Archive 2010 to 2017

Welcome to the archive of my hungry writer blog, joyfully written and delightfully published between the Autumn of 2010 and Spring 2017. 

A beautiful simmered reduction of the first five years of the blog was published in October 2015 by indie Kent publisher, Cultured Llama. It will transport you from France to Wales and back to Kent, tempt you with lovely colour photographs and personal recipes, and encourage both apprentice and practising 'hungry writers' to maintain or begin a daily writing habit and explore your lives, memories and imaginations with 365 writing prompts. You'll also find workshop guidelines at the back of the book for writers who choose to use the writing prompts in a more structured environment.

I hope you enjoy this archive, and the book should you choose to buy it, as much as I enjoyed writing every single post.

I'll be writing the occasional review or reflection, under the obviously named 'Reviews & Reflections' tab above. And if you'd like to talk to me about leading a writing workshop for you, school visits in Kent and South Wales, or talking to your community group about writing, life and telling stories please take a look at the Workshops & Talks tab, also above, and get in touch here.

Eat well, live well.

Lynne x

Available from Cultured Llama HERE

The Mythic Biscuit: Oreos

My childhood biscuits were mainly plain but had lovely names: Marie, Nice, Rich Tea. Quiet biscuits. The kind of biscuits that would never interrupt a conversation. Polite, not pushy. At the other end of the spectrum, and only irregularly present, probably a result of practical economics, were cheeky Jammy Dodgers, irritable Garibaldis, and self-contented and reliable Bourbons. And even more irregularly, the flashy inhabitants of a Christmas Box of Biscuits: Pink Wafers. I ate them at the same time as not liking them very much, a bit like Miss World Contestants in sparkly dresses, too much eye make-up and a saccharine idea of world peace. 

I'm in the mood to think, and personify, 'biscuits' because the lovely team at Oreo sent me some samples of their new Oreo Thins. I hadn't heard of Oreos until the early 1990s when a friend asked if I would bring him back a packet from a Florida holiday. I forgot and pretended I couldn't find them. 'But they're everywhere in America,' he said, both astonished and suspicious. Which of course they were. Because the Oreo is a 'mythic biscuit', or at least that's the impression I have from reading their Wiki entry and talking to my American friend, poet and writer, Patricia Debney. 

'Yes, Oreos definitely have an iconic place in US food culture. To the point where I'm thinking 'thins'? Oreo THINS?' she said when I asked her about them. Because the whole point of Oreos is, apparently, the filling. And millions upon millions of American children, across a century, have gently eased off the top layer of biscuit, ate it, then scraped off the sugary white filling with their teeth, until not a smear of said filling remained, and then ate the second biscuit disc. Patricia, who's now in her fifties, told me, 'I'm not sure I have EVER eaten an Oreo whole.' 

Nabisco, the manufacturers of Oreos, capitalised on the filling's attraction in 1974 and marketed the 'Double Stuff Oreo' with twice the amount of cream filling which, if you were careful, you could pop away from both biscuit sides and eat on its own. 

And then there were THINS. 

I haven't shared a THIN with Patricia: I do not want to be the person to shatter the Oreo passion of her childhood and youth. And as I haven't ever before eaten a standard or super-size Oreo I can, perhaps, be more objective about their 'lighter' siblings. The Oreo Team describe them as the 'playfully, sophisticated addition' to the Oreo range, 'thinner, crispier and guaranteed to tantalise your taste buds and awaken your imagination!' That's a lot to ask of a biscuit but then Marcel Proust, in Swann's Way, the first volume of his seven volume novel, Remembrance of Things Past, showed the world how a madeleine, a simple sweet cake, was capable of conjuring involuntary memories: 

And as soon as I had recognised the taste of the piece of madeleine ... immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents ...; and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine.

But back to the THINS. And tradition. Following Patricia's instructions, I gently flipped off the top layer of biscuit and ate it. Then I scraped off the creamy filling, but a little too enthusiastically. The bottom disc snapped like a crisp. But the 5th biscuit held up ... And maybe that's the appeal (or one of them) of THINS - you can eat so many more of them! 

And how do they compare with my own childhood biscuit memories? I'd classify them as cousins to the lovely Bourbon. Sophisticated city cousins. The ones that turn up in the countryside in silk gloves and high-heeled shoes but we still love them for their brightness; they're so much fun to be around. We serve them sherry (now there's an idea...) and listen, wide-eyed, to the stories they have to tell. 

International Women's Day 2017

I am running through the wondrous silence of history

  

past standing stones, invisible tombs, the route Chaucer's pilgrims took across the North Downs, the stone cold dead in churchyards, listening to the sound my feet make on lanes, on mud and stone, sharing my breath, the thump of my heartbeats, with sheep, the sky, the fields. Sometimes I wonder how I got here, what propelled me forward to this moment when the snags of fleece along a wire fence shine with glory, when another the bend in the road ahead is an inspiration not a defeat.  And I think of the words, 'yes', and, 'you can', and the centuries of women before me who said them out loud, or quietly to themselves, believing that something could change and making it happen for themselves, their families, communities and for the world. And here I am, each step, each clear thought changing almost nothing, which is still something, and feeling better for it.

Drunken Puffs - Pudding and Politics

One thing leads to another...

An online recipe for apple liqueur, back in October, asked for four pounds of apples to be soaked in sugar (halve the quantity of sugar if your apples are very sweet) and a bottle of brandy for two weeks. After straining and bottling the liquid - which doubles in quantity, by the way, so make sure you have two bottles handy - this is what remained: sweet, brandy softened apple slices that were far too delicious to throw away. So I froze them. Or, at least, I put them in the freezer, overlooking the scientific fact that alcohol doesn't freeze. But yesterday, two months later, despite having failed the total cryogenic test, they tasted fine to me so I let them sit overnight in the kitchen to relinquish their semi-frozen state, and created the following dessert. Although, given its simplicity, assembled would be a more accurate term.

Unroll a sheet of ready-made puff pastry and spread with a mixture of cream cheese (8oz), icing sugar (2oz), cornflour (2 tbsp) and one egg yolk, leaving a border of at least 1 inch.


Top that custardy layer with apple slices - tee-totalling slices would be fine, I'm sure, in the absence of drunken ones - and fold the edges of the pastry up and over. That's it.


It takes about 30 to 40 mins to cook at around 190C.

As usual, in my excitement to serve dessert I only remembered to take a photo of the golden Drunken Puff after four of us had demolished over half of it. I'd also been planning to dust some icing sugar over the top too for prettiness. Oh well, next time ...

Drunken Puff seemed a suitable name for it - those apples pack a significant brandied punch. But I couldn't help but think it was an equally appropriate description for the presidential inauguration in the US last Friday, for a man puffed up and drunk with his own self-importance.

'Give him a chance,' people have said to me on social media. And I'd really like to, if there was anything I could base that trust on, if there was anything he'd said throughout the whole of his campaign, right up to Friday's inauguration, that I admired or felt hopeful about. Perhaps his often ridiculous contradictions and lies will stop now that he's in office. Perhaps he won't feel the need to defend himself against the slightest of criticisms and will review his language to avoid being misogynistic, racist and bigoted. Perhaps he will temper his bouts of self-aggrandising although his first meeting, as president, with the CIA would suggest that experience is already trumping hope: read this report in The New Yorker.

I will not dedicate this dessert to him, not even in jest. But every time I make it I will think of #WomensMarch: the millions of women worldwide who marched in protest last weekend against the new president's flagrant disregard for truth and his incitement to hate, against his comments and policy positions over immigration, Muslims, the disabled and the environment, to name a few.

My friend, Rachel Scherrer, was one of the women who marched through Washington DC. 'RESIST' her banner says. Something we should all feel obliged to do when we confront inequality, the mocking or dismissal of the vulnerable, the abuse of power. Everyone of us is capable of standing up for what's good in the world, for fairness, responsibility and kindness. Small acts. Big acts. They all count. One thing leads to another. Rachel and millions of women cannot be wrong.

Rachel Scherrer at Women's March 2017, Washington DC
Photo © Jim Scherrer, reproduced with permission

Running through History: Wrotham Water

Learning to Run

This was at the end of November 2014: 

30 day challenge complete: after a programme of walking/jogging/gasping on the treadmill for 30 minutes, every day for the last 30 days, this morning I managed to run 4.8km/3 miles...  but in 33 mins not the 'promised' 30. If I'd thought about the maths at the beginning of the 30 days I'd have set speed goals. But never mind, I'm fitter! Now to keep it going and reach a 6.5 mile goal (no time goal though) in the next 6 months

Spent Turkeys

I did. And I kept on running throughout 2015, taking part in three officially timed races, two 10km and one 5km, the 7.5 mile Beast of Bryn mountainous challenge in South Wales, and the Maidstone Harriers Turkey Run. The inspirations for the latter were the prize of a Christmas Pudding, hot chocolate and all the mince pies you could eat at the end, and bacon baps and mulled wine at the home of Leah Ripley, fellow runner and member of Meopham & Malling Ladies Joggers. The Hungry Writer morphed into The Hungry Running Writer.

In 2016 I set myself a different goal: MapMyRun's 'You V the Year' challenge to run 1000km by the end of December. I managed 1,065 by the end of the year. 2017's goal is to run two half marathons because then I can at least say I've run a marathon, if not A marathon!

All this, of course, is nowhere near Eddie Izzard territory. And there are ordinary people out there who've also taken up running later in life and achieved more distance, better fitness and greater rewards for their charities. And I am inspired by them and admire their achievements. But I am also proud of myself. We should all be proud of ourselves when we set our minds to something and see it through, despite setbacks and doubts, and feel that our own lives, and maybe, in some small way, the bigger world, are better for it. So take a bow, accept the applause, wave to the crowd, any of you who've done just that. You are great. 

Running isn't something we learn during childhood. We just do it. Some of us carry on running. I didn't. Apart from around secondary school badminton courts, the 2.5 miles downhill from the Baglan Social Club disco on Saturday nights, desperate to meet my midnight curfew, and the occasional game of squash and tennis in my twenties and thirties after I left home. So it's been a learning curve. And here are some of my insights into accelerated forward movement!

1. Old muscles are more hard rubber than stretchy elastic. The temporary injuries I've sustained over the last couple of years have mostly been down to not stretching enough after a run. And there are muscles in my butt I had no idea were there! Muscles that sitting on a tennis ball can reach that nothing else will. So stretch warmed up muscles. More than you think you need to. And more again. Invest in a foam roller too for glutes and quads. But be prepared to yell the first time you use it!

My kicks: Asics Gel Kayanos 22

2. Shoes and clothes: no, you can't just slip on any pair of daps and be okay. You need good running shoes. And they should be really comfy from the moment you put them on in the shop and have a practice run on the treadmill. If they don't feel great immediately try another pair: any talk of 'breaking them in' is junk. And if there's no treadmill in your shop, go elsewhere. Clothes, too, have to be comfy from the get-go. And girls: always buy running tights with a gusset. You really don't want to be tugging a seam out of your noonie in front of race spectators, or in front of anyone.

3. Experts can help you with fitness and training. Absolutely. But there are people out there whose self-proclaimed expertise may be doubtful. I took advice about changing my supportive running shoes to neutral ones and badly strained my achilles tendons. Turned out he wasn't a qualified physio at all. Check professional registers for all therapists and the qualifications of all personal trainers. 

4. Serious runners. I turned up alone for my first 10km race in a running skort (complete with gusset!) and t-shirt with my car-key and a tissue in my pocket and the first people I bumped into were a group of women wearing identical running club strip, their knees clad in elastic supports, running belts around their waist holding energy gels and carrying water bottles. I felt worryingly ill-prepared but I needn't have. You shouldn't need gels or water for anything under 8 miles, unless it's a scorching summer day, but I guess we're all different. Create your own 'seriousness' which doesn't have to be 'solemn'. 

5. Motivation. I still get mornings when I really don't feel like getting out there. Belonging to a running group gets me over that hump: company = encouragement. And on days when I'm planning to run alone I replace lack of motivation with music. Jack Savoretti's 'Written in Scars, Pharrell Williams' 'Happy', or Heather Small's 'Proud', and a bunch of other lovelies on my headphones click me out of negativity and into a positive frame of mind. 

6. Getting better. It's impossible to measure our improvement over weeks, or even over the first few months. We get good and bad running days too, days when every step feels like a gargantuan effort and we're wheezing on a small hill that just wasn't this difficult last week, was it? But we are improving with every run we make; it's just that small gains are almost impossible to identify. And our minds seem to wallow in negative responses far more readily too. Sometimes we need to knock those critical voices off our shoulder and kick them into the side of the road. And then, run a route we struggled with this time last year and delight in the difference: we reach the top of the hill without stopping, or we run 4 miles and don't feel out of breath. Feel good. Feel proud. 

And finally... 

7. Rewards are good. We deserve rewards for making an effort. Being fitter and healthier hasn't meant that I've stopped eating chocolate or ice-cream or Kettle Crisps. It does mean I can eat them without going all 'guilt-trip' about calories. But I've also noticed that I really do enjoy snacks that are better for me: so maybe there's a lot of truth in the healthy body/healthy mind maxim! One of my latest discoveries are these lemon, nut and coconut balls - and oh my days, they are good. And they look like those coconut Ferrero Rochers too! Enjoy. 

And if you have a story about how you've changed your life in the last couple of years, not just through running or sport, but in any way, please let me know. 

Read Me

The Number 1 song in the UK on the day I was born, 3rd June 1958, was Who's Sorry Now by Connie Francis. In my desperation for something even slightly more celebratory I try the USA: Sheb Wooley's The Purple People Eater. Okay, one last shot, Canada: All I Have To Do Is Dream by the Everly Brothers, which also happens to be the Number 1 Country Song on that day. I'll take that.

I found myself on the This Day in Music website because of Paul Cuddihy, author of Read All About It: My Year Of Falling In Love With Literature, who proudly boasts Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon by The Kinks as his birth date song (some of us are luckier than others) during his year long account of reading his books rather than just buying them as literary insulation for his dining room wall.

Are writers more likely to do this than non-writers? I don't know - you tell me. I'm not as bad as I used to be: my move to France in 2006 forced me into a surgical cull rather than pay almost as much to move my books as it would cost to move the furniture I owned. I now read most novels on Kindle and no longer keep any paperbacks I buy. The same for a lot of memoir and autobiography. Although Hemingway's A Moveable Feast will live on my bookshelves as long as I breathe. Poetry and non fiction are trickier to let go of: you never know when you might need them. 

Cuddihy's book is so enjoyable because I don't feel he's trying to educate me or philosophise about how certain books might change my life. He's reading for his own pleasure and purpose and is disarmingly open about not finishing a book he isn't enjoying and about his selections: Joanne Harris's Chocolat nestles (there's a very subtle joke in that verb...) up against The Sportswriter by Richard Ford. And the best thing about the book is I'm only halfway through and already inspired to begin my own reading project. Isn't that what we all want good books to do? Affect us in some way: how we feel, how we think, how we act, however small? 

Following the aforementioned cull, and having to leave a few dozen metres of shelving in the French house, my books (almost) fit into the new shelf unit I bought when I came back in 2011. They are mostly books about writing, memoir, food and a non-fiction smattering of philosophy and history. And poetry. A lot of poetry, many of which I've only glanced through.

I started my writing life as a poet and although my first book was a novel I always thought of myself as an accidental novelist and much more of a poet. In the last four years I've published two books of prose and hardly written any poetry. And the poetry books are gathering dust. Not just literally, as the whole of my house does, but metaphorically: poetry has become something I used to read. 

So my reading project will be to reacquaint myself with poetry, reading some every day. It doesn't sound that difficult does it but poetry asks us to pay attention in a different way than a short story or novel does. It asks for a mind of concentration yet at the same time a mind that's open to the power of language, of its capacity for suggestiveness and layering of meaning. It asks us to slow down, to be still. I have lost that art and I'd like to rediscover it. 

So I've just walked over to the shelf and taken out one poetry book that caught my eye: Velocities by American poet, Stephen Dobyns. I remember using a couple of his poems when I used to teach poetry at the University of Kent. I remember being moved to thought and feeling by them. So it's a good place to start. 

By coincidence I put the book down on my desk next to a slate coaster my sister bought me. It reads, 'To be born Welsh is to be born privileged, not with a silver spoon in your mouth, but music in your blood and poetry in your soul.' 

I'm settling for 'poetry in my hand' for now. 

Things have changed

Things have changed for the hungry writer. I'll let Dylan have his say first:

I'm not a worried woman with a worried mind, although I do drink champagne. It's just that my life has changed over the last two years: I started running and I've written much less than I ever have since I first began around 25 years ago. So I can either change the blog title to 'the hungry writer who doesn't write much and runs' or I could just blog about whatever engages me, when and if I feel like it. Or I could stop altogether. 

Because something else has been circling my mind over recent months too: reading. Is it happening on the web? Does the popularity of Twitter and Instagram, and the ease of making snappy status updates on Facebook, mean that most people on social media really don't want to read more than a sentence or two? Are blogposts going the way that critics said 'real' books would go? (Except they haven't: they're on the rebound.)

Maybe no decision has to be made. Maybe a blog should be a spontaneous response to the urge to share something, a story, an insight. That's how 'the hungry writer' started back in 2010. With a genuine urge to explore memory and daily life through the theme of food. 

Maybe I'll just see what urges, if any, arise over the coming months. And I think I might re-watch the movie that featured the song above, the brilliant Wonder Boys with Michael Douglas, which happens to be about a writer who isn't writing. Not that the movie was even on my mind when I started this post ... but it seems to be the right thing to mention now. And then stop. 

(Here's a trailer for anyone who hasn't seen it.) 

Pie, pie glorious pie

So often when we talk about food we are talking about family. In fact that was how the hungry writer blog began, nearly six years ago: weekly memories or life stories linked by the theme of food. Food is nurture and love. It can be celebration and anxiety too. It can also be a battleground, as the parents of young children know so intimately! Which is rather a satisfying segue into the family featuring in this week's blogpost: The Radfords. Because if anyone understands the feeding of children, really, really understands, it has to be Sue Radford who, with her husband, Noel, has 19 children. You can read about the family on their website but don't rush off yet as what I really want to talk about is pie. And specifically Radford's pies.

Noel Radford has been a baker for 25 years and opened his own bakery in 1999 in Heysham, Lancashire and makes pies with locally sourced ingredients. That, along with his skill as a master baker, means that the pictures of the 'filled to the crust' pies on the website look exactly like, and I mean unequivocally identical to, the pie delivered to your door, lovingly wrapped, protected and chilled in a polystyrene box.

I didn't know about the bakery business when I came across a Facebook link to the birth of the Radford family's 19th child and then Googled them to find out a bit more, astonished by a family of that size and, I'll be honest, wondering whether they were financially supported by our Benefits system. But they're not. The only payment they receive is the standard Child Benefit.  

And I felt a bit guilty afterwards, like a Daily Mail reading curtain twitcher who assumes the worse in people... tabloid headlines and sensationalist 'benefits' TV programme titles taint us even when we don't read or watch them. So let's get back to goodness. And the goodness and deliciousness that is a Radford's Chicken & Mushroom Pie. And as there are only two of us at home we naturally ordered the Family Size (!) which weighs in at 1.25kg and, unlike so many pre-prepared meals that promise 2, 4 or 6 portions, would definitely feed a whole family. Not the 19 in the Radford Family... but it'll easily fill the bellies of 6. Naturally, again, we ate half between us. 

Yes. 

Piggies.

Words failed us shortly after this photo. 

I don't write promotional blogposts. I don't accept payment for recommendations. Writing about Radford's Pie Company is a genuine appreciation for people who love what they do and work hard to achieve their success, and support other local businesses at the same time. Passion, sincerity, honesty, generosity. Our world needs people like this. 

And I am damn glad I found them, not least because I can now make that terrible pun:

I have pied and gone to heaven.

'The best chicken and mushroom pie I have ever tasted,' Tony said. 

I didn't say anything for about 30 minutes. Then I lay down on the sofa to dream about my next order. Steak & Stilton? Leek, Chestnut Mushroom & Gruyere Cheese? Chicken & Gammon? 

I think we need to organise a Pie Party.

From crop to cake: courgettes

It's not what I imagined when I first pushed the seeds into damp soil. Or even when I watered the first show of green, or transplanted the seedlings into bigger pots, then finally those startlingly robust plants into the earth beneath the espaliered pear trees. 

And not even when light transforms them from vegetable to chalice and you think they are capable of so much more than their natural selves. 

Synchronicity. Happenstance. Serendipity. Some of that perhaps: the BBC Good Food's recipe called for 350 grams of grated courgette and the first two ready for picking, washed and topped and tailed, weighed 351. 

And here is their transformation into sweet cake. 

And this is how it was done:

And this was breakfast on a July Sunday morning but minus the cream cheese frosting the recipe recommends as, in my opinion, there's only so far a courgette should be pushed. 

But there's some home-made orange syrup in the cupboard and some fresh custard in the fridge and a sweet, springy cake will make such good dessert later... 

Notes

I didn't have enough brown sugar so topped up with golden caster sugar. And I used raisins instead of sultanas. But it all turned out well. Although my cake took around 65 minutes, rather than 50, to cook, in the middle of the oven, before a wooden skewer came out clean. And I did squeeze lots of water out of the courgette as advised, even using a tea-towel... which is stubbornly remaining a lovely shade of green!

Hunger games and telling stories

Being home in Wales for a week means eating out at least two or three times with Mam and Dad. We have our favourite casual lunch place - La Memo in Port Talbot - who serve a home-made lasagna you might sell one of your children for, or at least swap them for a day or two of hard labour. It's a family run place and their reputation is built on their fuss-free and friendly service and the reliable quality of their food. And lovely little surprises like this, which arrived after the following conversation:

Me: could I have a Macchiato, please?

Turkish owner: what's that?

Me: an Espresso with a splash of milk foam on top.

Turkish owner: oh, Espresso Cappuccino style.

That's the one.

Two other regular lunch haunts, outside of Port Talbot, were less successful. One has been slipping into the arena of dismal failure since its make-over a year ago. When a kitchen's primary function is a grill (as the majority of the rest of the food is, let's be honest, pre-prepared) it's difficult to understand why it should take almost an hour for an order to arrive at the table. 'There've been some kitchen adjustments,' explained the manager, who sidled up to our table like a man anticipating an unscheduled hemorrhoidectomy. Well, perhaps they were adjusting in the wrong direction. Try fast forward. 

The second venue had staff problems. 'Three off sick,' one of the waiters said. Which is why, of course, when you ask for a spoon for the side vegetables you're given a teaspoon. 'One pea or two?' And I could have submitted my cheese plate to Time Team: I've never seen a wedge of Camembert that colour, that dry and that cracked. 

Fortunately my week at home ended on a culinary high with Sunday dinner at my niece's house: roast chicken and stuffing, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, carrots and sprouting broccoli, followed by Normandy Apple Tart, courtesy of M&S. There are no photos. Plates were cleared with the speed of piranhas. And family get-togethers are always a great source of remembered and shared memories too... and we can't be the only family, can we, whose mealtime stories sometimes have an excremental element? 

A family trip to Euro-Disney was flagged up as potentially disastrous when, just as the plane was landing at Charles de Gaulle airport, my great nephew filled his nappy with the force of the whole elephant house at London Zoo.

The men wanted to push on and take advantage of a completely empty immigration area but my sister and niece were adamant. 'This boy is having his nappy changed now!' and they headed for the toilets air-side leaving their husbands looking wistfully at the immigration officers doing no more than a bit of pouce-twiddling. And then less wistfully as the 832 occupants of two jumbo jets from Beijing rushed past them like a human tsunami. An hour later... 

Stories that make us laugh or make us cry. The blueprints we make as we go through life. 

Opening the box. And Teisen Lap.

We were looking for an old black and white photograph last time I was home in Wales: my parents sitting on an outcrop by the River Nedd where it enters Briton Ferry, beside the road bridge that opened in 1955.

'I'll have a look in Granny's box,' my mother said.

Granny's box, that now holds photos, a small Welsh bible and newspaper clippings, was the tin box my D'cu (Grandfather) took to work with him when he was a Doubler in the Tinplate Works in Llanelli, pre and post WWII. One of the men who bent, or doubled, sheets of hot rolled iron or steel bars in half with a large set of tongs before they were rolled again, maybe three or four times, and subsequently coated with tin. I remember that he always wore his belt buckle fastened towards the back, a legacy from those years to avoid catching the handles of the tongs in a front fastened one and a mishandled sheet slicing through flesh.

I don't know what he carried in his box to eat during his dinner break. I can guess at white bread and strong Welsh cheddar. Jam, maybe. Perhaps, at the beginning of a week, some cold meat left over from Sunday.

If you run your fingers over the front edge of the tin, catch it in the right light, you can make out his scratched name and part of his address: M [Martin] James, 2 Cae [Cottages].

We didn't find the photo we were looking for. But found this one instead.

This is how I remember him, leaning on the front gate, satisfied with his own company or chatting with anyone who passed. And how I wrote about him in a poem about grandparents and grandchildren and memory:

How Dadcu wore his belt buckled at the back, pulled 
so tight around his skinny waist the tops of his trousers 
fluted like piecrust; 

And in this one:

My grandfather leaning 

on the front gate, sunlight 

glinting off the silvered stubble 

on his head, cropped weekly 

without fail, speaking 

in a language I recognised 

but never fully understood. 

Maybe, if Granny had made Welshcakes, he might have had a couple of those in his box, but given how my father always chuckles about his mother-in-law's cooking they might not have been that welcome. Although I can't imagine my D'cu complaining about them. Complaining about anything really. He was a man with only a few simple needs. Low maintenance, we'd say today.

These Welsh memories always bring me back to food. Today it's Teisen Lap or Moist Cake. The first and last time I made it was in school, around 1970, and I remember being particularly unimpressed with the flat, rather dry disc of cake my culinary talents produced. Some things do get better with age! And I should thank Parc Le Breos Guest House on the Gower Peninsula for their online recipe which produces a sweet and moist circle of deliciousness.

From this:

to this:

 

and finally this:

Perhaps in another dimension of time, in some kind of parallel universe, I could wrap a piece in greaseproof paper and slip it into D'cu's tin. I'd make it a big one. 

The Past and the Present of Peanut Butter. And a dose of donkiness.

Facebook reminded me of this haiku I posted 6 years ago today. 

peanut butter fudge/ we really don't mind/ if it rains today

I was living in France in 2010 and six months away from starting this blog with stories about family and friends all linked by the theme of food. But the signs were there! 

The recipe was Sophie Dahl's, and it must have been one featured on her TV programme that year, The Delicious Miss Dahl, as it doesn't appear in her book, Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights. A book you can now pick up from 1 penny (plus postage) on Amazon which surprised me as I really loved the TV series and the book is really pretty too, with uncomplicated and inviting recipes. But then I looked at a few of Jamie Oliver's titles and the penny price for used copies applies to them too. And he's as popular as hot salty chips by the seaside. 

And 6 years later I'm back with my spoon in another jar of peanut butter making these cookies as a post run snack for my running friends belonging to Meopham & Malling Ladies Joggers. You can check the recipe here, courtesy of Melissa at My Whole Food Life, and I bet you'll be as surprised as I was at the ingredients: peanut butter, maple syrup and salt. That's it. Really. No flour. No dairy. Which leads me to how I ended up calling one of my friends 'a donk'!

'So gluten free,' one of them said when I explained what was in them.

'Dairy free as well,' I said.

'But how can they be dairy free if they have butter in them?'

And it just slipped out. 'There's no butter in peanut butter, you donk!' 

I guess we've all had moments of donkiness. My greatest was in a creative writing class at the beginning of the 1990s when I first started writing. The tutor returned a story I'd submitted for feedback. 'I'm unsure about the use of the 3rd person,' he said. 'But there are only two people in it,' I said. English grammar classes at my comprehensive school had either overlooked the specifics of verbal conjugation (I write/1st person, you write/2nd person, he or she writes/3rd person) or, more likely, I'd somehow blanked out that particular lesson.

Come to think about it there's an even greater donky moment in my past: in my early twenties I had it in my head that birds mated by the male bird passing the 'seed' from his beak to the beak of the female bird (don't ask...) and I shared this information with my new boyfriend's mates. Donk. Dork. Dunderhead. I'll take them all. I have no idea why I believed that. Though it'll probably come as no surprise to hear that I failed Biology at school.

I did apologise to my friend for calling her a donk.

'Don't worry,' she said. 'It's kind of a nice way of saying 'stupid'.'

Friends are lovely, aren't they? And I offered her a second cookie. (Which are pretty gorgeous, by the way. I cooked mine for a couple of minutes longer than recommended, for extra crunch.)

The Knack of Running and some Snick-Snacks

It's not rocket science. You put on a pair of daps, go outside and run. But then you start reading about gait, cadence, foot-strike, the best shoes for you and you wonder if you're doing it right. (Even though you've been running since you were 4 years old!) But there are a myriad articles about runners' injuries to shins, knees, hips. So you should probably talk to an expert, shouldn't you? And suddenly it becomes rocket science. A different kind of rocket science depending on which expert you talk to. 

I'm sounding a little sour because ever since I took an expert's advice and changed my running shoes a couple of weeks ago I've been tip-toeing around the house like the Sugar Plum Fairy because of a strained Achilles tendon. And over the last year not one expert has ever warned about changing shoes gradually, doing short runs in the new ones before chucking the old ones out. I just put them on, thought, 'ooh comfy', and set off for 10km. 

But ice, ibuprofen and short runs later it's all getting better. And I'm starting to believe there's a lot of pseudo-science around running shoes. A lot of it based on fashionable thought promoted by big sports brands who want your money rather than on proven scientific facts. I'm sure Roger Bannister didn't have his gait checked. And my 'comfy' reaction to shoes seems the best bet in the future, combined with a slow transition, as this article points out.

These are the reasons why I run. (The fitness is a bonus.)

Fields. Lanes. Trees. Big sky. Fresh air. Running is the best head and heart clearer I've ever found. The natural world doesn't do fashion. It doesn't need to.

And talking about fashion, and food: do you remember Leslie and Susannah Kenton's Raw Energy book that first appeared as far back as the 1980s, I think? I bought it but didn't get near to eating the ratio of raw to cooked food they recommended to de-stress, look younger, feel fitter etc etc. But the book remained in my memory for two reasons.

One, a story Susannah Kenton told about how she burnt the skin on her face after she tried to get rid of a big spot by applying fresh garlic and a plaster for a couple of days. I'm guessing she didn't have to leave the house in all that time?

And two, Snick-Snacks. Or at least I think that's what they called them as that's what I wrote in this old recipe book.

But I never ventured as far as 'spirulina (for hunger pangs)'. If you eat one of these you don't get hunger pangs - not with all those figs, dates, nuts and seeds. 

They sound very worthy, I know. All natural and raw ingredients. Full of slow-release energy (good for runners). But they don't taste worthy. They taste like a treat. Even if you're not a big fan of figs and dates. The coconut and vanilla essence have a transforming effect. Sweet and delicious. And not a single fashionable ingredient. Come to think of it, that's probably why I ignored the spirulina in the first place. Enjoy. 

The recipe makes about 16 to 18 little balls - they're miniature cake cases, not cupcake size, in case you're wondering. I usually double up the amounts, make about 32 to 36 and keep them in a sealed container. 

Running through History: Addington, Kent

I am hoping that I never ever need to use one of these when I'm out running. This one's in an adopted BT phone box at the top of the hill leading to Addington Village Green, but as I'm tackling the climb up from the A20, past the entrance to West Malling Golf Club, there's something oddly reassuring about knowing it's there! And it seems that any village with a redundant phone box can take steps to change it into a mini-medical centre - read how here.

footsteps heartbeats the breath and measure of my days 

Addington, aside from being the name of the village, is also the neighbouring parish to Offham, where I live, although we used to lie within Addington Parish until boundary changes a couple of decades ago. The original rectory to Addington Church is across the lane from me. And the land the houses in our small hamlet are built on was once part of Addington Park, the estate and gardens belonging to the Jacobean manor house, Addington Place. The manor house changed hands at a series of auctions in the 1920s and 1930s, was requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence during World War II and subsequently demolished in 1950 after it had been gutted by fire. 

story time the scent of woodsmoke 

The road I follow from Addington village green is called Park Road. It was originally just a track but road engineers deepened it in 1828 to construct a carriage road. The fact that the track ran over the top of a Neolithic long barrow evidently didn't hold much interest at the time and the barrow, one of Kent's, if not Britain's, most ancient monuments, remains divided by today's road, with the mounds clearly visible on either side. 

Most of the stones belonging to this megalith - Addington Longbarrow - maybe as many as 50, have been flattened, removed or half-buried. But a 100 yards to the north-west there's another burial chamber: The Chestnuts. Thousands of flints, from the earlier Mesolithic period, have been recovered from this area: scrapers, cutters, chisels, awls, saws and axes. The tools of people living from the land. I held some of these in my hand around 20 years ago, when I was running my bookshop in nearby West Malling, and the landowner, a regular customer, showed me around the sarsen stones (sandstone hardened during the ice age by silica rich sand) that were re-erected during excavations in the early 1960s. And you can still visit them today, by appointment with the owner. 

Today, I ran through the middle of the longbarrow, past the gateway towards the standing stones, along Park Road towards St Vincent's Lane flanking the fairways and greens of West Malling Golf Course which spreads across the old mansion house grounds. Then stopped abruptly when I glimpsed the abandoned sandpit through the bare winter hedges. Suddenly history wove itself more tightly for me, random events threaded together and making sense, as I noticed walls of silent stone rising above the void on the other side of the field. 

The hum of traffic from the motorway, the occasional golfer's shout, a dog bark, or the changing gears of a local car negotiating the bends in the lane are the only sounds you hear now. But if I stood here long enough, imagined the people who occupied this land so many thousands of years ago, would I hear the patient strike of flint against stone, feel the determination in their work to revere their dead?

reading the past missing letters on my grandmother's grave

Source material

Richardson, Patricia, Addington, The Life Story of a Kentish Village, privately published by the author, 2012

The Sprout of Gratitude, The Crumb of Romance and The Gloop of Disappointment

Cat hiding in a pot

I am not the best patient. I know that. When I'm ill I like to be left alone, for the most part. A bit like a cat: just let me curl up in a corner and heal quietly. I don't snarl or bite though. And I do appreciate, and respond civilly, to regular cups of tea or Lemsips. And the occasional snack. The kind of snack that appeals to a convalescent, someone with a light appetite, something visually tempting. Hot toast with melting butter. Some lightly scrambled eggs with a sprinkling of chives. Even a mug of Heinz tomato soup swirled with a little creme fraiche. 

There was an M&S chicken pie in the fridge. Hmmm ... not sure, maybe. But I'd probably eat some lightly cooked vegetables. An hour later, Tony called me. And I really don't want to sound ungrateful. But sprouts? Vigorously boiled sprouts? Sprouts, of any texture, just don't whisper: get better soon. I ate some. They were very soft. That was the only sprout of gratitude I could muster. 

Hungry Writing Prompt

Write about the things you are grateful for.

And it's almost Valentine's Day. A day, allegedly, to show (or convince) your loved one how grateful you are to have them in your life. Sometimes your plans unroll like a plush, sandalwood scented carpet. And then they don't. You can read one of my Valentine experiences at this link, published by Women's Memoirs a few years ago. Lots of heat. But the wrong kind.

by Francesca Hornak in The Dish,
Sunday Times Food Magazine
February 2016

An article in last weekend's Sunday Times' food supplement explored the 'culinary minefields' surrounding Valentine's Day. The one that made me laugh out loud was:

'Home-cooking: ... Unfortunately the male cook will typically attempt something so ambitious that dinner won't be ready until 10pm. During this process there will be a half-argument about how he is handling the raw chicken. [The big wooden board marked with an 'M' is the one for meat!] By the time it's ready she will be tipsy and already full from eating Kettle Crisps.' 

I worry there's a secret camera in my home.

I am going to make a Valentine's cake for Tony, a cake that clearly says, 'I love you to the galaxy MACS0647-JD and back' to a person with a sweet tooth. It's Sweet Paul's Cuatro Leches ['four milks'] Cake. And, even though I'm nowhere near as fond as desserts as Tony, it really does appeal to me too (minus the frosting). Why? The word 'homey' in the description maybe? The pretty photo of a creamy, plump soft-crumbed slice accompanying the recipe? But perhaps it's just the word 'milk', the food that welcomed us into the world. A word we automatically associate with nurture. And here we have milk x 4. 

So here we go. Watch the rugby (Six Nations). I'll be back...

Cake batter

Ramblings of a Demented Baker

Back sooner than I thought. That is one strange recipe... but I'm going to trust Sweet Paul because no one who's first name is Sweet would let me down, would they? 

I think my eggs were too big ... after 25 minutes in the oven, when 15 to 20 were recommended, it is still liquidy in the middle when I stick a wooden skewer in. And the rise of it in the dish doesn't look like there'll be any room to pour over the milks.

I am starting to doubt the recipe: do you pour the milk mixture into the cake hot from the oven? Do you leave the cake to cool? Is there enough flour to get a crumb texture? I am tipping through doubt towards failure. 

30 minutes in the oven now. Have I used the wrong dish? Ceramic instead of glass? It smells like egg. The eggs were definitely too big.

Where's Mary Berry when you need her? Note to self: do not trust a recipe that has no reviews.

35 minutes. What is most annoying is the potential waste of ingredients, including 5 eggs. The dish of loveless gloop I am imagining. 

Yes, the dish, the sides too thick to allow the heat to penetrate to the centre of the cake. At the moment I'm looking at a crisp border and a soft centre - something you might want in a chocolate truffle but not in a cake.

After 45 minutes I'll have to take it out of the oven and hope for the best, or the best of the worst.

A soggy middle rather than a soggy bottom.

It's out. I didn't leave it cool on the grounds that I want this to be over soon! I pricked it all over with a skewer (not in the recipe) but it seemed like a good idea to allow the milks to be absorbed. So much milk too, almost a litre of tinned, fresh and cream. But it all eventually soaked in. It's resting. That's what I should do. And breathe. And wait.

Soaked in. 

But for how long?

What's that phrase again? Oh ye of little faith?

It's like a mixture of Madeira cake and rice pudding. Sweet, soft. And yes, homey. It is a touch too moist towards the centre, but nowhere near the disaster I was anticipating.

Will I make it again? Yes. With smaller eggs. And a thinner dish. And, I hope, less angst. 

And Tony says it's definitely a 'I love you to the galaxy MACS0647-JD and back' cake.