Listening to flower pots...

There is something truly wonderful about the pile of old terracotta pots sitting patiently in the greenhouse, awaiting the chance to fulfil their potential. The very fact that they are made from the earth is testament to its essential productivity and they seem to hold within the promise of fruitfulness. Most of these are very old, perhaps some over 100 years, handed on from gardener to gardener, garden to garden; but for this year they are here and silently crying out to work with me in trying to bring a harvest from the earth.

And in gardening, as in life, we need that encouragement, that belief. In spring we need to see these pots, empty and have the thought that maybe with just a little bit of compost (old dead matter) and a seed and some measure of luck, something beautiful and wonderful will come from it – as unlikely as that may seem and even if experience tells us it doesn’t always work out. To pick one up and know, that to not fill it, to not sow something, to leave it unfulfilled is to have already written failure; but that to take that chance, to take that risk, might just result in a little miracle and something quite wonderful.

So I sit in the warmth of the small greenhouse with the wind and rain hammering to get in, next to this pile of pots, and try not to look out the windows, past the shed, at the beds unprepared, the grass growing too long, the weeds waking up from their long winter rest, keen to make up for time. Instead I fill each one and nestle some seed down into its dark duvet and try not to get too excited by the pictures on the packet or the descriptions of fantastical crops. Although in this I would almost certainly fail, where it not for last year’s fallen written across labels and gathered like tombstones in an old broken pot. I take one out, put a line though the squash that for some reason didn’t ripen or the celeriac that never got planted and then, with genuine belief that this year will be different, write on the new name.

I have been trying to think of a sentence which neatly uses the word that keeps coming to mind, but actually it’s so fundamental to all life that it deserves one of it’s own. Tenacity. Nature has it in abundance; the damn Marestail that you just cannot get to the end of; the Marguerite that shrivels and dies due to me failing to water it enough during the summer, but then revives each winter to take another onslaught and the rhubarb that no matter else fails can always be relied on to be there, allowing us at least one meal from the allotment in early spring.

Whilst it would be foolish to suggest that we take pride in not learning from our mistakes, it would be twice as foolish to be paralysed by the thought that we might make them again. The pots have no memory of past wrongs and take no umbrage at being emptied of dried compost and stalks too withered to be identified. So I’ll take my lead from them and sit in quiet, hopeful expectation, and fill and sow each one as though it were my first.

Not another abandoned blog...!

Click here to read Simon Fairlie's article

Please don’t think this yet another abandoned blog... it’s not. But life has been so busy of recent, that I don’t seem to have found the time to post up or indeed do anything of much note that is post worthy. However, life is getting back to normal a little and in the next few weeks I hope to post up some pages on making bookbinding equipment (a lying press and bone folders) as well as some more weaving and actual book binding.

For now I am working on an article that looks in more depth at one aspect of Simon Fairlie’s much quoted piece Can Britain Feed Itself? If you haven’t read it and sustainability and resilience in food production are of interest please do follow the link, it is an excellent read.

Download Thinking Allowed with
Grayson Perry & Richard Sennett
broadcast 6th Feb 2008

One other thing that comes with much recommendation is an edition of the Radio 4 programme, Thinking allowed with Richard Sennett & Greyson Perry, discussing craft and what it means to be a crafts person. The conversation is fascinating, liberating and sobering almost equal measure. There are too many points to bring out here, and anyway you might as well listen to the show and get it first hand, but the crucial point for me was the need to accept flux and incompleteness as essential elements within the creative process. Grayson (who is a most surprisingly erudite and thoughtful person) says that a tightness to be right can constipate and kill the creative process, but that in accepting that we will not always be right we have embrace difficulty and struggle.

Later he almost sums up the whole programme when says:

‘People are put off struggle, with a low boredom threshold; we’re addicted to adrenalin and drama. Everything is black and white with no middle ground and we have the attention span of a gnat. The idea of working at something for 10,000 hours for 8 or 10 years scares people, but it’s brilliant if you do.’

For me they get a little muddled when they talk about machines, berating Ruskin for being blind to their effectiveness and then going on to criticise computer designed buildings for their lack of material awareness and Victorian pottery for its lack of life. But this doesn’t not distract from the excellent show and has inspired me to read Richard Sennett’s book The Craftsman. The radio show can be listened to by clicking play below or downloaded by using the link under the Thinking Allowed image.

So please bear with me dear reader, much more is to come for we have only just begun!

Nest Egg Basket & Pasta Making

The Pekin Bantams that we hatched towards the end of last year have now been moved down to the allotment and are laying well. We have 3 lavender hens and a lavender cock, as well as a black frizzle hen and a black/white frizzle cock. Most lay most days and it is surprising how quickly the eggs build up. The little egg holder we had in the kitchen was nowhere near big enough and we realised that we needed something else to hold them safe in.

Maybe it was too much Springwatch or seeing the birds at Katie’s school on their nest camera, but it seemed to me that the very best thing for the eggs would be a nest. We had in the garage some heather cut last year, as well as a little willow and birch. All of it had dried out and so I soaked in a warm bath to make it pliable (which made one of the biggest messes inside the house that I have ever achieved...). My intention had been to photograph the stages and provide a step-by-step photo blog on how to make one, but I quickly realised that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing!

At first I started with two willow rings, made in the usual way by winding willow around in on itself, one smaller than the other. But these were green willow and I would never have been able to hide it within the darker material, plus how was I going to connect the two? So I abandoned the willow and went straight for the heather, again making a ring and then sort of building it up from there. I cannot provide any instructions – it was highly frustrating and fell apart more than once. In the end I used some fine brown cotton, which you can just about see looking at it, to bind it up a bit. It might well be that now it has dried you could cut this off and it would still stay whole, but I don’t intend to find out. I lined the inside with a mix of pillow feathers (much finer than I had imaged) and some craft feathers we had (look like pheasant to me).

What I took away from making it more than anything was a genuine deep respect for nest making birds. Here I was, with ten fingers and cotton thread, struggling to make something that they could construct, far more perfectly than I, with their beak and maybe some spider web or mud. It was only by actually trying to replicate nature’s craft that I understood just how hard it was and how skilled these birds are. It was an experience that has radically changed my perspective and I cannot recommend trying it highly enough – just be prepared to be very frustrated along the way... 

Making pasta

With 24 eggs needing to be used up we decided to have a pasta making session. 100g of organic Tipo ‘00’ flour per egg (or two bantam eggs), mixed and kneaded and then rolled out in the pasta machine. We made lasagne sheets, tagliatelle and spaghetti, drying the latter two on a long pine dowel we got from the ironmongery, suspended between two chairs. It dried over night and could then be wrapped up in brown paper for use over the coming days.

The Age of Healing by John Seymour

 "The Age of Plunder is nearly at an end.
The Age of Healing is ready to be born.

And whether it arrives or not depends upon two people: you and me.

The Age of Plunder was the natural successor to the so-called Age of Reason: the Age in which humankind decided that it knew better than God. For 200 years now the greedy and ruthless have been plundering the planet but their time will soon be up. The whole thing is going to come crashing down.

It could not have gone on much longer anyway - because soon there will be nothing left to plunder. The forests have almost gone from the Earth, the fish of the sea are all but exhausted, the air surrounding us and the waters of the Earth will soon be able to take no more poisonous wastes and, most serious of all, the soil is going. For we soil organisms this could be terminal. As long as the oil reserves last agribusiness will be able to produce the agrichemicals needed to keep some sort of production of vitiated food going from the eroded soil, but the oil deposits - that Pandora's Box of evil things - will soon be exhausted and then the final account, long deferred, will come up for payment. The bailiffs who present it will have strange names, like Famine, Pestilence and War.

But, thank God, maybe the old Earth will not have to wait for this to happen. The whole great edifice of international trade and finance - the whole mighty plunder-machine - is quite likely to burst like a balloon that has grown too big. The whole thing is becoming unsustainable: it has grown too huge to manage.

Owing to the incorrigible tendency towards cannibalism by the huge industrial corporations - the tendency of the bigger ones to swallow up the smaller ones - these molochs are becoming too large for humans to control or the planet to support. Ten years ago no economist would have predicted the complete collapse of the mighty Soviet machine that had engulfed half the Earth. International capitalism will follow.

It is in the nature of a limited company that it can have no responsibility either to the environment around it or to the people who work for it. It is no use blaming the directors - if they do anything that might reduce profits for the shareholders they will quickly be replaced. And the shareholders not only have no liability for debts incurred by the company - but they take no responsibility for the world of nature around them. If the directors can secure bigger profits by dumping poisons into the nearest river - they have to do this. If they do not, they will very quickly be replaced. If they can make more profit by halving the work force - they will have to do so or again they will be replaced. If both shareholders and directors suffer from that most uncapitalist thing - a conscience - to the extent that it interferes with profits - that company will be swallowed up by another giant that has no such inconvenient scruples.

One of the most dramatic effects of the Age of Plunder has been to drive most of the world's population into vast conurbations. These huge assemblies of uprooted people, called cities, are not only ugly but also dangerous. The billions who live in them can only be kept alive by an enormous system of transport which brings water, food, power, fuel and all the necessities of life, often great distances. Any breakdown in the supply of all this would be disastrous. And the great plundering molochs of companies which run it all get fewer and fewer, and bigger and bigger, and more and more people find themselves out of work, not needed, redundant and disempowered.

And meanwhile the tiny scattering of people left on the land, which is the only source of true wealth, have been forced by their paucity of numbers to resort to more and more destructive methods of producing the huge amount of food needed to sustain these billions. They have been forced to ignore the laws of husbandry, which could have retained the fertility of the soil as long as the world lasted, and farm instead with chemicals and huge machines. The soil is becoming poisoned and eroded. The only beneficiaries of this have been the huge chemical companies but they will destroy themselves in the end because they are killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

If we open our eyes, we will realize that all this is bound to come crashing down in the end. Then, in the ashes of the Age of Plunder, a new age could arise. The real New Age: the Age of Healing!

We will set about it, just you and me, to heal the ravaged Earth. If we do not - if we fail - then there will not be an Age of Healing: there will be an Age of Chaos and it will not be nice.

And we do not have to wait for the end of the Age of Plunder to start the work. We must start now.

And how can we - just the two of us, you and me, who are so few and disempowered - start this great work by ourselves?

Firstly, say to yourself, and I promise I will do the same, the following resolution:
"I am only one. I can only do what one can do. But what one can do I will do!"
Then consider what you can do.
Refuse to work for the plunderers. Refuse to buy their shoddy goods. Give up the ambition of living like a Texan millionaire. Boycott the Lottery, not because you think you won't win it, but because you don't want to win it!

Refuse to shop in the plunderer's "supermarkets".

Work, always, for a decentralist economy. Support local traders and producers - try to get what you need from as near your home as you can.

Take part in your local politics - boycott the politics of the huge scale, the remote and far-away. The current non-violent defiance of the law by people protesting against the export of live animals from Britain is a fine example of citizen-power.

Work for an economy in which land and property are fairly shared out among the people so that "everybody has enough and nobody has too much".

We must withhold our work, our custom, and our investment from plundering industry. This may cause us "financial hardship" : then we must endure "financial hardship" .

Road transport is the most destructive thing of all. If you live in a city, you do not need a car. (When you go to the country you can hire one - it's much cheaper than owning.) If you live in the country, you may need one - use it as little as possible.

Boycott most goods brought from far away. Take some trouble to find locally produced goods and buy them. Heavy road transport is enormously polluting.

Oppose new road building. Building new roads never relieves traffic congestion - it simply generates more traffic. The only way of solving the traffic problem is to have less traffic.

If you possibly can, do not work for huge organizations. If we withhold our labour from them, they will wither away. (Do not be afraid that this will lose "jobs". It will create more jobs - a multitude of small firms create more "jobs" than a few big ones).

Support local cultural activities. Boycott mass "culture" coming from countries far away.

Encourage, support, and initiate, local credit and finance organizations.

Buy, if you cannot grow, organically produced food. Thus you will help destroy the polluting chemical industry - and you will be healthier. Boycott, absolutely consistently, all products that have involved cruelty to animals.

Support the local and the small-scale.

I will do the same as I ask you to do.

The tiny amount you and I can do is hardly likely to bring the huge worldwide moloch of plundering industry down? Well, if you and I don't do it, it will not be done, and the Age of Plunder will terminate in the Age of Chaos. We have to do it - just the two of us - just you and me. There is no "them" - there is nobody else. Just you and me. On our infirm shoulders we must take up this heavy burden now - the task of restoring the health, the wholeness, the beauty and the integrity of our planet. We must start the Age of Healing now! Tomorrow will be too late."

Extract from www.carninglipress.co.uk

Toasted Teacake Recipe

One thing we love at the weekends (and sometimes in the week too) is to have a proper afternoon tea. It is really nice to get all the old china out and sit down together over fresh coffee and cake, chatting or reading through magazines. The trick is to borrow all the sense of occasion and beauty from the ritual, without the stuffiness or formality.

So last weekend I decided to have a go at baking some English teacakes, the most quintessential of afternoon tea treats. Little did I know that working out what a teacake actually was would prove so difficult... but in the end I came up with a recipe that I am really pleased with.

Mrs Beeton: The addition of sugar and fruit
is very nice...

As with so much traditional English food recipes vary depending on the region and historical period, and names sometimes referred to very different recipes. Historically speaking a teacake, particularly in the north east of England (most famously Yorkshire), was a small yeast based bread, without fruit - a direct descendant of the Manchet bread or 'hand bread'. However in modern usage, almost throughout England, it refers to a bun with fruit and spices. 

Writing in 1861 Mrs Beeton's basic recipe follows this older northern use of the term and doesn't have either sugar or currants in them, although she does say that they are 'very nice' with them added, making a more southern, modern teacake. 

Two other interesting elements are the use of eggs (quite literally some do and some don't include them - really without rhyme or reason) and also the different types of fat they use. I went for butter in the end, as although the use of lard would certainly have made for a shorter mix, I could not quite bring myself to use it. Dan Lepard has a really interesting recipe on the Guardian website and suggests the use of white chocolate instead of lard... I thought about using his version, but I think it would make his already sweet recipe very sweet indeed. 

However, what I did learn from Dan was that fat, sugar and even spices slow the yeast down, so much so that for his recipe he recommends 5tsp of dried yeast. Mine are not so sweet or fatty, so I have reduced this to 3tsp - but this is still much more than I would have added for bread.

The dough is set to rise twice, until doubled
in size, which is around an hour each.

Most times teacakes are served split and toasted and I would suggest making them the day before you need them. Our toaster has a 'bagel' setting that only heats the element on one side. So I toasted them until almost done on the inside surfaces first, then turned the knob so that both sides heat up and warm the top or bottom for the last 30 seconds or so. Obviously with a grill this is even easier and on an open fire much more fun.

I was surprised to find that the buttering of teacakes is considered an art in itself, with almost every writer advocating their own tried and tested method. Perhaps the only constant was that a meanness of butter is deplored by everyone. The rather emphatic advice below is borrowed from Dorothy Hartley:

' The right way to butter toasted teacakes (IMPORTANT): Toast bottoms and tops first; split and toast insides; lay (do not poke or spread) bits of butter on the lower half; cover with the top half; and invert. Keep hot for 3 minutes, then turn the right side up, polish the top with a suspicion of butter, cut into quarters, and send to the table. In this way the butter is evenly distributed and does not soak down into the bottom crust.’

Teacakes just before brushing with milk and baking.

My first batch of teacakes followed a middle road and included some currents, but not peel or spices. They were nice, but perhaps rather predictably neither-this-nor-that and, being a southerner, I felt they would be improved with some spice. So to my second lot I added ginger, cinnamon and allspice. Allspice is an unusual spice to use (I couldn't find any other recipes using it), but is one of my favourites and I think works well. However, you could replace this with nutmeg for a more traditional combination.

The recipe produces a light and fragrant teacake, but also one which has a depth of flavour and texture from the wholemeal flour, even more so if spelt is used. Please do try it and let me know what you think... 

Teacake Recipe

   8oz (250g) white flour

   8oz (250g) wholemeal flour (wholegrain spelt is ideal)

   2 oz (50g) butter 

   4 oz (125g) currants

   1oz (25g) caster sugar 

   1 tsp of salt

   3 tsp of yeast
   1/2 pint of tepid milk

Either: 

   1/2 tsp of cinnamon and dried ginger

   1/2 to 1 tsp of allspice

or 

   1/2 tsp each of cinnamon, dried ginger and nutmeg

Mix together the milk and yeast and then set aside. Combine the flour, spices, salt and sugar before rubbing in the butter and finally adding the currents. Pour in the milk and yeast mixture to form a soft dough and then kneed until elastic and smooth.

Place the dough into a large bowl and cover with a damp tea towel, then place into a warm place until the mixture has doubled in size - I usually use the oven set to 30°c and this takes around an hour.

Cut the dough into 8 pieces, before setting
to rise a second time.

Divide the mixture into 8 equally sized pieces and form each one into a flat round, placing them onto baking trays. Cover with the damp tea towel and leave to rise in the warm place, again until they have doubled in size (about an hour).

Finally brush the tops very gently with milk (this can be done before the final proving if you wish) and then place in the oven at 400°f or 200°c for around 20mins - until they are golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Toast and butter as described above an serve on the very best chintzy china. 

Pice ar y Maen (Welsh Cakes) for Breakfast

The weekends are a time when roles are reversed and invariably I have to get up first and, as it is the weekend, I am expected to return with breakfast. Usually this will be toast, but this morning as I was lying there, contemplating getting up, I realised that we were out of bread and that being a Sunday the deli wouldn’t open until 10am. For some reason (genuinely I have no idea why) I suddenly thought, ‘I’ll make griddle cakes!’. Which is odd, because I have never made them before; perhaps it was my distant Welsh blood speaking through the mists of time. 

I will be making them again though – a real success and very easy. It must have taken no more than 15/20 minutes, including making the coffee.

A Welsh Cake cooking in the traditional way.

Image from National Museum of Wales

Traditionally Welsh cakes would have been cooked on a bakestone (in fact one name for the actual cakes in Wales is Bakestones), which is a flat slap of stone that was heated in a fire and then used for cooking. More recently cast iron has replaced stone and they are cooked on a griddle pan over a range. Sadly we don’t have either, however we do have a panini maker that my mother bought me some time ago and which turned out to be just perfect.

They kept their shape so well during cooking that for afternoon tea, when using up the rest of the mix, I used shaped cutters instead of a round one. Once we get the bee-hives up and running I am looking forward to trying these out with honey rather than sugar.

If you look carefully at the image at the top you might see two things that would make my Welsh fathers turn in their graves. One thing that is there and shouldn’t be and one that isn’t there and ought to be... I’ll let on at the end.

Pice ar y Maen or Welsh Cake Recipe

(250g) 8oz self-raising flour
(75g) 3 oz butter
(1/4 tsp) pinch of salt
(75g) 3 oz currants or raisins
(75g) 3oz caster sugar
1 egg
a little bit of milk
Some extra sugar to sprinkle

They kept their shape so well I couldn't help
but use a different cutter for afternoon tea

Combine the fat and flour and then add in the sugar, salt and currants. Break in the egg and pour in enough dashes of milk to make it bind. Roll to the thickness of your little finger and cut using a cutter of your choice. Pop onto the griddle, bakestone, panini maker or heavy saucepan and cook until brown, turning once. Then sprinkle with sugar if so desired.

Do try these, they are so lovely and yet really easy. And the two historical errors in the picture? Well the Jam would certainly be frowned upon, whilst the lack of currants would have me banished from the sacred land!