Christopher Lloyd Gardener Cook

22 August 2010 00:25

I bought this book earlier in the year at my local library book sale. As you can imagine I already have quite a few gardening and cookery books but this is the only one which spans both interests.

Sadly Christopher Lloyd died fairly recently and I didn’t get around to visiting his beautiful gardens at Great Dixter although I had planned to for years.

Christopher wrote a gardening column for The Guardian for years and they were always very enjoyable but I hadn’t realised that he was also a keen cook, which was a bit daft of me really as there’s no point in growing lovely fruit and veg if you don’t eat it.

The blurb says: Christopher Lloyd takes us from plant to plate, recommending the best varieties to grow, telling us where to grow and how to plant…. he also passes on over a hundred of his favourite recipes.

He tells lots of stories too, which are often quite funny. There are plenty of lovely photographs of plants but none of the cooked recipes. So, no food porn to gawp at but it’s still a lovely book to browse through.

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Categories: Gardening, Recipes

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Inveraray

21 August 2010 01:06

Inveraray is definitely a highland town. Actually, the road signs are in Gaelic long before you get there. That’s something which has changed since my childhood. It’s politically correct to push Gaelic like crazy now but I don’t know anyone who can speak it despite the fact that loads of money has been put into promoting the language.


I was really surprised to see The Vital Spark tied up in the harbour, which is really just at the end of the main street.

Neil Munro wrote The Para Handy stories which featured The Vital Spark and her crew. The tv programmes were very popular in the 60s when I was a wee girl. They did an updated version recently but obviously they didn’t have the same nostalgic charm.
You can see some of the oldies on you tube.

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Categories: Books, Scenery, Towns

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Catching up

20 August 2010 12:20

I’ve been busy this week trying to catch up with all the things around the house and garden which are neglected during the school holidays. So I’ve been hard at it cutting back a lot of growth in the garden which is mainly the result of the amount of rain which we’ve had recently. This time last year I ended up with a frozen shoulder because I overdid it in the garden and by Christmastime I could hardly move my arm at all, so I’ve stuck to using the pruners and steered well clear of the saws.

I didn’t even get around to reading The Guardian so this morning I did some catching up. We always buy The Guardian but you can get most of it on-line I think. Unfortunately they don’t put the cryptic crossword on the site and we both love doing the crossword, it’s a bit of an addiction really.

There was an interesting article about biofuel. They are experimenting with by-products of the whisky making industry at Edinburgh Napier University. Apparently it can be used in cars without having to adapt their engines. Sounds good. I’m wondering what it smells like. It would be fine if it smells like the finished product, but some of the smells created by distilling whisky aren’t so good.

I was brought up in a distillery town where they made Ballantines, J&B and many more, but the smell could be pretty nasty at times.

I’ve heard that if you adapt your car to run on old cooking oil from fish and chip shops then the exhaust fumes have that distinctive chippy aroma. Very confusing if you’re in need of a fish supper and you don’t know where your nearest chippy is. You used to be able to rely on your nose to sniff one out!

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Categories: Current Affairs, Gardening, Weather

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Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg

19 August 2010 22:07

My husband read this book recently and he thought that I might like it.

It’s set in Denmark and Greenland. Smilla, the main character is a product of both countries. As she lived in Greenland until she was a teenager she has a good knowledge of the various types of snow and ice. She’s a bit of a loner really but has formed a close relationship with her neighbours’ young son, Isaiah. When he ends up “falling” from their snow covered roof Smilla decides that it must have been murder rather than an accident because of how his footprints on the roof look, and she sets out to prove the case.

The storyline is quite convoluted and eventually moves from Copenhagen to a ship bound for Greenland, at which point it changes from a domestic whodunnit into something a lot darker and more violent and veering towards science fiction.

However, I did enjoy the book although I don’t think it is one which I would like to reread in the future. I found the central character Smilla Jaspersen to be really likeable, which always helps.

I recently heard from Judith, Reader in the Wilderness that this book has been made into a film. I think it can’t have been very true to the book as I can’t imagine a film being able to deal with all the detailed twists.

I read this book as part of the Thriller and Suspense Reading Challenge.

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Categories: Books

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On My Nightstand

16 August 2010 22:04

I typed the post title above and it made me feel all sort of Regency/Georgian. I’ve seen it on other peoples’ blogs and I’m not sure if people in the US really still call it a nightstand nor do I know when people in Britain started calling it their bedside table. In my case that’s a misnomer anyway as I actually have a small chest of drawers by my bedside.

At the moment my pile consists of:

Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin
The Early Stories by John Updike
School for Love by Olivia Manning
The King’s General by Daphne du Maurier
The Harsh Voice by Rebecca West
Selected Stories by Anton Chekov
No Wind of Blame by Georgette Heyer
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos
Blooding Mister Naylor by Chris Boyce
The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to Great Britain
AA Illustrated Guide to Britain

At the moment I’m reading and enjoying Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg.
Will the next one be taken from my bedside pile?

Mebbe aye or mebbe naw – as they say. It could be taken from the many other piles around the house. We’ve run out of bookcase space and wall space. We’ve got to the stage where our fairly large (7 rooms) Edwardian house is stuffed to the gunwhales, which is what happens when you live in the same house for over 22 years.

Can someone tell me if the “nightstand” name is for real or is it jokey. I’m interested in how language develops or doesn’t over the years.

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Coffee Cream

15 August 2010 23:11

This pudding isn’t exactly exciting looking, it is after all beige and it’s what granny would have called “a shape”. I adapted this recipe from a Margeurite Patten one which was actually in the section of “food for the elderly”. It uses up half a can of evaporated milk and as I often have exactly that much left over from doing a particular pasta dish, I thought I would give it a try.

1/2 large can evaporated milk
2oz sugar
3 heaped dessertspoons cornflour
water
1 tsp instant coffee granules

Make the evaporated milk up to one pint with water. Blend the cornflour, sugar and coffee with some of the milk. Bring the rest of the milk to the boil. Pour onto the blended mixture and stir well. Return to the saucepan and bring to the boil again. Continue cooking, stirring all the time until it has thickened.

Pour the mixture into a mould. Leave to cool and set which will take several hours.

If you can remember Symington Table Creams, this pudding tastes and has a similar texture to those puddings. I read somewhere that you can still get the Symington ones but I haven’t seen them for years.

Basically it’s a very thick custard mixture which sets when it is cool. The sky’s the limit flavour-wise with this sort of recipe because you can add any kind of flavouring you fancy.

The original recipe called for vanilla essence but I tried coffee, in future I’m going to add some booze, probably Bailey’s Irish Cream. I’ll also try cocoa and I’m going to have a go at Maple and Walnut which was my favourite Symington one, I’ll use maple syrup instead of sugar but I’m not sure about the walnut flavour. Is there such a thing as walnut or pecan essence?

This is a very simple store-cupboard dessert, but it’s still tasty.

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Categories: Desserts/Puddings, Recipes

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Rest and be Thankful

15 August 2010 00:36

At last we managed to get away to the west of Scotland, the Cowal Peninsula to be precise, which is just about an hour away from where we were brought up. As you can see it’s lovely there. It’s a very popular destination with tourists, apart from the fact that it is very scenic, there are also lots of things for you to do and visit, if you want to do more than just admire the scenery.

These photographs are of the Rest and be Thankful, a strange name for what is now really just a stopping/parking spot at the top of Glen Croe, which has a very steep climb to the top and if you were walking you would have to rest quite a few times before you reach it – and then be thankful you’d made it.

As you can see, there is a wee farm cottage right at the bottom. I don’t think I would like to live there, I imagine that when it is raining all the water is going to end up there. It must surely be damp.

This photograph is taken from the same place, different direction. I suppose the wee patch of water would be described as a lochan but compared with the many other lochs in the area it’s just a puddle. But the hills are lovely, especially when the sun shines on them.

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Categories: Scenery

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Weather update

14 August 2010 21:13

As we are nearly at the end of the school holidays here, we thought it was about time we made a mad dash over to the west of Scotland and luckily the weather was lovely, as it still is. It is about 60 F I suppose which is fine for me because I can’t stand the heat and I feel so sorry for people sweating in 80 or 90 F. I don’t know how you manage to do anything at all.

But the best thing is the sun has been shining now because we’ve had so much rain this summer, almost as bad as last year and the year before. One woman said to me that she rates summers by how many BBQs she’s had – 1 last year, and 2 this year apparently.

I’ve got a feeling that the weather forecasters are always saying that the best of the weather is in the west, which is strange because the west of Scotland is famous for high rainfall. I’m going to start keeping a note of the rainfall patterns, I think it’s changing.

I predict that we’ll have the best weather of the whole summer in the next few weeks, because that’s what usually happens when the kids go back to school.

Ah well, I suppose it means that I’ll be able to get some of the jobs done around the house and garden that we haven’t been able to do because of the weather.

I’m not going up on the roof though, I think I’ll get a professional in for that one!

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Salute to Adventurers by John Buchan

12 August 2010 23:47

This book was first published in 1915 and I hadn’t even heard of it before my husband pulled it out from the middle of a huge pile of books on the floor at Voltaire and Rousseau Bookshop in Glasgow.

The book was republished in 2003 by The Nautical and Aviation Company of America, they have reprinted a few other Buchan books. I think they were interested in this one because it tells the story of the colonization of Tidewater, Virginia.

Andrew Garvald, a young Scottish student was walking to Edinburgh to start his studies at the university when he has the misfortune to get lost in a heavy hill fog. Despite asking for directions from a young girl (Elspeth) he gets lost again and becomes embroiled with a religious troublemaker and his followers. A troop of the King’s Dragoons rounds them all up and they end up in gaol. As the colonies were in dire need of people it was common for any miscreants to be transported to America or Australia but Andrew escapes this fate with the help of Elspeth who manages to persuade the powers that be that Andrew had nothing to do with the religious rabble.

Andrew decides to take up business in Virginia on his uncle’s behalf when he sees how some fellow Scots have prospered there. After reaching James Town he quickly discovers that the English merchants have all business opportunities tied up and everything is price fixed by them.

The book is fairly anti-English and I did wonder if that was why it was reprinted in America, I found it amusing anyway.

Determined to succeed and overcome any prejudice, Andrew comes up against various sorts of American Indians and the book becomes a boys’ adventure story.

It does has a very similar feel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s writing, particularly Kidnapped and Catriona, with a young man having to fight against adversity and a lot of running around on hillsides. The only difference is that heather doesn’t feature in the American landscape and it isn’t raining all the time.

I quite enjoy an old fashioned adventure story from time to time and this one is interesting because of the different setting and history.

I started reading John Buchan because his father was a minister near where I live and so he was a bit of a local lad and his sister the writer O. Douglas was born in the town.

I had no idea that he had such a high flying career until recently and it amazes me that he had any time for writing at all.

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Categories: Books, Scottish literature

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Scottish words: crabbit

12 August 2010 00:38

I suppose crabbit is just a Scottish version of the English word “crabbed”, but you never really here people using that word. But crabbit is a favourite descriptive word in Scotland and it just means bad tempered or grumpy.

When I was young it always seemed to be old people who were crabbit, or should I say – people of a certain age – and no I don’t think I’ve quite reached the crabbit stage yet.

“Crabbit auld bugger” is a well known phrase, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out who is the most crabbit between the describer and the described!

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Categories: Scottish words

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