Monthly Archives: March 2013

I am Polish and so “herring” or, more accurately, “sledz”*  is most definitely in my dictionary. Alas, the same can not be said of Dirk Gently** or the major supermarkets, in this area at any rate. Not one had fresh herring fillets or even packs of salted herring. A few had some wretched. small jars of  marinaded herring (I made the mistake of buying one and could not believe how sweet and utterly revolting the contents were).

*(Pron: shledj, the “s” and “z” have accents

**see Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

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I can’t believe it’s been a year since I first participated in the Tarot Blog Hop, hasn’t it flown by? The theme for this Hop is Dancing Between Light and Darkness and the notion that there is a point at which things can be neither one thing nor the other, or both. Initially, this seemed a curious suggestion to me, but it makes a certain kind of sense if you consider that something can be both a hope and a fear or an event can be both a source of joy and of sadness.

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As another Costume day at school dawns, you find me frantically putting finishing touches to the outfit and dressing the Tudor girl. Costume day has sometimes been a royal pain in the proverbial (particularly back in the days when you were only given about a week’s notice to frantically knock out a suitable period outfit), but on this occasion (and despite being very busy) I’ve loved it. Tudor is one of my favourite clothing periods (along with Medieval and Victorian) as it has such a variety of sumptuous loveliness and lots of interesting underpinnings and accessories. DD and I had lots of fun making and stuffing the bum roll and selecting pearls, trims and fabrics for the outfit. Sadly, I didn’t have time to make her a penner for her quill and ink, but we managed the rest of the outfit just about in time.

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Clockwise from top: Cubeb, Long and standard Black peppercorns

I was unfeasibly excited to discover a while ago that Waitrose now stock several different types of pepper in their spice section, including Cubebs (Piper cubeba) and Long Pepper (Piper longum). The reason for my excitement is that many varieties of pepper that we regard as exotic today were commonly referred to in Medieval recipes* and the particular spice blend, Poudre Fort, which is used in many Medieval savoury dishes includes several of these exotic peppers. Poudre Fort** does not have a specific recipe as such, it’s kind of a Savoury Mixed Spice of its time and so the constituents will have varied depending on the cook (or his/her Lord’s) preference, but broadly the mix contains pepper, cloves, cinnamon and ginger.

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…is obviously worth far more than two in the bush. ‘A dumpling, a dumpling, my kingdom for a dumpling’ and so on. Clearly with the cold weather upon us and Pancake Day no more than a distant memory, we still crave comfort food, so let us celebrate the dumpling in all its cultural diversity. The English favour the stodgy suet dumpling, an unstuffed ball which is robust enough to prop up the meatiest stew. The Chinese have Won Ton, the Japanese Gyoza, the Italians have Ravioli, to name but a few, but the Poles have Pierogi, which, quite frankly, knock the rest into a cocked hat.* (more…)