'P' is for potatoes

"Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips."

Charles Dickens

Living in Victorian Britain, Dickens would have eaten a very well balanced diet consisting largely of local and seasonal organic fruit and vegetables. 

Funny, how despite the progress of the intervening years we’re now busy striving for those same ideals.

I am imagining Dickens mulling over the onomatopoeia of ‘potatoes’ while I toss up which seed potatoes to buy this year. 

Sarah Raven’s potato trial results are a great starting point as I ponder early, mid and late, and boil, mash and bake.

And then there are some varieties.. like Belle de Fontenay, that simply sound so mellifluent that I'm sure Dickens would have been seduced too!

Happy Valentine's Day

Pairs…

Two wrens engaged in chatter,
wintersweet and flowering cherry, 
bloom...
despite driving wind wedded to rain.

The perfect omelette

"I break some good eggs into a bowl, I beat them well, I put in a good piece of butter in the pan. I throw the eggs into it and I shake it constantly. I am happy, monsieur, if this recipe pleases you." Madame Poularde as quoted by Elizabeth David in “An Omelette and a Glass of Wine”

Now that the days are lengthening ever so slightly, the chickens have all started to lay again and I am relishing a simply cooked omelette... made with “good” eggs.

I love everything about an egg; nature's most perfect package. I turn each porcelain orb in my hand on the way back from the hen house, enjoying its unique shape and colour, speckle and lustre. Here's what I find.

Fig 1.
Nifty is a small, nearly white hen who lays an enormous nearly white egg. 
Biggest egg to date... 100 grams!

Fig 2.
Saffy favours a deep, coppery-brown burnished shell. 

Fig 3.
Darcy, the matriarch at 6 years old, (and the only surviving hen from our original four) leads by example and still lays a lightly speckled egg most days. 

Fig 4.
Little Hulanicki, hardly the size of a pigeon, lays a surprisingly large, pure white egg. Young and slim she struts around around in sixties style monochrome. I had been struggling for a name for her until I read Barbara Hulanicki's brilliant autobiography, 'From A to Biba'. The first Biba stores all had black and white chequerboard floors. Problem solved!

Fig 5.
Weighing in at a mere 12 grams I’ve no idea who laid this teeny egg. A phenomenon  called "fairy" egg, it didn’t have a yolk and was probably the result of a reproductive cycle getting slowly into gear. Not much good for the omelette.

Fig 6.

Binky lays a small roundish egg. She is a creature of habit with a passion for industrial architecture. She shuns the country-style nest box in the hen house and runs the length of the garden to lay under the oil tank. And the later I let the chickens out in the morning the faster she runs!

Who'd have thought egg collecting could be so much fun?

February

Anyone else inspired by the sunny weekend to sort out all those old seed tags ready for some early sowings? 

Dinner will be late tonight...

...I’m still plucking the chicken. 

Tuesday
As one does in the stodgy depths of January, I have been daydreaming. Perhaps 2014 should be the year when I attempt one new creative activity each week.... re-upholster an old armchair, make fridge magnets out of beach pebbles or, at the very least, cook a new recipe.

Plucking and gutting a chicken was not quite on my list (although it had crossed my mind). We do, after all, have a couple of spare roosters. I know a man who will willingly come and despatch any unwanted fowl. I’m sure he would have shown me the ropes, if the slinky red fox hadn't got there first! 

From my studio yesterday I heard a disturbing level of clucking and squawking at dusk. I raced out to the hen house, just as said fox slipped covertly from the scene. I was lucky. He had only killed one cockerel. Head dismembered, lustrous sheen drained from its limp feathers; I was boldly determined that the fox wasn’t going to have the reward of eating this one. 

So, my first creative challenge was thrust upon me. 

It’s a well known fact that birds are much easier to pluck while still warm. I got that done  swiftly, before dinner. Which left me the evening to do some research on crop removal, neck severing, 'powerflush lung removers', bile and the fascinating contents of gizzards. 

My rooster could hang until the morning and I could tuck into bed reading masterly advice from Elizabeth David on simmering tough old birds.

Wednesday
Strange how a good night’s sleep often clears the mind. There’s no way I can face dealing with that torpid corpse... the fox could have been carrying a deadly disease. The local butcher shook his head gravely at the very suggestion of coq-au-vin and what’s more the family have all flatly refused to have anything to do with the bird. I would have been dining alone on soup for weeks. 

So, I’m going to shove him in the compost heap and attempt some genteel upholstery this weekend instead.

Fair weather gardener?

What a joy it is, in summer, to linger on the way to the vegetable patch; enjoying the beckoning fragrance of a new flower. To follow the meandering path of a passing butterfly. To pick a rainbow of produce and set a brimming basket down on the kitchen table.

A couple of years ago I made a promise to myself to grow more winter vegetables. Now, head bent against the wind and rain, light failing and mud clinging to my fork I’m beginning to question the pleasure of playing tug-of-war with an obstinate parsnip. 

But at least when I resort to the allure of nice, clean, supermarket vegetables, I do spare a grateful thought for those who have toiled on my behalf.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

OK, so no more excuses. The kids are back at school, I've tidied my studio, scrubbed my palette, laid out my paint tubes in colour order, sorted my brushes, ordered more paper....  re-sorted my brushes.

The sun is dazzling this morning, the birds are rejoicing and I've just picked my first snowdrops. 

Let the year begin!

lastminuteturkey.com

My local weekly auction room is usually home to polished fluted mahogany legs, pert copper kettles and the sonorous tock of well oiled grandfather clocks. 

Just before Christmas however the annual poultry sale comes to town and so today I am confronted by a sea of puckered flesh and frigid claws!

As 300-odd locally reared birds compete for best goose, champion turkey and supreme duck, almost as many bidders are gathered to compete for best Christmas dinner!

Unfortunately I’ve already got my turkey, but next year I may well don a flat cap and a barbour jacket and join in the bidding! Happy Christmas!

My Country

This time last year we were busy getting our house all Christmassy for a photoshoot for 

‘My Country’ magazine (Japan)

Copyright My Country

Ha, this year I can relax in an armchair with my copy of the magazine,

 in the knowledge that there are boxes of decorations all ready and waiting in the attic.

Only... on a recent mooch around the vast, vintage wonderland that is Rokit, I was rather taken by these shiny pom-poms by artist Karen Hsu. Check out more of her amazing creations here. I can sense I might just have to have a little play around with some cellophane before the festive season is over. 

Short and Sweet....

....the latest goodies from Blue Hill Farm featuring my watercolours

photos copyright bluehillfarm

Hello Winter

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."

Henry David Thoreau

Last week,

Autumn’s jolly tartan waistcoat was completely unravelled by the wind, 

Yellow, gold and ochre ripped from its fraying hemline.

Only the shiny-red rose-hip buttons clung tightly on,

until,

Observed by a pair of ebony crows, 

I came to snip them from their worn out lapels.