Feasting on Weeds

How good it is to see the new growth bursting through the soil in the garden.

As well as the crocuses, daffodils and the promise of tulips, there are inevitably some less welcome arrivals. Just before these plants develop into full-grown thugs though, some are worth a little harvesting. If for no other reason, it is always nice to be reminded that the pleasure of picking and collecting food from my own garden is not so far off now and the fun of foraging further afield is also coming up.  Picking 'wild food' in the garden combines both pleasures.
 I like to add just a few leaves to supplement shop bought salad greens. Newly emerged they are more tender and delicately flavoured than they will be later. Having researched the possibilities and consulted Richard Mabey I choose from the weed cornucopia bursting forth in my backyard. 

Little Bowls

 

Having made several Little Boxes since autumn, I felt it was time to move along to a slightly different take on the subject. Still crochet, still the same stitch but a different shape and a different 'yarn'.

Down-sizing is looming on our horizon and, in order not be left with trying to fit the proverbial quart into a pint pot, de-cluttering seems to feature in our day to day activities. One large sack I found stashed away out of sight held all the clothes that had been shed from our wardrobes but for one reason or another we were sure that no charity would accept with any degree of sincerity. Amongst these items were several shirts. Lightweight fabrics and worn even thinner, they clearly would not make serviceable cleaning rags but as I prepared to stuff them back into the bag, I was reminded of some fabric bowls I had seen once in a magazine. Earlier de-cluttering meant that the magazine was long gone - well, probably - so I turned to the Internet for ideas. A little browsing later and I was set to start. 

I chose three blue shirts and cut the backs into bias cut strips about 4cms wide. The idea of sewing these strips together to make a continuous thread to work with seemed tedious so I was grateful to find that I could make slits near the ends of each piece and loop them together to make a continuous  kind of chain. 

To make the bowl/basket, I followed one pattern fairly closely but wasn't all that pleased with the end result. I could see the potential of the material and I was sure the largest hook I could find would be adequate but the shape was, well, more of a miss-shape. So I unravelled it and started over, this time taking directions from the work growing in my hands. Much better. At least the rim looked round. Sort of.

 The inside looked much smoother than the outside so I tried turning it inside out. The sides were straighter and more upright. Working, unravelling and reworking had fuzzed up the edges of the strips. Maybe I am  influenced by the seasonal activities of the birds in the garden at the moment but I decided that this time I preferred the cup shape and rougher surface of the way it was when I completed it. I wanted to leave some of the little triangles at the joins so I trimmed only the larger ones. I liked the fuzzy little nest I had made.

I liked it enough to start work on another one straight away, this time recording each step and making notes about what worked and how to do it. Enough for a tutorial post? Let's see.

The bliss of citrus

Sometimes in the mornings I need a boost  that goes beyond the reach of coffee to really alert me to the possibilities of the day ahead. There are days that appear so gloomy first thing,  that it really takes the kick of  tangy citrus to remind me that sunshine still exists even if it is not streaming through my window. The popularity of marmalade at breakfast tells me I am not alone in this feeling.
The top five in my all time best ever marmalades would be home-made ones. That is not to say all home- made marmalade is better than all commercially made marmalade. (My first attempt is a case in point. Can we just say it was a salutary lesson in the value of pith, pips and pectin and leave it at that?) My point is that having a go at making your own could be very rewarding - provided you follow a good recipe to the letter! And 'sworn by' recipes abound and with a vast array of methods, one is bound to work for you.
My mother makes a version which involves cutting the fruit into quarters, taking out the pips and blitzing all the rest with a some  water in a liquidiser  before cooking it. It tastes good and achieves a set you could probably slice.  Spread on thick slices of granary bread and washed down with a mug of tea it is just the thing to set you up for the day, especially when you have your pruning knife in one pocket, the keys to the tool-shed in the other and wellies waiting by the back door.
There are more leisurely days though, when  more elegant little spoonfuls of amber gel are called for. They  will be dolloped onto soft rolls or crisp toast while you plan to spend time in a garden where somebody else wears the wellies and wields the spade, hoe and topiary shears. To prepare for this, I would turn to Nigel Slater. Yes, the recipe takes time and effort so it  is only for you if you are after the buzz of making something delicious from scratch and providing you haven't left it too late to find the Seville oranges in the shops. 
(Word of Friendly Advice: Find a large enough piece of muslin to hold all the pith and pips of all the fruit you use in the initial boiling up!)
Now having made all that delicious marmalade there may come a time when you feel you could do with that citrus lift mid-afternoon and some how, Paddington Bear's predilections not withstanding, marmalade on toast at 3 in the afternoon seems inappropriate. Sparing a couple of spoonfuls of your precious hoard to make some biscuits might be the answer.

Oat and Orange Biscuits

Ingredients

125g butter
3 tablespoons marmalade
1 Teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda
1and 1/2 Tablespoon of boiling water
125g Porage Oats
150g plain flour
90g dessicated coconut
80g demerara sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 160 deg C. Lightly grease 2 baking trays.
2. In a large bowl mix together the oats, flour, coconut and sugar.
3. Gently melt the butter until it is liquid then stir in the marmalade. You can do the melting in a small pan on the stove or in a bowl in the micro-wave. Either way don't let it start to bubble or brown.
4. Add the liquid to the dry mixture.
5. Blend the baking soda and boiling water together and then add to the rest.
6. Mix it all together. It will be a fairly dry crumbly mixture and you may need to add tiny amounts of water just until it starts to hold together. Just don't over do it!
7. Take heaped teasponfuls of the mixture and squeeze until it makes a lump. Place this on the baking tray and flatten it down. Continue until all the mix is used, making sure you allow some room for spreading during the cooking.
8. Cook for 15 - 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and use a spatula to ease them from the tray onto a cooling tray. They will be very brittle at this stage so handle carefully.
9. When cool they can be stored in an airtight jar. They keep well. Makes about 30.

Serving Suggestion: Take a small tray and add  a couple of these biscuits along with tea (in your favourite cup) and a well- loved read. Withdraw to somewhere quiet and cosy and wait for spring to shake off the last vestiges of hibernation in the garden. The forsythia is flaunting its wake-me-up yellow. It can't be long now.

Got it covered

There is something about the rhythm of walking that helps thoughts roll around and settle into place. Whenever I need  an idea, an answer or a solution, I like to take it outside and at least around the block. Frequently I find several quite disparate thoughts will somehow click together and an idea takes shape. Whether or not these perambulatory notions are really good ideas might be debatable but they feel like it when they occur. Here's an instance.

I had discovered a great display of those Popular Penguins in a book shop. It makes you wonder why so much goes into other cover designs when that simple, bold orange and white banded format has almost every reader I know reaching for their credit card while they try to decide which one to add to their collection. Some people collect them for the uniformity and the bookshelf appeal. I like the format for its compact size - a bit big for any pocket I have, they none-the-less slip easily into a handbag; ideal for portable reads. And therein lies a problem. While I like to have a book always available, I don't like to see covers getting scuffed or corners getting turned back as my current read tries to hold its own against other contents of my bag. It needs some kind of protection from keys, loose change and tubes of lip balm.
 Around the same time requests for more of those crocheted Little Boxes meant I was usually carrying around one of those as an ongoing project as well. Different sizes, different colours, different yarns but always I enjoyed making the firm, textured fabric that using all double crochet yielded.
While I was out walking, I began to think about how to make a book cover using crochet. I have made fabric covers for journals and notebooks so it wasn’t too great a leap to think how a rectangle of double crochet would make a good outer cover.

My first effort has produced a cover that works. It is functional in the most basic sense.  I consider it to be something of a prototype. In my rush to see how it would turn out, I was a bit slapdash in the making up.  It needs to be more carefully blocked out, the lining more carefully measured up and assembled. For the inner covers I simply cut out two pieces from the hem of a discarded shirt as that is what was at hand. Re-cycling and  re-purposing are set to become recurring themes this year!

I will be trying this idea again; already I have had some thoughts on refining the design. I will be road-testing the prototype in the meantime. Some credit for the initial design should go to two Yorkshire terriers and their unbounded enthusiasm for going for walks. Who knows what ideas they were having while I was thinking up book cover designs?

A Rethink

It is amazing - not to say disconcerting - how much can change in a matter of weeks. You go away somewhere else for what seems like a short while and come back to find all manner of things have been going on in your absence. Even with the mixed blessing of the internet and news channels you can still find yourself left out of a number of loops. How could I have missed all the plans to sell off Forestry Commiission land and the ensuing public protests? Because I live in a community and a nation and have decisions about so many aspects of my life made on my behalf, I can't pretend not to be a 'political animal', but in the main I choose not to express political views in this particular forum. I have said that I write here about the things I find wonderful and so it shall stay that way. I do find the local Forestry Commission land is simply wonderful and I am relieved that others have been successful in keeping  public access to that inspiring and uplifting place.

I had lived in this area a few months when I stumbled upon the Hundred Acre car park for the Forest of Bere. I had rashly promised two well-behaved pre-schoolers a special treat on the way home after a shopping trip. I had no idea what that treat might be and turned off the usual way home looking for inspiration; a river bank to feed ducks, a playground, some interesting animals to watch, and just happened to notice the sign for the Forestry Commission  car park. What a time we had exploring the woods, running down the paths to see what might be around the corner, holding our breath to listen to the birds!
It proved to be the first of many visits. Spring excursions with playgroup and school enabled my children to learn the names of wildflowers - something that a sea-faring father and a mother born and raised in the antipodes couldn't tell them. Many miles of sponsored walks also became an annual event for several years.  We went there for all kinds of reasons and almost for no reason at all other than a wish for a breath of fresh air. Spur of the moment after school teas, birthdays, taking visitors to see 'our forest', geocaching, trying out a new camera, seeing what flowers are out or if we can find that pond again,  were all reasons we gave each other, at heart I suspect we were really seeking the lift to the spirits given by walking among the trees at any time of the year.

 How grateful I am then, to those who took up the cause and challenged the government's plans. Their political activity and vigilance have protected something I regard as very precious. So call it a u-turn, a rethink or change of heart I look forward to being able to continue to take friends and family to see the bluebells in April and myself any time I need to boost my mood or sort my thoughts.

Molly Cake

Is it too soon to be thinking about spring cleaning? I thought I might start with the larder as in preparing for Christmas I often buy  ingredients that I might not use up for sometime afterwards. It might because everyone has had their fill of the kinds of recipes that need them or else everyone is trying to uphold the virtue of restraint and are simply not interested in cakes, biscuits or snacks of any kind. There are handfuls of dried fruits, nuts and that extra pack of dates we thought we might need; little bits of this and that. This presents the ideal circumstances for making Molly Cake.

I first came upon this cake at a John Lewis food court. Waiting to order a cup of tea, I decided it wouldn't hurt to cast a casual eye over the display on the cake shelves. And there it sat, a slice of Molly Cake with its label declaring it to be free of added refined sugar and fat, it was as good as saying "Look if you are gazing at the display in this case you are probably planning to eat cake and this is likely to be the healthiest option." I had never heard of Molly Cake before and having tried it and liked it well enough to want to try baking one I searched the internet for a recipe. Several sites had recipes and all were quite similar so I thought the most appropriate choice would be the recipe on the Waitrose site.

Like Glad Tidings it uses softened dates to bind the other ingredients together so along with the ground almonds and dried fruit it is just the thing to use up those remnants of Christmas baking. It is good at other times of the year too and I have substituted a pack of chopped dried fruit salad for the fruit element. The flavours of the dried peaches, apricots and pears worked really well.  Either way it is well worth making.
Please don't remind me that although it has no added refined sugar, the dried fruit and dates have sugars of their own and that it is not a low calorie snack. The lack of added fat and the wholemeal flour have to count for something, right?

Flower Worship

Now that the snow here has melted and the first flowers of the year emerge, it is time for galanthophiles to wrap up warmly and set out on snowdrop walks. I love to see these delicate reminders of the suggestion that even while the bleakness, the dark and the cold are still with us, there is hope that there will also be flowers and blossom soon to follow. I have treasured the few snowdrops we inherited with the garden and have been delighted to see them spread to become a carpet beside the footpath. I don't rank myself among the truly or obsessively devoted to these pristine little flowers as I have never intentionally planted them or sought to collect new varieties or even set out  especially to walk amongst them in the several well-known locations around here. But every year I find myself wondering what it is that inspires a passion far greater than my affection. What is it about any flower that invokes this great love? There are societies whose members devote themselves to the propagation of orchids, fuchsias and so many others. There are those inspired by their passion to raise and maintain national collections. What is it about human nature and human senses that such specific colour and form can inspire such devotion of time, effort and resources to the extent that it necessarily excludes most other plants?

I may have come close to finding out when I encountered the Sacred Lotus. In the Botanic Gardens in Adelaide you can round a bend in the path and glance across to see a sight which can stop you in your tracks. It can send any thoughts you had of seeing the whole garden in a morning, or  friends waiting to meet you for coffee at the kiosk, or the guided tour you thought you might join, far from your mind.

 

 So you catch your breath and stand stock still for a moment and then give in to the urge to draw closer. The soft green leaves are waist high obscuring the pond; only the sounds of moorhens and wood duck  happily splashing about under their cover hint at the presence of the water. The flowers are at eye level opening from a neatly furled pink bud to the open flower fading to cream. Then the petals drop to reveal the conical seed head shaped just like the spray head of a watering can. Leaves, buds, flowers, seed heads are all instantly recognisable as motifs used in Eastern and Egyptian art.

In my case it took sometime for this visual impact to wane enough for me to remember that I had a camera and like other visitors could try to capture the beauty of these plants. 

I also began to listen to the conversation between a guide and the gardener tasked with the job of wading waist deep into the pond to pick some of the flowers. Parts of the plant are sources of food and medicine in other cultures. Scientists working with this particular planting have found that the plant has the ability almost unknown in the plant kingdom to regulate its temperature. It also features in the symbolism of several religions. Stunning, remarkable and an instance of that overworked word, iconic.

I still have no rational explanation of what drives some people to become enthusiasts, devotees, obsessives or just fans of a particular flower but I think I have an inkling of the feelings  that fire such inspiration.