Christmas in July

It’s a Southern Hemisphere thing. A feeling that Roast Turkey, stuffing, bread sauce and roast potatoes should be feasted upon when the weather is appropriately cold and blustery. We get short-changed with having Christmas in the summer – our Christmas holidays and our summer holidays are one and the same and then a whole long year to wait for the next one. So we’ve invented yet another reason for a family feast, for over-indulgence and sumptious flavours. One Sunday in July we get together and produce a traditional Christmas lunch, complete with all the trimmings (minus the crackers and presents - this is about the food)

This year we were celebrating my husband’s birthday at the same time, inviting friends as well as family – 12 adults and 11 children. Requiring not only our large oven but my two sisters in law’s ovens to be going full blast all morning: three chickens, with sausage stuffing and herb stuffing, two small hams cooked in apple juice, two huge trays of roast potatoes (which went too quickly, we could have done with more), baked butternut, chipolata sausages wrapped in bacon and roasted, extra stuffing, peas, brussels sprouts, bread sauce and gravy. Add to that the making of puddings and birthday cake the previous day, the finishing off of the children’s presents for Dad, involving last minute sewing and wrapping and the compiling of a grown up treasure hunt and you will arrive at the compelling reason for me not having posted anything for a while.

It was delicious .Well worth the manic morning in the kitchen, leaving my husband to clear up the house...on his birthday too...ag shame! The weather was suitably cool and overcast, the winter coughs and colds creeping up on our family, so just the right Christmas atmosphere. The mutterings of ‘next time we’ll be more organised in advance’ dusted off again for re-use.

Some of our friends brought music, violins to add to our piano, and our post-prandial lethargy was soothed by a sweet seranade, which added an element of culture to our gluttony, so we’ve resolved to add that to out list of get-togethers – musical soirees or apres-midis rather, to learn more songs and ballads, bring more music into our everyday lives for our children (my piano practising has been seriously challenged by the blogging – need to find a balance). The treasure hunt was fine too with the adults strolling round the circuit, children doing the running to find the next clue, only I hadn’t prepared a story to set the theme, as I do with the kids’ birthday party ones..so next time I have to get cleverer, maybe more cryptic clues too – better start planning now!

We heard today that our good friends in England had their baby on my husband’s birthday, as we were feasting. So welcome Charlie! An auspicious day to choose to enter this funny old world.

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Snail party

A call from the garden, as I am switching on the oven for supper:

“Mum, come and see my snails.”

I go outside to see a small, succulent bush, lovingly festooned with snails, one carefully placed in the centre of each rosette.

“Will you look after them for me while I go and get some more? Don’t let the baby fall out!”

I watch, bemused, as my youngest disappears off behind the garage to bring more snails into the garden, to join the festivities....they waggle their feelers at me in a friendly fashion, little suspecting the dark designs in my heart...how long will they be treasured pets and will I get away with inviting the ducks to come and feast... or will that cause heartbreak?

Families of Mum, Dad, baby, Granny and Grandpa snails are arranged and rearranged on the plant, the babies hitching lifts on the bigger ones’ shells. I highly recommend a bunch of snails as entertainment for a group of small children. The play lasted for over an hour.

In the end, the joy she was getting out of the snail-decorated ‘Christmas tree’ far outweighed my measly concern for one plant, which will regenerate itself next year anyway.

So we photographed them instead.
And the snails waved!

P.S. As dusk fell, from the kitchen window I could see the children’s climbing frame, now liberally adorned with groups of snails, slowly slithering heavenwards, the party over for the night. I hope they’ll know what to do when they reach the top.

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Up the spud!

I was reading Problem Child Bride’s hilarious post the other day on potatoes and the problem she has convincing her American husband that they are appropriate fare for every day of the week. (She being from the Hebrides, where potatoes are a vital part of the staple diet). When I was growing up in England they were also an essential accompaniment to every meal. Of the other carbohydrates, pasta was encountered in Macaroni Cheese on occasion, rice came in the form of a milk pudding quite regularly and very occasionally as an exotic accompaniment to a curry. For the rest Meat, two veg and potatoes was the norm . So to express my solidarity with her, I would like to propose a way of serving potatoes every day of the week without repeating the same way of presentation.

Sunday – Roast Potatoes of course with Roast Beef, Lamb or Chicken

Monday – Baked Potatoes in their Jackets alongside the cold roast meat leftovers.

Tuesday – New potatoes boiled with a sprig of mint with chicken

Wednesday – Mashed potatoes and sausages – Bangers and Mash

Thursday – Shepherds Pie with the leftover mashed potatoes topping minced beef

Friday – Fish and Chips

Saturday – We haven’t had good old boiled potatoes yet with a sprinkling of parsley to soak up the gravy of a nice stew.

For the next week, you still have several more possibilities up your sleeve - potatoes cubed and roasted with rosemary and garlic or cut longways in wedges and baked with olive oil and garlic, or potato salad with herbs, spring onions and mayonnaise and there are probably a thousand more possible ways of enhancing this vegetable treasure!

The potato originally came to Britain from the Americas anyway, so maybe it is time for it to be restored to its rightful place of honour in the national heritage!

P.S. Does America have Spud-U-Like? A UK franchise that serves baked potatoes and nothing else, with a choice of about a hundred different fillings?

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Crumbs!

I'm famous! No nothing to do with the BlogHer do that all the big bloggers are going to, I am but a small speck in that world. This is strictly local fame. I have a loaf of bread that bears my name. Our local Camphill Village bakery, where I go to buy my rye flour, have started baking a new loaf of bread called Kit Bread!

This was after the baker, Henk, asked what I was doing with all the rye flour I kept buying from them (I go through about 5kilos/11lbs of flour a month, just keeping our family in rye bread) . When I said I was baking bread, he riposted that I should be buying theirs.
"But my kids don't like your rye bread. The 100% rye is too sour doughey and the light rye has yukky caraway in it..."

So I gave him a run down on my recipe for Rye Bread.

The upshot of this was that when I stopped by to pick up a new supply of rye flour yesterday, tentatively taking a sample few slices of my bread (after all this is a professional I'm taking my home-made loaf to), I found them baking their second batch of Kit Bread for the village. He was really happy to have found a rye bread recipe that kids and villagers alike will eat. I was well chuffed with my place in posterity and with the supply of flour he gave me in lieu of royalties!

We compared notes, as he'd experimented from his memory of my vague list of ingredients. His had no oil and slightly less honey than mine. I got a loaf to take home and try out on the kids. It was much looser textured than mine, which made it quite crumbly while new and warm from the oven. It firmed up a bit by the next day though. The family all liked it....better than mine, I'm sorry to say.

So now I'm on my mettle. I have to experiment a bit more myself with my recipe, to get it a bit more light and fluffy, without losing the substance and chew that I like. First try today I cut down on the oil I use by half, as Henk said that oil slows down the yeast action, as does honey. The loaves did rise a lot more in the oven, cracking at the side a fair bit and it did give a looser textured crumb, so maybe we're onto something here. Meanwhile I'm learning a bit more of the science of baking from him, rather than my normal hit or miss approach of never two loaves alike. (I exaggerate, but sometimes I get a really nice well-risen loaf and have no idea what I did different - there are so many variables with bread - yeast, room temperature etc). Now I'm a woman with a mission - a quest for the perfect loaf of rye bread.

By the way that pic at the top of my blog is a nice warm and fuzzy shot of my rye bread.

Could you send some of your excess of summer over here please, all you Northern Hemispherites sweltering in the heat...we have cold rain here and snow on the mountains, so it is chilly! Better for baking though. I'll swap a handful of mountain snow for a dollop of sunshine if anyone is on?!

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The Spirit of Birthdays

My daughter's school birthday celebration was lovely. I was invited to come along with her cake, that we'd baked yesterday, at 10 o'clock. I arrived to find her proudly arrayed in birthday crown and cloak, waiting with her attending 'angels' (her younger sister and a friend) to be conducted to the birthday table. I was seated at the head of the table and the other children also sat down, then she was brought by the little angels to stand by her teacher.

All the little things I'd been able to remember had been beautifully woven into a story of her life. The story started with a big angel and a little angel in heaven, with various tasks to do, and then when the time was right for her to join her new family on earth, she was brought over to sit on my lap. Her teacher then recounted the details of her life, how her big brother was having a bath upstairs as she was born and how as she learned to crawl, she used to crab crawl over to try and join his play. As each birthday was reached, in the story, a candle on the cake was lit.

When she was one came our move to South Africa, to our farm and her pushing through the long restios to visit her aunts' houses. Her second birthday brought her younger sister on the scene. There was a smile on her face as each little description of visits to the beach and holidays at the river brought a memory to the fore. By the time her sixth birthday was reached the first candle was flickering out and she had to hurry to blow them all out. Then came the wish, a secret told only to her fairy and her angel, as she cut the cake.

It all felt so special - a true celebration of her life and her choice to join our family - I had a twinge of teariness myself too. Afterwards each child presented her with a card they'd made, with a special wish for her. Some wished for golden rainbows, some for sunny days, another for her to be strong. At the end of the morning she got to bring home the birthday basket with her cards, a little present from her teacher, the flowers from the table and her crown, all now adorning her nature table by her bed. The cake was demolished but we managed to save some for her big brother to have later and for Dad.

It was almost more special than her real birthday, which inevitably ends up being a lot about presents and parties. This had all the spirit of the birthday in it, the essence distilled.

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More memory required

Narnia rules. I'm happy to report that no nightmares have resulted from the children watching it. They are now on their third run through the movie, still fast forwarding through the scary bits - honour bound that if anyone requests a fast forward, they do - my son in charge of the remote, even if the others don't find that bit too frightening. It has sparked a resurgence in the popularity of hide and seek. New, clever hiding places have been discovered, especially the wardrobe, and youngest has finally discovered the art of hiding without making a noise or telling people where she is. She's not quite so good at finding the older ones, when they're well hidden and I get dragged in to help, so have to act blind, while leading her in the right direction.

School starts again tomorrow. It'll be a big shock to the system waking up at 6.30 again, while it's still dark outside. We've been sleeping later and later through the holidays, so it will be a challenge to be out of the house at twenty to eight, fed and dressed, snackboxes filled and nothing forgotten. My six-year old gets to celebrate her birthday again at school on Wednesday, so is excited about that. Her real birthday is already a dim and distant memory, all of two weeks ago, so to have a re-run with cake and crown and birthday story is a major bonus.

I have been asked to provide material about her for the birthday story - incidents from each year of her life. I was horrified to discover that I hardly have any specific memories that distinguish one year from the next, apart from moving from England to South Africa, when she was one. Our time here has been a gentle blur of farm life. Our holidays always at the same place, our festivals repeating every year, the same beach with Table Mountain in the background featuring in all the photos, children getting bigger each year.

I haven't kept a baby book, I can't remember first words or milestones, am I a terrible mother, not being a guardian of the memory of my child's every step forward in life? All the photos are digital, stored on CD and just recently I realised that I have a massive job ahead to make up baby albums for the two younger ones. They were looking through my son's the other day (as the oldest he did get a baby album!) and wanting to see themselves as babies.....So to play catch up, recreate my memories from what is preserved on disk, will be my task in the evenings of the months ahead!

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A Winter’s Tale

A winter’s day today, one of those days with sullen clouds blanketing the sky, scarcely giving the sun a fighting chance, washing hanging questioningly on the line, as damp at the end of the day as in the morning.

We started the day off with a family viewing of Narnia. Opening a can of worms indeed.

We’d been given the DVD months ago. The adults watched it, loved it (it is absolutely brilliant, sticks closely to the book, keeps the moral message and mystery and brings out much more of the childrens’ motivation, through the background of the war) but we rated it too strong for the kids for another couple of years.

My son loved the book, when it was read to him a couple of years ago and dealt with a lot of the concepts it brings up, but he has a fear of wolves that surfaces at bed-time and gives him nightmares. Those scenes in the movie when the children are pursued by the wolf police are so vivid and fast-paced, that in self-preservation we put the movie away. The two girls, though they are less frightened by scary bits in movies generally, (and I’m talking Bambi here not Terminator 2), we thought too young for it still. The other day though, we were out shopping and saw a beguiling scene of snow on a TV in a shop window. We all stopped. Snow has the attraction and quality of a myth here. It was the scene when Lucy first goes into Narnia and meets Mr Tumnus. They were enchanted.

Back home they begged to watch the movie. At the weekend we said. When it can be watched in the morning, with us present, to hold hands and fast forward the scary bits. So we did. Fast forward through the opening bombing of London. Fast forward past the Witch. Skip over the wolves and the chase, lightly over the Stone Table and Aslan’s sacrifice, nip past the battle scene and on to the finale of the coronation. Even with all the fast forwarding it was still a powerful movie.

My six year old lay on the sofa for part of the morning, absorbing it, then accompanied me to pick some of our proteas for a flower arrangement after lunch. A barrage of questions surfaced. Complex emotional and moral stuff. What is war? Why did Edmund want to go to the witch if she is bad? Why was he mean to Lucy, pretending he didn’t get to Narnia? Why didn’t Aslan turn the witch to stone? Why did he let her kill him? Why did the Witch want to be Queen for ever? Why? Why? A lot of this I was unable to provide satisfying answers to. It is too far outside her experience. One answer did hit home. Well when you’re feeling upset, sometimes you want to make someone else feel upset too. Eventually the questions petered out for a while. By the evening, I heard her playing with her younger sister:
“I’m Aslan and you’re the Queen and I’m turning the stone animals back alive again.”
“ I’m not the Queen.”
“You’re the good Queen, Susan.”

Phew. A long day of moral issues. My son asked a lot of the heavy questions much earlier, when he was three or four. Birth, Death, War, were all asked about, given simple as possible answers, digested. But my daughter, though she has absorbed some of it by osmosis, through him knowing, a lot of those issues have just passed her by. This movie has brought up so much for her. I don’t know if it was the right time for her or whether it should have waited a while longer. Be that as it may, they are watching again tonight, just a little of it. And I’m sure they will repeat it again and again till they have got to the bottom of it and answered the questions and banished the demons it brings to the fore.

Both my daughters said their favourite part was when the children are grown up, at the very end, riding through the forest. Part of their never ending quest to be grown up themselves, a glimpse into their own future?

So snowy Narnia, damp South Africa, picking proteas, the SA rugby team losing dismally to Australia, scones for tea and lots of questions, that has been my day today.

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