Some Summer!

At the beginning of this year, England was given dire warnings of drought after a year or so of below average rainfall. This had the predictable effect of covering us with clouds of unremitting gloom for weeks on end! If you saw the pictures of Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee, you'll know that London has been suffering from some horrible weather. Here in Gloucestershire, the parties went on under cover, but my poor bees weren't so lucky. The weather was so miserable, I had to give them several doses of sugar syrup to keep them going. I keep bees for the pleasure of watching them work and for their pollination services so honey is a bonus. That's just as well - at this rate there won't be much surplus to take from the hives. I'll be leaving it all on for them to support the colonies.

This has been a difficult year so far for me. Losing my father was hard, and there's been so much involved in winding up his estate, social networking has had to take a back seat. Tweeting, Skype and going on Facebook was such a part of my life for a while, it came as quite a shock to discover how much time it had been absorbing! It's a real tension reliever to chat but having got out of the habit over the past few months, I'm hoping to get back into the old routine and catch up with all the news. What have you been up to while I've been away from the keyboard? Did you see the Jubilee celebrations? 

Of Cakes and Chain Letters...

 I've been keeping the same sourdough starter going for nearly a year. It makes incredible bread, but to keep it going I have to feed it regularly with flour and water, throwing away the excess on days I don't need to bake. This always seems such a waste. Yesterday, I asked my sister if she'd like to take on my next batch of excess starter, to save me having to throw it away. She responded with news of the school-gate phenomenon that is 'Herman the German'.  This is a chain letter in the form  of cake mix - you take on the responsibility of a fancier version of my own sourdough starter, giving the excess batter away and baking a Friendship fruit cake with the remainder.  The cake sounded a good way to use up my own excess starter on the days I don't need to make bread, so I tried it out. It was delicious, so that's taken a weight off my mind (even if it has moved straight to my hips). While looking up the recipe online, I came across this on the web. It's the only good example of a chain letter I've ever seen - unless you count 'Herman the German'!  Please pass it on to any idealistic teenager - or pin it up in plain sight as I have. It's a reminder of how (relatively) easy our lives are now and how we could all save a bit of energy here and there. 
       The Green Thing
          In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. 
       The woman apologized to her and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”
        The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today.  Your generation did not care enough to save our environment.”
           She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over.  So they really were recycled.
            But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
            We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.
             But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.
             Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the throw-away kind.  We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes.  Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
             Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.
              In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.
             When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.  Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power.  We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
             But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.
            We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
            But we didn’t have the green thing back then.
            Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.  And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
           But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?
            Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.
I hope that piece made you smile, but there is a serious point. Please feel free to pass it on, like Herman the German!

On The Inside Looking Out...

It's been a while since I last blogged. My father's sudden death meant I've been busy with arrangements and there's been so much paperwork to get through, there's been very little light relief. Luckily, spring really has arrived. This will be the first chance I've had to get out and about with a clear conscience (no meetings, no paperwork that absolutely has to be done) for about a month. The Dawn Chorus starts at around 5am, and this weekend the clocks go forward so it will be lighter in the evenings. That means less incentive to flop in front of the TV after tea each evening. I hope...

There are flowers on the strawberries in the greenhouse, and for the first time ever we've had a pair of partridges blown over the hill from the local game shoot. They've made themselves at home, so I hope the fox family living out in the wood don't find them. Yesterday I saw the spectacular sight of a pair of goshawks 'sky-dancing'  over the garden. They've nested in nearby woods for several years and we get birdwatchers from all over coming to watch them displaying. I felt really smug that all I had to do was look up while on my rounds of the greenhouses! This clip-art photo is the closest I could find to the birds we have here - this image is tagged as a Grey Hawk, but it's got that distinctive 'Mad Marigold Eye' described by T.H.White. That really stands out - I saw it when one rocketed past our kitchen window about to knock a squirrel out of an overhanging tree.
I did the first checks around the apiary last week. All the colonies of bees have survived the winter, and they're building up nicely. Later today I'll be bottling the last of our stored honey. I don't take much from the bees, just enough to sweeten OH's coffee all year and some to cook with. The more honey I rob, the more sugar syrup I'd have to feed them in return. If processed white sugar doesn't do humans much good, it seems a bit mean to make my bees eat it!

Looking Forward To Those Long Hot Summer Days...

Cheers!

...well, we can live in hope!
A while ago, I wondered aloud - or rather on line - about Limoncello. Julie Newberry heard my plea, and had been kind enough to send me this recipe. Here it is:

You'll need:
5 Unwaxed lemons
1 lire bottle of vodka
1lb 10oz caster sugar
1.5 pints boiling water

Use a potato peeler to thinly peel the lemons, trying not to include any pith. Put all the zest in a large jar and pour over the vodka, covering with a tightly done up lid. Now for the waiting game. You must put it in the fridge for a week, shaking the jar every day. After the week is over, put the sugar into a heatproof pan or bowl and pour over the boiling water, stirring until all the sugar is dissolved. Now add all the vodka & zest to the sugar water, stir in and when cool pour it into the jar again. Do up the lid. Now more waiting. Put it in the fridge for a further week, shaking it every day. After the week is up, strain the liquid into bottles, adding a few strips of lemon zest to each.
When completed, it will keep in the fridge for up to 3 months.

I'm currently trying this out, and wonder if it would work with orange or lime zest? I'll let you know how I get on!

Technology - How Do You Like Yours?

My lovely NEO 

Not many years ago, a writer's only real hopes of getting an audience outside their own little corner of the world was to either get their book taken up by a big publisher, win a competition or have their work accepted or reviewed by national magazines or newspapers.Things changed in a big way with the arrival of home computers. Now everyone can self-publish, and the Internet has opened up world-wide possibilities for getting your name and work in front of the public. There are all sorts of temptations, too. Who hasn't looked at the clock and gulped at the amount of time they've spent surfing on line? With everything from The Times to Lolcats just waiting to be explored, it's like having a whole sweetshop of treats at our fingertips. One of my New year Resolutions was to cut down on my non-work related computing time, but that's proved difficult to keep. It's so interesting to discover what other people are working on, or reading. Then I feel guilty for not taking part, so for example I've just loaded a few of my favourite books up onto my Goodreads page http://bit.ly/zGpWE9. Unfortunately as I'm not very computer savvy and resent toiling over inputting information when I could be writing, my online presence is rather patchy. I love Twitter, where I tweet as @christinabooks, but I'm not keen when sites want to burgle my email inbox for links. Call me suspicious, but I don't like the idea of a site keeping in contact with my computer even when I've logged out. That's why I use my Neo such a lot - all the benefits of a typewriter none of the distractions of a computer and work is easily transferred to my main computer. Then when the work's uploaded, it's back to Twitter and Skype for me!
What are your favourite ways of keeping in touch with your friends, indulging your interests and keeping up to speed with developments in your workplace?

Something Warm For A Cold Day

Sourdough Starter

Proving Basket (Bakery Bits)

It's been a very mild start to the year. That's both a relief after last January's relentless snow, and a reminder that, for whatever reason, our seasons aren't as predictable as they once were. The weekend was grey and gritty, with ferocious winds. It was a good excuse to make soup, and that always cries out for something crisp and home-made to go with it. I decided on sourdough bread. The name isn't very attractive, but it's delicious and very filling. Making it is an easy, although longwinded, process. I have a sourdough culture of wild yeast I've kept going since last year, which gives the bread a unique flavour. To make two big loaves, last thing at night I put about a pound of bread-making flour in a big bowl, add a ladleful of my sourdough starter and about a pint of warm water. After stirring this together I cover the bowl with cling film and leave it overnight in the kitchen to start fermenting. Next morning it will have bubbled up, ready to have another one and a quarter pounds of bread making flour added, together with a couple of teaspoons of salt. My amounts are bit vague as all flours absorb different amounts of liquid. If you've made bread yourself, you'll know it's difficult to be precise!  You want quite a soft, sticky dough to begin with. Knead it well for ten minutes (this is a good point to work off all those work-in-progress frustrations). Then persuade the dough back into the bowl, cover and leave it to rise for an hour. Tip it out, and using the minimum amount of flour that will stop the dough sticking to the table, knead it for a few more minutes. Cover and leave it to rise for another hour. Repeat this brief kneading and hour-long rising cycle twice more, then gently deflate the risen dough a final time and shape it into two or more loaves. These will be too soft to support their own weight so I put them in proving baskets (Bakery Bits online shop http://bit.ly/xGE5UJ will be the ruin of me!) for two or three hours, until the loaves have doubled in size. To cook the bread, I heat a heavy metal tray in the oven at maximum heat then, as fast as possible, ease the dough out of the baskets and onto the hot baking tray, give it quick spray of water, slash the tops and bake for ten minutes. Then I have a quick look at them - if they're still pale I turn the temperature down to 200 degrees Centigrade(170 degrees fan). If brown,  the heat's reduced to 180 degrees Centigrade (160 degrees fan) and they're cooked for another 30 minutes, or until the loaves sound hollow when tapped on the base. This bread has got enough character and flavour to be enjoyed as it is, but goes perfectly with soup and is even better spread with butter. Enjoy! 

Today, Tomorrow, Next Week...

Sixteen days into the New Year - how are you doing with those resolutions? They say if you can only keep up an improvement for forty days it becomes a habit, so we're nearly halfway to that milestone! I'm hoping it'll turn out to be true. Most of my good intentions have fallen by the wayside (how is it that every time I start dieting, I put on weight? It's so dispiriting, it sends me straight back to the chocolate). However, I have managed to keep two of them - to cut down on online surfing, and to try out a new recipe at least once a week. 

My main time-suck online was dipping into the newspapers. That was taking up a lot of my valuable writing time each day, so ditching them has been really helpful. The only way I've managed to do it is to work mainly on my Neo, which is literally just a keyboard with a memory and no Internet access. I upload my work at the end of each day, and it's really gratifying to see how my work in progress is growing.

As for the recipes, that's going well too. Orsotto (risotto made with barley instead of rice) has become a new family favourite, and the new Christmas pudding recipe which uses crystallised ginger and pineapple was delicious - so much lighter than the normal stodgy pud, it deserves to be made more often than once a year. I love making jams, jellies and other preserves, so this week's novelty might be a new variation on the theme of marmalade.

How are you getting on?