Posts Tagged ‘summer weather’

Autumnal Leaves Falling

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Autumnal leaves are falling everywhere.  They have hung on in there for quite a while longer as we have had a short spell of decent warm weather and very little wind.  But even so, nature cannot be stopped and even the delicate finger-like leaves of our wisteria have turned yellow and will soon have all gone until spring next year.

The River Skell at Fountains Abbey

The River Skell at Fountains Abbey

It’s a time of the year that makes you feel artistic.  I think perhaps the light is softer, making the edges of objects all fuzzy, rather than the sharp precision of winter and summer.   The smells are also old, ancient, the smells of decay; another year over.

Autumn Leaves

Autumn Leaves

I am reminded of a painting by Sir John Everett Millais that hangs in Manchester Art Gallery – “Autumn Leaves”.  John Ruskin wrote of Autumn Leaves that it was “the first instances of a perfectly painted twilight”.  I am not sure about the twilight but it does conjur up autumnal smells and sights.

In it, 4 girls stand around a pile of autumnal leaves piled up high – the 2 girls in the centre wearing deep black are Effie’s (Millais’ wife) 2 younger sisters and the others are local youngsters, Matilda Proudfoot and Isabella Nicol.  The setting is Annat Lodge in Perthshire, where the distant hills are a deep purple of twilight in the distance.

In the foreground there is a heap of papery fallen leaves, piled high having been brought there by the girls in whicker baskets.  Yellowish-green, bronze, red are the leaves, mimicked by the russet and deep purples of the younger 2 local girls as their clothes blend in with the colours of the season.  The youngest girl stares wistfully at the leaves and holds a chewed red apple in her hands.

There is a strong emotional intensity as these young girls stare out at us – it is twilight, the end of a year, yet they are just starting out.  The earth is perpetual cycle of renewal (spring) through to growth and beauty (summer) and ageing (autumn) before death (winter).  Then during winter, the earth is actively replenishing itself ready for another year of growth and death, in a perpetual cycle.

But maybe its more a time for poetry rather the visual arts; maybe poets are the more melancholic of the artists.

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Summer’s Over

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Saturday was hot, a really glorious day.  However, the swallows have gone so the blue sky felt empty without their energetic dance swooping and soaring the catch insects.  They must have left while I was in London last weekend and into last week.  Another year gone, another winter to contend with.  It’s still warm and today is bright sunshine, so I shall enjoy the last days of an Indian summer.

You can see it with the changing light.  There’s a field just over Hewick Bridge as you come into Ripon where there a rows of round straw bales all lined up neatly like soldiers to attention. 

I love the long shadows cast by these as I come in of a morning.  There is a crispness of light at this time which seems to sharpen shapes and contours.  I can now see why Monet enjoyed painting these simple shapes with seemingly endless paintings of haystacks, but it is the changing light that fascinates him.  And light has weird colours to it – purples and blues in winter, but there’s still a warm orangey glow to the shadows and light in this early autumn time.

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Recipe: Rediscovering Ratatouille

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

 

The other day, we had some visitors for a meeting at Steenbergs.  Our dilemma was not really about spices and herbs – that’s something we do, day in day out.  But what were we going to offer them for food.  We’re a small organic herbs & spices business, based in rural and very parochial North Yorkshire.  There aren’t any fancy restaurants around here and we tend to do all our own cooking – as what’s available isn’t always that great and usually overpriced, even if it saves on having to do the washing up.

 

What we cooked was a Mediterranean vegetable tart and ratatouille.  I have recently rediscovered ratatouille after I overdosed on it at University where we seemed to live on “rat and chips” (homemade and shallow fried, should you dare ask).

 

Ratatouille is simple to make, but time-consuming.  Even worse, it is easy to make horribly just by rushing it.  The classic mistake is to whack all the ingredients except the tomatoes together into a pan, fry it up quickly, then add a tin of tomatoes and stew for 10 minutes and serve.  That isn’t ratatouille even if it is perhaps rat; it’s really a vegetable mush.

 

No, proceed slowly and with a little bit of care and attention.  All the ingredients must be prepared and cooked separately, before being brought together as a beautiful symphony at the end.  The other thing is be flexible – use what’s in season or looks good in the grocer, together with what’s to hand in the kitchen.  I love it cold as well as hot.

 

2         Decent sized aubergines

4         Ripe red peppers (or other colours – I used a nice locally grown small orange pepper as well as a really sweet red pepper)

3         Courgettes

2         Large onions

4         Cloves of garlic

1kg      Ripe tomatoes

Plenty of olive oil – perhaps 150ml

Rosemary and thyme and parsley (at this time of the year, I used rosemary and thyme straight from the garden and left out the parsley)

Salt and pepper

 

Get a decent sized heavy bottomed casserole ready as you build up the ingredients.

 

Prepare the vegetables and keep separated: dice the aubergine, salt lightly and leave to drain in a colander for 10 minutes; finely chop the onions and garlic; remove the stalks and seeds from the peppers and cut into strips and then cut these into 2cm lengths; dice the courgettes, discarding the ends.  To prepare the tomatoes, plunge them in water to remove the skins and peel and then chop them up; some people remove the pips but I like the texture that they add to the sauce.

 

Heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and gently fry the onions and garlic until soft and just turning golden.  This will take about 10 minutes.  Take out and put into casserole.

 

Now gently fry the prepared sweet peppers in the pan until they caramelise and soften.  Carefully remove from the oil using a slotted spoon, so preserving much of the oil.  Transfer the peppers to the casserole.

 

Top up the olive oil if needed.  Next add the courgettes and fry these at a slightly higher temperature, until they are lightly browned on the light green pulp.  Turn at least once.  Add these to the casserole.

 

Whilst the courgettes are frying wash the aubergines and then pat them dry. Salting the aubergines, removes some of the bitterness – it comes out as a green liquid that looks a bit like washing up liquid.  Fry the aubergines, until lightly browned, turning them a couple of times.  Add the fried aubergines to the casserole.

 

Now add the chopped tomatoes, chopped herbs and some cracked/coarsely ground Steenbergs pepper and salt to the casserole.  Alternatively, season with some Steenbergs organic Perfect Salt seasoning.  Simmer gently with the lid on for 30 minutes.  I sometimes add a little wine or cognac to give the ratatouille an extra dimension – I used a rosé that Sophie’s enjoying at the moment.

 

Remember that ratatouille is not a hard and fast recipe, and everyone should have their own version and should also flex around the basic recipe using whatever is in season or looks good.  The key is to be patient and to use aubergines, onions and garlic as the base and then build it up.  Even though everyone thinks of ratatouille as a tomato based dish, it’s actually an aubergine dish and you can even leave out the tomato if you want.

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Recipe : Making Real Lemonade

Thursday, June 18th, 2009
As you walk along the long aisles of soft drinks in shops, it’s like hunting for a needle in a haystack to find real drinks that aren’t made with chemicals and don’t contain artificial sweeteners.  Even such national treasures as Schweppes Tonic Water are now adulterated with artificial sweeteners.  
 
There’s something wrong about using ersatz chemical sweeteners and we do everything to avoid them for our children and ourselves; while we have no proof for it, we have the feeling that some time over the next 20 years, scientific evidence will show that these artificial sweeteners are bad for health.  Our basic principle is that if you cannot make it at home, be wary about it.


Back to soft drinks – we love real lemonade; not the fizzy, soda water that’s been flavoured with industrial citric acid and perhaps a twist of real lemon, to aid the marketing.  No, I mean freshly made lemonade from lemons, water and sugar.  If you do a taste test of one to another, there really is no comparison; everything’s different: colour, taste, texture. 


We make 2 versions of lemonade, which we give below.  Both of which are worth the effort.

 

Quick iced lemon 


1                      Unwaxed lemon
2 – 3 tbsp          Sugar, to taste
850ml (1.5pts)   Ice and water (about 600ml/0.25 pint water if using ice, or all water)
1                      Free range egg (optional – see note below) 

1.       Wipe unpeeled lemons and cut into quarters, being careful not to lose any juice.

2.              Put the diced lemons into a blender together with the sugar and egg.

3.              Strain and serve immediately.

Old fashioned lemonade 

3                      Unwaxed lemons
3 tbsp               Sugar
1.1 ltrs (2pts)     Water, freshly drawn then boiled
1 sprig               Mint, freshly picked is ideal (I prefer apple mint to spearmint for this)
Glass-full           Ice cubes (optional)
1 or 2                Extra slices lemon (optional) 

1.       Wipe unpeeled lemons and cut into dices, being careful not to lose any juice.

2.       Put the diced lemons into a jug together with the sugar.

3.       Pour on boiling water and leave for 15-30 minutes until strong without becoming bitter.

4.       Strain.

5.       Put the mint into a serving jug with ice and the slices of lemon and leave to cool for and hour before serving. 

Note: we like to add the egg to the quick lemonade as it gives extra body and froth to the lemonade.  However, if you have been told not to eat raw egg or are wary of doing so, please just exclude it from the recipe.

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Recipe: Elderflower Cordial from the Hedgerow

Monday, June 15th, 2009

 

Sunday morning found me walking along a small cutting down to the River Ure hunting flower heads, or corymbs, from elder bushes.  The common elder flowers in June and July over about a 6 week period.  It is fairly widespread, being a bird-sown weed and is best found on wasteland and in hedgerows.  I try and find trees that are fairly hidden down rarely-used lanes or in woodland as these are less covered in the fumes and dust from traffic.

 

I carefully collected a whole basketful of these sweet wine smelling white flowerheads.  You need to try and minimise the number of insects on them and yet find those that are flowering – that is not in bud – and where the petals are not falling off.

 

I then like to make our own elderflower cordial.  It tastes a lot nicer and more flowery than the shop bought cordials, although I never make enough so we need to resort to one of the brands later in the year.

 

My recipe is as follows:

 

24         large elderflower heads (or as many as you want so long as it’s more than this)

4          large unwaxed lemons

1.8kg    granulated sugar

1.5ltrs   water

 

Slice the lemons moderately thinly, discarding the ends, and put the slices into a large stainless steel pan.  Pour the granulated sugar into the large pan.  Add the water.  Bring this sugar solution gently to the boil, stirring occasionally to ensure that the sugar dissolves fully.  This is your sugar solution.

 

While the sugar solution is heating up, sort through the elderflower heads, getting rid of any insects by gently shaking the corymbs over a bowl,  This ensures that you don’t lose too many of the little flowers as you can then get rid of the insects that fall in and keep the flowers.  I also clip off any excess stalk and any remove leaves.

 

Bring the sugar solution to the boil, then remove from the heat.  Add the flower heads and stir into the sugar solution.  Put a lid on the solution and leave to steep for at least 24 hours.  We leave for about 3 days.

 

Strain the cordial, then bottle in clean bottles.  It should be stored in the fridge as it does not last long.  We use plastic bottles that have been saved or glass bottles with screw on lids.  We part fill the bottles and freeze them; you can take them out the freezer and defrost as and when you want them.

 

To use, simply dilute with water.  A little cordial goes a long way so do not put much in a glass.

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A walk on the River Ure

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

 

Yesterday evening (Saturday), I went for a quick 1 hour walk by the River Ure near Boroughbridge.  It was a warm evening and the sky was blue.  The swallows were flying high in the sky and the kine were busy chomping on the grass on the river bank.  I met only a few other groups walking as I suspect the attractions of Robin Hood in the TV or a happy barbecue were more enticing than a wander by the river.  A family was having a barbecue on the lock with their lovely canal boat moored beside them.

 

As I looked around at the young cattle, the delicate greeny-white heads on the elder trees and the wheat growing like soldiers standing to attention in the fields, I had the sense of the earth sighing a delighted, gentle breath out at the end of a glorious day.  I also had the sense of a much deeper, longer breath of the earth as the planet breathed in replenishing itself after the winter. 

 

It is important to feel these longer rhythms of the earth as it moves through the seasons, breathing in and out, refreshing itself in Spring, renewing itself through the Summer, preparing itself for Winter during Autumn and then cleaning itself and using up the fruits of the Summer/ Autumn during the Winter, then starting the cycle again as the snowdrops reappear in early Spring.

 

The earth must be allowed to go through these rhythms.  It lets the earth rest, clean itself and then refresh itself before creating the bounty of the soil over the summer months.  Without these periods of rest to cleanse itself, it starts to build up toxins and the soil, water and air become enervated, losing its power to nurture life.

 

As we lose our connections to the soil, we forget these natural rhythms of the planet and force it to operate at full speed without the time to rest and recuperate.  We must simply slow down or the productivity of our planet will be eked away.

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Summer weather?

Monday, April 27th, 2009

The weather in North Yorkshire has a beautiful irony.  After 3 or 4 weeks of almost perfectly glorious sunny weather, school decides that Monday (today) would be the best day to start summer clothing (i.e. our children have to wear T-shirts, shorts and summer dresses to school) and to have the first after-school cricket nets.  So it is cold, overcast and the rain has set in.

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