Super soup

Earlier this week I was peeling knobbly Jerusalem Artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus) for a hearty soup.  I combined them with brown lentils, chicken stock and other seasonal ingredients such as parsnips (not quite ready but I could not resist unearthing one) and curly kale, that tough and enduring stand-by of the kitchen garden.  Whizzed up afterwards in a blender the soup is green, thick and comforting. 

It struck me for the first time, although I am sure it is obvious to most readers, that good cooks combine foodstuffs that complement each other.  The root vegetables in my soup such as parsnips, artichokes and carrots go so well with the kale.  They only need a little grated raw ginger, turmeric, garam masala and cumin to add that extra something. 

Now I am learning to sup my soup slowly, and allow the full flavour to reach my palate.

Late October's insect life

There is plenty of insect life on our plot - beneficial and otherwise.  This was brought home to me yesterday when harvesting kale tops.  Scattered whitefly arose from the kale like a cloud of flying dandruff and fluttered to rest on the soil and on the kale itself.  I pulled out all the yellow and brown decaying leaves and dumped them in the wildlife hedge.  The kale has a white downy deposit on the underside, but once washed is good to eat.

Meanwhile the bees are still out and about.  Their choice of plants has diminished as almost all our sunflowers are now seed heads, but they are still on the white deadnettle, or popping in and out of the trumpets of the penstemons by our shed. 

Daddy long-legs (craneflies) have stopped trying to come into our flat but the ladybirds are now ready to hibernate over the winter.  They are resting in close-packed colonies of up to half a dozen above the curtain rails on the inside of our windowframes.

About two weeks ago I spotted a very lethargic grasshopper.  Could this be a record? 

Overwintering

Today a customer phoned to say that her back lawn was waterlogged.  So, we did what we customarily do under these circumstances; went down to the plot.

We worked on a raised bed and sowed a packet of early broad beans in two double rows to overwinter.  My husband occupied himself tidying the small greenhouse where I had transplanted some rocket the previous day.  It should keep going under glass until the spring.  I weeded the Japanese onions we are growing from seed.  Progress is slow.  They ressemble very small spring onions.  But our leeks, sown in March and intended for Christmas dinner are doing well.

I returned after lunch intending to do just one job - remove the last of the runner beans and mulch the bed.  However I was offered some winter cabbage seedlings by J, an older neighbour.  A dozen cabbages have duly gone in next to a row of winter salad that is still flourishing.

'I expect things are slowing down now', say well-meaning friends.  Yes and no.  We can usually find something constructive to do.  We are over-wintering.

Believing in a better Beckton

Believe in Better ... the advert challenges us and the satellite beams its high definition pictures of a world full of wonders.

Beckton believed in better.  Desirable dolls houses designed with front and back lawn, garage or off street parking.  Coming with a kitchen and downstairs loo, a master bedroom, a conservatory and a patio.  Roads would curlicue into closes and speed bumps slow the traffic.  Superstores would be a short step away, buses and trains would connect across town, over and under the river. 

Boundary-less Beckton.  Resposibility for the space outside the front door rests with the landlord and not the tenant.  Smokers drop their fag-ends in the dead-ends.  Yesterday's sofa is as disposable as yesterday's take-away.

Who will believe in Beckton?  Who will cultivate their neighbours, plant tough and tenacious trees, mend its walls, sweep its closes, make it beautiful? 

Finger-picking good...

Today we went to Docklands on a spec. to tidy up borders and rescue a patio described to us as full of weeds.  You never know until you see the garden in question.  Two to two and half hours to expend on a well-laid, small patio.  On with the gloves and on to the weeds in the following categories.

The easy ones - the ones that you grasp firmly by the stem and with a bit of deft tweaking manage to uproot entire.  Straight into the recycling bin.

The nasty ones - dandelions and their relations.  A lot of grubbing about with a small two-pronged instrument which is reputed to remove them from lawns (and patios).  Dandelions remain firmly anchored.

Buddleia.  This is not a weed, it is an invasive shrub.  Cut off lateral branches and find the stumpy evidence that this has  been tried before.

Borders weed-free and tidied.  Weedkiller recommended to customer.  Patio swept and re-swept.  Return visit (front garden) booked. 

A Saturday morning of leisure or a short, satisfying and achievable job like this?  I say it's finger-picking good.

Recipes, Rationing, Recyling

I note from my diary that this week in 1952 tea was removed from the British government's list of rationed commodities.  My parents married in April of the following year. 

Being possessed of northern thrift and well read, our mother used to cut out recipes and paste them in a green book passed down to her in turn from her mother, Evelyn (nee Burrows) of Market Street, Hyde.  The recipes were a regular feature in a newspaper which was then printed and produced in London and Manchester, the Manchester Guardian.  Manchester's newspaper quarter now boasts fashionable shops and eateries.  I still have the green book.  One memorable recipe starts "Now that cheese is off the ration..."

I am cutting out and saving recipes too.  These are not from the Guardian but from The People's Friend, a magazine that did not feature in our family although Women's Weekly, famed for its knitting, certainly did.  I don't stick them in the cherished and still consulted green book, which is now beginning to fall apart, but on file cards which I keep in a grey box in the kitchen. 

I can recommend The People's Friend.  An older customer over the street reads it and passes it on to another neighbour.  She in turn passes it on to me.  I snip out spring recipes in October and warming winter dishes in July.  No matter, they all go in the file.

It may be some time before I attempt the knitting, however....