Tag. Book meme.
I was tagged today by Kay over at Writing Neuroses. Kay is a writer and when I visit her blog I often wish that I had more time to dive in deeper and submerge myself in her site. Kay’s is a different and fascinating world. She is also still waiting for her pay it forward present, which is still at the concept stage. So guilt has led me to answer her tag immediately. Kay gave me a new twist for this tag. She hoped that I would have a cookbook beside me as she wanted this tag to take on a foodie slant. This was a bit of a problem as the...
read moreA present of stones
“I don’t know what we are going to do with these stones.” David peered at the rocks that were arranged in a commodious pot just outside the front door of Einat’s house. “I don’t suppose that you’d be interested in them, and the others?” His eyes drifted to the grass and a group of sizeable flints. “Yes please.” They were all large rocks. Massive flints and other superb unidentified specimens. Stones are handy. They can stop up rat holes, block escape routes for the Min Pins and...
read moreHow to tell if your eggs are fresh
When I cracked the eggs into the frying pan this morning, one egg was clearly much fresher than the other. The first had a yolk standing just right above the white like a small hillock. The next had a much flatter yolk. It smelt fine but the flatter yolk indicates that the egg is not so fresh. Even if I put the ‘flat’ egg on my plate Danny always notices and offers to swap. “There must be some way of knowing which eggs are the freshest.” We have a superb wooden egg stand that I inherited from my Aunt Pickles. This holds...
read moreHome
Quite often I sit at the kitchen table and think about the people that have sat in this room over the last 360 years. Until 25 years ago this was a small two bedroomed cottage with a couple of lean to barns each side. Probably in its infancy, our kitchen housed cattle and hens along with the humans. Three hundred years ago, domestic livestock often shared the ground floor with the inhabitants of a cottage. Upstairs was the purely human realm, with a scatter of dogs and cats that crept up and were welcomed to warm cold feet on a chilly night....
read moreGeorge
When I first met George he was the largest and most regal specimen in Colin’s pond. An old English carp – the sort that live in castle moats for years, often outliving their owners. Colin reckoned that he was at least ten years old. George was special. When Colin handed me the keys to the cottage he was handing me the keys to a dream. Seclusion and privacy in a cottage set well back from the road with a large garden and small twelve foot pond. George was a key player. He got under my skin. I had planned to get rid of the pond....
read moreTagged by Sally
I was tagged for a meme yesterday by Sally who writes the Casalba News blog. This is a great new blog, beautifully written and like the five blogs that I’ve tagged at the end of this post well worth a visit. I am publishing a photo of my last mouthful of our breakfast this morning. Sally is married to an Italian and living in Italy. She might sometimes miss the naughty breakfasts that the British like to indulge in every now and then. Yes, it is fried bread crisped in the fat of home cured bacon… Heaven. What I was doing 10 years...
read moreTaste
Everyone thinks that they have good taste. In terms of the way things look, rather than the message from the tongue. One of my first boyfriends was Persian (it was that long ago). He looked sultry in a simple black dishdashah and unusual in a suit. He was the only person that I have met in my life that admitted a deficiency in the taste department. Doe eyed he turned to me one evening. “My problem, Fiona, is that I have no taste. I love this two inch dog tooth check that has people screaming in horror. Please accompany me to town...
read morePay it forward from Italy
“Conchita, you’ve got an exciting parcel from Italy.” Danny elongated the last word Ee ta leee. I was examining the padded envelope within seconds. I knew that it was na’s “pay it forward” surprise present. na writes the sparkling Shadows and Clouds blog. I first heard about Pay it Forward in the superb Little Foodies blog. The idea is great: surprise handmade presents are sent around the world to 3 people who have to send handmade presents to 3 more people. If this took off millions of people could be...
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