The Year In Books - August 2015

One of my ideas of heaven is to lie on the sofa (or sit outside under my sunshade), a cup of Earl Grey at my side and a good book in my hands.  So why, during my six week summer holiday didn't I indulge myself more often?  Over the summer I spent very little time reading and lots of time sleeping, although taking a nap is apparently one of the healthy things we can do for ourselves so I shouldn't feel too guilty.

I finished three books: "The Yellow Jersey Club" by Edward Picking, "Brooklyn Heights" by Miral al-Tahawy and "Completion" by Tim Walker.    

All three books were very good but the one I liked most was "Completion".   It was a very amusing book and demanded no real intellectual effort, which suited my mood over the holiday.

My booklist for September includes "A Far Cry From Kensington" by Muriel Spark and "The Pumpkin Eaters" by Penelope Mortimer.   Muriel Spark is one of my favourite authors so I'm sure I will enjoy "A Far Cry From Kensington".   I've never read any of Penelope Mortimer's books before but I heard an episode of the serialisation of "The Pumpkin Eaters" on Radio 4 over the summer and I'm looking forward to reading the whole book.

Joining in with The Year In Books curated by Circle of Pine Trees

What I did at the weekend

I spend Sunday morning and early afternoon at the "Love is Enough" exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.    The exhibition, curated by Jeremy Deller compares the art and work practices of the artists William Morris and Andy Warhol.

I was part of a guided tour round the exhibition and our guide was wonderful; so knowledgeable and interesting to listen to.   I love the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, especially Edward Burne-Jones but I have never really had much appreciation of Andy Warhol.   However, I came away knowing a lot more about him and liking his work a lot more than I had done previously.   The highlight of the exhibition, for me at least, were the four William Morris "Holy Grail" tapestries that are on show.   They are fabulous and one of my favourite pieces of art.   

Section from one of the tapestries - the angel barring the door of the Holy Grail chapel to Sir Gawaine

The visit was rounded off, as all good gallery visits should be, with tea and cake in the Edwardian Tea rooms.

Late Summer Harvest

 

 

 

Late summer is one of my favourite times of the year, a time to be savoured and experienced.   On Tuesday I went for a long walk in the local countryside which was looking beautiful and bountiful. 

 

During my walk I collected windfall apples, blackberries and green hazelnuts.    I also found a pear tree laden with pears and some sloes, neither of which were ripe yet although I'll be going back in a couple of weeks to check their progress.

 

 

 

 

Cakes and Knitting

I finally finished the Wendy Slip Over that I have been knitting for the Knit-A-Square charity.

 I don't know why it's taken me such a long time to complete this one - I  finished most of the knitting weeks ago but for some reason couldn't find the motivation to finish off the last few rows and sew it up.  Anyway, it's finally done and I've got away to a flying start on the next one, which I am knitting in moss stich as a change from stocking stitch.  At the start of the year I set the goal of knitting 15 items for charity during 2015.    I'm afraid I'm running a bit behind and will need to speed up a bit if I'm going to meet my goal.

I went traditional with my baking this week and made Queen cakes using a recipe from Great British Bakes by Mary-Anne Boermans.    

My mum and my grandma were both "cooks", my grandma as her job and my mum, like most 1960s housewives, cooking almost everything from scratch for her family.   To buy a cake, pie or pudding was unheard of, and from a very early age I used to sit on the table, alongside where my mum was working,  helping to weigh out ingredients, grease tins, count out cake cases,  and give the bowl a stir.  I'm sure the foundations of my mathematical skills were laid down in the kitchen.     I can clearly remember the first batch of cakes that I ever made on my own - Fairy cakes made from a recipe cut out of Women's Weekly magazine.  I couldn't wait for dad to get home from work to taste them. 

I still make Fairy cakes, each no more than a couple of bites,  perfect with an afternoon cuppa, and which I prefer to the oversized muffins and buttercream-piled cup cakes that have come  here from the USA.   And, if I do fancy a bit of buttercream, nothing beats an old-fashioned butterfly cake, especially with a small blob of homemade lemon or orange curd added before the wings are stuck back on.  Delicious.

The Year In Books - May 2015

During April I finished reading two books - both of them autobiographical.

The first of the two was "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion. 

Joan Didion has the reputation of being one of the doyens of American Literature.  I had not previously read any of her work so when I read the rave reviews of this book in the press I had high expectations.  Sadly, these weren't met.  I was expecting a personal, even philosophical, account of the grief that Joan Didion experienced when her husband of forty years died suddenly.  I thought she would articulate the emotions that many people experience when they are grieving but find difficult to put into words.  

I didn't find any of that in the book and instead  found her very distant and academic.  There is nothing wrong with being academic - I was in academia myself for a long time - but I was hoping for something with more feeling.  I understand that we all experience grief in different ways and, since Joan Didion has spent her life as a reporter, that she is used to looking at things with a trained, objective, eye.   I  understand that some individuals might seek to explain a shocking, unexpected event, by turning to medical journals.  I  also appreciate that some people are private and like to keep their feelings to themselves, but these people wouldn't write a book.   "The Year of Magical Thinking" was too impersonal and didn't give me any real insight into the grief and other emotions that Joan Didion felt on the death of her husband.

The second book that I read during April was "Elizabeth and her German Garden" by Elizabeth von Arnim.  This is a diary that Elizabeth von Arnim kept during 1896 and 1897 and describes how she made her garden in the grounds of her home in Northern Germany.  Interspersed with her writings about her garden are diary entries about her husband, her children and the visitors to her home.   Elizabeth von Arnim writes very well and there are some lovely passages about the garden, which she loved.   She did not love her visitors so much and she can be quite rude about them (but then if we can't be candid in a diary, where can we be?).  She has an acute eye and is very witty.   I liked this book a lot more than "The Year of Magical Thinking."

For May I am going to finish reading "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" by John le Carre, which I started reading a couple of days ago and also on my list for May is "The Diary of a Country Prosecutor" by Tawfik al-Hakim.

This post was written to join in with "The Year In Books" which is curated by Circle of Pine Trees

In my kitchen - April 2015

Purple Sprouting

 

 

I love the taste of Purple Sprouting which is one of those treats only available for a few weeks of the year, and all the better for that.

 

One of my grumbles about modern life is how we have lost seasonality with so many things - strawberries available in supermarkets for most of the year,  for example.  I've even seen Hot Cross buns on sale at Christmas!  Celebrating the changing seasons and the cycle of the year is important to me and eating seasonally available foods is part of that.  

 

I also think that seasonal eating means a much more varied and interesting diet than when we just depend on the ready staples that are always available.  When I was a child, fresh tomatoes at any time other than in the summer were very expensive, so for most of the year  my mum and my grandma rarely used tomatoes in salad.  Instead we ate more foods like beetroot salad, coleslaws made with available ingredients, Russian Salad, chicory and "proper" white celery.  White celery, which I never see for sale now, it having been replaced by the green variety which lacks the subtlety of flavour of white celery, and which is imported into this country by the tonne.    White celery was a true late autumn/winter vegetable and was delicious made into a Waldorf Salad with some apple, walnuts and homemade mayonnaise (my grandma wouldn't have dreamed of reaching for the Hellmans).

 

These salads were fresh and tasty and exposed me, as I grew up, to so many different tastes and textures, which I'm sure fostered my interest in food and cooking as an adult.  

 

Hot Cross Buns and Chocolate Eggs

 

 

Hot Cross buns on Good Friday and chocolate eggs on Easter Sunday.

 

Freekh

 

 

Freekh is roasted green wheat which is eaten mainly across the Sham area of the Middle East, and which was introduced to me by a Palestinian friend.  I like it cooked simply - braised in stock until most of the stock has been absorbed and the grains are soft so the starch has been released to give it a thick, soupy texture.  I ate mine with roasted carrots and spring lamb chops that had been rubbed with garlic and cumin before being slowly roasted in the oven. 

 

Appam

 

 

 

 

These rice and coconut pancakes are made with yeast which gives them a texture similar to that of  homemade crumpets.  I first ate appam at a friend's house with a spicy chicken curry.  Apparently appam are traditionally eaten at Easter in Kerala by Indian Christian families.   They are easy to make and make an interesting change from chappatis and naan bread.  I've made my own at home - they went well with a red lentil dhal and are also very tasty served with honey for breakfast.

 



I wrote this to join in with the In My Kitchen blog posts curated by Celia who writes the  Fig Jam and Lime Cordial blog.

The Year In Books - April 2015

During March I finished reading two novels and I recommend both of them as being very good reads.

In the Eye of the Sun by Ahdaf Soueif weighed in at nearly eight hundred pages but it was so unputdownable that I read it in a week.  It is the story of Asya, a young Egyptian woman from a family of politically active, liberal(ish)  academics.  It follows  her growing up - through school, through university in Cairo and then to England where she studies for a PhD.  The book addresses issues like love, marriage, fidelity, friendship, duty to family and husband, and the generation gap.  It is set during the 1960s and 1970s and the effects of war and economics on Asya,  her family and her friends, provides a backdrop to the novel.

I loved this book.  Asya is a complex, human character and I think Ahdaf Soueif gets inside the head of a young woman who is caught between traditional and modern, between her desires and reality. She writes realistically about complex situations that have no easy solutions.

The second book that I read was "Winter" by Christopher Nicholson, which is a fictionalised account of  true events in the life of Thomas Hardy and his second wife, Florence.   When Hardy was in his eighties a local drama group put on a dramatized version of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Hardy developed an infatuation with the actress (Gertrude Bugler) playing the part of Tess.  The book describes events from the points of view of Hardy, Florence and Gertrude.   Christopher Nicholson writes beautiful prose which evokes the time and place in which the book is set and which captures the thoughts and feelings of the protagonists.

My main choice of book for April is "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion.  This has been recommended to me many times so I seized  it when I came across a copy in my local PDSA charity shop.  I am not entirely sure that I am in the right frame of mind to read a book about loss and grief but, on the other hand, a book about dealing with loss and grief  might be just what I need.

This post has been written as part of The Year In Books curated by Circle of Pine Trees.