Suribachi and surikogi and Ella Risbridger's Midnight Chicken

Here in Somerset it has stopped raining, for a day.  Mr S was nearly on the point of cabin fever, and therefore we decided to take ourselves off to neighboring Shepton Mallett.  Fridays are market days there and worth a look around.  We bought some well veined blue sheep's cheese, which will probably close our supper this evening.

The One Craft Gallery is one of the places I like to pop into, if only for a card.  This time my eye was caught by some attractive studio ceramics.  I picked up this bowl and  put it down.  Mr S and I enjoyed looking around at the varied items on display...and my mind was made up.  As I approached the desk and started to speak to the person sorting out purchases, she introduced herself as the Potter Rowena Kinsman, who made this bowl, and also happened to be the beekeeper supplying the Mendip honey which I had also picked up. 

Rowena explained her techniques and about this grinding bowl.  I had thought it was the ideal bowl to prepare dressings and then serve topped with salad ingredients.  It is a Suribachi which is Japanese for grinding bowl.  In this one the ridges are well formed but glazed and therefore can be cleaned perfectly and remain odour free.  Surikogi is the name of the wooden pestle.  This was made by Rowena's partner and is made of fruit wood most probably apple.  

Here it is full of the lovely marinade/dressing ready to pour over our chicken supper.  As you add each of the ingredients and crush and mix, the smell of the ingredients is sufficient to wipe away any winter or rain blues!

After recommendations from Mandy and pictures both on her blog of pate and Charred Leek Lasagne and of the chicken in the pre baked stage on facebook, I have currently been leafing through Midnight Chicken by Ella Risbridger.  Isn't it just right that the first use of this large suribachi is to prepare this delicious topping?  Thanks Mandy for the tip off.  Later I shall serve up the salad we shall be having to go alongside the Midnight Chicken and jacket potatoes.

Just in case you need to go and make this dish NOW and you have yet to acquire or borrow the book, here is a link to Ella's blog and recipe.

Here is our Midnight Chicken

It's strange how memories just pop up.  Once Mandy and I were walking along Kenilworth High Street and I pointed out some lovely blue glazed studio pottery in a Charity Shop.  Mandy came out with a lovely purchase.  I wonder whether she still has them?

Sowing the seeds of a new journey

They say a seed can only grow if the soil is ready, and the conditions too, for that particular seed.  The seed too has to be viable, and if space is limited, worth growing.

I am going to stop there, as this could lead me down the garden path, which is a place I love to be.  The other place I love to be is at the start of a new adventure.  Not too daring, not one that will take many air-miles, or cause any more pollution than is necessary, but an adventure that has the potential to enrich my life.  If it is an adventure will be based on food and eating and the Kitchen, I am ready.

It will be a journey, and an adventure and Mr S is 'behind' me.  I don't think he has a choice really, and I am sure he will greatly enjoy being my 'pack carrier' and bless him: washer upper.  I have probably been in training for this journey which will be an adventure, for which different other seeds were sown, from my earliest years.

Food and eating: good food and 'moderate' eating, has since I can remember, been one of my greatest pleasures.  Buying/growing and preparing food is one too. Whether it was 'standard' fruits and vegetables grown on volcanic soils under a semi tropical sun such as bananas, pineapples, mangoes, pawpaws, lobsters, fruit bats, hedgehogs and venison, or enjoying other delicacies such as imported olives, which my father adored, or coming back to England and enjoying iced lemon buns, and the wonderful wholesome dishes at my Grandmothers, I have always been adventurous.

A few weeks ago I happened to be listening to BBC Radio 4 Food Programme on the topic of 'how to get Sour back into your life'. ( How long the Programme will remain viable in the link, I cannot guess). At the time most probably, I was making Sourdough, which is another sort of sour.  Of course we love my chutneys, some of which I post on my other blog. 

From the library, I am enjoying reading Mark Diacono's prose on

sour/the magical element that will transform your cooking

I had started to dip my toes in a not unfamiliar pond, and am now a regular in the making of kefir.  I had been making kefir around fifteen years ago regularly, but something went wrong with it, and not having access then as we do now, didn't understand properly the needs of the kefir grains, which after some time, just died!  This time I am enjoying my kefir in all sorts of ways.

I happened to have ordered Fermentation by Asa Simonsson at the same time.  Reading up and planning is part of the excitement before a new journey, which I also enjoy. 

When I popped round to my special salad leaf supplier: Frances, and we were talking about this and that, she invited me to taste the Beetroot Kvass she has recently made.  I love beetroot, I love salty...she poured a little in a small bottle for me take home. 

I had been hearing and wondering for some time about preserving without vinegar.  When I was about eight, I heard my grandmother talking about salting down, and bottling garden produce for the winter...but how she cooked and ate them, I haven't a clue.  I suppose this sort of preservation points back to the days before electricity.  They lived in a part of Lincolnshire where electricity only arrived in the early 60s. My parents also make a type of Achard which used many of the techniques, which I enjoy making and more importantly love to eat.

Earlier in June, on our way back from our holiday in Devon, I wanted to stop off at a plant nursery on my HPS list...White Post Nursery near Wellington.  We had a little turn there...and it was near lunch time, and on cue Mr S asked 'what are we doing for lunch'?  He had gone back to the car,  and I had just returned from having a second tour of the nursery on my own, and I took it as a hint that I had spent too long looking at plants.

I said how about trying that cafe there...just on the side of the car park.  In we went, and I was amazed at the love and  thought put into the assembly and display of a myriad of fresh produce, and the deliciousness of the lunch.  Sadly it is a little too far from home or else I would be a regular!  I knew just by seeing the bread and other baked goods that this was my sort of place.  If you are in the vicinity of The White Post Cafe, do please plan in a visit.  With a few leaflets to hand, which I was pointed towards when asking about who supplies their bread, I came away with information about The Bakery which used to be on the other side of the hard standing but had now moved a little way away to Tracebridge: Tracebridge Sourdough and Fermenteria.

Not surprisingly after we had settled down after our holiday, I looked into Tracebridge, and fancied maybe one of their patisserie courses.  As we were in thick of decorating, the thought was parked.  However after the tasting the Kvass...and being determined to beat off the winter blues and in need of an adventure, last week I checked to see if they had any Fermentation classes.  Yes there was one only a week away, and only one place left.  I am on it!

In a Vase on Monday - Perseverance

Its always good manners to mention that this weekly post owes its title to Cathy.  She hosts many gardeners' arrangements.  This week she has set a challenge for our 6th Anniversary next week...and I think my vase this week would fit the bill!  Do go and enjoy others if you have the time.

Perseverance: a well known motto used by my parents for all sorts of reasons and situations.  The first house they built was called 'Perseverance House'.

Without a cold snap the Fuchsias and the one Dahlia have been persevering despite the days of rain.  Yesterday was fairly sunny...but ended with very heavy rain by bed time.  Some herbaceous plants went into the doldrums during the hot dry summer, but have supplied fresh blooms recently.

In the vase:  Fuchsia Upright Delta's Sarah with the large white buds flushed pink which is as yet demure and hiding its blue petticoats; the small white  Fuchsia Hawkshead and the probably the last of small bloom of  white Dahlia Gallery Art Fair; Astrantia Major 'Sunningdale Variegated' is now showing its own in the garden.

Just to be certain in future that this is not a 'stored' picture from the summer...I set the conservatory time piece by it too!  Picture taken on 4th November at 7:49!

Whilst we were on the Gower...I read through our November Book for the Book Club...quite a page turner.

And since I have a little time waiting to read the next book, I picked up Alan Titchmarsh's Trowel and Error which I am enjoying...

All borrowed with gratitude from our local Library.

Six on Sunday - 2 November 2019 - Still no frosts

Although we have yet to have a frost, and have had as much rain as we can absorb, there are signs that autumn is advancing, and even that winter is not far...the Amalanchier leaves remained in colour for only a week before they fell, all whilst we were away.....

The Prop had been very industrious this week, and also mentions Salvias which I almost included this week.  Its really interesting to see what others who congregate under the Prop's shelter have to offer....

The first of  this week's SOS is a shot of the lovely reddening leaves  on Euonymous alatus compactus.  I love this shrub as much for its corky winged stems.  The only downsize I can see is that it doesn't grow fast.  I had cut a stem to put in a vase some time ago, and it is yet to make a replacement.  The leaves glow in the low sun and contrast well with the wall behind.  We have a few hedgerows going down from the Mendips onto the levels not far away with several Spindle trees growing, and I love to watch out for them...maybe they will have to be source for my 'trimmings', at least until my little shrub fills out.

With a little judicial cutting back of growth in the foreground, (2)the fading flowers of the Hydrangea are now on show, and adding some more late season colour.

Fuchsias around the garden seem to be growing still and flowering non stop....(3) Fuchsia microphylla 'Silver Linings' having started off late, more or less from ground level, is elbowing surrounding plants aside!

How the next plant manages to thrive rests on it being very pretty almost all through the summer, with its dainty almost aqua leaves, and being one of Mr S's favourite.  I make the greatest effort to keep it away from slugs, by placing it on a high shelf in the garden, and checking almost daily.  It also needs turning to keep all the stems falling evenly around the large tall long tomb in which it is growing. If it wasn't for the fact that he mentions several times a week how nice it is....it would slowly have been left to the slugs a few years ago!  The only way to protect it would be to have the drainage pot filled with those little blue pellets....but I have given up on them since wanting to attract wildlife to the garden.

After August I just keep hoping it will flower early...but whatever the conditions it always lives up to one of its names: October Daphne! Its new name is (4) Hylotelphium (Sedum) sieboldii....

Late foraging bees come to it around the day.

Earlier this year I acquired some tiny seedlings of (5) Corydalis  ochroleuca aka Pseudofumaria alba. They have grown well and have found rounded mounds.....

  Corydalis  ochroleuca

Late in the year they offer fresh ferny looking leaves and continuing creamy white flowers with continuing nectar for insects.

Another plant masquerading as a fern is another Corydalis: (6) Corydalis cheilanthifolia.  After getting this plant earlier this year...having seen it growing as a 'weed' on top of a container...and begging a piece, I googled it and found that The Frustrated Gardener admires it too:


"The one I covet most is Corydalis cheilanthifolia, pictured below in the Cottage Garden at Sissinghurst, a plant one might easily mistake for a flowering fern, if such a thing existed. The leaves are finely dissected and flushed with red in spring, whilst the flowers are produced in thick, upright plumes of canary yellow. Quite a sight, even in the most exotic of gardens."

Here it grows by the wall forming good ground cover contrasting well with the Euonymous.

Corydalis cheilanthifolia

Plant of the Month November 2019 - Euonymous alatus compactus

It may just be a meager specimen and a shadow of its future self...but here in the garden over the last few weeks...holding on well to its leaves is Euonymous alatus compactus.  I am choosing this as plant of the Month in my garden.  I wonder what your Plant of the Month might be?  Do make a note in the comments and mention my page too on your post, if you have one.

During the year it 'steps into the background' ....not drawing attention to itself, except that I love to peer at its winged stems.  This is a shrub I shall have learn not to trim for flower arranging material as it is slow growing.  In the spring I shall give it a good feed to try to spur it on.

I have often admired this shrub in botanic gardens, and earlier this year it was featured in one of the largest show gardens at The Malvern Spring Show :The Leaf Creative: Garden of Quiet Contemplation, designed by Peter Dowle. https://www.leafcreative.co.uk/ I loved the way the Euonymous was placed between purple leaved acers and underplanted with tiarellas and the simple round daisy Erigeron karvinskianus.  I took the picture as a reminder of its potential and possible planting combinations.