My Granny's cooking

I was recently given a copy of 'The Big Book of Best-Kept Secrets of the Women's Institute' which has a wonderful 249 pages of scrumptous recipes. My Granny was a member of the WI when she was a bit younger and I regularly hound her for her recipes but am never armed with pen and paper when I ask. She will generally be happy to tell me her recipes but whenever I ask she just jumps straight into it "you just mix 'x' amount of flour with so many eggs and a bit of sugar, bake it on ........ ". I tried baking one of her cakes recently and while it wasn't a complete disaster, it certainly was not near her standard. If I lived in England where she is, I would visit her with a watchful eye as she prepared dinner (although braver souls than I have tried to be anywhere near the kitchen when she is cooking)

My Granny is a famously good cook, and she should be too with so much practice. She and my Grandpa used to eat a set meal each night of the week. After many years of visits, my Dad can list off which meal would be cooked on any given night. He could time a visit based on what would be cooking and often talks of her braised steak and onions (truly it is something to behold - served with peas and chips). For my money, her meat and potato pie is the pinnacle of culinary joy, particularly with her deftness with shortcrust pastry and just the right amount of sugar in her mushy peas.

Sadly, after Grandpa died last year, she has little motivation to cook for herself now and is losing too much weight despite her doctor's insistence that she take better care of herself. Always such a strong and vital woman she is finding few joys in life following the loss of her dear love. They were truly a wonderful model of married life, he loved her so deeply and she him. A year shy of 60 years of marriage, they were well-settled in their lives together. Creatures of routine to the end, she has to go on alone now but he is still very much part of her days. I know she talks to him still and continues to wonder at his collection of miscellany that she views as hoarding. I know Grandpa in this way for I am just as he was - you never know when you might need it. She is taking her time with the task of sorting his things out and in this way he stays closer to her. She is however a practical woman and is trying to decide what to do with it all - I am sure that with time she will get through it all, when she is ready to.

While it will pale in comparison, I plan to make her meat and potato pie with peas next Sunday to mark a year since Grandpa's passing. There are some smells that bring them closer to me and it will be nice to have that in my kitchen next weekend when I am thinking of him. The smell of a fresh pot of tea with water boiled on a gas stove also brings their kitchen close to me, I think I will put on a brew now...

Strange morning (mourning)

It has been an odd sort of morning. While doing the usual much-needed Saturday morning clean, I put on a CD to have a bit of a sing while dusting. Seemingly out of nowhere, I started crying - really crying like I have not done in a long time. I am sure it has been coming for a while but it really caught me off-guard.

It is coming up to a year since my much-loved Grandpa died, which has been weighing on my mind. It is one of those things that I keep thinking about but then decide that I will spend a proper day honouring him on his anniversary which is stupid really. Thinking about Grandpa has led me to think about losing the other people in my life who are so precious. I have been trying to grasp the Buddhist concept of 'impermanence' and cannot get close to it. I know that everything ends and we only have now but it is still so hard to imagine that one day my Dad won't be here anymore. He has been such an important part of my life and has always embodied hope to me. My parents separated when I was 12 and I lived with my mother and her new husband. Through some tough years, my Dad gave me most important support by helping me maintain who I was, despite the environment I was living in. He helped me to explore new ideas and encouraged interest in music, art and film - things that are so precious to me now. Most importantly, he kept me laughing and gave me the gift of seeing the ridiculous in all things. He will always be my dear friend and I will always be learning from him. I cannot imagine a life without my Dad and his endless supply of stories. It was the thought of future loss that made me so upset today. I wonder how he is feeling at the moment... he is very circumspect about life and its complexities but he must miss his Dad too. I hope he has some time in May to spend with Grandpa's memory.

That pesky pooch!

That naughty dog of mine keeps digging in my vegetable patch. This morning I went to have a look at how the beans are going and found a suspicious mound of mulch - but not a bone in sight. Perhaps she got confused and thought she had buried something there once. Who can blame her though - all that soft dirt that probably smells like heaven to her with all the manure. Still, she is very bad and is currently skulking around looking guilty.

Beans they are a growin'

I have been diligently sowing seeds for the autumn and winter seasons in the hope that we will be able to salvage enough water to feed the little veges when they start to grow. I have tried ‘Eden seeds’ this time after my partner got me a selection for Christmas last year. I felt bad taking advantage of a ‘going out of business sale’ at yet another nursery hit by the Australian drought but it was still a good chance to get a wide range of seeds to grow.

I put the seeds in last weekend and already a number of them have come up beautifully. I have planted out two lots of beans that have sprouted and am eagerly awaiting the growth of the rest of them. I thought that beans would be a good crop to try in a drought as they are fast growers and ‘fruit’ quickly. They add a lot of nitrogen to the soil so it will be great for future crops to be planted. As I don’t have a lot of room, they will be a good thing to plant against the fence where they wont take up a lot of space.

The quality of the stock from Eden seeds is excellent and they have beautiful old varieties of heirloom seeds. I am trying: Lazy Wife beans, Borlotti Beans, Bush beans, Epicure beans, snake beans and Scarlett Runner beans. That should keep us well fed for a while at least! I am also growing some beetroot which normally grows well and is so good for you.

The house is crammed full of buckets near every tap to catch all the overflow. We are not using tap water for the garden so now dodge buckets wherever we go!

I will post some pics of the bean progress on the weekend with my new camera.

Monday

Ah, Monday... I shouldn't be wishing away my time but getting to the end of another Monday does sometimes feel like an accomplishment. Even on those Mondays where little happens - like today - it is good to get home again. Mondays are generally a bit hazy as I never sleep properly on Sunday nights, surely a familiar story for most. It is a little weekly reminder of a life of insomnia still keeping me on my toes. For over a year now I have been sleeping soundly but as all reformed insomniacs know, the dark and lonely shadow of a sleepless night is never far enough away.

I have been watching my dog with her funny habits but on a tired night, I am somewhat envious of this creature who can trot around for a while before deciding that yes, a bit of a snooze would be nice now before I go any further....

Tonight I am looking forward to an old favourite comfort meal of lentils and sausages with a nice glass of red before curling up on the couch for the evening. It is cooling down overnight now which is something else to enjoy about coming home.

Sausages:
Tonight we are having chicken sausages with goats cheese and rocket - yum!

Lentils:
1 cup of puy lentils
1 carrot
1 leek
3 cloves garlic
tin of tomatoes
2 cups stock
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 bay leaf
splash of wine
fetta
spinach leaves
parsley to serve

Fry the leek and garlic, add the lentils and carrots and cook for a bit. Add the balsamic, tomatoes, stock and bay leaf and wine if you like. You might need to add a bit more water to just cover the lentils. Cover and cook for about 45 minutes, slowly.

When ready, crumble some fetta into the lentils and stir through the Spinach. Cook the sausages and serve on top with some parsley.

First Post

After reading so many blogs over recent years, I finally decided to jump into this strange world. I am not sure where it will go yet or if it will end up having a focus but I am sure that time will tell. In fact I find myself with little to say now that I have gone through the set-up.

I just purchased my first digital camera, which was a decision I was sure I would never make. The thing is, I have difficulty moving on from those things (inanimate things) that have been with me for a while. It is almost as if my old things will feel rejected at being replaced and I can't quite do that to something that has been so good to me. Until early this year, I had the same clock radio that I got when I was about 9 (I am now 31). I kept it partly because it still worked but mainly because of the sentiment it held. I listened to a lot of music on that radio - it taught me what I liked and woke me up after many nights of insomnia. Served me well that little one. Anyway.... the digital camera..... I think this is why I have finally decided to start a blog. I now have a way of putting up pics of the things I am doing, not that I have any yet but in time...