Blogging

Blogging

I was reading Rachel’s post on blogging in Slow Lane Life and it struck me that although I enjoy blogging I don’t write as many posts as I used to. My life has not changed substantially so what am I doing instead? Have other things taken its place or is it just a phase I’m going through? (Why should children be the only people to have ‘phases’?)

I could lie and say I have been redecorating – but no, I leave that to the dogs. I have some embroidery to finish – and more to start. I have shallots to pickle – or will have when they’re delivered tomorrow, that is if Tesco hasn’t run out and tried to substitute them with onion-flavoured crisps. (Some of their substitutions defy belief.)

I ought to pick the crab apples that haven’t already dropped and make crab apple jelly but the garden is a quagmire. It’s time to make some more marmalade, too – and piccalilli and pickled red cabbage.

There again, I should declutter the house, starting with the spare bedrooms, but the thought fills me with . . . exhaustion.

My excuse is that I am writing. One book is being prepared for Kindle publication and I am editing another. It’s a feeble excuse, really, because I don’t spend disciplined – or even undisciplined – hours feverishly tapping out literary fluff. No, I read emails, do some online shopping, catch up on television programmes that take my fancy, replenish the bird feeders, watch the birds, laugh at the dogs, take them for walks, nurse Winston and attempt to clip his claws – oh, and there are the usual household chores, and meals to prepare and eat – it’s a busy life and no mistakeJ Add to that weekend visits from sundry, and sometimes all, family members – and their dogs -  and I can’t think how I have time to do anything;-)

Anyway, the following is an extract from the book I’m editing. (It's called 'Good Fences Make Good Neighbours') To set the scene, Sandra’s son David has just lost his hamster to one of Pat and Larry’s cats and a funeral has been arranged.

At the simple ceremony the following day Beatrice and Damon Yardley joined the chief mourners. The Minter children had wanted to come too, but the girls stayed at school for activities and prep and were never home before seven. Alexander didn’t want to go without them.

Sandra was touched to note that Pat and Larry had changed from their usual scruffy sweatshirts into clean shirts and ties. David carefully placed a cross made from lolly sticks under the mahonia japonica he had chosen at the garden centre. He was quite specific about what he wanted; it was to be evergreen with scented flowers and should not grow too tall too quickly. He chose the site in a sunny corner of the garden, ‘So that Honey won’t get cold.’

Sandra remembered burying beloved pets in her childhood garden. When it came to the point of covering the stiff bodies with damp earth she always felt a pang they would never feel the sun again. Even as a teenager, she couldn’t rid herself of the irrational thought that it was wrong to shut out the light. She had always wanted to tuck a warm blanket round the cold body. She took her son’s hand now and led him into the kitchen. Everyone sat down at the circular table at the dining end of the room and tucked into the sausage rolls and quiches and vol-au-vents and pizzas Sandra had cooked earlier.

As the children were finishing their ice-cream, Pat and Larry slipped out of the room. When they came back, Pat was carrying a soft cat bed and Larry had two pottery bowls in his hands.

‘Where would you like this, Sandra?’ Pat asked.

‘I think you’d better ask David,’ she smiled.

‘Well, David?’ said Larry.

‘Is that mine?’ said David in a hoarse voice. ‘Are we going to have a cat, Mummy?’

‘Look in the cat bed,’ said the men.

David got down from his chair and went slowly to look. Peeping out at him was a shiny brown Burmese with large chartreuse eyes.

‘It’s Nutmeg,’ he said. ‘What’s she doing here?’

‘She’s come to live with you, David. We’ve been looking for a good home for her and she likes you.’

David shook his head wonderingly and was quite speechless. Sandra felt tears pricking her eyes and chided herself for foolishness. Quickly she pointed her camera at her son and captured his joyous expression.

‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ David managed at last. ‘Please may I hold her?’

‘Of course you may – Nutmeg’s yours now and you can hold her whenever you like. She’ll never tire of having a fuss made of her.

Jam, marmalade and pickles

I have mentioned before – here and here – my on-going difficult relationship with cooking but I have had some success with jam, marmalade and pickles. A few weeks ago Barry reminded me that we had run out of marmalade. (I have visions of exhausted athletes hauling themselves gelatinously from a titian-coloured quagmire and staggering stickily to a finishing line – but that’s just me!)

As everyone knows, (don’t tell me you didn’t!) January is the month in which Seville oranges aavailable . I have no idea why they are on sale for a short period only but they are reputed to be superior fruits in the marmalade stakes.

 Wikipedia says:

Seville orange (or bigarade) is a widely-known, particularly tart orange which is now grown throughout the Mediterranean region. It has a thick, dimpled skin, and is prized for making marmalade, being higher in pectin than the sweet orange, and therefore giving a better set and a higher yield. It is also used in compotes and for orange-flavoured liqueurs. Once a year, oranges of this variety are collected from trees in Seville and shipped to Britain to be used in marmalade. However, the fruit is rarely consumed locally in Andalusia

So I bought some and started preparing them. 

My marmalade would never pass an authenticity test since I tweak the recipe to accommodate my needs (basically, my laziness!) and prepare as for jam. No muslin bags with pips therein hang from the side of my Maslin pan. Once the oranges are well cooked I scoop out the flesh and drain the mixture overnight ready to boil up the next day with lemon juice, water and half the amount of sugar in any recipe I’ve ever seen.

Now, making marmalade – or jam – is not a swift process and I am easily bored. Besides, I do have other things to do, so I leave the simmering concoction, returning to the kitchen every so often to check progress. Unfortunately, I am frequently absorbed by some research or other – the sort where you open a dictionary to find the definition of a word and then discover, an hour later, that you’re seeking meanings for words you’d never previously heard of! Anyway, this time I was not thus distracted – in fact, I was in the garden doing something  rather worthy – refilling the bird feeders, probably – when Barry alerted me to the fact that ‘something’ had boiled over and I might care to take a look.

Well! Was this a message from the world beyond that I needed to hone my housekeeping skills or was it the cooker itself registering a complaint? Who knows? There was a – I was going to say ‘slick’ – but it was much more than that- a lava flow of molten marmalade mixture covering half the hob. I knew I had to clean it quickly before it set rock hard so that was my job for the next half-hour. I was overjoyed! - and I neglected to take a photograph.

Notwithstanding, I decided to make a further batch of marmalade, this time with limes, oranges (not Seville) grapefruit and lemon. That was accomplished without mishap.

Around the same time I realised we had no more home-made pickles so I bought shallots to make pickled onions. 

They were eschallion shallots, eschallion being the French for ‘banana shallots’ which may convey their shape and size. No, they’re not banana-sized but they are long and much bigger than ‘ordinary’ shallots (which Barry always calls, rather endearingly, ‘Charlottes’ – he was fluent in Urdu before English and was poorly taught to read)

Anyway, I duly pickled the shallots, having to cut them into halves or even thirds to achieve manageable portions – no problems there, except that I could not achieve a good seal on the rubber insert that goes between the lid and the jar. This was not a drawback until we took some to Susannah when we went to see her a couple of weeks ago. Susannah, like her brother, Gareth, and her niece, Kiri, loves pickled onions (must be an inherited gene from my father!)  So, because they weren’t sealed properly, the vinegar leaked all over the boot (trunk) of the car and now, when we drive that car, we feel an urgent need to find fish and chips! The smell is dissipating – we think.

In addition, I decided to make some piccalilli. The last batch I made was rather dark because I had used malt vinegar instead of distilled. This time I had the correct vinegar, but not enough sugar, so substituted honey. The vegetables were not as specified in the recipe, either, so red peppers took the place of tomatoes and sliced onions masqueraded as their smaller cousins. I must say the finished result looks pretty and authentic – I’m not sure about the taste! 

I pickled red cabbage, too - and that looks okay and doesn’t taste too disgusting, though I think I made a mistake in the quantities of cabbage and salt – too little cabbage, too much salt! Fortunately, we don’t eat pickles very often – once a month or thereabouts, so I think our blood pressure will not suffer.

Recently I have been thinking about soused herrings. I haven't made those for years!! 

Charlottes

It feels autumnal today. The sun that was shining so cheerfully this morning has slouched off leaving grey skies and biting winds behind. It's a good day for staying in and being domestic - an adjective that sits uneasily on me. I would be houseproud if I weren't so idle - and didn't have a husband and dogs and cats who track mud and dust throughout the house. Our wooden floors are decorated with swirls of fur - dust bunnies? - which are swept up every day and reappear almost immediately.
I digress. Being domestic(ated) today means pickling onions, collecting nasturtium seeds for poor man's capers, making chocolate tiffin, carving the bacon I cured last week and baking bread. Sounds impressive - to me anyway. The reality is that I will start the pickling process (probably), bake the bread (definitely - that's what the bread-maker is for), carve the bacon (possibly - it will probably be inedible since I have never attempted to cure bacon before and also had to adjust the recipe because, as usual, I leapt into the process without checking I had the necessary ingredients), gather the seeds (perhaps), make the tiffin (doubtful - the dark chocolate I bought for the purpose has been broken into and not by me for a change so I'm not sure I'll have enough - and even if I have I may not feel like bothering!) This is one of my favourite books - it contains a wealth of knowledge as well as traditional regional recipes

I remember my parents pickling onions when I was a child - it seemed a very long-drawn-out procedure, as I suppose most things of that nature appear to children, and one I didn't attempt until a couple of years ago. I forget why I decided to try my hand at it but I found a simple recipe and everyone enthused about the end result so I felt quite buoyed up by the experience. Shallots stripped of extraneous 'paper'

Shallots in my preserving pan

Shallots in brine

A plate on top of the shallots keeps them submerged in the brine. They will remain in the pan for 12 hours after which they are drained and scalded in boiling water for 1 minute. Then they are 'topped and tailed' and soaked in a second brine for 24 hours.After being thoroughly drained they are decanted into jars or bottles and covered with cold spiced vinegar. The recommendation is to leave them for 6 to 8 weeks to mature - that doesn't usually happen in this house! We all love pickled onions and Susannah and Kiri - aunt and niece - can consume a (small) jar each at one sitting. The taste for vinegar is genetic, granted to us by my father and Barry's grandfather who happened to be instructors in the same Royal Naval diving school at the same time - maybe it was the salt they absorbed that developed the taste!

Any onion can be pickled but I like to use shallots which are related to onions and are milder and sweeter.
In our family we call them 'Charlottes' for that is the way Barry first pronounced their name when he was a child.