A Great Day Out

Well, the bluest and sunniest of skies coaxed every man and his dog out to the Food and Drink Festival this weekend.

I met some fascinating artisans, sampled oils, vinegars, coffees, hams, jams and cordials, and much like the symbiosis between dog-owner and dog, without fail, the love between the producer and their product was clear.

A retired fishmonger dressed Cromer crabs with the ease that only a lifetime of commitment can impart. She had nimble fingers and two curls of dark hair that curved like protective crab claws about her cheeks.

There was a lady selling cheese, made from the creamy milk of her doe-eyed Jersey herd. She had the same kind eyes, gentle manner and strawberry blonde hair associated with the breed. Her cheese was delicious too. 

Over all, it was jamboree of superlatives. Tastiest, most aromatic, healthiest, juiciest...

                 ...freshest

              ...cutest

                    ...and happiest!

Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival

Over here in Suffolk we’re getting very animated about the Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival. The weekend promises to be one mammoth harvest festival, followed by two weeks of fringe events throughout East Suffolk.  

There's talks, workshops, cookery demos.... and I'm thrilled to be showing my latest foodie paintings in the Gallery. 

With over ninety exhibitors presenting the best and freshest produce Suffolk has to offer I’m salivating thinking about it.... and very excited at the prospect of gathering some tasty inspiration for new paintings.

......I’d better go and clear the toppling bottles and jars from my desk in preparation!

Seven years ago today, we moved to the country

When you buy a house in the country, “fixtures and fittings” are more likely to include an intractable goose, rather than a nice pair of interlined curtains. 

We inherited a lodger called Andrew. My husband is also called Andrew. 

Fortunately the lodger was a horse (silly name for a horse?) and was confined to the paddock. He is long gone.

Now when you move in September, the anticipated tranquil charm of country life is temporarily obscured. It’s the busiest month of the year. A passing flurry of gargantuan farm vehicles are catching the tail end of harvest before spreading malodorous muck. Ploughing begins. And apple orchards, by which we are surrounded, are ready for picking. Even a calming of cup of tea is accompanied by the tortuous buzz of cluster flies migrating to warmth of the kitchen, and to cap it all at night-fall there’s a bat looking to roost in the bedrooms.

Seven years on we are much more tuned in to the rhythms of country life.

September means the hedgerows are full of blackberries and rosehips, there are big red skies at night and we’re happily busy with our own harvests.

Andrew lives contentedly around the corner, but wild horses couldn’t drag us away.

Raspberry Vinegar

Vinegar has long been a valuable household cleaner... it will remove a scummy ring from the bath, red wine from the carpet and will blast through the blackened base of a burnt saucepan with ease.

As a child the first tickle of a sore throat was warded off with a hot mug of my mother’s raspberry vinegar. Not only did I love this steaming, fruity concoction, but I’m sure it had the bacteria in my throat reeling too.

Fruit vinegars are also a delicious base for salad dressings, so I’m off to gather a load of raspberries whilst the sun is out.

Raspberry vinegar

Makes about 4 pints

900g (2lb) raspberries

950ml (2 pints) distilled vinegar

Granulated sugar

Leave the raspberries to steep in the vinegar for 2-3 days.

Strain through a jelly bag (where is it when you need it? A new, rinsed kitchen cloth will do)

Measure the liquid and put into a large pan with 225g (11/4 cups) per 500ml (2cups) water.

Over a medium heat, gently stir until all the sugar has dissolved, then boil for 10 minutes until it becomes slightly syrupy.

Pour into warm sterilised bottles and seal. Dilute to taste, will keep for ages!

Adapted from The Painted Garden Cookbook, Running Press

Mallorcan musings

Homecoming

"We returned home last night. At this time of year how a week or ten days changes the growth in one's garden! I must confess that sometimes, coming home after dark, I have taken a hand-candle to inspect some special favourite." 

Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, C.W. Earle 1887  

  

We too returned home, very late, last night from Mallorca. Having resisted the temptation to inspect the garden by moonlight, this morning I was rewarded with finding the larder fully stocked... and bathed in sunshine. 
What I couldn't resist though, was picking up a chorizo from the deli on the school run!

Top Tip for the Big Top

My top recommendation so far this summer... has to be Giffords Circus. 

What an explosive miscellany of mad brilliance!

The usherettes are a flock of eccentric ostriches

and the music is as quirky as its vintage clad instrumentalists.

There's a saucer-eyed, opera-singing goddess with her white doves...

Tweedy the diminutive clown with his diminutive pony...

and a Parisian wirewalker who plays a deft crescendo on the trombone when his feet are back on solid ground.

All this punctuated by appearances from Brian the goose and Myrtle the bear in the intimate atmosphere of a handpainted arena.

Go and see for yourself! 

And me, I'm off on holiday with Nell Gifford's autobiography!

Fruit and veg

"I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs." Joseph Addison 1672-1719

For the past couple of weeks I have had my head down in the studio painting lots of lovely fresh veggies for a packaging project. I can’t reveal them yet but they’ll be coming to a “soup”ermarket near you soon!!

And what with trying to keep up with the Olympics too, my own garden has been sorely neglected, so today I’ll be sprinting up to the orchard and hurdling over the fruit cage to see what's left of the redcurrants and raspberries.

Chelsea Physic Garden

By happy chance I found myself with time on my hands in Chelsea last week. I weighed up my options carefully. Coffee and croissant of course. Then a morning flexing the curiosity of my retail antennae along the Kings Road.

But, best of all, in the afternoon sunlight, I ducked under the trailing greenery that all but obscures the modest gateway to the Chelsea Physic Garden. I had been meaning to visit this garden for years, and as soon as I felt the yielding curve of the worn stone threshold under my feet I knew I was in for a treat. Ancient red brick walls shield an extaordinary oasis that for over three hundred years has been tended by deft fingers and scuffed by diligent gardeners’ boots. You can literally taste history here.

The garden was founded in 1673 by the Society of Apothecaries of London as a learning ground for their apprentices, so they could grow medicinal plants, collect new species and study their uses. 

Dr Hans Sloane took over the freehold of the garden in 1712 and still keeps a watchful eye from his central pedestal. His heirs continue to collect the £5 per annum rent, from the charity that now runs the garden.

I couldn’t help but envy the precisely cut edges of the multiple weed free, well labelled borders... and even more, the army of gardeners moving quietly up and down with their clippers.

Eye Country Market

I honestly didn’t mean to get distracted yesterday.... but after a fruitless search in my veg patch for a beetroot big and beautiful enough to paint, I suddenly realised that if I grabbed my shopping basket and stepped on the accelerator I could just make the couple of miles down the lane in time for the weekly “Eye Country Market”.

As I swung into the car park on the dot of ten I could sense the purposeful, migratory gait of the town’s more senior residents, anxious to secure their weekly cottage pie.

This is a truly local affair. Allotment holders are chuffed to be the first to offer firm and glossy courgettes... and grateful to get shot of a glut of broad beans. Ladies in regulation checked aprons preside over an array of freshly baked scones and quiches and delicious jams and chutneys. And the green fingered offer a great selection of plants for the garden, or a bunch of country cottage blooms for the kitchen table.

Alas, no beetroot this week, but my consolation prize was a pot of local honey and some Verbena seedlings, and a cup of tea with a ginger nut before the doors closed at eleven sharp!

Raining cats and dogs