Tag Archives: tea

Sheep Carousel

June 14, 2012 By in design, knitting, tea, wool Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 99 Comments

It’s time to show you the second design I’ll be launching at Woolfest. . . I confess that this one has been quite hard to keep quiet about . . .

Dear tea-obsessed knitters, I present to you . . .

The Sheep Carousel Tea Cosy!

I suppose it was inevitable that at some point I would combine two of my favourite things – sheep and tea – into a single design.

The tea cosy is designed in the shape of a stripey merry-go-round upon which eight jolly Shetland sheep seem to be having quite a bit of fun.

Why not put the wool of your favourite sheep to good use warming your teapot?

In his History of Hand Knitting, Richard Rutt dates the appearance of the knitted tea cosy to 1867 with the first “batchelor” cosy (incorporating openings for spout and handle) being published in Weldons in 1893. I’ve long been intrigued by Rutt’s remarks about tea cosies – he seems simultaneously fascinated by, and dismissive of, them. Perhaps he had a large, secret cosy collection squirrelled away somewhere:

“Crinoline dolls, thatched cottages, beehives, brooding hens, pineapples, even television sets and electric toasters have been the models for knitted tea cosies that hover uncertainly between trivial novelty and serious pop art.”

Oi, Rutt! We’ll have less of the “trivial novelty” – - I’ll have you know that this particular cosy has a serious technical purpose, acting as a miniature sampler upon which one can practice many different knitterly techniques: stranding, steeking, vikkel braids, centred decreases, i-cord . . .

. . . and the design has, of course a second crucial function in keeping your pot toasty-warm while you are waiting for your TEA to brew.

The Sheep Carousel is pictured here with the lovely Mary Kilvert mug that Felix sent to me last year.

mmm . . . tea . . .

I will be launching the Sheep Carousel pattern at Woolfest in kit form which will enable you to knit it with my favourite sheepy wool - Jamieson & Smith Shetland Supreme. One kit contains enough wool for two projects, so you could easily make both of the moorit-on-white and white-on-moorit versions pictured here.

Each carousel kit comes complete with wool, printed pattern, a professionally printed project bag and, in honour of Cumbria (where Woolfest is held) a card depicting a noble Herdwick ram whom I met and photographed at Woolfest in 2009.

The Sheep Carousel now has its own ravelry page, and the digital version of the pattern will be released when I return from Woolfest on the 24th June.

I had a total blast with this design – I hope you have as much fun knitting it!

a nice cup of tea

May 22, 2012 By in tea Tags: , , , , , 128 Comments

Your comments on the last post have really got me thinking about many tea-related issues. . . Not least among these is the way that, unlike so many other British and Irish products, where tea is concerned brand loyalty is still strongly bound up with a sense of place. As the disturbing quantity of tea and tea-related kitchen wares might suggest above, I am a foolish devotee of Yorkshire Tea; Barry’s is apparently a Cork thing, in Belfast they like Nambarrie, in Newcastle, Ringtons. In Cumbria, you can still find Farrer’s “Lakeland Tea,” (delicious) Botham’s of Whitby makes “Resolution Tea” (also very good) and down the road in Musselburgh they blend Brodie’s “Famous Edinburgh Tea” which shamefully, despite almost a decade in this city, I’ve never tried. None of these teas are remotely fancy: they are ordinary everyday teas, all are available in convenient bag form; most seem to be tannin-rich, strong Indian blends; and all are, as I say, deeply associated with region. Without knowing much about this, I imagine these ‘regional’ branded teas must have begun to emerge when importers, merchants and blenders might also have had a chain of local shops and tea rooms, and began to market their own products – perhaps at the turn of the twentieth century. I think I now need to read much more about this. In the meantime, I realise that my local tea knowledge has a distinctly Northern flavour, so I would be really very grateful if those of you in the West Country, Wales, East Anglia, the Midlands, London and the South East could let me know of any existing regional teas that inspire brand loyalty among local communities in a similar manner to Barry’s, or to Yorkshire Tea. I shall then do a little research, and prepare a post, with a compendium of regional teas.

And just in case you were in any doubt at all that I LIKE TEA – bear in mind that this heartening image is the first thing I see when I open my eyes every morning. A good incentive to get up and put the kettle on.

It also occurred to me that many of you might be unaware of one of my favourite tea-related texts: George Orwell’s essay, “A Nice Cup of Tea”, which he published in the Evening Standard in 1946, and which I reproduce here for your amusement / edification. I love so many things about this essay – particularly the assumption that “a nice cup of tea” should make one feel “wiser, braver, and more optimistic.”At the height of rationing, “six teaspoons per pot” seems a bit excessive, and as Tom (or any other scientist) would tell you, the milk should definitely go in first so that it warms up slowly, and its proteins are not denatured. Otherwise, I find myself in general agreement with the remaining ten of Orwell’s “golden rules.”


(Orwell with a Nice Cup of Tea)

A Nice Cup of Tea

If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.

This is curious, not only because tea is one of the mainstays of civilisation in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.

When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase ‘a nice cup of tea’ invariably means Indian tea.

Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.

Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.

Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.

Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.

Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.

Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.

Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one’s tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.

Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.

Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.

Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.

Some people would answer that they don’t like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.

These are not the only controversial points to arise in connection with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilised the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one’s ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.

First published in The Evening Standard, January 12th, 1946

experiment

May 21, 2012 By in food, tea Tags: , , , , 76 Comments

Like me, my friends in Ireland like their TEA. The two most popular Irish brands are Lyons and Barry’s – and loyalties are hotly divided over the two brands. Certainly, everyone in Ireland I’ve spoken to about tea knows which they prefer. I am a person of strong opinion where tea is concerned, so Eimear recently sent me both brands so that I could make up my mind . . .

So, on the left, we have a pyramid-shaped Lyons teabag, and on the right, a more traditional rectangular Barry’s teabag . . .


The packaging of both brands is actually weirdly similar . . .


Lyons . . .


Barry’s . . .


Lyons . . .


Barry’s . . .

I took a good slurp of both and decided that the winner is most definitely . . .


BARRY’S

I found the taste of the Lyons strangely familiar – the shape of the tea-bag, and the fact that it is distributed by UniLever leads me to wonder whether it is, in fact, essentially the same tea as PG Tips?

I do not know whether Barry’s has a UK brand equivalent – it did not taste familiar, and I have tasted many, many teas. To me it seemed a good afternoon tea – “brisk”, as it says on the packaging – and I’m definitely looking forward to drinking my way through the rest of the box. Mmmmm. . . tea . . .

You will note that was nothing objective at all about this experiment: a blind tasting is pretty much impossible to conduct solo; there was no control; I had my suspicions that the pyramid-shaped bag contained PG Tips before I tasted it; and perhaps, too, I am drawn to Barry’s because I find the name vaguely amusing (Barry (as in Barry-The-Tramp) is the shorthand in this house for a stubbly face that needs a shave). Anyway, I hope I’ve not offended any Irish readers in the Lyons camp!

And while we are on the subject of experiments, I want to say a big CONGRATULATIONS to Tom, aka Barry, whose important new work on B-cells and MS is currently climbing up the immunology charts as the “most read” paper in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. WHOOT!

marathon

April 20, 2011 By in knitting, running Tags: , , , , , , , , , 79 Comments

Though I wanted to be there to support Tom, I was really rather dreading the London Marathon. Given that Buchanan Street has been my only post-stroke experience of a busy city crowd, and that being in places in which one is constantly assailed by visual / auditory stimuli is now both difficult and scary for me, the thought of negotiating the noise and general confusion of London on marathon day was, frankly, terrifying. Thankfully, I did not have to face it on my own, and the one thing I was looking forward to was spending the day with Felix. As a carbo-loaded Tom squeezed himself onto a packed train to reach the race start at Blackheath, Felix and I pootled down a deserted Whitehall, to set up camp at the finish. Neither of us had seen the memorial to the Women of World War II which had been erected there in 2005, so we stopped to take a look.


The memorial is in the form of a giant bronze coat rack, festooned with the uniforms of women engaged in many different patriotic activities. It is a very arresting piece of public sculpture, and occasioned some debate. On the one hand, we found something tremendously moving in the monumental nature of the monument. The empty uniforms suggested quiet, collective endeavour and a dignified anonymity, made all the more striking by the memorials in close proximity, which celebrated individual military achievement with predictable bombast.


Felix and Field Marshal Brooke: Masters of Strategy.

On the other hand, though, there is something just a little troubling about the women’s monument. The discarded uniforms are just that: discarded. The uniforms had been put on; the duties appropriate to such uniforms had been performed, and then, post-war, women had resumed being themselves again. These clothes were chrysalises from which drab, be-uniformed creatures would re-emerge, butterfly-like, into the hyper-femininity of the late 1940s.


Dior’s famous ‘Bar’ suit (1947)

I have since read that, when designing the monument, the sculptor, John Mills, was “interested in the concept of these women hanging up their uniforms and going back to their normal lives after the end of the war” (my emphasis). What does that say about femininity and patriotic endeavour? Would the effect have been the same if the memorial depicted men’s uniforms? Is the New Look to blame? What do you think?

From Whitehall, we proceeded to St James’ Park, where we found a small hillock which would afford good views of the marathon’s closing minutes. Then, from her tardis-like rucksack, Felix produced an entire room.

Examining this photograph you may see: teapot containing freshly brewed tea, biscuit barrel containing tasty home-baked treats, Monkl clutching congratulatory golden banana, and mysterious brown paper packages, whose contents will be revealed later. But the most important items of note are 1) the comfortable folding chairs and 2) the singular lack of other people. These two items are closely connected. As the day went on, things grew busier and busier, but, whenever Felix unfolded those chairs, she created an instant oasis of calm around which the mêlée surged insanely. You will also note the lack of other people in all the photographs in this post. That is because I spent the day happily inured from the crowd in Felix’s oasis. Anyone who has been on a trip with Felix knows that she comes notoriously well-prepared. On Sunday she really outdid herself. While poor Tom pounded the streets, suffering from the heat, and struggling to find his own space among 36,000 other runners, we spent a relaxing couple of hours drinking tea, eating snacks, and knitting in the oasis.

An Italian bloke approached and asked to take a photograph of us in our oasis. We suspected we were being pigeonholed as marathon-day curiosities, English eccentrics quaffing tea through all eventualities, but we did not care.

mmmmm. Jam!


Then the runners started to come in. From our vantage point we cheered wildly, particularly when a brown-vested bloke went by at around the three hour mark. We then made our way over to Horse Guards Parade to retrieve the heroic runner. Tom made it in at a very good time of 3:05 – 7 minutes slower than his best marathon in Dublin a couple of years ago. It is fair to say that he did not enjoy himself – having trained all Winter in Scotland, it was really too hot for him. However, he cheered up immensely as soon as we got him to the pub and presented him with the contents of Felix’s brown paper packages.

Could it be . . . no really . . . could it possibly be . . .

A PIE?!

A homebaked sourdough-crusted rabbit pie, no less, with which Tom was the envy of the post-race crowd. This was swiftly polished off, washed down with a pint, and followed by . . .

A congratulatory wagon wheel! The snack choice of heroes!

Running a marathon really is an epic thing. Huzzah for Tom! And a big huzzah to Felix, too, for indomitable pie-baking, chair-carrying, space-creating, conviviality-inducing marathon-like achievements on Sunday!

Cheers, Felix.

tea and knitting

August 10, 2009 By in food, History, Scotland, textiles Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 43 Comments

pot

For many of us, tea and knitting go together like . . . well, like tea and knitting. Personally, I can think of no better beverage to accompany the activity of knitting than what Dr Johnson (a great tea drinker) would have referred to as a dish of fine bohea, (or in my case, Yorkshire). Knitters love tea. Like many other shops, my local yarn store also serves tasty pots of tea, and does what can only be described as a roaring trade in tea cosies. This connection between teapot, yarn, and needles seems so self-evident to knitters that it has even inspired a recently published book of patterns (which I have not seen, so can make no remarks upon).

But I’ve been pondering the connection between tea and knitting in a rather different context of late, while reading about the knitters of nineteenth-century Shetland. We have all probably absorbed one stereotype of such women, from these frequently reproduced images of creel-laden figures, knitting while walking, and gathering fuel.

shetlandknitter
(postcard, c. 1910).

Through the second half of the Nineteenth Century and into the Twentieth, such postcards lent Shetland workers the status of picturesque curiosities (in a manner not dissimilar to those depicting Welsh women with spinning wheels and stove-pipe hats). Yet despite the novelty-value of such images, they reflected a certain reality, while also suggesting a (largely positive) notion of the women of Shetland as models of virtue, industry, and physical capability. This image of the Shetland knitter as an indomitable multi-tasker perhaps still persists, but far less familiar today is another stereotype — just as persuasive and pervasive in depictions of Shetland — of the women of those islands as inveterate addicts of tea.

In 1840, Edinburgh children’s author, Catherine Sinclair wrote about the “marvellous excess” of the tea drinking she had encountered on Shetland. Sinclair’s writing was generally lively and emotive, but on the subject of tea-imbibing working women particularly so: “the indulgence amounts to an absolute vice!” she remarked. Sinclair followed up these histrionics with a few examples of Shetland’s purported tea excess, including the story of “a poor man in the parish of Bressay, who had the expensive affliction of a tea-drinking wife, and was cheated by her secretly selling his goods to obtain tea.” For several decades after her book appeared, Sinclair was cited as the principal source of evidence for many other publications making similarly misguided claims about the crazed-tea-dependent women of Shetland. For example, her “poor man of Bressay” appears in Chambers’ 1854 Compendium, his story embellished as follows:

“Although intemperance in the use of intoxicating liquors could be cited as an unfortunate feature in some departments of the population, Shetland is still more remarkable for the ineconomic use of a beverage which is ordinarily considered the antagonist of intemperance -– I allude to tea. No kind of beverage is so much relished by the female peasantry of Shetland as tea. To get tea they will venture as great and unprincipled lengths as any dramdrinker will go for his favourite liquor.”

A couple of years later, Sinclair was cited again, backing up the claims of the Statistical, Topographical and Historical Gazetteer of Scotland that: “A passion for tea, to the extent of feeling the narcotic influence of the herb, seems so strong and general as to threaten that country [Shetland] with serious disaster.” In Sinclair’s tour, and in the host of other publications that followed her lead, the working women of Shetland were described as obsessed with, addicted to, and ruined by tea. Women had, in fact, made tea “the curse of Shetland.”

morepots

Tea was indeed the curse of Shetland, but not as Catherine Sinclair would have it. It was at the heart of the islands’ pernicious truck system, in which labour and goods were bartered rather than paid in cash. The merchants and shopkeepers of nineteenth-century Shetland had transformed tea into specie: the currency which women received in payment for their hard work — and that hard work was, of course, knitting. The fine hosiery and shawls that Shetland knitters produced were valued in tea, and paid in tea. Thus the claims of Sinclair and others that, “excessive indulgence [in tea] keeps the Shetland peasant lower in the scale of poverty,” completely missed the point. In fact, what reinforced the poverty of Shetland knitters was not tea-addiction or indulgence, but the fact that they received no other form of payment for their work. In the words of Lynn Abrams (to whom my discussion here is indebted): “The consequence of this system of payment was that hand knitters were forced to spend much time and energy turning the payment they received for their hosiery into items they needed, or into cash – – a family could not live on tea alone.”

shetlandknitters

Truck had been illegal in Britain since 1831, but the law had proved notoriously difficult to enforce. In 1872, the UK truck commission visited Shetland, and their report makes sobering reading. Shetland women spoke articulately of the tyranny of knitting, and the baleful economic effects of payment in tea. Despite the findings of the commission, truck persisted in various forms on Shetland for several decades, and women continued to receive no other remuneration than undrinkable quantities of tea that they were forced to sell on to their neighbours at a loss. No wonder then that, in the words of Lynn Abrams again: “knitting evokes little sentimentality among Shetland women for they are conscious of its alternative symbolism — of the exploitation of women’s labour and skills by merchants.” Tea and knitting are one of today’s happy luxuries. But I’ll remember before I stick the kettle on that they were, in living memory, also the agents of women’s economic oppression.

Further reading / viewing:
I strongly urge anyone with an interest in Shetland knitting to read the chapter on ‘work’ in Lynn Abrams incisive and insightful Myth and Materiality in a Woman’s World: Shetland 1800-2000. (Manchester University Press, 2005). You can ask your library to order it, or acquire it on interlibrary loan if it isn’t locally available.
Alice Starmore, Book of Fairisle Knitting (1988). Happily for everyone, soon to be reprinted.
Catherine Sinclair, Shetland and the Shetlanders, or, the Northern Circuit (1840).

Also see:
Rosie Gibson, “The Work they Say is Mine” (1986). Award-winning documentary about Shetland working women.
Jenny Brown (Gilbertson), “Rugged Island,” (1934). Both films are available through the BFI.

birthday tea

June 24, 2009 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , 65 Comments

birthdaytea

Well, what else can you do when someone gets you a giant teacup for your birthday? This is how I spent yesterday evening.

birthdaytea2

All I can say about where I’m standing is that it was until recently waist-high with weeds, and that I am very proud of how that wall now looks since last week I thought it was just some sort of mossy hummock. I’m also pleased that my teacup (ahem, um, plantpot) co-ordinates so nicely with the trousers of my birthday buddy, Felix, who celebrates her 30th today. Happy Birthday Felix! I’m a bit older, but never too old to be ridiculous. And don’t worry, I took off the daft frock before I got on with some birthday digging. Cheers!

birthdaytea3

York Craft Tour

April 25, 2009 By in brewing, craft, embroidery, food, textiles, walking, yarn Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 22 Comments

felixinduttons
(Felix in Duttons).

I am busy. I do not find long working days particularly good for either body or soul. During periods of insane activity, one must always find a little time to spend in the restorative presence of friends, and it was great to meet up with Felix the other day. We spent a lovely, crafty few hours in York, highlights of which included a cake shaped like a cauliflower, and these amazing tea-cup buttons that Felix found in Duttons (of course).

teabutton
(very Felix buttons)

After this, and my earlier button pilgrimage with Ysolda, I thought it might be a good idea to produce a map, linking together my favourite York crafty locations. You can click each map-marker to see my notes on each location, or click on ‘larger map’ to zoom in and see the full thing in much more detail.


View Larger Map

Each marker takes you to one of eleven craft hotspots. In no particular order, they are:
1. Duttons (for Buttons)
2. Betty’s (tea. baked goods. confectionery.)
3. Viking Loom (embroidery, quilting, beading)
4. Sheepish (best place for yarn)
5. The Japanese Shop
6. York Beer and Wine (and cheese and cider) shop
7. Priestley’s Vintage Clothing
8. Quilter’s Guild Museum
9. York Castle Museum
10. York Brewery
11. Monk Bar Chocolatiers

delicacies
(Betty’s. Yorkshire delicacies indeed).

This list is entirely personal, and a bit idiosyncratic. For example, I like ‘Sheepish’ for Yarn, and the ‘Viking Loom’ for embroidery supplies, and I prefer both to ‘Craft Basics’ on Gillygate. On my list you will find beer and cheese, wool and cakes, the finest local produce and ingredients, and (perhaps incongruously) some lovely stuff from Japan. There are also two brilliant museums: the York Castle Museum (chock full of fabulous textiles and intriguing domestic objects), and the museum and archive of the UK Quilter’s Guild (now happily housed in their new home in St Anthony’s Hall). Check their websites for opening times and listings of current exhibitions.

ysyork1
(Ysolda by the River Ouse).

One of the best things about York is how compact and pedestrian-friendly it is. All of the craft hot spots on my list are within or near the city centre, and all are in in easy walking distance from each other. Walking around York is aided by two of the city’s unique geographic / architectural features: its rivers and its walls. The city is bisected by the rivers Foss and Ouse, the latter of which is lined by a lovely Georgian path known (then and now) as the “New Walk“. As well as being a genuine pleasure in itself, a quick walk along the “New Walk” takes you to the haven of refreshment that is the York Beer and Wine shop. A York organisation has produced this great guided tour of the New Walk, which I strongly recommend reading. (I used to live in the first location on this tour many moons ago when I was a student. Ahem.)

newalk
(The New Walk in 1756)

The Romans built the original walls around the city they named Eboracum. These defensive walls have been rebuilt several times since over the centuries, and today you can walk almost the whole way round the city centre along well-maintained wall paths which, according to York City Council, are tramped on by around a million people a year. Several of my craft hotspots are near to the bars (or gates) which form the stopping-off and getting-on points for wall-walkers. These include Monk Bar Chocolatiers (located, unsurpsingly, by Monk Bar) and The Viking Loom (close to Bootham Bar).

wall
(Felix walks along the city walls toward Bootham Bar).

As I said, this list is entirely personal, but if any of you Yorkshire folk feel I’ve missed a really vital craft hot spot, do tell me, and I can make additions (or amendments) to the map. Hope you enjoy it! Thankyou!

knowledge
(tree of knowledge on the doorway of York Minster).

beginnings. . . and endings

March 15, 2009 By in food Tags: , , , , 29 Comments

Interesting things arrived in the post this past week. First, some owls turned up — they didn’t say so, but I think they might have flown across the water from St Andrews (thankyou, Kristin!). Then a package appeared from Japan containing several Kit-Kats, all lurid packaging and intriguing flavours. None of the fabled green ones this time, but the ‘serving suggestion’ shot on one wrapper suggests its contents might taste of roast potato – surely not?! I shall report back later…

kitkat
(Thanks, Titch. But what is it?)

Most excitingly, though, we just received a letter from Edinburgh Council letting us know that an allotment has become available. Hurrah!

We live on the second floor of a typical Edinburgh Victorian tenement. We share a tiny strip of garden known here as a ‘drying green’, and that is mostly what it is. Our neighbours are brilliant, but I know they’d be none too keen on Tom and I occupying the pleasant space in which they hang their washing with raised beds or (O dream of dreams) poultry. We’ve been on the allotment waiting list since we moved in four years ago. The prized plots can be glimpsed from our flat, less than half a mile away at the back of the field where the Boys Brigade play football. I walk past them every day, and they are a source of both delight and longing. They look wonderful in all seasons, weathers, lights, and their irregular geography — formed from separate and collective endeavours of growing and making and building — is a great public use of space. To me, allotments are cathedrals.

allotments

Our plot is there! And Spring is here! We need to get our skates on.

I received another letter last week. It began “Dear Yorkshire Tea Drinker,” which is a fine way to begin . . .

letter

. . . but the letter continued by announcing the end of the token collecting scheme. Horrors! Well, you know what I’m like with those tokens. Apparently, the scheme is going to be replaced by a process in which you can become ‘a friend of Yorkshire Tea’ and join ‘an online family of like-minded tea-lovers.’ This sounds great to me, but I’m sure you understand how sad I was to hear of the tokens’ demise. Those torn and tea-dusted bits of cardboard have such a pleasing materiality. They bear testimony to so many happy hours of tea drinking. And all the Yorkshire-Tea treats for which I’ve exchanged ‘em over the years are such a rewarding embodiment of the many, many robust and refreshing pints of Yorkshire-Tea I have consumed.

token
(tea-tokens. The end of an era).

To be frank, I had collected everything in the ‘gift’ catalogue anyway (except for the Yorkshire tea tonka-toy, which did not speak to me). When I returned my last batch of tokens, I also wrote suggesting the addition of an *enormous* mug to the range (which would suit my personal tea-drinking habits), but I suppose I may live in hope that such an item may one day become available through the promised ‘online family.’ I often find that I am carrying a Yorkshire tea-token about my person, and perhaps I shall preserve those that remain, keeping them forever with me in a talismanic way. But to any other token-obsessives out there: you’ve only got till June to collect enough for that jolly orange teapot that you simply know you need. . .

always a fresh egg a’piece

September 3, 2008 By in food Tags: , , , , , , 18 Comments

Let me start with a disclaimer. I do not work for Yorkshire Tea. I do not know anyone who works for Yorkshire Tea. I apologise for any unseemly brand promotion. But I heart Yorkshire Tea.

There are many anachronistic elements to my Yorkshire Tea obsession. The first is that I originally hail from Lancashire. In the past, my brand loyalty has been tinged with a nagging sense of regional guilt. When, a couple of years ago, I heard that Lancashire had launched its own brand of tea (wars-of-the-Roses, beverage style) I was fully prepared to switch county allegiances. I could not find any Lancashire Tea in Scotland, so I insisted that my Ma (conveniently placed in Rochdale) nip straight out to get me a motherload. But what disappointment! I really wanted to like it, but I just didn’t. It may have been blended in Newton-le-Willows. The packet might well have displayed a map of Lancashire’s ancient county boundaries. But it lacked both strength and maltiness. Yorkshire Tea it was not.

Another reason to be circumspect about Yorkshire Tea is its calculated and fantastical “like tea used to be” advertising. You know the kind of thing: All Creatures Great and Small, sheep, cricket, dry-stone walls, steam trains cutting through rolling limestone landscapes and always a fresh egg a’piece. Yes, this immortal phrase was actually uttered in a Yorkshire Tea TV advert and for me (and some other people I know) has long been the source of much tea-associated hysteria.

But the thing is, however much I laugh at the fresh eggs and the heritage fantasy, I also find all this stuff secretly appealing. I must do. For how else do you explain that I now have, in my possession, every single item in the Yorkshire Tea gift range?


Tea shaped dunking biscuits. Ah me.

To acquire these wondrous items you have to collect Yorkshire Tea Tokens. To collect the tokens, you have to drink an awful lot of tea. I find a singular pleasure in both activities.

Seriously, how can you argue with a jolly orange teapot, yours for only 36 tokens and a small postage fee? The points-collecting aspect of Yorkshire Tea recalls, for me, the heady days of youth, when packs of cigarettes came with similar tokens. Back in this simple, uncomplicated era you could smoke your way through the ‘gratis’ outdoor equipment catalogue, and no one saw any contradiction in exchanging guaranteed emphysema for a podometer, or a small family tent. In this former life, Tom smoked enough B&H to acquire many ‘gratis’ items, including a decent sleeping bag. Tea has now happily replaced nicotine in both token and addiction-related matters.

Anyway, the latest additions to my Yorkshire Tea collection arrived in the post this morning:

Joy! My Yorkshire Tea tea-towel and mug can now join my Yorkshire tea apron, tea caddy, teapot, milk jug . . . you get the picture. On the latest token collecting card, they asked for ideas for other gifts to add to their range. I had several suggestions.

The best thing about Yorkshire Tea is, of course, the tea. It is tasty, refreshing, strong and black. With the addition of milk it turns a pleasing coppery-orange colour. You don’t have to eat a fresh egg every time you drink a cup, but I do have a suggestion for something containing fresh eggs that makes an excellent accompaniment:


Border Tart!

Here, in a first for this blog, is a recipe — a recipe by me and baked by me. Excitement!

Border Tarts are another obsession of mine, and I’ve sampled many varieties both in Scotland and Northumberland. My favourite is the buttery, almondy confection known as an Ecclefechan tart. I’ve had so many good Ecclefechan tarts that I insisted we take a trip there — unfortunately we found the village singularly lacking in baked goods, which was (for me) rather sad. So here is my version of an Ecclefechan tart based on those I’ve enjoyed. Now, I am no supercook, or anything, but I can make decent pastry. And can I just say that I am as about as proud of these tarts as of anything I’ve made? And that, containing your recommended annual allowance of butter, they really are berloody good?

For the pastry:
200g plain flour
120g butter from the fridge
2 tbsp golden caster sugar
1 egg yoke

for the filling:
100g golden caster sugar
100g butter
1 egg, beaten
50 g ground almonds
50 g glace cherries, chopped
handful flaked almonds
handful dried fruit (currants, raisins, cranberries)
half a grated nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375f / 190c/ gas mark 5
Make sweet shortcrust pastry:
rub butter into flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, stir in the sugar and add the egg yoke. Combine to make smooth paste, adding a couple of tbsps water if the mixture is too dry. Stick pastry in the fridge to rest for half an hour.

Make filling:
In a pan over a low heat, melt the butter and sugar together, stir until melted. Take off the heat and add the dried fruit and everything else except the egg. Allow mixture to cool for a minute or two, then stir in the egg.
Roll out the pastry, cut into small rounds, and line a bun tin. Put a generous scoop of the mixture into each pastry case, and stick it in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until the mixture has risen and is turning golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and eat, marvelling at the flaky buttery pastry and sheer almondy nutmegy wonderment of the tart.
Makes 24.

We are taking a much-needed break and are off this weekend, not to climb mountains or walk many miles, unfortunately, but to sit in the sun, which will at least be relaxing, and safe for Tom’s arm. See you in a couple of weeks.

thanks

August 17, 2008 By in beasties, design, textiles Tags: , , , , , , , , , 10 Comments

THANKS so much, everyone, for your good wishes. Seriously, it really does make a difference to know you are thinking of us. Tom felt a veritable wave of good karma when he sat down and read through your comments. We were both very cheered by them. Thanks!

I want to say thanks for something else too. I’ve been an admirer of Suzanne’s work for a while, particularly her wonderful creature series. She had some fabric made up recently of her designs via spoonflower. The fabric looks amazing! So when she proposed a swap — a creature-cushion for a bucketload of good British tea — I immediately jumped at the chance.

A parcel containing this arrived yesterday and made me very excited. Isn’t it fab? I’m really blown away by it. I feel I definitely got the better side of the deal. But then again, you really can’t argue with a good cup of tea.

Suzanne’s cushion now has pride of place on our sofa, and, perhaps appropriately, is doing a great job propping up the specimen that is Tom’s poor hand. I love Suzanne’s creatures even more now I can sit and stare at them. Never has an item of soft furnishings provoked so much thought for me! I’ve been sat there thinking about Suzanne’s design process, about the materials she uses and effects that she creates, as well as about the feel of her work, which says so much about natural processes, decay and preservation. It is spooky, it is poignant, and it is witty too. (Her new cross-section series also illustrate this perfectly). But some of the other cushion-thoughts have been personal, and rather banal, as illustrated by the following anecdote.

Tom has several supermarket rituals. These are generally designed to wind me up, and involve him behaving like Benny Hill in the fruit and veg section (eg, asking “could you do with one of these?” while holding a large butternut squash in a suggestive manner at crotch height). Another ritual focuses on the jars of seafood in the ‘speciality foods’ section. He well knows that the sight of pickled creatures can reduce me to foolish levels of sentimentality and exploits this by waggling the jars of little octopi in my face and shrieking “SAVE US!” in a plaintive squid-like voice.


(yes, I actually took my camera to the store today to photograph these poor beggars)

The ritual concludes with one of those stereotypical exchanges of couples in supermarkets: viz, woman rolls eyes and whapps man with handbag, or whatever else comes to hand. A few weeks ago, though, I noticed a different sort of exchange going on in front of the SAVE US! jars. A young lad had picked one up, and was staring at the pickled creatures with wide-eyed fascination.
“Look!” he said to his mum, “they’ve got their heads on and everything!“

Suzanne’s creatures perhaps don’t provoke either of these reactions, but they do manage to be fascinating, while being rather melancholy too.

thanks Suzanne, I love the cushion!

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 3,967 other followers