A hatbox of a life

Granny used to do it every year, and I seem to have taken over the role. It was funny standing in the dining room, next to her cabinet (known in the family as “the Monstrosity”, but I love it) and looking at my family – Richard has been at this party for ever, and we have accumulated the others along the way. When we were little, we all sat round Granny’s huge formal dining table – very Victorian - and ate good family cooking: roast chicken, lots of vegetables, apple cake. My father and Richard’s mother always had an argument about something relevant to the politics of the day, and we sneaked the sherry when nobody was looking.

Now we have a lot more wine (Granny didn’t approve of alcohol), and it tends to be a buffet. My table is refectory style, so when we have a large party it’s easier. This year I tried beetroot cured salmon. It is quite spectacular to display, and it tastes good. The cure is made of raw beetroot, fennel seeds, salt, sugar, pepper and Nathan Outlaw’s recipe suggests tarragon, but I used dill (because my tarragon has gone to sleep for the winter) and that worked OK. You chop all the ingredients in the food processor, and spread it onto a fillet, put the other fillet on top, wrap in clingfilm and press it, and keep turning it for 2 – 3 days. When you slice it, you get these lovely pink tinged slivers of delicate salmon. I also did gravadlax, had some Salar hot smoked salmon, and also a smoked salmon pate, made with cold smoked salmon, cream cheese and lemon. All served with homemade brown bread. I also made a beetroot and goats cheese tart, with salt caramel glaze – always goes down well and so easy to make!

The tradition is now that I do Heston Blumenthal’s 20 hour rib of beef. I have tried other things, like a Raan, which is a gigot of lamb cooked with indian spices, but I see the look of slight disappointment on the guests’ faces, so I have decided that it’s just easier to do the beef. Jonathan, the local butcher, provides the beef so I know where it has come from. We used to have the farm shop at the farm over the road,  but that didn’t survive last year’s winter. The beef is prepared by rubbing it with oil, then sealing it using a kitchen blow torch. It is then placed in the oven at 50 deg C, and left for 20 hours. It comes out medium rare – I now have a very posh meat thermometer, and I was looking for around 58 deg C at the centre when it was ready. It needs to rest for about an hour before serving. I served it with a huge ashet of dauphinoise potatoes, honey roast parsnips and orange glazed carrots. The Yorkshire puddings have been mastered by using the old traditional method of measuring the eggs in a jug, then adding the same volume of milk and flour with a large pinch of salt, mixing it all well together, and pouring into muffin tins which have been prepared with beef dripping. My brother used to call my efforts Cambridgeshire puddings because they always turned out flat, but no longer!

We had a bit of a crisis this year when my neice tipped a glass of wine on the carpet, but I’ve got the stain out now. Sadly it was a Chateau Brown Lamartine 1999, so a bit of a waste of good wine.

The deserts were a steal to do. I found a good easy recipe in the summer, which is a biscuit base covered with a mixture of cream cheese and lemon curd then piled high with berries. The summer version was easy, as we had good strawberries raspberries, red currants, blackcurrants and cherries. For the winter version, I used  frozen fruit, but it worked well. It looks spectacular when it’s done. I also made a chocolate and chestnut roulade for the chocoholics, and even after a mountain of beef, that got eaten.

I love doing this meal, and it is another time for the family to get together and enjoy good food. We’ve been doing this all my life. I hope I am still doing it in my eighties like Granny did.

For a small village, we don’t do too badly when it comes to presenting our achievements. The Horticultural Society Flower and Produce Show has been going since Adam entered his selection of vegetables (apples not included), and towards the end of August each year, a frenzy of preparation starts. Garden borders are weeded, anxious eyes are cast over rose plants, jam sugar runs out in the village shop, and on the day, the village square is full of cars packed to the gunnels with prize specimens.

I have done the whole thing in past years – and won the Dalmary Cup for the “Industrial” section. This refers not to engineering in any sense, but is “home industry” – baking and crafts. This year I was not going to be in the running by any means – a month away and lots of University work has got in the way – but I did manage to finish a cross-stitch picture of Rumer, and slip into Hobby craft on my way to Dumfries yesterday to get a frame for it. I also entered the Shattered Garden quilt I made over the winter that keeps me warm when I’m watching telly, and the little jumper I knitted for Pat’s grandson. The baking was distinctly down on previous years, but I managed a quiche – the Elizabeth David method, nothing fancy – an apple pie, shortbread, scones, lemon curd, marmalade, and a new recipe for pancakes that I chose because it gave a smaller amount than the catering quantities that Mum’s old recipe delivers.

Everything was ready by 9:00am, and in place in the hall in good time for me to be able to help Sue, who of course arrived with five minutes to spare.

The morning of the Village Show has a particular routine. Get up, bake scones and pancakes, finish off the flans and apple pie, go out to the herbaceous border in jammies and wellies to pick the Astromeria, get showered and dressed, deliver produce to hall, come back, eat leftover pancakes and scones for breakfast and spend the rest of the morning cleaning the kitchen. Back to the hall for 2:00pm and see what the judges thought.

This year I did OK. I was particularly pleased to get a First for the quilt, but I only got a Second for the cross-stitch. The jumper got a Second (miracle – I haven’t done any knitting for years!).  I got a First for the pancakes, but the scones were a fail. The Astromeria won their section. They have done every year I have entered them, and since I don’t do anything other than watch them grow, it is very gratifying.

The flan got a first and the apple pie a third, along with the lemon curd, but the marmalade was overcooked.

The new recipe for the pancakes is definitely a repeater. It comes from Sue Lawrence’s book, “Taste Ye Back”. The shortbread was from that too, but I think I made it too thick. Try again next time.

The family are coming for lunch tomorrow, so as well as the new season lamb from the farm, they can eat up the exhibits.

I always think that wearing an expensive outfit for several occasions – as long as there are different people at each – cuts down the cost of the outfit considerably. This is on the basis that you can divide the price by the number of times you have worn it, and therefore it is a bargain.

Three weddings in one summer, each in a different part of the country, has been an ideal example, and the Jaeger dress and jacket are back in the wardrobe having done sterling service.

I suppose summers are the time for lots of weddings, and as we go through life, we have certain times when weddings happen. We start as kids being either bored because it’s a grown up thing or annoyed that we were not chosen as a bridesmaid, or annoyed that we were chosen as a bridesmaid and we don’t like the dress. Then we have our friends’ weddings, siblings getting married and our own fantastic, best-in-the-world day, followed by the sludge of ordinary married life.  Finally we get to the stage of our kids’ weddings and the remarriages of those friends who are brave enough to try it all again having given up on the first attempt. 2010 saw my eldest niece married on a sunny day on the Isle of Arran in the Clyde estuary, my old friend Frannie tie the knot in Gloucestershire, and my neighbour’s son wed in the Highlands. All three weddings have been splendid, and the memories are in the making.

I had heard myself at the family Christmas party assuring Hazel that it would be my pleasure to provide a tower of cupcakes for the wedding on Arran in May. I then set about setting up a series of randomized controlled trials on cupcake recipes, as I had realised that I would be at a course in England for the week leading up to the wedding, and would therefore have to bake and decorate the cakes in advance and freeze them.

The classic cupcake is not good at freezing. It seizes up and when defrosted shows all the characteristics of a small brick. My neighbours, Chris and Sue, were excellent cupcake testers (they may never want to see another cupcake as long as they live…) and eventually we concluded that to allow storage, the mixture has to have some sort of fruit included. The final 72 cupcakes included banana and choc chip with chocolate icing, carrot with lemon icing, lemon with lemon icing, caramel with caramel icing, and strawberry with strawberry jam inserted into the final cake and decorated with vanilla icing and fresh strawberries. We piled them into flat storage boxes and stored them in my cousin’s freezer before he transported the consignment to Arran. I had a nerve-wracking journey from Cranfield University to Luton Airport, an inevitable late flight, a very expensive taxi journey from Glasgow Airport to Ardrossan (either that or miss the ferry!) and a crowded Friday night boat with half the population of Glasgow descending on the island for the other three weddings taking place on the same weekend.

Hazel had found some lovely antique cake stands, and the cupcakes were decorated with Love Hearts (only the ones saying nice things, like “I’m yours” and “Be mine”), Parma Violets, jelly beans, Smarties and other good old fashioned sweeties. They looked fantastic, and were removed by the guests like snow off a dyke.

The ceilidh band was from Glasgow, and had a mixture of Scottish, Jazz and rock, and the village hall was decorated to a fantastic standard. Fireworks on the beach, orchestrated by the bride’s brother and his partner were undiminished by the late rain, and the backdrop of the sea was splendid.

The Gloucestershire wedding posed the problem of what do you get a couple who have done it all before, have a substantial house each, and really don’t need another toaster. I had the brilliant idea of buying them a tree, and after a long look at every tree in the garden centre in Cambridge, chose a James Grieve apple. Frannie is delighted. She has always been an apple-muncher, and only had the problem of whether to plant it in Gloucestershire or Dorset. She would have gotten an oak, but it was too big for the car, and I think the apple was a better idea anyway. The fact that it was mistaken for the decorations during the ceremony was by the way.

The reception was lovely, with the wedding breakfast the traditional formal meal, but with food chosen by the bride and groom as what they would like to eat if they had gone to the posh hotel for dinner. The children present were not provided with a “chidren’s menu”, but munched their way into quite sophisticated food with very little difficulty. All going to show that the myth of kids only eating fish fingers and burgers is wrong.

Instead of a wedding cake, they had put together a “cheesecake”. Literally, whole cheeses piled on top of one another, and served with the coffee. Delicious, and different.

Here however was the first difference I noticed in these weddings. Everyone sat around the allocated tables, but didn’t know one another that well, and it was difficult to get past the “have you come far?” conversations. An attempt to do so with the bride’s brother met with a rather curt rebuff, so it was easier to talk to some closer friends, so we didn’t really get a chance to speak to many others.

I had found a B&B nearby, on a farm, and discovered that another couple of guests were also staying there, so we shared transport and breakfast – a great farmhouse spread, with home-grown rhubarb and ginger compote and dogs to help.

The highland wedding took place in a tiny church on the shores of Loch Achray, in the Trossachs. The weather had started out wet and windy, and umbrellas, raincoats and other accoutrements had been loaded into the cars. The sun came out in time, and the sight of the groom in kilt and plaid, with his beautiful bride, standing against the backdrop of the loch and the mountains, was spectacular.

We had a first stop at the local hotel, where savoury and sweet canapés, champagne and tea and coffee were served while the photographs were completed outside. Then to the village hall in Brig o’Turk, decorated in a joint effort of the villagers, for the wedding breakfast. The invitation had included a slip asking that choices for the starter and main course be made when the acceptance was sent, so having a reminder of what we had chosen on the back of the placecard helped enormously.

The ceilidh was traditional, with an accordion band. Not my usual choice of music, but they knew the dancing, had the repartee, and got everyone up on the floor quickly. Scottish country dances fall into three categories – Eightsome Reel types, Strip the Willow types, and Two-step types. If you understand that, you can do any dance. Also, they are repetitive, so you just watch the first set and you are off.

Lots of cheese and the moistest wedding cake of the summer served at 10:00pm made us feel that we had been eating all day, and the rendition of Auld Lang Syne at midnight had everyone joining together.

So what do we expect of weddings now? Church or state, home or hotel, ceilidh or formal meal? Does it really matter, as long as the friendship is there, the marriage makes sense, and we have a good day, wherever we are.

I nearly didn’t make it. I’ve been trying to get the The Creel in St Margaret’s Hope for a long time. Last time I was in Orkney they were closed – I was missing the summer season by a weekend – and when I found I would have a car provided for this trip, I immediately made a booking. Plane arrives at 7:00pm, just enough time to dump the bags at the Ayre Hotel, and drive the 15 miles to the southern tip of the Northern Isles for dinner at 8:00pm.

Except that I was trying to get a quilt finished that is due for a wedding present in two weeks’ time, and I had to drop Rumer over to the farm, so it was nearly 3:45 when I started towards Edinburgh. I remembered about the roadworks at Stirling when I was already in the traffic queue, and stuck it out until the GPS said I wasn’t going to get to Edinburgh until 5:20pm for a 5:40pm flight. I then turned round and went the other way. This got me onto the motorway, but I had to do a bit of creative driving and put the car into the really expensive car park. Even then I got the evil eye from the check-in person, and only just got onto the flight.

It was a beautiful evening, with that wonderful light and the wide open skies that show off these islands so well. I love visiting the Northern Isles. I went to Orkney first with my parents at the end of my first year at University, and spent the holiday dissecting trout, because a water fluke was affecting them and my Dad thought I could help find out more about it. St Margaret’s Hope always reminds me of my mother, whose name was Margaret, and we joked about her hoping that Dad would come out with us and not spend all his time fishing.

I now know the origins of the name. Hop is the Norse word for a bay, and in 1290, Margaret, the Maid of Norway, who was the heir to the Scottish throne and betrothed to the son of Edward I of England, died here, aged eight, on her way to England from Norway. This meant of course that the marriage didn’t take place, the crowns of Scotland and England were not joined, Robert the Bruce had to sort out the mess, and the rest is history.

I had to ask to ask directions to The Creel from the Mr Softee van man – he said I would really enjoy it – but there it was on Front Road (as opposed to Back Road) in the pretty and fairly undisturbed village of St Margaret’s Hope. It is an unassuming building that would pass as a run of the mill bed and breakfast, but it has been mentioned by Rick Stein, so my expectations were high.

It has a short menu, two courses £32, three courses £38, and makes no concession to veggies. It’s fish, seafood and meat, and that’s your lot.

I began with crab mayonnaise with avocado salsa, and was pleased when the bread basket had beremeal bannocks and proper butter slabs. Beremeal is the ancient barley meal that is still grown and milled in Birsay. I bought some when I visited there, but my baking with it has been less than successful. These bannocks were light and delicious.

The main course of halibut with a sauce that I overheard the waitress telling someone was made with Noilly Prat came with crushed peas and courgettes plus some proper new potatoes. I say proper because I think they were very local, and they were just right with the fish. I couldn’t resist a pudding, but chose the rhubarb and orange jelly and honeyed yoghurt sorbet – posh jelly and ice-cream really – thinking it would be lighter than the other more robust choices, and also a coffee and “sweets and shortbread” just because I was enjoying the conversation around so much.

The service to me had been very good, but I was watching with some consternation as the three people opposite, whom I had correctly identified as not being related to one another by their body language, were still waiting for their main course when I was being served my desert. We had also had an awkward moment when the older waitress discovered that she had misheard an order and presented the two men at another table with halibut instead of scallops. The chap was one of the few Scots in the room, so I don’t know how she got the wrong word. A full ten minutes elapsed before the correct plate arrived, and by that time the men were discussing the habit in British restaurants – and I agree that this is annoying – of employing teenagers with no experience as waiters and not training them, and the general standard of service found throughout catering. This did not apply at the creel. The waiting staff were charming, knowledgeable and attentive. The mixed order seemed to be a genuine mistake in a busy service, and was corrected efficiently.

The problem of waiting staff in the UK is that all too often it is not regarded as a worthy occupation, and so students think of working in restaurants as something to do in the holidays, with little regard to customer care. My favourite was when celebrating a birthday at a well-known and renowned country pub restaurant in Cambridgeshire. We had ordered a bottle of champagne to be served before lunch, but when it didn’t appear, I went to the bar to ask what had happened. “Oh yes,” said the seventeen year old  “We’re just waiting for someone who knows how to open it”. “You have found someone” I replied, “Hand it over”.

The sunset was just developing when I strolled along Front Road, and the Pentalina had arrived from Gill’s Bay in Caithness. The reds and golds were reflected in a soft sea, and there was peace in the air. The Creel has bedrooms, and I bet the breakfast is good, so maybe I’ll try to stay some time and try the wine list. I do hate having to drive!

The thought came to me as I ate yet another dinner on my own in a Scottish hotel prior to yet another meeting. I am traveling around Scotland – and elsewhere – so much, staying at a variety of hotels and dwelling places, and eating my way through life. Why not create a diary of MY reviews, good or bad, of any stories that stir me to write?

The Caberfeidh in Stornoway has come to my rescue in the past, when I was delayed in Glasgow because of the Icelandic volcanic dust cloud. I eventually got to Porte-aidhre Steornobhaidh long after any vestige of Neil-the-taxi had given up and gone home. Katherine-Mary was there to sort that out, and Neil-the-taxi was duly summoned to take me into town. “And I’ll just phone them at the hotel to keep the kitchen open for you – you’ll be needing your dinner”. And so it was, when I got in to find everyone well into the post-prandials. They came up with a stunning T-bone steak that night, the pepper sauce I had ordered from the menu discarded in favour of the delicious pot of bearnese the chef “thought I would like”. Tonight then I was looking forward to a good meal.

Neil-the-taxi did indeed turn up after a wait of barely ten minutes, and when told I have to go back tomorrow was sorry to say that he wouldn’t be able to bring me to the airport, as he is going to the Black Isle with his daughter. And would I tell them at the Bayhead Clinic that their gutters are dripping onto him (he lives next door) and they will need to fix them before the winter.

I booked dinner for 7:30pm, and ordered a restorative glass of sauvignon blanc while I looked at the menu. The Caberfeidh has gone through several changes in the kitchen, and the current regime is making use of good local produce, including the seafood that the islands have discovered doesn’t all have to be exported to France and Spain. Tonight’s menu included Leurbost mussels in red onion and coriander broth, and pan fried local scallops with mint pea puree, crisp belly pork and apple sauce.  I decided on these as a starter, and the “grill of the day”, venison collops and guinea fowl with dauphinoise potatoes.

The hotel is busy at the time of the year. Many people make the journey from Barra in the South all the way up  the Outer Hebrides, across the waterlands of South Uist and  Benbecula, the higher paths of North Uist and Harris, on into Lewis and then that magnificent sail through the Summer Isles back to Ullapool.  I had a newspaper to read while I waited, and I settled down in the lounge, contemplating my supper. An hour later, I was beginning to think I should give up and walk down to the Thai restaurant in town – one of the best Thai restaurants I have been to, with genius applied to seafood. In the nick of time, I was ushered through, with reassurances and apologies for the delay, to a table way back in the dark recesses of the room! Now, I have been dining as a “single” for many years, and I don’t do dark corners. The restaurant was showing signs of recent heavy use, but there were plenty of tables towards the windows, so I stuck to my guns, and of course, a table miraculously became available.  The view is of the car park, but better than the dark.

The scallops were fresh, but the pea puree was too bitter – a wee bit too much balsamic I think – and the belly pork might just as well have been Ayrshire bacon. None of the juiciness you envisage. The venison was rare to medium, and the guinea fowl tender, with a good selection of veg – asparagus, brocolli, parsnips, the ubiqitous carrot, and rather overdone dauphinoise. I was just deciding whether the sauce was too salty when all hell broke out with the fire alarm going off.  It’s funny how people don’t respond, but just pause and look at one another, daring someone to make a move to the door. From my vantage point by the window, I reckoned that I could step out if the ball of flame appeared through the kitchen door, so I waited to see what would happen. Just as well, as the even more harrassed waiter appeared to tell us that it was the old trick of leaving the bathroom door open when you run the shower – a common problem in hotels.

While signing the tab and forgiving them for the mistakes, I noticed that a fantastic Moet et Chandon ice bucket on the end of the bar, far from delivering champagne, was now the home to two goldfish. What a waste, I thought, until I was informed that Basil and Sybil really like it in there!

We had a great night at the village hall on Saturday, celebrating The Bard. The evening is run each year by the village primary school PTA, and is always a good do.  Very difficult to get tickets, as the whole village attends.

This year the entertainment was provided by one of the village families – Grandad  did the Immortal Memory, son-in-law  gave the Toast to the Lassies, and daughter  the reply.

Son-in-law reminisced about his days at the school. It struck a cord when he described how the children from the remote farms were transported to school in an Austin Maxi driven by a flamboyant character who was Indian in origin.  In those days it was quite normal to have nine children in the car – I remember the same in the ’50s, although in those days the Austin was distinctly more basic (although it probably had the same technical prowess).

The six boys were fascinated by the stories the driver told, of his travels around the world and his exciting family and their exploits. The three girls learned to join in and push the car when it gave up on the steep hills.

He told them about growing up in India, and the beautiful women he knew; of visiting Australia, and the women he had encountered.  A favourite television was Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, and he had a tale of his family eating kangaroo.

He mentioned South America, and the women he met there. Our speaker told us how he had announced that he really loved women, and he really liked Brazillians.

The laughter in the hall was varied. I spotted a friend at the next table, noticing the joke at the very time I started to giggle.  She was immediately nudged by her daughter and told to behave.

At the end of the evening, my friend and I were swapping mirth, when he came over. That was a really good speech we said, but some of the audience didn’t really get the joke. What joke? he said. About the Brazillian. What joke about the Brazillians? Dear Lad, we said patiently, in the context of beautiful women,  what is a Brazillian?  Umm…. someone from Brazil? said our lovely speaker.

Oh, I do love living in the Highlands!

I really must be more consistent in doing this. I suppose I could put it down to time. Or lack of it, but doesn’t everyone?

Anyway, I’ve got back to it now, and will try to stick things on when I can.

I’m winding down to Friday, and a day at home, then Art Garfunkel in Glasgow. Wee Curry Shop as well, so a good Friday night!

It has been a nice week, but lots of driving again. I wanted to take the train to work, but the ONE day I decided to do so the railway was on strike! Another 300 miles on the clock and a very tired IS at the end of that. Rumer stayed home, and had a much better day than I had, running in the woods with Chris.

We had the village fete to raise funds for the new hall last Saturday. It’s going to take quite a while  to get it built if we rely on fetes, but it is a start, and it got people together. We need serious funding for this, but we could have such a good facility for the village. Maybe I should get Pat to be involved, and see if the Norwegian architecture lecturers would like their students to do a Scottish village hall as well as an Indian old people’s home!

I wonder if I can do more than write in this box. What if I added the link to the IRHS website? Let’s see if that would work, then I can send people to look at it. www.ruralhealthindia.org

Now, let’s see what happens!

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