Jane Brocket's Blog, page 62

conflation cake

 

'Conflation' is one of those buzz academic words like 'project', 'performativity' and 'to privilege' that I can understand but never use. Abstract words you don't often hear people actually saying but which permeate academic books and journals, words that sound as though they make sense but whose meanings are,  in fact, very difficult to pin down and define. I'm not fond of these verbal posings that make many readers feel simple and definitely not part of the clique who say they can not only read Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Roland Barthes and Julia Kristeva et al but also understand them. (I find them unreadable.)

 

 

So my first and last use of the word 'conflation' occurs here with my conflated cake. Tea and cake are meant to go together, and this is tea cake in which the fruit is soaked in tea overnight before being mixed with eggs, flour and sugar and baked in a loaf tin. It turns out beautifully, slices well, and lasts a few days. My recipe is a conflation of Delia Smith's recipe in her Book of Cakes and Nigella Lawson's recipe in Feast, two books that could, and no doubt have been, deconstructed and made to serve some terrifying sociological theory by someone who never bakes.

some corner

 

To paraphrase  Rupert Brooke, there is some corner of Stockport that is forever filled with crocuses.

 

And this is some corner. It's at the junction of an ordinary suburban road, very close to where I was born and grew up, and for as long as I can remember it has been a sight to behold at this time of year. I have no idea who planted all these large Dutch crocuses or how often they are replanted or even whether these are the offspring of bulbs that were put in when I was tiny, but they make a quite wonderful triangle of regal white and purple and gold in a completely unexpected location, and a touching declaration of public gardening faith. Yesterday, I couldn't drive past them without taking a photograph; in the spring sunshine this is as beautiful a corner of England as you could hope to find anywhere.

updates

 

[today]

Crocus update: open-faced and cheerful, this is what has become of the bulbs I planted in October.

 

[today]

 
[October last year]

Book update: The Gentle Art of Knitting will be published on May 4th and there will be a book event later in May at Loop. All very exciting.

Update on knitting book update: Still can't quite believe it's happening.

Reading update: Enjoying Bricks and Mortar for the second time. It takes enormous skill to weave so much serious architectural detail into the telling of an architect's life without digressing so far that the reader is lost, but Helen Ashton manages it, and makes me want to work hard to visualise each building she describes. Plus, it's a wonderful family story.



[Edward Thomas by E.O. Hoppé]

Out and about update: The Hoppe exhibition at the NPG is good but I didn't find it as stunning as the Irving Penn exhibition. The Studio part was fascinating - wonderful to see so many portraits of eminent figures such as Einstein and Hardy plus the most beautiful photo of one of my favourite poets, Edward Thomas. The Society part was lost on me as I know nothing of the ballet dancers and theatrical people of the 1920s. But the Street section was brilliant; Hoppé's photos are so immediate and fresh that it's still amazingly easy to identify with the scenes and people he captured all those years ago.

Good finds update: Looking for stitching threads other than the standard Anchor/DMC six-strand cotton, I was directed (by someone working in the haberdashery department of Liberty) to Delicate Stitches which is part of the London Bead Company. Now the shop might be in Kentish Town, unpretty and badly lit, but it is crammed with beautiful threads and has everything a stitcher could possibly need/desire. It puts Liberty and John Lewis with their paltry and patchy selection of threads to shame.

Blog update: I have switched off the comments for the time being as I am having real problems with annoying spam. Further updates will be given.

never say never

 
So, famous last words and all that. This is what happens when you decide to challenge yourself to find a more enjoyable expression of cross stitch in happier times. I was playing with a wonderfully old-fashioned alphabet when Phoebe asked if I'd stitch her name with it. Well, if you can't have your name in lights, you can at least have your name in cross stitch.

We are on half-term here and I think my PC decided it would take a break, too. So it just gave up on Sunday, had to go off to be repaired, and has come back denuded and very wobbly. Unfortunately, it was such a wipe-out that I have lost my entire email in-box (it has disappeared completely so I can't access it even from a different PC or iPhone). I know there were emails that were waiting to be dealt with, so I am very sorry if you don't hear from me. I also lost my very long 'favourites' sidebar which initially seemed like a disaster, but in fact there is something very liberating being without a PC for a while and having to start all over again when it comes back. Or not, as the case might be, because an enforced break gives you more time to stitch daft cross stitch samplers.

ancient and modern

 

[A glimpse of Paradise from the Cloisters]

I am working on some projects that require vast amounts of time sitting down and sitting still. For a naturally slothful person this may sound like heaven, but in fact it's causing so much back-ache and stooping when I get up and walk that I look like Quasimodo's twin sister. So yesterday I decided I needed a day off the office chair/settee, and some fresh air and back-straightening exercise. Fittingly for a female Quasimodo, I visited two cathedrals, one ancient and one modern, and both utterly beautiful.

 

Chichester Cathedral is very, very old but has all sorts of modern additions such as an enormous John Piper tapestry, a rich red Marc Chagall stained-glass window and complementary painting by Graham Sutherland. I took a copy of An Arundel Tomb by Philip Larkin to read in situ, maybe even where he and Monica stood next to the tomb, and I was once again struck by the modernity of his poetry and the ancientness of his themes.

 

Guildford Cathedral is comparatively very modern. Where the entrance to Chichester Cathedral is boxed in so that if you step back a few paces to photograph it you are likely to come up against the city wall, Guildford Cathedral has a dramatically long and wide approach to its hilltop position and is lit up at night like a beacon (or massive Odeon Cinema). From its huge, red brick, very 1930s exterior, it's hard to tell what it might be like inside, and indeed it is a revelation: plain, simple pale stone, filled with lovely light, and breathtakingly soaring and bold. Pevsner described it as 'sweet-tempered, undramatic Curvilinear Gothic'. (I love reading Pevsner and his often short and brusque dismissals of  what I consider to be worthy buildings, but sometimes I agree completely. He called Chichester Cathedral 'the most typical English cathedral' - I'll take his word for it.)

   

My backbone stiffened by contact with such glorious examples of English architecture, I also managed a visit to the wonderful Pallant House Gallery which has a very cleverly curated exhibition that features some beautiful, often disturbing, craftsmanship. I've said it before, but this is a very unusual gallery which is a joy to walk round because every single room contains at least one gem, often many. Then on to The Eternal Maker where the fabrics seem to be taking over the space; so much Japanese fabric that I circled the shop until I went quite dizzy.

 
[Victorian Chaise by Squint]

It was good for the back, but all this culture, ancient and modern, left me no option but to come home and resume my Elizabeth Barrett Browing position on the sofa, although I feel I am earning the sitting rights to a chaise longue, preferably one from Squint that combines the ancient shape with a very modern upholstery treatment.

 

tulips and twins

 

Very few people realise Tom and Alice are twins. We have never referred to them as 'the twins' and they have always been in separate classes and, later, schools. (Even when they were at the same school, a few teachers didn't know they were twins.) So I find it odd to even talk about  them as twins as they are simply Tom and Alice, two very different individuals who share a birthday.

 

Today we are celebrating with flowers, while they celebrate with legal IDs, and a great feeling of power now that they can vote/get married without our permission/see an 18 film/buy fireworks/get a tattoo (Alice's favourite threat - just so she can watch my reaction). The day before they were born, Simon bought me masses of tulips but I never got to see them properly because I went to hospital in the middle of the night, shaking like a leaf and not quite ready to see our babies. Ever since then he has made sure there are lots and lots of tulips for me to enjoy looking at on the 14th February.

 

Yesterday, we got up early and went to Columbia Road flower market and bought dozens of orange, peach, purple and pink tulips so that the house would be filled with reminders of eighteen years ago. We had breakfast at Albion which is a fantastic, smart version of an East End caff with the best, most almondy almond croissants we have ever tasted. Tea comes in proper Brown Betty teapots, water in enamel jugs, crockery in golden syrups tins, and you can read the Sunday newspapers with your bacon and eggs. All very civilised.

 

We baked two whopping chocolate cakes last night which involved plenty of competitive decorating, but I couldn't get photographs as it was too dark. Let's just say it's amazing the effects you can create with Creme Eggs, Kit-Kats, Minstrels and Maltesers and a huge slathering of chocolate buttercream. The results were very Willy Wonka; I feel that no-one is ever too old for a Willy Wonka birthday cake, and most certainly not two newly-minted adults. 

happy (unfinished) ending

 

Twenty two years ago, I was told I had a less than five per cent chance of getting pregnant naturally. I had had no idea that a childhood illness had caused so much damage, so it was a huge shock. That summer I had major tubal surgery which meant a week in hospital and generally being a delicate little flower for six weeks. I knew I wouldn't be able to knit easily as I need to sit up straight in a chair for that, and decided that I would use the time profitably and try something new. I have no idea no why I chose cross stitch, but I suppose I thought it wouldn't be difficult to hold in bed, and I suspect I was seduced by the rows of vegetables in a lovely design by Barbara Thompson.

 

This week I looked at the unfinished piece again; every time I have come across it since 1989 I have wondered why I haven't thrown it away, what with its incompleteness and clear reminder of my cross stitching incompetence. Don't get me wrong; I loved the design, but hated cross stitch. I found it well nigh impossible to match a square on a printed chart to a square on the canvas (that might have been something to do with the anaesthetic, I now realise) and couldn't believe how slowly the whole thing progressed.

 

And yet I look at this now, and wonder why I thought it was so bad. My stitching is fine, the lines and spacing are correct, the carrots have feathery tops and the peas are in their pods, and I didn't make the pumpkin purple or the radishes blue in my spaced out condition. I think the answer must lie in the fact that it became the repository for all my frustrations and upset at what was happening. I felt everything was wrong with the world, so nothing was ever going to be right in my little garden (shades of Voltaire's Candide here).

With the benefit of a happy ending, I can now see that cultivating this patch was a small act of faith. (I daren't think how I would view it now if I hadn't had children - now doubt it would have been chucked a long time ago.) It still makes me smile, thinking how it infuriated me, how cross I got with my cross stitch, and how much I wanted it, like the surgery, to be a succeess.

In spring 1992 we started IVF treatment and Tom and Alice who were due on 9.3.93 (good date) arrived on Valentine's Day instead (even better date) and in 1995 Phoebe was the baby who defied all obstacles and predictions. If I'd been born a few years earlier none of this would have happened. I am one of the lucky ones, very grateful that I didn't have to do any more cross stitch.

cake

 

Teenagers tend to like the comforts of bed and home, particularly on a Sunday morning. But I have discovered a way of getting them moving: invite them to taste cake in a couple of London's best cake destinations. That certainly got the bedclothes thrown back and, in less than 30 minutes, we had two teenagers dressed and ready to go.

I'd wanted to visit the Peggy Porschen Parlour since I'd heard about it last October. It's on one of London's very tasteful streets (so clean I actually noticed the lack of litter), and it stands out because it is well and truly and undeniably pink. The curved corner building looks like one of Peggy's amazing cakes, with the signature chocolate brown dots and details resembling the decoration. Even the elegant white chairs outside could be made of sugar paste.

Inside it's all ultra-tasteful. It's only small and quite hushed, so we did feel that four of us filled the place and needed to watch our ps and qs. It's an object lesson in perfect presentation: the white/pink/brown scheme which is carried on throughout, the merchandise, the  exquisitely tall glass cake stands and, of course, the cakes themselves which were, after all, what we were there for.

Well, what can I say, except that this is a parellel cake universe in which cupcake frosting is never slathered on but piped to peaking perfection then finished with a sweet candy flower, in which layer cakes are never wonky but have spirit-level straight lines and an architectural structure that might require a set-square to achieve.

It was all quite a contrast to Baker & Spice down the road where the inverse applies: appearances counts for little, and rustic plainness equates to fabulous textures and taste. We tried a generous slice of damp carrot cake and a meltingly moussey brownie on a crumbly shortbread base.  This place is relaxed and friendly, service is smiley and helpful, and the offer of a cookie each to take home was the metaphorical icing on the cake. (We also bought a couple of their wonderful breads.)

Neither place is cheap as they both use top quality ingredients with passion and flair. One will please the eye and one will most definitely please the palate, and both will get stay-a-bed teenagers out of the house.

 

how high

 

Someone will be going to the ball, or at least her eighteenth birthday party, in heels she has worked so many hours in Boots (how apt) to buy. (I've never thought that the answer to 'how high are your shoes?' might be 'three nail varnishes high'.)

[Although I am tall with large feet, height and foot genes are distributed quite randomly in our family. One nearly 18 year old twin is is 6'2" with size 11 feet, the other is 5'3", with size 5 feet.]

 

rummaging

 

I love a good rummage. I might even admit that out loud in company if I didn't think it sounded faintly rude. The fact remains, though, that rummaging of every sort is undoubtedly good therapy, and fabric rummaging is particularly enjoyable at this colour-deprived time of year.

 

I don't have an enormous fabric stash, but it is big enough for a rummage. I keep my fabrics in a chest of drawers; teenagers think the floor is where clothes are kept and never put stuff away, so I thought I might as well appropriate some unused storage capacity for myself. 

Whilst transferring my collection a little while ago I had the rummage to end all rummages and spent hours playing and sorting on the floor (I'm still a teenager at heart). I had a wonderful time deciding which fabrics worked with which, opening them out, piling them up, creating mixes, identifying themes. And then, when my bedroom looked like a colourful version of the teenagers' hovels, I carefully created little hand-tied bundles that might, in the future, turn into quilts, and filled the drawers with them.

 

Yesterday, I needed some fabrics for a project and went to the drawers and was surprised by how thorough and well-organised I had been. The time invested in rummaging has paid dividends; I have done the hard work of seeing connections and colour schemes, and all I need to do now is have a very sophisticated rummage of my bundles rather than flinging the contents out cartoon-style and making a knee-deep sea of fabric. So now I can find domestic reds together, discover that cerise pink and chestnut brown work beautifully, revisit a variation on a favourite vintage dusty blue and yellow theme, consider the possibility of sky blue and tangerine together, and be persuaded that a white, pink and black quilt must be made. 

 
 

It makes me think there might be a market for a book called The Joy of Rummaging. 

Fabrics mostly from  Cia's Palette, The Eternal Maker, Purl, The Cotton Patch, eQuilter and Glorious Color.