Stir Up Sunday

I hadn’t worked towards this particular day to make my Christmas cakes but having put the fruit to soak in a good sized splosh of rum (or two)  a couple of days ago, it was time to get on with it, for sure.  Whenever I bake my cakes, I think of my Nan, who made them for all the family and for whom it was a major operation.

She sensibly prepared everything over a few days, gathering the ingredients over some weeks before, stretching her housekeeping money to cover what were expensive ingredients.  She’d have to wash and pick over her dried fruits, taking out stones and stems; an extra step in the already lengthy process.

In particular, she’d take trouble to line her baking tins well.  No such thing as baking parchment, she’d cut greaseproof paper and use the wrappers from the butter pats to grease the tins well.  I simply grabbed a bit of kitchen roll and gave them a quick once over with a bit of butter before getting out the non stick paper and trimming it to fit.  But always, at this point, I wish that I’d done this yesterday, or even last evening, because it’s a niggly little job and has to be done properly.

At least it gave me time to get the butter warmed up and softened, ready to cream.  My Nan wouldn’t have stored her butter in a fridge, so it might not have been such a preoccupation for her – except that her small kitchen often felt like a fridge in cold weather! 

The lovely aroma of demerara sugar is the prompt for the first of my small anxieties.  It’s one time when I’m envious of Karin’s new Kitchen Aid and when I wonder if I really ought to have kept Mummy’s Kenwood Chef, because all of that sugar needs to be creamed into the butter.

It’s hard work, even with a powerful hand mixer, and this is the part when I consider the serious work my Nan put into those cakes, doing it all by hand.  But it needs to be done and as I work, I keep an eye out for the hard little lumps of sugar and crush them in between my thumb and forefinger as I go.  (It’s a good excuse to take a little break, and rest my arm!)  The beaten eggs go in next and I’m relieved that my mixer is still going – if feeling a little hot!

I sift the flour and spices into the mixture and decide that not only is it time to go back to Nan’s way of working and put the mixer aside, but it’s also time to dispense with the rubber spatula and get out the good, strong, reliable wooden spoon to fold in that flour.  The mixture is pretty stiff and there’s a lot of flour to work in.

At last, it’s time to get out the little red, gold and black tin – the only time of the year it comes out, it seems.  Someone, somewhere had a disaster with black treacle, so now it comes with a stern message about using before the expiry date which makes me cautious about keeping it too long.  There’s the other inevitable consequence of Christmas baking too – a handful of bald citrus fruits!

Having added all the ingredients now, it’s time to give the whole thing a good mix and give my Hero a call – yes, my arm is getting tired, but it’s also time to stir and wish.

I read the traditions of Stir up Sunday this morning and learned for the first time that it’s supposed to be stirred from the East to the West.  Hmmm.  Since we stir in a circle, I guess that’s covered already, isn’t it?  Anyway, we each had a stir, we each made a wish and that was that.

All that remained was to divide the mixture between the two tins, to wrap the baking tins in newspaper to prevent the sides from scorching

and to give each a little greaseproof paper hat to protect the top from a similar fate.  The oven as been on all morning and remarkably, I’ve remembered to arrange the shelves so both cakes will fit in!

All that’s left is the washing up.  Not the great big, heavy stoneware bowls my Nan would have used, and thankfully, with plenty of hot water and modern detergent to wash up in, it’s quickly done.

But as I turn around, I spot something.

Guess who forgot to put in the chopped almonds?

Will anyone notice?  Probably not – unless you tell them!

Be impressed

I did a little warm up first.

 

Because, it really wasn’t that easy to fold!

(the pattern can be found here)

Thanks to all you enabling friends who have sent me to internet paper heart weaving sites I’d never have found without your help!

Interesting

I’ve just come home from my second visit to Whole Foods in Cheltenham.  I’d booked for two of us to have a bit of make up fun around lunchtime, so of course, we did a bit of shopping whilst we were there.  In particular, I was keen to get some more of the yummy peanut butter and have a better look around, now the crowds have died down.

As I walked past the bakery, I discovered the answer to a previous question.

Regardless of the price of apple pie, the level of service in the store surpasses all expectations.  An enquiry about farro (following Nigella’s use of the grain in a kind of risotto recently) sent a staff member in search of the answer.  He not only took me to the shelf with spelt on it, he placed a red sticker on the box and offered it to me “on the house” - “give it a try and let us know how you get on”.

We also approve of any supermarket that has prosecco on tap in the cafe ;-)

Balancing

I am a great believer in life-work balance.  Without some purposeful work to do, I am lost and drift around with no real direction.  However tempting I might find the idea of having empty days to fill with whatever activity my heart desires, I know the reality is not quite as might be imagined.  But after a week of days filled with work-related activity, time spent with friends is especially sweet.

On Monday, I met a couple of friends for lunch.  It’s not that we don’t see one another often – we connect through our book group, through WI and bump into one another fairly often.  But we don’t sit down and chat very often and spending a couple of hours around a table and a plate of good food is a lovely chance to catch up on all the things there isn’t usually time to talk about.  The three of us go back a long way – the two of them even longer – and simple chat about families and domestic details is surprisingly therapeutic.  We smiled when it came to settling up though, recognising the inevitable conclusion to any meal shared by women…

  

I enjoyed a day at home on Tuesday, pottering about trying to work out how to fold those little hearts on this website.  The Froebel stars are well established in my mind now and though I need a small refresher each year, I’ve soon got them sorted.  But the hearts were another thing altogether.

Thankfully, the answer was at hand.  I’d arranged to meet my sweet Danish friend Marianne yesterday and took along a bag of paper strips and the challenge. However, in spite of her years of practice making such things, that little folded heart still proved tricky, so we passed the problem on by leaving the challenge with Mogens and buzzed off into Cardiff!

It was the most beautiful afternoon with a clear blue sky and not many people about.  Crafts in the Bay was as intriguing as always – though I looked for a bag by the same maker as Jane bought in the summer, sadly there were none to be seen.  Jane, you have a truly unique work of art there!   Curiously, both Marianne and I had both bought pieces of work by Mandy Nash on previous visits though preparations for the upcoming exhibition were underway and we weren’t able to see the full range of her work.

Being with another “visual” person is such fun: Marianne spotted these two cranes over the other side of the bay and wondered what their argument had been about?!

When we arrived back, not only had Mogens sorted out the process of making the folded heart, he had found a couple of websites for me, too.  One has a clear tutorial for this little heart and the other one includes a video for this folded design as well as for the simpler hearts which open as baskets.  Of course, both are in Danish but hey, we visual learners can cope, can’t we!?

What a hero! 

These two Danish paper folding experts inspired a few more challenges then.  Not only do I need a bit of practice with the small hearts, I’ve also discovered some variations on the other folded heart theme.  Such like minded friends simply fire one another on to further inspiration, don’t we, Jordi!?

  

So, this morning, before meeting some friends for lunch (yes, the fun week continues!) I followed Mogens excellent explanations and had a go myself.  My first attempt wasn’t too bad – but wasn’t too good either.

My second attempt was better.  The jury is still out on how to finish the ends off though.  Yesterday, we sneered at the video version which cut them off rather short we felt and thinking about it, favoured the further tucking and securing method.  I found this tricky this morning though, and may seek alternatives!  However, in true Elegant Sufficiency style, I hadn’t chosen the most sympathetic type of paper to work with.  The Canson Papier Calque Couleur (bought in France) looks divine and folds beautifully crisply but rips rather more easily than ordinary paper. 

Practice needed.  But I very nearly achieved my usual goal of doing it perfectly in the first five minutes ;-)

Thank you Marianne and Mogens for being enablers of the best kind!

11am, November 11th

We’ve been with our friends in Lancashire this weekend, to hear a performance by the Lytham St Annes Choral Society.  Post concert supper and chatter usually makes for a late night and a Sunday morning stroll along the seafront has become part of the routine.

 

This Sunday morning was rather different though, because instead of taking our seafront walk, we decided to join the community Remembrance event in the park.  The seafront and the area in front of the pier was the assembly point for the procession to the war memorial and seeing the numbers of people gathering there, we thought we’d head straight for the park and await their arrival.

It’s a beautiful park and the war memorial is a stunning centrepiece.  Our walks have often taken us through the gardens  and back through the town and we always admire the immaculate maintenance and real spirit of community which is apparent here.  Yesterday, however, we found ourselves with rather more people than we’d expected, for this service of remembrance was going to be very well supported.

We found ourselves a great spot on a little hill overlooking the memorial – references to Spion Kop came to our minds, the original being perhaps a little more relevant than how it’s more usually used today. 

We were standing behind a small family, who well represented the crowd who’d gathered there, because it wasn’t only the old-timers and the community groups who’d turned out for this event and by the time we heard the drum beat of the band leading the procession, it was hard to see where everyone was going to fit in.

But squeeze in they did and with a bit of shuffling and side-stepping, all were assembled, ready to begin with precision timing.  The Chaplain said a prayer, a hymn was sung (to the accompaniment of a superb brass band) and we listened to a Bible reading.  There remained just time for “an older person” and “a younger person” to lead the Act of Remembrance, the bugler to play the Last Post and the two minutes silence at 11am precisely.

As we stood watching the wreaths being laid, others were standing to pay their respect from the steps of the care homes and hotels across the road.  I knew that my friend Maureen would be laying a wreath of poppies on behalf of my WI at the war memorial in the small Norman church at home and that all over the country, at this very moment, others were standing quietly watching, thinking.

Remembering.