Sunday Evening Thoughts

Good evening...

...well firstly thank you for questions, I will start to answer them one by one! I hope to have a little more time and spirit for blogging this week. Carl and I have had some rather bad news, and sadly until he sees a lawyer tomorrow, I cannot share the details. Suffice to say things have been rather gloomy this week.

However we have had a lovely Sunday together. I have been to a vintage fayre where I bought a pair of lovely soup bowls, and then home to Carl, and an afternoon of Sense and Sensibility on dvd, this time the Emma Thompson version. 1995 was a good year for Jane Austen adaptations! Since trying OPIs Start To Finish base coat and top coat, I find that my manicure lasts at least a week, so I have started doing my nails on a Sunday afternoon, and having a film to watch while they drive is just lovely. This week I have very pale natural looking nails, as I am visiting a prospective employer whom I wish to impress! I loved Sense and Sensibility. Recently I have developed a sudden appreciation for Alan Rickman, and his interpretation of Colonel Brandon is wonderful. He is so repressed by his own feelings, knowing they are unwanted, and then when Marianne sees the light it is like a dam bursting forth with happiness!

So, the first question was how did I get into blogging. Well, I was reading blogs before I had heard the word blog. I remember searching for a craft project online, and discovering www.ljcfyi.com and became a regular visitor. Then I discovered www.getcrafty.com and they had a page called 'blogs' and I discovered other people like me who liked to make and write. I started my first blog on livejournal, because a friend from work used it. I called myself 'she of the sceptered isle' and wrote about knitting patterns and recipes, crafts I had made, things I had cooked. I remember in particular teaching myself to knit, and buying expensive yarn for my first project, a purple fuzzy and very long scarf. I would really encourage buying nice yarn to knit with for the first time as it feels heavenly to work with and you end up with something you are really proud of at the end! I think my writing 'voice' was quite a lot more quirky back then, perhaps a little self consciously so. I was very young, in my defence!

I am not sure why I stopped writing on that blog...I have always wanted to keep a diary but have never really kept it up, so perhaps it was just the same kind of lapsing.

Anyway, I also discovered www.brocantehome.net which just spoke to me, and I loved (and still do!) Alison's writing. She once linked to www.vintagepretty.org and I realised that there were other people writing about the kinds of things I love and do, and it was towards the end of the year when I start to think about things I want to do over the next year, and it all just came together. I remember sitting with a pen and paper for ages trying to decide what to call the blog, and what to put in the 'about' part at the top of the blog. I haven't changed it since ten, so I must have got it about right!

To begin with, writing was a bit odd, because it was like sending words out into nothing. Not even an echo to hear back! I was so happily surprised and amazed when I started to get comments and visitors to my blog. I try very hard not to get too het up about numbers and things, but it is amazing to think that there are people out there who come here to read my musings.

I think my writing has changed a little bit on here, at one point I was writing almost essays, and I think that was because I was also writing little bits for Alison at Brocante Home, something I would love to get back into doing. Recently it has evolved a bit more into a kind of journal, with recipes. I would like to try and get a bit more organized, with more recipes and reviews, projects and how-tos as well as little articles and just journally bits.

I do love writing here and find it a wonderful outlet, although it is odd having a conversation and really only knowing your own half. I hope I am not tempting fate, but I am jolly lucky never to have had hateful comments as some bloggers have, such as the lovely www.yarnstorm.blogs.com which was another blog I was reading back in the early days, and still do. I do find myself wandering around sometimes, composing blog posts in my mind. I have one in mind on my new walk to work, talking about the beautiful little row of terraced Victorian cottages that I go past, but that is for another day.

To me, my blog is almost like a patchwork blanket that I work on from time to time. There have been times when I have not posted as often as I would like to, but having a blog never really goes away. I like that it is never finished, that I am always adding a little bit more here or there to it.

A blog that I really enjoy, that I have mentioned recently is www.attic24.typepad.com and I love how Lucy shares so many photographs. I think that is really lacking on this blog, although that is part to my ineptness with modern technology, but also because blogger does not seem particularly well set up for sharing photographs. I would like this blog to be a little more illustrated than it is though!

I realise I have talked a lot, but I am not convinced that I have really got down to the nitty gritty. I suppose I started this blog because I was reading a lot of blogs and thought 'I can do that too' and it was a way of finally keeping a diary. I am surprised to see that it will be 6 years this December! Time has passed by in a flash.

I hope you all are having a lovely Sunday evening, and I will be back to answer more questions soon, and, I hope, with better news.

Love, Mimi xxx

New Blog Discoveries

I do love discovering a new blog, and I love stumbling across them by accident, although it does always make me worry that there must be so many other lovely blogs out there that I have not yet stumbled across!

Here are some recent discoveries, all on a vintage/retro theme:

www.modernretrowoman.com which has lots of lovely vintage video clips and exerpts from vintage books

www.my50syear.blogspot.com in which a blogger lives as though in the 50s for a year

www.shapelyweightfrom1958.blogspot.com the story of a blogger losing weight using a diet book from 1958

I am enjoying reading through the archives of these. Just the thing with a pot of tea!

Enquire Within

I read an interesting interview with Audrey Tautou in Marie Claire magazine, in which at one point she mischeviously suggests to the interviewer that he will be in trouble with his superiors back at the magazine because the readers will want to know things like what creams she uses in her beauty routine, but those arent the kind of answers she wants to give. It is true though, isn't it, that with people we admire, particularly in the public eye, that we want to know more about them, in the hope of capturing a little of their magic for ourselves.

I love reading some of my vintage magazines where the stars of their day happily reveal what lotions and potions they use, and some even had shades of lipstick named after them. How wonderful!

I like reading interviews with modern day stars to get to see a hint of their own personality come through. Not 'celebrities' who are famous for being famous, but people who have a talent or a star quality. I love how irascible Alan Rickman appears in his interviews!

Now let me start by saying that I am under no hallucinations that I am a star, but it does seem to me that I have seen on several of the blogs I read posts where readers are invited to 'ask me anything' and then some follow up posts are written answering the questions. So, I thought it might be fun to try that here. I am aware that while the comments function allows a certain amount of interaction, it does not allow for much...so....do enquire within!

Love
Mimi
xxx

The Bride's Book

A few weeks ago, I was browsing through a copy of The Lady which had been passedon ot me by a friend at work. There was an interesting little article which mentioned a book that had been given to Princess Margaret when she got married, and was found amongst her things when she died. It was simply called 'A Book For Brides' and I really wanted to read it. I have several housekeeping books from that time and love the advice in them. A while ago Carl bought me 'How To Be A Good Wife' which was a facsimilie edition of an advice guide from this era.

A little internet searching revealed that the book had been published by Forbes, and the British Library had a copy in its archives. I filled in an interlending form, and more or less forgot about it. So you can imagine how pleased I was when I unpacked the van delivery at work this morning and found a padded envelope which contained the very copy I had seen on the British Library website.

It is a delightful little hardback in dark green which smells wonderfully of old books. There are numerous essays for the bride inside, covering everything from planning her wardrobe to cooking the meals to decorating the house by authors as diverse as Evelyn Waugh and Marghanita Laski. I am most intrigued to read the essay by the latter, as it is called 'Hard Labour for Life'!!

There are one or two advertisements inside, one for Elizabeth Arden make up. Of course some of the advice is terribly old fashioned an out of date, but I do think there was a lot of sense about and quite a lot of it can be adapted for today. I will let you know any gems as I discover them and put them into practise!

I have also brought home from the library today 'Mr Digwell' which is a book about growing and cooking vegetables. Starting in the 40s, Mr Digwell featured in comic-strip style advice, showing how to grow the veg, and then Patsy starred in a comic-strip style feature showing you how to cook it. This book features an alphabet of fruit and vegetables with the accompanying strips. Visit www.mrdigwell.com for more!

Then lastly I have a book about 'meals for beginners' not that I am a beginner having been cooking for the two of us for the past seven years, but it is always nice to have some new ideas.

It looks like it may have finally have stopped raining now, but to be honest it still feels like a rainy afternoon, so I shall stay curled up on the sofa with my books for now, and perhaps make a pot of tea in a little while.

I hope you are having a lovely Saturday!

Love
Mimi
xxx

Upon Cucumber Sandwiches, for Dinah

Yesterday I turned 6 loaves of bread into sandwiches- half became cream cheese and walnut, and the other half became cucumber sandwiches. Now a cucumber sandwich is quintessentially English, and very delicious too. I have had cucumber sandwiches at home, at our wedding, at The Ritz, and Claridges. You would never think that such a delicate little morsel could be the cause of shredded nerves, but oh, it can be.

You see, the thing with cucumber sandwiches is that they are best eaten as soon as possible after making, so they don't go soggy. Which in normal circumstances is fine, you can either make them and then eat them, or if you are making a packed lunch to take to work then if they do go a little bit soggy then at least it is only you eating them! Imagine my dilemma yesterday, when I had 30-40 guests arriving at work for a retirement tea party at 12, but at 10.20 I had to be two villages over doing a school assembly, and wouldn't be back till 11.30. Did I make the sandwiches at 8.30am and risk soggy cucumber syndrome, or did I try and make them at 11.30 and risk not having them done in time?

So I asked some friends. The man replied that I should do them in the morning, it would be easier for me, and besides, people expect cucumber sandwiches to be slightly soggy! Amusing, but not convincing. But the lovely Wendy suggested that I make up the sandwiches by buttering the bread, and then slip the cucumber in at the last minute. So that is what I did. Only, to make things even easier, I sliced the cucumber in the morning, so at 11.30 I just had to fill and cut the sandwiches...and it worked like a charm!

For cucumber sandwiches, for me at least, the bread must be white. But brown or white, it must, must be as thinly cut as you can manage. Then a light spread of butter, taken up to the edges please, and a single layer of slightly overlapping slices of cucumber. I like to cut mine on a mandolin as you can get them ever so thin then. Then press down on top the other slice of buttered bread, cut off the crusts, and cut into your choice of fingers, squares or triangles. You should get 4 of whichever shape you have chosen, so they are quite tiny. You will also end up with a bag of crusts to go and feed the ducks with!

There is a variation on this of which I am rather fond. For this one I prefer brown bread, and I leave the crusts on, but you do whatever you like best. Instead of buttering the bread, I use a thin spreading of cream cheese (like Philadelphia), a layer of cucumber, and then some torn mint leaves scattered across before topping with the other slice of bread. Delicious!

I came across our wedding menu on my computer earlier.

Afternoon Tea Menu

In celebration of the marriage of

Carl and Naomi Claxton

Saturday 11th August 2011

***

Afternoon Tea Sandwiches

Egg mayonnaise with cress, ham, grated cheddar, cucumber, cream cheese with chives, smoked salmon, chicken with tarragon

***

Freshly Baked Scones

with cream and jam

***

A Selection of Tea Pastries

***

Selected Teas

Assam

Earl Grey

English Breakfast

***

Wedding Cake

Moist Cranberry and Cointreau Fruit Cake

Madeira Cake Delicately Flavoured with Lemon

***

We served pink champagne for the toasts. I remember there being concerns within our family that people would still be hungry, and there was a campaign to have bottles of wine on the tables too...but I am glad we went our own way. Everybody was full to the brim, and so much tea was drunk that wine really was not needed. The room was beautiful, all the tables laid with mismatched vintage china, and we printed our menus onto card, and I found a craft punch in teh shape of a tea cup that we used to decorate them with. Such happy memories!

You Say Pom Pon, I Say Pom Pom

In the lovely Mollie Makes, or else Handmade Living, or perhaps even Making Magazine, there was a small debate about whether it is 'pom pon' or 'pom pom'. To me it has always been the latter, and I just can't imagine why you would say it any other way! I know it all depends on what you have been taught when you are little, but it is so odd to hear a familiar word sounding different. Or indeed, to read it. Whilst browsing in a book shop today, I came across a new section in the baking books. There were two particular titles, both of which looked beautiful. One was called 'Macaroons' and the other 'Macarons'. I was almost certain that the latter was some kind of dreadful spelling error, but a little internet research shows it is no such thing! A macaroon is, apparently, a singular item, but a macaron is a pair of them sandwiched together, usually with icing. There is also a coconut macaroon, which is a different beast entirely. Even so, I am sorry, but in my mind, it will always be macaroon whether they have been sandwiched together or not! (The long oooh sound in it is the same sound you make when they come out of the oven and work!)

Now macaroons and I have a nice little history. My mum makes the best macaroons in the world, using the word to describe a singular little bite (they aren't quite biscuit, not quite cake, they are a special thing all of their own, as anybody who had had one will know!) but they are a million miles away from the 'new' fancy macaroons of today. They were little nubbly mounds of ground almonds, egg white and sugar, baked lightly in the oven to give a sweet chewy delection. One year, for Christmas, she gave me a recipe notebook and included her recipe in it, and I have made them to take to work several times, and they have always gone down very well. Best of all, I nearly always have the ingredients in the cupboard!

It used to mystify me though, when I saw in magazines and on websites these beautiful smooth little macaroons in pastel colours. How were they so round, so smooth, so perfect? Well, having started to see them everywhere lately, including the cover of a lovely issue of BBC Homes and Antiques magazine, I have resolved to find out, to master the macaroon, and make it my new signature bake. (My sister started on cupcakes and has now made the melting moment her own, and I do love the idea of having something that people associate with me. I also love the idea of presenting a box of perfect macaroons as a birthday gift. But I digress...)

So this afternoon I tied on my home-made polka dot pinny with the heart-shaped pocket, and set about making my first batch of coffee macaroons. I got the recipe from a book simply named 'Macaroons' in the 'love food' series. The steps are simple, but precise, and each one is designed to give you the perfect smooth, round, flat top macaroon. One of the first things was to blitz the ground almonds, icing sugar, and instant coffee granules to make them super fine. Instantly, the kitchen was filled with a scrumptious scent that made me feel like I was in a french patisserie. I definitely need both more baking sheets, and practise piping, for rather than sploding out spoonfuls as I do with my normal recipe, you pipe gentle rounds. You then leave them to 'set' for half an hour before baking them at a fairly low heat. I was so excited when they came out looking, although far from perfect, like a macaroon from a fancy shop, in that they had the flat top, and the frilly bit round the bottom. I definitely need practise, as they were not all the same size, and look decidedly wonky, and one or two had run together, but for a first go I am pleased. I have resisted trying one yet, as the next step is to whisk up a coffee cream-cheese icing and to sandwich them together.

One of the lovely things about these is that they look so beautiful, and yet take very small quantities of ingredients. So although ground almonds are expensive, you use so little that a small bag will make several batches.

Now I just have to choose which flavour to make next!

PS Ann- thank you for your lovely and kind offer! I am very touched. When I have finished this tube of That Gal I will certainly let you know. Thank you!

Attic24 Fishcakes

It is all about the kitchen today! I am going to change that in a little while by popping off for an afternoon bath, which is one of my favourite treats, but before I do, I must tell you that I made the most scrumptious fishcakes for tea last night. Well actually, I made them the night before, because I knew I would be exhausted last night, and just fried them last night. They were sweet potato and smoked mackerel and I got the recipe from one of my favourite blogs, Attic24. We had them with a fried egg and some salad, although I think next time we should try some sweet chilli sauce instead of the egg. The recipe made enough for dinner, and the rest I have put in the freezer for lunch another day. I do like a recipe where I get left overs. I think it appeals to the thrifty housewife in me!