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.
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.
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.
…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…)
Jif Lemon Day, as my friend Viv calls it, is upon up again and I must admit that although I have both lemon and lime juice in my fridge, it is unlikely that I’ll be using it today. We will be having pancakes for dinner, but something a little more substantial than lemon and sugar is required for a main course. There seems to be a peculiar notion in this country that pancakes are a sweet dish, whereas there are so many possibilities to stuff them with savoury fillings. To this end, I’ll be making chilli later and we’ll be having that in pancakes, topped with cheese and sour cream. The plan was to have chilli with rice on Monday and use the matured and slightly drier leftovers for the pancakes today, but the perpetual chicken* has made everything slip again.
*lasting a record 6 days (8 elapsed thanks to a Chinese New Year takeaway on Friday and an indulgent Rugby pizza on Sunday)
We are constantly being conned by advertising, however savvy we think we are about such things. Whether it is the latest must-have gadget or the game that everyone is playing or some new fad or other that a year ago we wouldn’t have been seen dead in/with, but now the Jo Celeb has endorsed it, we must have one too. Yes, we are all suckered in to that herd mentality of believing the hype somewhere along the line. I don’t give a stuff about celebrity endorsement (I don’t even know who half of them are anyway) and if everyone is wearing/doing it, I’d rather not be, so I do not fall for such things. So how did I get caught, you ask? Simply this: believing that buying bags for a vacuum cleaner was an inconvenience, at least, a greater inconvenience than getting covered in dust every time I have to empty a bagless one.
I have noticed that the leftovers bandwagon is trundling along nicely at present. All the big foodie blogs are writing about how to use up your leftovers, as if the idea of doing so was some amazing, new and previously unconsidered discovery. As far as this household is concerned, NOT throwing away food is the norm, as it was when I was growing up. Maybe the odd, almost empty jar of something that has been lurking at the back of the fridge or cupboard gets tossed out occasionally, but otherwise it is only packaging and bones that end up in the bin.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. It seems rather bizarre to me to suppose that my will and determination would be significantly stronger on any given date over any other. Neither do I see the point in waiting until the New Year to begin something – if one has already decided to do it, why wait?
The closest I came to a New Year resolution was to have a dry January, for economic and detox reasons to recover slightly from the excesses of the Christmas holidays. I admit I have fallen off the wagon to the tune of two pints thus far, (I made it six days, including New Year’s Day) I will not go in to the reasons, but I’m fine with them and still broadly sticking to the alcohol-free plan, despite continuing to be sorely tried by ongoing and, as yet, unresolved plumbing issues.
What a year 2012 has been for water related incident. We kicked off with hosepipe bans due to the dry winter and finished off with it being the wettest year on record. You may recall the photo on the right from my Facebook feed. It is from Kelmarsh in July, one of several events rained, or should I say flooded off, though none quite as spectacularly as the river that appeared there overnight and ran straight through some people’s tents (fortunately, not ours, though we did have a couple of inches of standing water at one end). On balance, I think an ark might have been more use than a tent this year. Certainly, my rather perished and under-utilised old wellies were not much use at Kelmarsh and I had to buy new ones which did get a lot of use subsequently. I am also now the proud owner of a long waxed coat as my “water-proof” wasn’t very effective and did nothing to keep my legs dry.
Welcome to the Yule Tarot Blog Hop. The theme du jour is “Christmas Present” – a topic that I have no doubt has yielded diverse and interesting posts from our wonderful collection of bloggers. You can find links at the bottom of the page back to the lovely (and prolific) Chloe’s Lenormand Blog forward to Joanne’s Tarot blog or back to Alison’s master list of all the hoppers.
Life is short and at this time of year the days make it seem even shorter. As we hurtle towards the outbreak of festivities with joy, dread, mild panic or all three, perhaps it is time to take a moment to reflect. Alternatively, if you have no time, no time, no time (oops, mild panic creeping out there), and the world has not, in fact, ended as predicted today, you can always wait until the main event is over and you are quietly thanking providence for surviving the food, family and festivities in a warm, overfed and alcoholic glow.
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