379092016-09-26T14:25:00.001-07:002016-09-26T14:25:07.608-07:00How to Melt an IcebergDear Nigel,<br />
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<br />
I read recently that when a piece of Iceberg starts to melt it makes a kind of fizzing sound known as 'Bergie Seltzer', as tiny air bubbles trapped since it's early formation (and pressurised) become liberated into the atmosphere.<br />
<br />
This is happening to me. Right now. The Iceberg that has been floating in my life for almost twenty years, largely unnoticed and avoided (and mainly below the surface), has started to melt.<br />
<br />
We all like to think that our lives are straight forward and laid out plain to see, but that is rarely entirely the case. Many, if not most of us, have small icebergs of one size or another displacing the water around them. Their lack of colour aides our obliviousness to them and it is entirely possible to get through a whole lifetime circumventing these icebergs without ever having to consider them at all. But now, all of a sudden, the largest iceberg in my life story is starting to melt.<br />
<br />
Google tells me that the largest iceberg on record was sighted off Scott Island in the South Pacific Ocean in 1956 and was larger than the whole of Belgium. My Iceberg has similar gargantuan proportions. It stems from a piece of my history which I've long since put to rest and dealt with emotionally as best as I am able.<br />
<br />
Nearly twenty years ago now I was living what for me seemed to be the perfect life in Cornwall, and the roses in the garden were blooming. I was happier than I have ever been before or since and this joy spilled over into the lives around me. I remember one particular morning when I was sitting there in my garden with a cup of coffee and chatting to my best friend Marian. I became totally conscious of every single dew drop sparkling on every single blade of grass, every insect beating its wings nearby. Time slowed down an hour or more between each heartbeat and I could contain within myself everything that I could see or hear or fathom within that instant. Some say that they understand what it means to be 'in flow' and that it happens regularly to them when focussing on sport, or the wonders or nature, or whatever. But I would question that. This was a far deeper moment, encompassing far more that a single focused trait. Perhaps something only witnessed once within a single lifetime, at best. And never ever forgotten.<br />
<br />
Within six months of that particular February morning (and yes, in parts of Cornwall it is sometimes hot enough even in February to sit outside in shorts) my life had fallen apart, my then-husband had left me to bring up five small children on my own, and suddenly nearly everything about my world which I held dear were like the ashes of a book trickling through my fingers. It was time to leave.<br />
<br />
We moved on quickly to an almost derelict railway station in Northumberland - a strange choice some might say (including my parents) - but it was the change that was needed to rebuild a new life. And life has moved on and on so much since those days and the past is indeed another lifetime.<br />
<br />
So earlier this Summer when David suggested we go down and visit the Cornwall that I knew and loved, and hadn't been back to visit for seventeen years, I did my usual making of excuses - all very laudable reasons why it just wasn't possible this year, perhaps next year. And when he suggested the same thing again I realised that the excuses were passed and that it was the right time and the right person to go down with; to face my demons and unlock the past.<br />
<br />
And it turned out to be just fine after all. The house was just a house I used to live in, the village just a village I used to know. The friends I obliquely mentioned to that I might be passing and could I possibly drop in - only if they were not busy...all got together and threw a wonderful celebration meal for me. And they all came. And I felt loved and honoured.<br />
<br />
As I travelled around watching the seals playing by Godrevy lighthouse and the unseasonably-strong winds whip the surf at Kynance Cove, I saw my older children playing on the beach in their padded Clothkits' jackets and wellies and home-knitted fairisle hats made by Grandma (- we always seemed to go to the beach in Winter when it was deserted). And the shape of my Iceberg started to emerge, silhouetted against a pure blue untroubled sky. Memories started drifting back, sometimes in drips and drabs, sometimes flooding. I know that there are four large red plastic boxes underneath my bed full of photographs encompassing the best part of twenty years. I've barely looked at them in all that time. Couldn't. I think now is the time, and I feel strong-enough to look and assimilate and remember. Then the Iceberg which is slowly shedding it's outer clothing will start and truly melt.<br />
<br />
All this may somehow seem something of nothing to you - and perhaps it is; all just nothing but a glass of water in its many forms. But in my mind it has taken on its solid state and there are whole periods of time - years even - that have almost completely disappeared from my memory. And it is not just the bad things that have been unconsciously blocked out; the worst thing is that it is the good times and the best memories which I have greatest difficulty in locating. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. And it is frightening when you are so desperate to recapture a particular time and place and it is simply not there. At least the constant photography that is most parents' way of hanging on to a fleeting childhood, is there to draw me in. When I'm ready.<br />
<br />
I have been immersing myself in the Danish art of Hygge and donning an over-sized jumper and thick wool house socks and making your 'Stuffed summer squash with tomatoes and butter beans' (page 352). Summer has well and truly ended here and a nip in the air has brought the first leaves tumbling from the trees. It is still fairly green outside but it is not Summer here anymore. The hawthorn leaves curl back to reveal their scarlet berries and the bank opposite my kitchen window is covered in flushed rosehips and glossy blackberries. Someone has hammered details of the annual 'Pea and Pie Supper' to the notice board and there is talk about the new funding for the church bells - something I assumed was but a local myth but is, it appears, about to happen within the next year. Butterton will get its peal of bells back. An over-enthusiastic mobile campanologist with an eye for the ladies gave me a very detailed tutorial at the recent village Wakes Day. When I eventually escaped I felt I knew all there is to know about pulling a rope with a 'Sally' on it (you can look that one up for yourself).<br />
<br />
The local Brass band arrived and left on a large trailer, still playing, all the way down the road pulled by a tractor to the local pub. The only pub - 'The Black Lion.' The village W.I, always game for a laugh, appeared to be dressed as waddling penguins. Apparently they were actually swans doing their 'swan song', so I felt quite relieved that I hadn't referred to Pingu before finding out. But anyone who is prepared to laugh at themselves and have fun in the name of village continuity - or "keeping the event going" in a small rural village - gets my vote; and last year's rendition of 'Cats' in black leotards was certainly a sight to behold.<br />
<br />
The Supper is ready. It is cosy comfort food to suit my mood - all very hyggelig. I had my doubts about including butter beans - they are not really favourites of mine - but here I find they take on the taste of the juicy cherry tomatoes and a little heat from the chilli. I am pleasantly surprised. The dumpling squashes took a little while locating but they look so sweet, like little Danish Elves in their hats, and there is something a bit more of an occasion about this too. Time to light some beeswax candles and draw the blinds against the early falling darkness.<br />
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Love Martha x<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-73247319621066891502016-07-29T13:52:00.001-07:002016-07-29T13:52:22.996-07:00Is every village fete a Festival these days?Dear Nigel,<br />
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We went to a Festival last weekend. Everyone goes to Festivals these days, it seems. Once upon a time it was a handful of hippies behind a hedge with a couple of guitars and peace signs on their faces; these days its three dogs in a field and a beer tent and suddenly it's 'a Festival'. Looking through a leaflet recently of Festivals in our area, there appeared to be at least one that was just a retail opportunity at a Mill with slightly longer opening hours than normal.<br />
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Stainsby Folk Festival in Derbyshire, however, is different. It is a long-standing event, now in its 48th year, and older than Glastonbury if you're comparing notes. It is small and pretty and rural and everything about it tells me that perhaps many moons ago Glastonbury was once like this when it started out. There is one phrase hidden in the festival literature which sums it up for me - 'Not for Profit'. If only Glastonbury and all the other profit-making Festival machines would choose to emulate Stainsby and move back to something that more embodies what festivals were meant to be about instead of being just another branch of relentless consumerism.<br />
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We camped in a small tent (remembering the essentials like the unbreakable cafetiere and the insect repellent) with David's teenage children in pop-up tents nearby. It is a long time since I camped at an event like this and I was a little apprehensive; but Stainsby is small-enough to not get lost in or feel claustrophobic.<br />
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The best music all weekend came from small and middle-sized bands, overshadowing the main act of the weekend with their intense vibrancy.<br />
'Seize the day', with their protest songs and green political ideals seemed to me to have far more in common with the original idea behind festivals than perhaps Adele singing 'Someone like you' at Glastonbury. And the audience bought into this in droves, catching the lyrics as they filed away their rubbish, helping others move their sinking camper vans and lending chairs and wheelbarrows so that everyone had a good time. There was an atmosphere of goodwill and helpfulness on the site that was enchanting and compulsive. All the staff were volunteers; and the idea of a sliding scale of payment for the artists meant that no one got paid too much and no one too little to cover their costs. How many other festivals can say that about themselves?<br />
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I find these ideas echoed back to me in a book I am currently reading by Tim Freke, from which Ali takes her inspiration to write the song 'Big Love'. It is about awareness and watching the dream of life unfold as well as being part of it. It is surreal. I feel like this as I float along in my long dress and alcoholic haze in the sunshine. Life is good and it feels great to be alive. Every day I try and look a little closer, pulling myself into the Now, and noticing the detail I often miss when I try to hurry.<br />
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I buy a hat for Molly (who seems to be into hats at the moment) from a quiet man in an orange canvas tent. It is made of pure wool, hand-knitted in Nepal and costs me £3. I go back later and tell the man he has undercharged me and give him some more money: it seems like the sort of place where you would do that, somehow.<br />
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The promise of Summer has made me rather lax in the kitchen. Meals are throw together affairs - lots of artisan breads and cheeses and salads with olives and tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes are ripening in the greenhouse and they are sweet and moreish. I pick punnets of raspberries to eat now and blackcurrants to freeze. Summer's glut has arrived and we are making the most of it.<br />
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In the kitchen I want to cook simple things. I have mozzarella and aubergines and a basil plant on the window sill that it threatening to flower - all the ingredients I need to make tonight's supper which is your 'Aubergine and mozzarella (page 247). It is just an excuse really to gorge on toasted mozzarella; melted rather than cooked so that it remains long and stringy, without the chance to toughen up. The basil dressing retains all the flavour of the fresh basil. It seems an ideal recipe for pizza addicts who have read the calorie content on the side of their pizza boxes with horror. (My favourite bought pizza appears to contain almost half my entire daily intake of calories, if such things are to be believed, and I don't even feel full afterwards.)<br />
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We are in the garden at the farm looking at Sun dogs in the sky. This is a new one on me and I am fascinated. The sun dogs are two phantom suns which appear on either side of the sun and are most obvious when the sun is nearing the horizon. They are caused by the refraction of light through hexagonal ice crystals in cirrus and cirrostratus clouds and are red on the side nearest the sun, graduating through orange to blue. Often these colours are indistinct, appearing mainly like mirror suns, but today they are clearly striated.<br />
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Shakespeare, in Henry VI part three (dramatising the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in the War of the Roses), has the would-be King Edward decry: 'Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns.' He reassures his army that victory is foretold and that the three suns represent himself and his two brothers, the three sons of the Duke of York, who have been recently killed. The belief that victory was predetermined, which perhaps aided his army in battle, caused Edward IV to incorporate the sunburst as part of his personal badge.<br />
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It is a lazy warm evening and light until almost ten. It is pleasant to lie on the grass and contemplate life and the universe. The sky remains unchanged through the ages however we defile and destroy the landscape around us.<br />
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Love Martha x<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614019239084686667.post-72392589279078701422016-07-14T13:27:00.001-07:002016-07-14T13:27:46.414-07:00A modern day 'Oliver Twist'Dear Nigel,<br />
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When Oliver launched into 'Where-er-er is love' - all small, blond-haired, blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked and suitable Dickensian...- I remembered that he (she) was suitably attired in off-the-internet-peg shabbery (it being cheaper than the charity shops around here) and shoes with holes in that would have made Dickens proud. I had, of course, been trying to make the school shoes last until the new term, without success, and the idea of buying new winter shoes at the end of the Summer term simply went against the grain. It was only when she came in complaining that her socks were wet and that she could see right through the bottom of her shoes that I thought I really ought perhaps to do something about the situation in the interests of good mothering.<br />
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Sophie did splendidly in the role and I was touched deep inside as you are at these special moments. I remembered her older brother Chris playing the same part nearly twenty years ago, and feeling the same way. He, of course, looked a remarkably well-fed little orphan. I toyed with the idea of putting him on a bread-and-gruel diet and keeping him out of the sun, so he could get a little more 'in character' (as so many Hollywood superstars do to extreme these days), but he had the rather distressing habit of bursting into tears if dinner was half an hour late - always the am-dram, our Chris.<br />
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I am reading a very interesting book at the minute: 'First Bite - How we learn to eat' by Bee Wilson. Apart from showing how our food habits take hold in the first place, it is interesting to see how food habits might be consciously changed to include new or previously hated foods - such as your boiled eggs and my cooked carrots (both throw backs from an era of forced feeding). I am considering the options as David is growing all kinds of things which fill me with horror - such as Brussel sprouts. I have been wondering whether it would be sacrilege to try and stir fry them or something.<br />
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The idea behind Bee Wilson's theory (well, distinguished scientists' and nutritionists' theory anyway) seems to be the sustained practise of eating tiny tastes of the offending food, carrot, boiled egg, or whatever. When you have overcome your fear of confronting the said carrot, and taken one tiny bite for perhaps thirty days in a row, then you may come to love or at least tolerate the little blighter sitting next to the potatoes on your plate, without having to make a space between the two in case of contamination: One can spend a whole lifetime not entirely growing up, it seems.<br />
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Living inside a pocket well of hills - or so the Peak District often feels - means that there are quaint little cast iron telephone boxes being preserved all over the place, whereas elsewhere in the country they are being ripped out, taken to salvage yards and sold to smug city dwellers to plant in their gardens as 'features'. The reason for this is, as every distressed Duke of Edinburgh student will tell you, that there is virtually no mobile phone signal around here for miles and miles. Often when I am out, sprinting down the main road through Longnor (which serves as motorway for this area of the Peaks), I encounter two tractors going in opposite directions with young lads in them both illegally holding mobile phones to their ears at just the right point when a break in the hills makes reception viable.<br />
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They are cutting and tossing hay at present. The last couple of weeks every farm was at it flat-out, all hours, and fields tinged with the haze of wild red grasses were scythed and rolled into rapidly-covered polythene cylinders. The gardens and hedges are as lush as I have ever seen them. Chlorophyll oozes from every branch or stem but there is rain damage to the roses (though their water-coloured petals still look beautiful to me) and the peonies have been weighted down until they can no longer hold out and admit defeat. I crunch into fat raw gooseberries claiming to be eaters. They have not turned pink as yet but they are sweet-enough for me. Perhaps they will make their way into a fool before long. Gooseberry fool is perhaps my most favourite of all. A strange fruit, the gooseberry. You rarely see it for sale in shops, yet it grows well and is plentiful. It freezes well too, if time is short. I am leaving mine on a little longer to see if they will turn pink. Perhaps I am just in a hurry for them. The days have been rather dull of late. Perhaps they need the promise of sun to ripen.<br />
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I am making your 'Currant buns' (page 236), which are more like little pastries containing fresh blackcurrants, served warm and slathered in cream (any excuse is good). My main reason for turning to this particular recipe is actually the wealth of blackcurrants from last year still lurking in the freezer when this year's crop is virtually ripe for picking now. Somehow there is always rhubarb and blackcurrants left in bags each year. In years gone by I made lots of jam and it would have gone then. But as we eat more healthier these days and jam consumption has plummeted, I found I was making it just to give away - which is fine - but ultimately there are many more mushrooms I'd rather stuff.<br />
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Full-fat cream cheese is added to the pastry to enrich it and the pastry is glazed with egg and dusted with caster sugar. It is a Summer treat and I have two little girls on their way back from school who might appreciate such a treat on this 'unseasonally' sunny day (or so it seems this rather wet Summer we've been having).<br />
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Broken into; the midnight berries gleam in their coat of syrup and the tide-line of purple haze against the wave of cream, is just begging to be played with and swirled, like the edges on the shore.<br />
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Ah, Summer; a time for relaxing and contemplating the essential things in life...<br />
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Love Martha x<br />
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<br />Martha Muffetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15543100590305132186noreply@blogger.com0