Biscuit and the horse

Our lovely back field has recently acquired a horse. The family has mixed feelings about this new development. A fine mare trotting about in clear view of the house is definitely more interesting than watching grass grow and there is the added benefit of free manure for the garden. However the paddock had felt like our field. We used it for frisbee and running races and I fantasised about keeping bees there one day.

One member of the household has felt this loss more keenly than the rest of us. Biscuit's patch, her hunting ground of abundance has been invaded and she doesn't know what to do about it.

Except make like a meerkat

or Egyptian goddess Bast

Finally a desperate Ninja warrior pose and..

...the horse laughs in her face.

The final insult

Nigel Slater

Just received my latest purchase of food porn from Nigel Slater. Tender Volume II is his fruity follow-up to last year's collection of recipes from his vegetable patch. The photography is every bit as delicious as the food. I love the obvious imperfections in the baking images and the Walnut, Chocolate and Honey tart has me intrigued. What would that taste like?

Bag lady

I picked a fat bunch of lavender today when I was tending the courtyard garden at school.  I designed the garden last year as a sensory garden and we were lucky enough to be given loads of free plants to fill the beds. I have hung the lavender up and I am thinking I might be able to make some little bags or pillows to sell at the school Christmas Fair.

 I am worried that my sewing skills aren't quite up to it, but I do have some scraps of Liberty fabric and a couple of old patterned shirts that I am going to try. Maybe something heart-shaped? Or should I mix the lavender with some wheat and make wheat bags to warm in the microwave?

In my more ambitious moments I am also thinking about some lovely red gingham, trimmed with green ribbon and stuffed with something spicy like orange peel, cinnamon, and perhaps a little star anise. If only I was capable of making this!

Macmillan Coffee Morning

I made sure I was near the front of the queue at the school Macmillan coffee morning today. I quickly spied this German apple cake to accompany my rocket fuel coffee.  Turned out it was still warm when I took my first, mouth-watering bite. A perfect combination of juicy firm apple, delicately caramelised syrup, and buttery, crumbly cake. No hint of cinnamon - sometimes I really don't want that spice. And all for £1.50.

I have been scouring Google for a recipe, I make a Devonshire Apple cake from here which is pretty good. And I think I can adapt the English Apple cake recipe from here to suit.

September song

There's a lot to recommend September. Days still warm enough to spend outside but nights cool enough for blankets and pyjamas. An abundance of blackberries, damsons and wild plums for crumbles and jellies. The start of the academic year suggesting new beginnings in a way that Spring can't. We doze through summer's long languorous sleep and the first cold draught under the door awakens us eager and ravenous for new beginnings!

September's greatest delight is the sudden appearance of enormous rosy fruit, implausibly balanced on the gnarled branch of every apple tree. Mid September briefly brings my favourite Worcester Pearmain apples to the shops. Worcesters are an early fruiting English variety, a parent of the ubiquitous Discovery apple. A good Worcester will release a pungent fruity smell, and their delicate green and red colouring is divine. They are supposed to taste a little of strawberries, but to me they are just irresistibly apple-y, as if Willie Wonka had a hand in their creation.

I planted an Worcester Pearmain tree in the garden of my first house. The garden was depressing and horribly overlooked, a typical tiny green patch on a modern estate. A couple of apple trees and a reclaimed brick patio replaced the existing ghastly blue pergola and suddenly the space felt full of promise. Unfulfilled promise as it turned out. I didn't live there long enough to taste the Worcesters and every September I wonder who might be enjoying my lovely apples.

There is nothing better....

Baking is my first love and I was taught skillfully by my mum and my two Nannies. Hours stood on a chair at the kitchen bench, watching and helping just as Indigo does with me now. These women may be long gone from my life, but they are never closer than when I am cooking. Rubbing in butter, folding in egg whites, rolling out pastry, I see their hands on mine. I am the sole keeper of their secrets now and I really hope I have remembered well.

As much as I like to experiment and try new flavours and recipes, I realised recently that their currency was comfort food and that comfort came from familiarity. As a child, I wanted to eat the same things over and over. It had to be apple pie or lemon meringue for Sunday lunch, Belgium cake and date krispies for tea, cheese scones and lardy frumadiddles in winter and a deep, buttery Victoria glued with raspberries in June.

I'm never happier than when I have made a chocolate cake. The most basic all-in-one Victoria sponge sandwiched with some concoction of chocolate or cocoa, icing and butter. It seems too simple, almost like cheating. It never fails. And the children always want one on their birthdays.

Fresh walnuts from the Lonely tree

I usually loathe walnuts, little shriveled squirrel brains ruining decent coffee cake. A few years ago on a trip to the Dordogne, I discovered how delicious wet walnuts were so I was excited to find these beautiful fresh walnuts falling off the Lonely tree at school pick-up this afternoon. I discarded the outer shells and filled my cardigan pockets. What's more thrilling than free food? I confess that I don't always manage to use my foraged food and there is a very real risk that these nuts will languish in some plastic pot or other, growing fluff until they hit the compost bin. But for now I'm inspired and planning fabulous Perigordian salad; Pear, Roquefort, rocket and the crumbled nuts with a sharp lemony dressing.

The Lonely tree is a magnificent, mature walnut that stands within my daughter's school grounds, close to the two infant classrooms. It's sprawl of branches hang low, just above head height and it shelters us all from sun and rain as we wait for the straggle of children to appear at the end of the school day. 

The tree used to make me sad. Surely a refuge for those kids who didn't quite fit in? A morose soul sat on the rough tree bench, scuffing the dust in solitary social exclusion. How tragic! Another parent recently enlightened me of the true meaning of the Lonely tree. The children know they can go there if they ever find themselves without a friend at playtime, and then anyone passing will invite the "lonely" child to join their game.