It's a Hard Life

In the past, you know those very few times I remembered to actually do it, Recipeless Wednesday was a photo and just a photo. While all this travel, as I have discovered, leaves little time for anything other than tea, I thought at least I could take pictures and tell you a bit about it. Luckily, the daughters and I have being very well cared for. Meals and laundry and comfy beds abound.

I could use a little more wi-fi access to the interweb, all available at the cafe down the road but the likelihood of accompishing anything other than a MacBook swimming in spilled hot chocolate is slim. My less optimistic visions of the mayhem involve Tilly jumping across the tables, lattes and cappuccinos spilling every which way as she shouts, 'Mine, mine, mine,' wielding a spoon reaching for the chocolate sprinkles of strangers and other terrified small children.

We started out on a high note, with our very own fashion dos and don'ts on Wills' and Kate's big day. We decided that hats are back unless, of course, they are really just nude coloured fancy Minnie Mouse ears. Not sure anyone could pull that/those off. All this royal telly watching with cups of tea to fuel the six am start.

Then we enjoyed an amazing day here where we, and our cupcake smeared gaggle of cousins, didn't venture past the dining room but, after a quick internet squizz, I am determined to go back for longer than an afternoon. We were treated to a Royal Wedding Tea Party complete with wedding cake and, more importantly, Pimm's. It was all served in idyllic English surrounds on a day straight out of July. After tea and cakes and little cucumber sandwiches delivered to the garden by icing-wired offspring, I almost couldn't bear the thought of returning to bathe and put to bed my children.

Then, there was more tea, and more cake, in the form of Annabel's Marmalade Cake, recipe and more children happily playing together while their mothers determined the best and worst dressed. I will post this in due time. I am starting to worry that this will become a blog about delicious things to eat with a cup of tea and, consequently, I'll need to let my trousers out.

Later that week, we had coffee with Rosie in Appleby. Her and her husband, Andrew, run The Courtyard Gallery. Stephen would have been most impressed with my restraint, Poppy's Deborah Hopson-Wolpe bowl almost got a mate and I could hear my cupboards crying out for Dartington pottery. Rosie makes the cakes for the gallery cafe so we were treated to a walnut cake and Tiffin squares and some other things that my children devoured before I got to try.

The next day we got to Cornwall, after a most stoic, if I may say so, eight hour car journey on my own with the girls. For that day, our gustatory experiences were enjoyed on a path of least resistance basis and somewhat limited by and to motorway service stations and coffee (lots of) with bribes of chocolate and sweets, like they hadn't been eating all that for the last ten days.

Crossing the Tamar, into Poppy's birthplace, as she'll all too readily explain, is a bit of a homecoming. It is our English home. Cornwall has brought us asparagus by the literal bucket load. Said asparagus gets itself drizzled in just shy of a bucket load of melted butter and a generous salt and peppering and calls itself supper. I have absolutely no problem with that.

Poppy has been begging for rhubarb, she has only had it once since we got here, and Eton Mess, that too has also only been had once. She has determined it is better than pavlova, it is essentially smooshed pavlova. Luckily for her, we managed to not get lost, stuck or drive the car into a hedge on some single track Cornish lanes leading to the farm shop where, as their sign four miles back promised, they had not only rhubarb, but fresh strawberries too.

We drove back to the grandparents' as fast as our out of practice Cornish lane navigating would allow and set about the yummiest of English puds and roasting our rhubarb. All the pictures and instructions to come in the first installment of 2011's Rhubarb Trilogy. All this, just as soon as I find some wi-fi.

Retro Inspirations - Tell me Yours

Today's post is from a while ago. I had fully intended to cook something amazing, take photos of the process and write about it tonight. My attempt was foiled before it even started. My thumb was attacked by my, now not as loved, knife block and a 10" chef's knife that wasn't quite buried deep enough in the block's protective bristles.

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I have memories of tea parties with egg salad or cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Hot tea in the winter, and more likely egg, iced tea in the summer, with cucumber, always on white bread. What ever happened to those little nibbles, besides the fact that everyone went and got all fancy? 

The little sandwiches used to pop up all over the place, well usually anywhere there was a group of women socializing anyway. They were the fodder of frolickers at garden parties and baby showers and church socials. And, maybe they still are because I just don’t have the opportunity to attend these events at the side of my grandmother anymore. So, maybe I just don’t know.

We, the daughters and I, found ourselves at a casual little tea party a little while ago at Hawthorn Cottage. And, I was so pleased to see a tray of the little beauties that Jennifer had prepared that I almost hugged her. Paper thin cucumber slices crunchy in their soft, crustless cover. And, then, the same paper thin slices, but this time, of radish with mint. Floods of garden party scenes and hideous pin-the-diaper-on-the-baby game visions flooded back.

A few weeks after our afternoon at Hawthorn Cottage, I got to go to a baby shower. Sadly, there were no hideous games to play but there was glorious sunshine and basking and laughing and chatting and eating. But, I took, as my contribution, a tray of some dainty little sandwiches. And I felt a little like I had time-warped back twenty-five years and conspicuous because of it. But then I got to thinking that it was just retro and retro is cool. Right?

I made my version of Jennifer’s radish and mint, with salty butter and mayonnaise perked up with dijon and lemon and cracked pepper. And, I made egg salad with a painstakingly finely chopped pile of dill carrots and chives and, again, a hint of mustard. I used some of Rumtopf Farm’s mesclun mix with nasturtiums to add a little bit of green and bite.

But, I am not going to tell you how to make dainty little sandwiches, I don’t need to do that. I just ask that you think about making them sometime. Maybe, to have with a cup of tea or take some to your grandmother, if you are lucky enough to still have her, and sit outside on a sunny day and talk about all those ‘old school’ parties. Or make something that nobody seems to make or serve anymore and then tell me about it.