Garden Confidential

OMG!

I hadn't seen this until now. Shot last August for this spring, this was for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, in HiDef, and my manner is so...mannered! Eugh. The interviewer was terribly conservative and kept feeding me lines, instead of the LXTV patter which I find so much more natural, for NBC (though One wonders about One's hair, and make-up...I was much more careful with the Canadians because of the threat of HiDef!). And the whole thing took an age to shoot - in 90' weather - because of the complicated camera involved...But it was interesting and led to new friendships.

Click below:

Rooftops in New York

Open House NYC

Blue

Corydalis "China Blue"

Nepeta cataria

Plain old pansy. Viola. One is not supposed to like them, but one does. Boring bedding annuals. I think they are little jewels. The Afrikaans name for them, gesiggies, means little faces. There is a disused and unmanicured pot on the corner of Atlantic and Henry where the tiny, tiny faces of Heartease can be seen; miniature violas, and the ones I first loved as a child.

Old fashioned raisin bars and what comfort means

I made these last week to feed the gardeners at work. The recipe was on a photocopied page in the handwritten book of recipes my mother gave me shortly after I left South Africa. I didn't know I was leaving. She did. The photocopy is from a page of the March, 1997 edition of House and Leisure, the magazine whose food editor my mother was for a number of years. I'm not sure how I feel, now, about our family recipes being there, on those pages; lucky, certainly, to have the record, but they should be a book: the legs of lamb, Colonel Bird's beef with coffee, the old-fashioned raisin bars. Recipes become memory and eaten again and again at so many times and with such different experiences brought to each familiar mouthful, at separations, sometimes of years. I feel the food, its preparation, the styling for the gorgeous photos of each meal, were done with an integrity and taste too refined for the people who commissioned them in the first place.

My mother's cooking, her way of seeing and creating, are extraordinary, and have given me both a heritage to quote, and roots from which to grow. Her gardens, her dinners, her enviable, simple one-plate lunches, her salads (none better, not even Al di La's) - are uncommonly beautiful. Funny, I started to write about cookies and landed up writing about my mother. Hello Mommy. I blame cinnamon, and the amygdalae.

Here are the cookies, my favourites when I was a little girl and when two big glass cookie jars stood near the back door in the kitchen, every now and then going ke-chink, as a lid was lifted and replaced, sometimes very quietly and carefully, triggering my mother to yell from down the passage, "Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeil!!!" as the swift-footed, though fat neighbour-boy made off with his haul...

I happened to have all the ingredients to hand, including a bag of lovely little currants from Sahadi's. I didn't have ground allspice or ground cloves but had them whole, and so cheated by infusing the currant-water with them, pictures below. I've now stocked up on all the spices, reminding myself of a story by Rumer Godden, whose books are, unbelieveably, given their magical charm and erudition, out of print. But that's another post. Hm: Oscar Wilde's gorgeous children's stories fall into the same category. Note to self.

Nutmeg.

Whole cloves and allspice infusing. Don't do this at home.

All mixed and in tray pre-baking.

Fifteen minutes later.

After icing.

And the next morning, for breakfast, with really good coffee.

160 gr raisins (or currants)
1 cup water
1/2 a cup sunflower oil
200 gr sugar
1 lightly beaten egg
220 gr cake flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarb (baking soda)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 a teaspoon allspice [that was where I cheated and infused]
1/4 teaspoon cloves
70 gr chopped pecans

Heat oven to 375'F (190'C). Heat raisins/currants and water in a saucepan to boiling point. Remove from heat and stir in the oil. Cool to lukewarm. Stir in the sugar and the egg (if it is still too hot the egg will scramble, blegh). Sift dry ingredients(I never do, lazy) into a bowl and pour in wet ingredients. Stir in the nuts. Now, "Pour into a greased Swiss roll tin," says the recipe. This is sweet. I don't know if people would know them as Swiss roll tins anymore. Except perhaps in the Midwest, or Martha-world? We knew them, because we were fed freshly-made Swiss rolls stuffed with apricot jam and sugary on the outside, then, for special dessert. Those were in the days of sit-down lunches. Father in suit, children in school uniforms. Doris Day singing in the kitchen. Milk to drink. MILK!!!

Back to the cookies; Now, a rectangular cookie tin with sides about half an inch high will do. Bake for 12-16 minutes until a skewer comes out clean, or a finger pressed leaves no dent (that's my instruction. Scientific, hey?) When cool, ice with water icing made with lemon juice instead of icing sugar. This is key. About a cup of powdered sugar to half a lemon, more or less. Slice into squares in pan, I don't know why I turned mine out to cool. They are easy to lift out square by square.

Try not to eat them all at once. They are good for everything. Stress, sadness, an excess of concentration or exertion. And brilliant for breakfast.

Icebergs in Woodstock

Yesterday's roses in 19th century glass. Maybe.

It's hard to say what is Woodstock and what is not. I love it, though, regardless of its actual provenance and have been collecting tumblers at every opportunity, though this last time, I did bring back from Cape Town a couple of the flat champagne glasses and some little sherry ones, too. Anyone ever in doubt as to what WONDERFUL gift to get me, cough? Hit Kalk Bay, or Julie Atkinson's in Church Street...

There's something so aesthetically satisfying about their lack of uniformity, their thickness and thinness, fernleaf, or Art Deco scribbles. Especially the little tumblers I love, thinking them good for strange drinks, like Cassis and Pellegrino with a slice of lime (a lot like the Fortris of my childhood); or a Pernod, or my red Kir, to which I add lime, too. Good for beer, the bigger tumblers. Drinking is as much a pleasure for the eyes as for the er...other parts. I enjoy it profoundly, and at other times have no interest at all. The worse things get, the less I want anything to do with a drink; the better, the more. Lucky chemistry. Stress = a drink, certainly. Unhappiness = ugh, no. Happiness = most certainly. Odd.

Thinking Cinco de Mayo margaritas would taste very good out of the flat ones. Glasses, I mean. See you here on Monday. Except then one needs good tequila and cointreau, and I have a freezerful of gin and vodka. What to do. Drinking gins and tonics could be considered colonial and racist on such a day, right?

Pink

It's Friday. At home. Safe. Everything attended to.

I walked into my wine store, after stopping at Sahadi, where the familiar friendliness and ritual greetings are like a therapy (I have never objected, as some do, to being called sweetie, honey, my love, if it's by someone with the right kind of smile on their face) looking for some Oyster Bay Sauvignon blanc. I glanced at the section of pink wines on the right hand side of the store as usual, always remembering that once Mulderbosch, with its distinctive vertical label, could be found there. Not expecting it, really, there it was. I snatched two. Cabernet sauvignon rose. It's nice. Simple. Pink.

Things are looking up...

Yesterday was a bit stressful.


Nothing a good watering can't cure.