Cornflower

Recondite recipes

     Over at Books do furnish a room, Lindsay has been talking about that nourishing delicacy calves' foot jelly, commonly made by those ministering to invalids in novels which also feature smelling salts.
Here's the man himself at dinner recently choosing his pudding to match his clothing: strawberry tempura with chocolate sauce complemented our hero's pink linen shirt, captured ineptly in the far-from-up-to-scratch photograph. Having cooked for Lindsay for many years - not as his personal chef, I hasten to add - I know he enjoys good food (though his taste in beverages is suspect...), so I've offered to make the calves' foot jelly if he will agree to eat it. I've consulted Andre Simon's A Concise Encyclopedia of Gastronomy and found a recipe which involves a five hour simmer and the use of egg shells for clarifying purposes with sherry and lemon for flavouring, then there's this one which requires isinglass: "an expensive, pure form of gelatin found in the swim bladders of sturgeon", according to Kate Colquhoun's most enticing Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking which I've been dipping into with great interest.


     Agnes Jekyll (sister-in-law of the more famous Gertrude) gives a recipe for Natural Meat Jelly in her wonderful Kitchen Essays in the section titled "For the too fat". !
Moving swiftly on, permit me a digression from the jelly theme to quote Mrs. Jekyll on cake. For a festive occasion, she suggests her "Super-Chocolate Cake", which is very similar to this one but includes sal volatile (for its leavening properties, I think, rather than its revivifying ones) and then she follows that with something a little less decadent and extravagant, describing its ideal consumers thus: "Lest this last calls for a reproach from the thrifty, here is a nice useful cake suited to the Rector's five o'clock call, or the ladies of the local political organisation in conclave....." Would that I could assign a similar 'target market' to the baking posts here at Cornflower.

Back to Kate Colquhoun, and returning neatly to where we started, she mentions an addition to the seventeenth century pantry: "Isinglass was joined by the extraordinary gelling qualities of a new ingredient: hartshorn, shavings from the antlers of deer that were also used in the production of ammonia for smelling salts".

     So, while I put the butcher on standby with the calves' feet and check to see if our local Waitrose is fully stocked in the "Recherche Items" line, I'll await your pleasure, Lindsay!

 

Seeing ghosts

     An enthralling account of a very unusual and symbiotic working relationship, Jennie Erdal's memoir Ghosting: A Double Life tells of her many years as translator, editor and amanuensis to a well-known and flamboyant London publisher. Although her employer's identity is no secret, he is referred to throughout the book as "Tiger", while she in turn was always "Beloved", and theirs was not an ordinary partnership. She became his ghostwriter, producing articles, interviews, and eventually novels, all of which appeared under Tiger's name. The effort was a collaborative one, though the hard grind of putting the words on paper and adopting a male perspective was her job alone, never acknowledged publicly nor even in private where Tiger talked only of "us" and "we", never "you".

    The book is at times highly comic, affecting and, ultimately, very sad. Tiger supported his right-hand woman when her personal life was in crisis, and though he was obsessive, impossibly demanding, fastidious and tiresome, she seems to have developed a great affection for him, and there's a warm side to the story which occasionally thaws the cooler 'distance' from which she tends to write. But in the end, enough was enough, and when Jennie resigned, Tiger announced his retirement from literary life. The book's final sentence says it all: "Things would never be different again".

    For all his faults, the bold and brilliant Tiger dazzles. The writer herself - perhaps too practised in concealing her true identity - is harder for the reader to grasp, and I sensed a lot left unsaid. Of course any book of this type must be selective in its content, but there was a striking contrast between longish passages about her childhood, the relevance of which was often social commentary, and puzzlingly little about her adult life outwith work. Beyond that, precisely what she felt and thought about this extraordinary man and what she did for him remains shiftingly obscure. That said, this is a book I read with pleasure and would read again; the ghost might then become more visible.

Do admit!

   

 

     A hectic afternoon and evening yesterday dashing hither and yon. I'm far from being a social butterfly but I had several places to be as well as things to do at home in between so it was all a bit of a scurry. The highlight of the day - far and away - was to see the wonderful Deborah Devonshire, dowager duchess, youngest Mitford, "Debo" herself, in conversation with Magnus Linklater and Charlotte Mosley on the subject of Charlotte's book The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. This was a huge treat for me (and Simon, you'd have loved it, too) as she was everything I'd expected and more. It is to my great regret that though I stood in the signing queue after the event for quite some time I had to leave before I reached its head so I didn't get to meet her, and I mind that, I really do!

     Accused by her sister Nancy of being illiterate, she was nonetheless suspected by family and friends of being a secret reader, and while others pretend to have read books they haven't so much as opened, Debo pretends not to have read a great deal she actually has. But joking apart, she's a consummate businesswoman (naming Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Ginger and Pickles as the best book on retailing ever written) and a woman of immense natural funniness and straightforward charm. 

     I'm in danger of boring my family by constantly trying to read aloud to them excerpts from the letters while being unable to speak for laughing. The editor's job must have been extraordinarily difficult as the book's 800 pages reproduce only a tiny percentage of the 12,000 letters (yes, that figure is correct) the sisters sent one another, but they wrote so well and with such wit, warmth and candour that compiling it must have been a hugely enjoyable task.

     To whom does Debo write now, I wonder, as her sisters are all gone, and what would her parents, the famous Muv and Farve, make of the intense interest in - and even industry surrounding - their daughters' lives?

   

Not cricket

    Just down the road from Cornflower HQ, Scotland and England are playing cricket in a one day international. You can keep up with the score and commentary here, though by the look of the weather there may not be any play as it's raining pretty steadily and the light is poor. Had it been a glorious summer's day I'd have enjoyed a spell at the ground to watch the match and would have taken some of these muffins, fresh from the oven, by way of a picnic.


    They are courgette, spring onion and cheddar muffins, quick and straightforward to make, and very tasty. I'd add some cayenne pepper to them next time, but otherwise would stick to the recipe as given.


The rain has eased a bit but it looks as though we'll be picnicing inside today.

Later: Having seen the score, it's probably just as well. Oh dear.

Plot points

     A very entertaining evening at the Book Festival yesterday in the company of two writers whose books I haven't read (yet) but who were so engaging in their own right that they are way up on the TBR list. Gregory Norminton was new to me. He read the opening passage of his latest novel, Serious Things, and he'd drawn in the audience in moments. I rushed home to look up his back catalogue and found that his range is impressive and intriguing, and I've added Ghost Portrait to my wishlist, too. Sophie Hannah's work I did know by reputation - a fine one - and she read from her most recent novel The Point of Rescue. Her thrillers (many will know Little Face and Hurting Distance already) describe ordinary people in desperate situations, reacting in ways they would never normally contemplate, and as such, plot is key to her books.
     For Gregory Norminton, the character is their fate, though slow revelations drive the book (and he says he gets good ideas while in the bath!), but Sophie Hannah maintains that no matter how interesting a character is, they must be doing something interesting, so plot is all-important. Narrative satisfaction is paramount for Sophie, and she looks to find a mystery which she can solve along with her protagonists, preparing a 50 page dossier with every aspect of the story mapped out before she begins to write the book.
    There was a discussion of literary influences and inspirations, and these ranged from J.G. Ballard's short stories to Enid Blyton's Secret Seven books (a great place to start for the young, aspiring crime writer, apparently) and on to Agatha Christie and more recently Barbara Vine's A Dark-adapted Eye which Sophie says has "perfect shape and clear rhythm", as in a poem.
    The event was very good-humoured, lively and much enjoyed by an appreciative audience who will have come away enthusing  - and surely that's the point!   
   

Cutting room

 

 

     It may not always look like it but a degree of editing does go on here at Cornflower.  Sometimes a planned post doesn't materialise due to external factors, or my day is so fragmented I don't have time to write what I'd intended; at other times I'll scrap a piece because I think it may not be interesting/good/professional enough to appear. Today has been a mixture of all the above. You might have had a report on a writer whose book festival event made me think I wouldn't want to read their work (very unusual that, and I'm naming no names...), or some photographs which were refusing to be arranged as I want them and whose theme wasn't working, or me in perplexed/prejudiced mode asking volubly and at some length: Why do men carry rucksacks? And another thing - why do many cyclists ignore traffic lights? They shouldn't!
    From big questions of our day and age back to editing. What will not go on the cutting room floor (I hope) is a post about Ghosting, and a report on an excellent festival evening which would make me rush to buy the works of the authors who were speaking (more on that tomorrow if at all possible), but for now - and on the subject of versions of things  - but mainly because I like it, how about this (and its second part).

Warp and weft

 

     Several book-related posts in a row leave the blog in need of some colour and design, so here's a look at an exhibition I visited this morning. Edinburgh's famous Dovecot Studios have just moved to a new home: its tapestry weavers are now in residence in converted Victorian swimming baths, and although the former pool space isn't open to the public, you can see some of the studios' work in the form of "Weaving Influences", a fifty year retrospective collection.
    Above is a detail of a recent piece by the painter Barbara Rae, while below is a maquette for a set of gates by Wendy Ramshaw whose tapestry Cartographer's Circle we saw in cartoon form.


Below is a 1974 work by Archie Brennan; entitled 'Vin Sacre', its representation of textile pattern and its use of perspective are particularly effective.

Another maquette by Wendy Ramshaw, this time of a screen in the V&A,

and a tapestry designed by Eduardo Paolozzi.

No space here, unfortunately, to show you David Hockney, Edward Bawden and Ian Hamilton Finlay, all of whom were represented in the exhibition.

Reading and listening

 

 
  Daniel Barenboim's Everything Is Connected: The Power Of Music is published today and tonight he is performing at The Proms, conducting his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in this programme. Much of his book is about music as a model for co-operation between peoples, and how and why - along with Edward Said - he came to found an extraordinary orchestra of young Arab and Israeli musicians which is an inspiration for long-term optimism about peace in the Middle East.
     He talks about how even the most passionate phrase in music requires an underlying sense of order and discipline, and how an orchestra depends on that and a clear hierarchy. "The hierarchy that exists in all music respects the individuality of each voice, which may not have the same rights but certainly has the same responsibility as all the other voices...how difficult it is in the world to create equality within hierarchy". But then he goes on to stress the importance of dialogue, listening and understanding: he quotes Goethe - "To merely tolerate is to insult; true liberalism means acceptance", and how with that in mind music requires a perfect balance between intellect, emotion and temperament, and can show society how those things along with the fundamental interconnection between transparency, power and force foster sympathy and harmony.
    It is a lively book, eloquent, considered and Barenboim speaks equally from head and heart. It does not require in the reader a close knowledge of either music or politics but rather, as he himself says, "a curious mind that wishes to discover the parallels between music and life and the wisdom that becomes audible to the thinking ear".
    I've enjoyed it greatly and my only complaint is that it is too short - I wanted more! Encore, maestro, please.

Snow in summer

     I faced a decision yesterday about David Guterson's novel Snow Falling on Cedars. The first half had taken me ages to read because things got in the way, and as a result I hadn't been gripped by it as I might have been, so (she says sotto voce) I was considering giving up.  But then I read the second half in a day and that immersion in the story did the trick. It is a very good book.
     Set in 1954 on an island off the north west coast of the US, it is centred on a murder trial. A fisherman has been found dead, brought up in his own net; a Japanese man with whom he was involved in a dispute over land rights is the accused. As the court sits, so snow starts to fall, and as the storm intensifies, so does the pressure on the defendant and his elderly attorney, and the painful involvement in the proceedings of the local newspaper man.


    The book relies in great part on the back-story, detailing the lives of the characters who make up this fully-realised island community, explaining its racial tension, discrimination and prejudice, establishing its period feel and charting the relationships which flesh out the story. That's why it flags in the middle - there is just too much material, I think - but then David Guterson starts to bring it all together and the reader cannot put it down; by the end, the writer is back in control and it feels like a 'complete' book.
    The courtroom scenes are particularly effective and atmospheric, and the plot overall is skillfully constructed; the pace - with the exception of a discursive incident too many - is right for the subject matter. Where his characters are concerned, Guterson has them by the scruff of the neck, and the sense of place is keen, too. It's a very full book and an impressive one. I'm glad I stuck with it.

Head lines

     

         
      I'm just back from one of those extraordinary multi-faceted Book Festival sessions, and trying to make sense of my notes and marshal my thoughts enough to give you a taste of it. Titled "Matters of the Mind" it featured a truly remarkable renaissance man, Raymond Tallis, talking about his book The Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey Around Your Head,  and Harriet Harvey Wood discussing Memory, the anthology on the subject she has edited with A.S. Byatt.
       There was everything from philosophy to neuroscience, poetry to an analysis of kissing, and all handled with immense skill and a great deal of humour. I was particularly interested in references to diary and memoir, and how unreliable they can be. Harriet Harvey Wood quoted William Maxwell : "in writing about the past we lie with every breath we draw", and that reflects the fact that every time we take out a memory and look at it, it becomes subtly changed before being refiled in our mental card index. Even writing a simple, factual journal is an amazing act of construction, editing and shaping - "journals have semi-colons; life doesn't", said Tallis.
       While in a deteriorating brain the muscular memory is the last part to go, mention was made of the modern shrinking of temporal depth, the reliance on knowing where to find a fact rather than commit the fact itself to memory, the comparative lack of learning by heart. In contrast, we have access to a vast network of cognitive inheritance, drawing on what has gone before and evolving, e.g. Beethoven couldn't have written his Diabelli Variations had not Bach written the Goldberg Variations earlier. Much to ponder.
       In all, an entertaining and stimulating dialogue - I hope I've remembered it correctly!

Whippling it up

    
     Have you read Dorothy Whipple? If not, do, as she's far too good to overlook. For a superb summary of the Whipple style, read this article by 'one who knows'.
I find it hard to choose a favourite of her novels but would suggest starting with Someone at a Distance.

In tents

     For those who don't know Edinburgh and its Book Festival, here are a few pictures to set the scene. The festival's home is in the gardens of our most beautiful Georgian square, Charlotte Square, and everything takes place in tents. Ranged round the green space - and cleverly sited alongside the resident mature trees - are several 'theatres', the largest of which seats over 500, two bookshops,



various cafes and bars, a signing tent (that's the head of an endless queue of eager youngsters waiting for a signature from 'Cherub' author Robert Muchamore),



and outdoor seating for weather rather more clement than we've had so far (the rain was so heavy on Saturday evening that a boat might have been a better method of transport to get us to Justine's event).

That's Prince Albert surveying all. Is he playing "spot the writer"? If so, on Sunday alone he'd have spied the great and the good from the likes of Tariq Ali to Pauline McLynn (Go on, Father!)

Not only the sunny hours

   I wrote about Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours: The Story of a Garden earlier in the year, and I enjoyed it so much that this morning I went to hear Katherine talk about the book and the garden she created from nothing at her home in Shropshire. Both have been labours of love, taking years to 'complete' - though as she says, "a garden is a process, not a product" - and reflecting her desire to root herself in one place. I described the book as "The fulfilment of an idealistic, romantic vision grounded in a necessary realism....[it is] at once scholarly, profound, sensitive and beautifully written".
    Looking again at my notes I thought I'd quote a typical passage; as we are in an atypical August, wet, dreary, colourless and dull, I've gone on to September for this one:
"The wound-up watch-spring of summer is winding down. The days fill with rounded golden light, like a rich old Sauternes, full and sweet. Sugars caramelise in the leaves - tones of butterscotch, cinder toffee, treacle tart; quince paste, marmalade, toffee apple; Beaujolais, cassis, Lynch-Bages".

   

     She describes her apples:  "some as gaudy as peacocks.....others, subtle as scholastic philosophers, hide their exquisite flavours beneath dun exteriors", and she muses on using the colour palette of fruits for interior decor - "The bedroom in the deep yellow of ripe quinces, with a bedspread plumply quilted like the dumplinged base of the fruit, folded and tucked as if with the imprint of the cook's thumb, and soft muslin bed-curtains like the white down that coats its ample curves".
    Katherine Swift writes of the importance of really looking at things and of retaining a sense of wonder, and yet her unsentimental, practical side stresses the need to work with what you have. In her garden and in her book she seems to have achieved both.

Collective nouns

      

A re-arrangement of the sidebars has long been overdue so that I can include some favourite websites which aren't currently listed. While the fibre fiends will collectively become "a fankle of knitters", and I think I'll put my bookish chums down as "a chapter of readers",  I'm starting off today with "a penning of writers", a list which includes friends old and new. Have a look over there on the right.

Hearing voices