Olympus and Olympiada

I haven't written anything here for weeks - apologies.  We were on holiday for most of May, first in Romania, then, after a few days back home to unpack, do the washing, and repack, to Greece.  Since we got back from Greece, I've been catching up on all the things that didn't get done while I was away, as well as all the things that have accumulated since.  I am never going to get around to writing about Romania (though it was a very good holiday), so we'll forget about that.  But I'll show a few photos of our Greek holiday. 

As usual, we went with Gareth of Naturally Greece - this was our fifth holiday with him.  (There should have been one more, but we couldn't go the year I broke my wrists.)    We flew to Thessaloniki and then transferred to a lovely hotel, Ktima Bellou.  It's west of Mount Olympus - the top of one of the mountain's peaks is just visible from Ktima Bellou over the range of hills across the valley.

From there, we did some walks on the lower slopes of Mount Olympus, including part of the gorge from Prionia to Litochoro. There was snow on the bare slopes of the mountain, while the surrounding hills are forested.

We visited the archaeological site of Dion, near Mount Olympus, and its museum. Dion was a religious centre in ancient times, for the worship of Zeus and other Olympian gods  - and gods from elsewhere such as Isis.   (Much of the visible remains are from Roman times,  and the Romans were very broad-minded about adopting other people's gods.) 

The frieze of armour and shields that decorated the Roman basilica at Dion

For the second half of the holiday, we went to Olympiada, on the Halkidiki coast, and stayed at the Hotel Liotopi.  We did some more short walks and did a boat trip along the coast of the Mount Athos peninsula to see the monasteries - from a distance, as the boats have to stay a distance of 500m. from the shore (I think to avoid any possibility of women contaminating the place). And we visited Amphipolis, a huge archaeological site scattered over a large area.  The most impressive thing we saw there was the huge Amphipolis lion, which has been reassembled from fragments.

(Note the dog lying at the foot of the monument.  Greece seems to be full of dogs with nothing to do - at least this one has a role in providing a scale for the lion.)   It's thought that the base of the monument was much bigger, and there are lots of fragments left over, to one side of the site, so I can believe it. 

We visited several other areas of Amphipolis, including a large early Christian basilica, with re-used columns from earlier buildings, and some nice mosaics.  I especially liked the octopus.

We went to the excellent museum at Amphipolis, too, where one of the treasures is the silver ossuary with a gold wreath, which held the cremated remains of Brasidas, the Spartan general who defeated the Athenians in 422 BCE in a battle at Amphipolis, but was wounded and died shortly afterwards.

 If I understood the label correctly, the ossuary was found on the site of the museum in the archaeological dig carried out before it was built - which is about as unlikely as finding the body of Richard III in a car park.

I think that Greece had a very cold spring this year, so the spring flowers were very late.  By the end of May they would usually have been over, but there were flowers everywhere. At Ktima Bellou, we did a short stroll in the meadow next to the hotel and found lots of different flowers, identified for us by a friend of Gareth's who is very knowledgeable about plants.

The archaeological areas of Amphipolis were very pretty, with masses of poppies and other flowers.

  
We did a walk along the beach near Olympiada and found several kinds of specialised seashore plants - this is sea bindweed.

Throughout the holiday, we had very good food at every meal.  Ktima Bellou does wonderful organic food, much of it grown by the family, and Loulou at the Hotel Liotopi does regular cookery demonstrations of some of the dishes on the menu at her brother's restaurant where we ate every evening.

I don't like to think that I am so shallow and greedy that delicious food is an essential part of a good holiday, but sadly I find that it's true.  Since we got back we have been trying to recreate some of the dishes we had in Greece.  We have mastered spanakopita, and I'm working on a dish of roasted aubergine with walnuts and feta.  I don't think I'll ever cook octopus tentacles though.

Now, back to knitting.

A Mug for a Knitter

Yesterday, we went to Waitrose in Sheffield to get most of our Christmas food shopping, and I saw some coffee mugs with an embossed design to look like Aran knitting.    They are really nice, and I bought a couple for myself - how could I resist?

Waitrose mug with knitting design 

The design of the Waitrose packaging  for their own-brand Christmas was also based on knitting. A cable pattern with ribbon threaded through was printed onto the box of Camembert we bought - ready prepared to bake.  (Sounds delicious - I hope it is.) 

And there was a Fair Isle design with Christmas trees,which appeared on several of the things we bought, and around the store as well.  Today being the Winter Solstice, I had a mince pie with my coffee (in my new mug) - it was very nice.    

Vogue Knitting visit

There is a knitting tour of England & Wales in progress right now, under the auspices of Vogue Knitting magazine,  that started Tuesday morning at Manchester Airport.  (The people on the tour are all from the U.S., I think.)  Tuesday afternoon, the tour visited  Scholes to see a selection of the choicest items from the Knitting & Crochet Guild's collection.  We hired the clubhouse at Scholes Cricket Club for the day, which proved to be an ideal venue.  It is mainly one big room, with windows all along one side, looking over the cricket  pitch and to the hills beyond, so there was plenty of space and light. 

We went one weekend a few weeks ago to check on  a few details, and I took a photo of the view while a cricket match was in progress - it was drizzling at the time, so the view wasn't at its best.  (Not ideal weather for cricket either.)      

There were about 40 in the Vogue Knitting party, and we wanted to give them all the chance to get close to the things we were showing them.  We had chosen five sets of items (Irish crochet,  traditional knitting,  etc.) , with one or two volunteers for each set (I was showing a selection of magazines and pattern leaflets).  We divided the visitors into five groups, too, and over the course of the afternoon, each group progressed around all five sets of items.   The scheme worked very well, though it did mean that we volunteers were talking about our set of items five times, over about two hours.  But I found that each repetition worked out differently, because each group picked up on different things in what I was showing, and asked different questions.   I'll write something about the things that I showed  in the next few posts.

And at the end of the afternoon, we all had tea (very important in cricket, I understand).   I had bought cakes from ProperMaid in Huddersfield who supply a lot of local cafes.  We had Beetroot & Chocolate, Courgette & Lime and Lemon & Poppyseed Drizzle - all really delicious I'm told, and the Beetroot & Chocolate certainly was.  (There was a lot of discussion with the visitors about what courgettes are, though.)  I had also bought parkin, made by a local company, to give them a taste of traditional Yorkshire food.

ProperMaid Courgette & Lime cake

It was an exhilarating afternoon for all of us.  For those of us from the Guild, it reminded us what an amazing collection we have, and the visitors saw some really wonderful things.  Exhausting though - it took a lot of organising and preparation on our side, and several people had come a long way to help. 

And after we had cleared everything up and put the furniture back approximately where it was before, I got home at about 6.45 and then went out for a meeting of the Huddersfield KCG local group.  The meeting was on the theme of lace,  and several people had brought along beautiful lace shawls and scarves that they had made, including a silk stole knitted in the Shetland print o' the wave pattern, which was just lovely.  Ann Kingstone showed the sample knits for some of her lace patterns (knitted by her sister Marie, who was also there), including Hartfield - even finer and more delicate and gorgeous in reality than it looks in photos.  Three of the Guild members who were staying in the area to help with the Vogue Knitting visit came along to the meeting.  Jane, who had been showing some of the Irish crochet in the collection, had brought with her an Irish crochet shawl that she had made, and so was able to show that at the Guild meeting as well - a beautiful piece of work.  I took along one of the knitted lace samplers from the collection, in amazingly fine cotton.  And also (although it wasn't really up to the standard of anything else on show) I took along the honeycomb lace infinity scarf I have made for my daughter - mainly so that I could talk about how tricky it was to keep track of the stitch pattern. 

And then I went home and fell into bed.  I wish I could say that I slept like a log, but I didn't - it was such an exciting, busy day, it was difficult to wind down.  I am so glad that after all our preparation and planning (and several hiccups along the way, up until the last minute)  it all worked out just right.       
  

A Walk Around Derby

I spent the weekend in Derby, at the Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention.  It was a busy weekend, and I didn't have time to set foot outside the hotel at all during the Convention, but before it started on Friday, I had a walk around Derby.  I had never been there before - it's not exactly a tourist hotspot but it has some interesting bits.

We were staying in what used to be the Midland Hotel, built in 1841, which is claimed to be the first railway hotel in the country.  Queen Victoria allegedly stayed there in 1849. Very handy for arriving by train (which I did).  It's now a Hallmark Inn, and they seem to have tried to cover up the previous name on the facade - you can see what it previously looked like here.  It's a comfortable hotel, but there's very little sign of its history inside the building - I can't help feeling that the present owners don't value its heritage.

Outside, there's a war memorial to the employees of the Midland Railway who were killed in the First World War - I took a photo for John.  (Pity about the car inconsiderately stopped on a double yellow line.)

Midland Railway War Memorial, Derby

They seem very proud of Florence Nightingale in Derby - I saw two statues of her, and there's a memorial tablet in the Cathedral.  Her family were associated with Matlock (in Derbyshire), and she was of course born in Florence, so the connection seems a little bit tenuous.

Florence Nightingale, Derby

The Nightingale Home, Derby

On my walk, I got as far as the Cathedral, where there is a very grand monument to Bess of Hardwick, who is buried in the crypt.  She designed it and had it built before she died (in 1608), so that she could be sure that it was sufficiently magnificent and said nice things about her.  She had four husbands and outlived them all.  Each left her richer than before, until she ended up extremely rich.  She built Hardwick Hall, "more glass than wall", and she lived to be 87.  A splendid woman.

Bess of Hardwick's Monument

And on the way back to the hotel, I found the Market Hall, a huge Victorian construction.

Derby Market Hall

... which has a pikelet stall just inside the entrance.  We had pikelets when I was a child, in Sheffield, although they were what everyone else calls crumpets.  In Derby Market Hall, they spell the word "pyclet", but pikelet is the spelling I am used to, and shows how it's pronounced.  The Derby Pyclet Company make their pikelets on the premises, on hot plates.  They look like an American pancake, but they aren't sweet and the raising agent is yeast, or like a thin crumpet.   I was very tempted, but I had already had lunch, so I settled for a gooseberry fool, which they were also selling as a special seasonal treat. I sat at the stall to eat it, while Mark and Martin cooked their pikelets and told me about the difficulties of controlling the yeast mixture on a hot day (which Friday was).

The Derby Pyclet Company stall

Pikelets cooking

Pikelets to take home

The pikelets were selling like the proverbial hot cakes.  I intended to go back on the following day to buy some to bring home, but I was too busy at the Convention and didn't have time.  Another day. 

A couple of other quirky things I saw in Derby:  there was a relief panel of a traffic policeman on the Magistrates' Offices building.  The building is surrounded by hoardings and looks derelict, so I hope the panel survives.  Judging by the car with the spare wheel on the running board, I guess it dates from the 1930s.

Magistrates Offices, Derby

And I found another panel featuring a policeman, high on the facade of a 1930s cinema (now the COSMO restaurant).  

Facade of former Gaumont Cinema, Derby

The policeman is on the left, with a truncheon, and I think a flashlight that he has dropped. The other characters appear to be clowns - the one on the right is waving a string of sausages and appears to have a goose hanging out of his pocket. Or maybe it's something to do with Punch and Judy (which involves both a policeman and a string of sausages). 

And then I went back to the hotel, and didn't go outside again until Sunday afternoon, when I left to catch the train home.  I'll write about the Convention next time.

Hallowe'en

For the last couple of weeks, Sainsbury's supermarket has been selling "carving pumpkins" for Hallowe'en  - not with the rest of the vegetables, but with all the other Hallowe'en paraphernalia.  They were remarkably cheap, so I asked if they were suitable for cooking as well as for carving into lanterns, and was told that they were perfectly edible, but had been selected because they were a regular shape and even colour. 

So I bought one, and have cooked several meals from it:

• 20% went into a North African Pumpkin and Chick pea dish from Claudia Roden's Tamarind and Saffron.  Pumpkin with chickpeas sounds a little bland, but it was actually very tasty.  (4 portions)
• 20% made a pumpkin risotto, based on the recipe from Valentina Harris's Risotto! Risotto!      I left out the pancetta, because we hadn't got any, and it was fine without.  (2 portions)
• With the rest, I made two batches of the delicious Pumpkin and Sage soup  from Susan Crawford's blog.  (approx. 8 portions).

Three recipes new to me, all very successful.  I have not cooked much with pumpkin before, except pumpkin pie.  That's OK, but in spite of all the sugar and spices you put in, it still tastes vegetable to me.  These savoury dishes are a much better use of it, I think.  

And the pumpkin which made all these dishes cost me £1.50 - remarkably cheap.  I'm sure that's less than the usual price when it's not Hallowe'en.  Jane Grigson, whom I trust completely on cooking matters, says in her Vegetable Book that whole pumpkins will keep for months, so I bought three more to keep for later.    Nice for us, though I don't see how anyone can grow pumpkins and make money, when the supermarkets sell them for only £1.50.

Happy Holidays

Yesterday, a large box arrived through the post from the U.S.,  with our Christmas cards and gifts from our daughter and her girlfriend.  (Slightly late, but never mind - it's nice to get presents over several days.)

Everything was beautifully wrapped in thick paper.  There were:

- several kinds of exotic chocolate (chocolate almond sea salt bark, ...) and some smoked salmon.

- a really useful miniature wind-up torch - I have a little torch on my key ring which was very handy until  it stopped working.

- a book of drawings (bought from an actual artist in an actual art gallery), How to Draw Your Family by Gabriel Liston, with useful advice, like "... once an event occurs you will want to draw it.  While you are drawing it other moments will be happening and you will miss them forever because your eyes were down."    I can't draw, but that certainly happens with photography, if you're not careful .

- and Peter Ackroyd's Venice, which we shall enjoy a lot.  We have been reading about Venice ever since we got back from our holiday - we shall have to go again.

We are very fortunate.
     

Beetroot and Chocolate

Back in March, I wrote about a visit to Todmorden, when we had coffee and cake at the whole-food cafe in the former Co-op, and I had a delicious beetroot and chocolate brownie.  (John said that the very idea was disgusting, which added a certain piquancy to the experience.)  Last week, we went to Northumberland to stay with friends at their caravan in Coquetdale, and I decided to look for a recipe so that I could take a batch with us.  You can find the recipe I used, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, at several web sites, including this one.

The brownies are easy to make, and very quick if you buy ready-cooked beetroot.  I stuck to the recipe, except that I put the beetroot through the food processor instead of attempting to grate it, which seemed potentially very messy. (I was extremely careful in handling the beetroot - the juice is very splashy and can easily get all over your clothes and the kitchen.)

The brownies were very good indeed, and even better after keeping for a day - rich and moist and deliciously chocolatey.  The beetroot adds texture and helps to keep them nicely squidgey, but there is no detectable taste of beetroot at all (which is probably just as well). So everyone at the caravan enjoyed them very much - except John, who could not be persuaded to taste even the tiniest piece.

It's a pity - I'm sure he would enjoy them if he would only try them.  I shall make them again, to share with friends - though not too often, as they are very calorific. Even if they do contain vegetables and so are good for you.   

Christmas 1940

A friend read that I recently bought a 1934 copy of Stitchcraft magazine, and sent me a Stitchcraft from December 1940 that she found amongst her mother's things. So exciting! It gives a fascinating view of how people in this country were living at that point in World War II.

There are patterns for two jumpers, including the one on the cover, and some small items suitable for Christmas presents. Clothes rationing was not introduced until 1941, though I assume that materials were already in short supply. There are frequent mentions of using up small quantities of wool, as in the coloured cables in the cover jumper.

The magazine had a continuing feature on knitting for men and women in the services. The Dec 1940 issue has a balaclava helmet. The pattern is for two sizes, to fit both men and women, though it must be said that even with make-up, it's hard to make a balaclava look glamorous.

In the same feature, there is a pattern for a pair of mittens with two layers, an inner layer knitted in wool and an outer layer crocheted in string. The idea is that the string layer gives a good grip on wet ropes, etc. on board ship. Quite ingenious, I suppose, though it makes me think of how dreadful it would have been to be on deck in a North Atlantic storm in midwinter, with U-boats after you.

There is also an ad for Lux soap flakes with a nice photo of a smartly dressed young woman wearing trousers and carrying her gas mask case, with the caption "Prepare for action in this cosy knitted Norfolk jacket". You could send off for a free pattern for the jacket. It's knitted in camel hair wool for warmth and softness, though you would think that camel hair might have been hard to find by then.

Stitchcraft had a cooking column, too, though it seems a bit outside its remit.  In this issue, it is mainly concerned with how to do your Christmas baking without the ingredients you would normally consider essential, like eggs, butter and sugar.  There is a recipe for a Christmas cake "using no eggs or sugar". It uses a small quantity of margarine or lard instead of butter, and some black treacle and quite a lot of dried fruit for sweetening - a very meagre mixture.

Alongside, there is a half-page ad from the Ministry of Food, exhorting people to eat healthily, by eating lots of the vegetables we can grow in this country, with small quantities of protein. A sort of medieval peasant diet, with added potatoes. I especially like the little rhyme:

Those who have the will to win

Eat potatoes in their skin

Knowing that the sight of peelings

Deeply hurts Lord Woolton's feelings.

Lord Woolton was the Minister of Food at the time, famous for giving his name to Woolton pie, consisting of vegetables mixed with a little oatmeal and with a pastry topping, which sounds very bland and stodgy. He would have been very pleased at the current popularity of baked potatoes, I suppose, though the fillings available now would have been far too rich for 1940.

I wonder if Sue's mother ever made any of the things featured in this magazine?

Black banana cake

We don't often eat cake, so we don't often bake cakes. But we had some bananas lurking in the kitchen that had got a long way past the point where anyone wanted to eat them au naturel.  And last week, J watched a TV cookery programme in which Nigel Slater made a banana cake that requires over-ripe bananas. So we tried the recipe today.

It has chocolate in as well as bananas, and it is very good.  And it's easy to make (as long as you remember to watch the hazelnuts while they are toasting so that they don't burn). The recipe is here.

Fruitfulness

This has been a very good year for fruit of all kinds.  We have just one apple tree, which was already mature when we moved here 20 years ago and it has produced more fruit this year than we have ever had before.  We have been eating apple crumble made from the windfalls for months (it's a Bramley apple, or something like that). About a month ago, J picked as many as he could reach with a step ladder and a fishing net, and we got 4 bucketfuls, and another bucketful which had fallen off in the process and so got bruised.  The best apples are in store in the cellar and I hope will keep - we gave away a lot as well.  Yesterday,  he had another go, because once most of the leaves had gone, we could see a lot more apples still on the tree.  This time, he picked two bucketfuls, and there are about a dozen more bruised ones that we are using straightaway.  I think I need more apple recipes - that's a lot of apple crumble.

I have been making sloe gin,  too - we picked 7 pounds of sloes when we were in Staithes 10 days ago.  It's very easy to make - 1 pound of sloes, pricked with a fork or needle, to 8 oz. sugar and 1 pint of gin.  Those quantities will fill a 1 litre bottle, more or less.  Then you leave it for about 6 weeks minimum (or until Christmas), giving the bottle a shake every day until the sugar is dissolved and then every few days.  I made the first bottle about a week ago, and the gin is already a lovely deep pink colour - it will get much darker and richer as time goes on. The remaining sloes are going to the Knit and Natter group on Wednesday - it's difficult to judge how many you are picking, and we had  more than we need.  The bottle on the right is an experiment - it's the last one I made, and I froze the sloes instead of pricking them.  Some recipes say that works  just as well, and obviously it's easier.

I have only made sloe gin once before, three years ago, when we found the same patch of sloe bushes near Staithes and picked a small bagful, which turned out to be enough for one bottle.  My daughter was home for Christmas, and we tried to recreate the taste of a sloe gin fizz, which she had drunk in a bar in Portland, OR.  I don't think we ever got it exactly right, but we had a good time trying.