Wednesday, November 20, 2019

The Virago Book of Witches - Shahrukh Husain

I’ve wanted the Virago Book of Witches for a few years, but whenever I had checked for second hand copies they were to expensive to be tempting, and I’ve never yet spotted a copy in a charity shop (although now I have it what’s the betting they turn up everywhere). Imagine them how pleased I am that it’s been reissued as a particularly handsome hardback.

Hardbacks aren’t normally my thing (in the battle between space and a love of physical books, paperbacks are my preference) but this one will look especially nice with the Angela Carter edited edition of Virago Fairy Tales. Also, I’m a sucker for anything with an owl on it.

The Virago Book of Witches is also a collection of fairy tales from around the world, but specifically ones that deal with Witches in all their various traditions. There are chapters on ‘Alluring Women and Ailing Knights’ (Indravati and the Seven Sisters is a memorable opening for its distinctly purple prose). ‘Wise Old Women’, which starts with ‘I Love You More Than Salt’, a story I read once as a child and have never seen since. I’d sort of mixed it up with King Lear, Shahrukh Husain’s Version comes with an interesting array of Scottish accents which give it a whole new life.

There are  also chapters on ‘Witches in Love: Possessive Women and Devoted Wives’, ‘Transformations’, ‘Guardians of the Seasons and Elements’, ‘Witchy Devices: Cauldron, Broomsticks, and Trysts with the Devil’, ‘Hungry Hags: Cannibals and Blood-Suckers’, and ‘Trials and Contests’.

The attraction of the witch in all and any of her forms is that she gets to be so many of the things that women traditionally are not allowed to be. She has power, she can pursue sex, behave badly, be destructive, be old, be free. She can fly. A force of both good and ill, a scapegoat with powers that are both desirable and fearsome.

This is a fabulous collection to dip in and out of with an impressive variety of source material. The preface and introduction are excellent, and there are useful endnotes too. Had I known what I was missing I might have coughed up for a second hand copy long ago.


Sunday, November 17, 2019

Death In Fancy Dress - Anthony Gilbert

This is a recent arrival from the British Library Crime Classics series, and the promise of a country house party setting made it sound irresistible - it just feels like the right time of year for a country house murder mystery.


Instinct didn’t let me down. Anthony Gilbert is a pen name for Lucy Beatrice Malleson, who also wrote as Anne Meredith (an Anne Meredith book - Portrait of a Murderer was the Christmas mystery in the crime classics series a couple of years ago). I liked ‘Portrait of a Murderer’, but I loved ‘Death in Fancy Dress’, and really enjoyed the bonus pair of Gilbert short stories in this edition too.

It’s some time in the 1930’s, Tony, a lawyer (also in his 30’s) has just bumped into a school friend, Jeremy, somewhere in a bazaar in India. They travel back to London together with Tony painting an enthusiastic picture of Jeremy as a boys own hero (men want to be him, women want to be with him - that kind of thing). Jeremy reveals that he wants to marry David’s cousin, Hilary.

Unfortunately back in London it transpires that Hilary is engaged to someone else, and that she and her stepmother are in some sort of trouble. The two men are dispatched down to Feltham Abbey (the family home) vaguely instructed by someone official to sort out the mess - which is being caused by a blackmailer known as The Spider.

The plot is now sufficiently thick to be a satisfying affair to unravel. It’s easy enough to swallow that somewhere between going to the ‘right’ kind of school, and shared war time experiences you would be sent off to do some quiet work on behalf of the government. The blackmail is for sufficiently high stakes, and also sounds feasible and the various characters basically ring true as well. It’s a strong framework to have some fun with.

I think the probable identity of the Spider is obvious from fairly early on, if it’s not there are more than enough hints when you look back, and a lot of the tension comes from wondering what the repercussions of the eventual denouement will be. There's more tension in the way that Gilbert gives us occasional chances to sympathise to some extent with the culprits initial motives and then reminding us of the human damage that’s being done.

Altogether it’s the full package - great setting, a victim you’re happy to see get done in, a decent plot, convincing characterisation, and some interesting twists which are mainly down to that convincing characterisation. It’s everything I want from a golden age whodunnit.

Looking for a cover image of the book cover I’ve found the blog Clothes in Books which has a lost about some potential outfits for ‘Death in Fancy Dress’ and an archive full of great stuff to look at.

Friday, November 15, 2019

Mincemeat and Mince Pies

It’s a week since I finished work, a week filled with domestic mishaps on a scale from vaguely annoying (smashed a plate, broke a cornishware jar, but at least the latter was fixable) deeply frustrating (it took 3 days to get all of one Yodel handled wine delivery, which was 3 mornings spent waiting for the driver to see if he would, or would not try and ring the doorbell*) and upsetting (upstairs neighbours have flooded the building again, I’m at pitchfork and burning torch levels of had enough of this.

On a more productive note I’ve made chutney, 3 Christmas cakes, started tidying things with a vengeance, and today I’m potting this years mincemeat - and to mark the occasion will be making some mince pies with the end of last years mincemeat.



If I went through all my cookbooks I’d probably find upwards of a dozen mince meat recipes, all a bit different but split between those that need to be cooked, and those that don’t. Last time I was more or less unemployed in 2009 I tried Elizabeth David’s version. I spent a small fortune, which I didn’t really have, on a mountain of ingredients (it was when the final experience that taught me to actually think about the quantities a recipe is asking for before I commit to making it). Mixed it up in a washing up bowl - which it still overflowed, and hated it. It was 4 years before I dumped the last possibly fermenting jar of the stuff.

The reason I’d gone for the David recipe was that it didn’t need cooking, just mixing. The Fiona Cairns recipe that I now use as a base (it’s evolved a little since I started making it in 2013) was a revelation by comparison and doesn’t need cooking either. 

I love making this each year, it smells lovely, and I like the pacing of it. You put everything together, give it a good stir, then stir again whenever you’re passing it for around 24 hours, before potting it. I don’t get tied to the oven, and it’s all very easy going.

Another reason I love making this is because of how I associate mince pies with my mother. She has an excellent pastry hand - which I do not - and has made the best mince pies in epic quantities for as long as I can remember. It’s one of the few things I can think of that has remained a constant tradition from childhood onwards. Mum now makes the same mincemeat recipe (home made behaves much better in the oven than shop bought) which adds to the feeling that this is one of ‘our’ things. 

Mostly though, I just really love a good mince pie - small enough to eat in a bite if you want, well filled, and pastry just the way you like it (not the dry sugary sort that crumbles over everything). The sort I can buy are almost always disappointing (Greggs used to do a surprisingly decent one) and making them is so satisfying.

*This is a big part of why I’m not a fan of ordering things online, but even so Yodel’s business model seems mad. It’s crazily inefficient.  

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Short and Sweet - Dan Lepard

This blog turned 10 sometime back in August and one reason for carrying on with it is that the older I get the more useful I find it to refer back to. I’m baking Christmas cakes at the moment which makes me look back too - I made my first one in December 2011 using a cut out and kept for a year Dan Lepard recipe back from when he wrote a column in The Guardian. D had bought me a Kitchen Aid for my birthday, but it was so new, and the quantities of ingredients so generous that I hand mixed it that first time.


Since then I’ve made this cake dozens of times - as many as 7 in various sizes one Christmas - it’s a very good cake, although the year I got a new oven I managed to utterly over cook them after it turned out the old oven needed at least 3 times as long to cook something as the new one did. Making them isn’t the longest standing tradition but it’s important to me.

Dan Lepard has got further into my Christmas when I turned to ‘Short and Sweet’ (the blog tells me it was a Christmas present in 2011, and that initially I wasn’t as grateful for it as I am now) for a Christmas pudding recipe. His simple Christmas pudding based on a 1930’s recipe has been a winner with everyone who’s tried it.

As baking books go it’s a genuine classic - if I only had space for one baking book it’s probably the one I’d keep, but as an incorrigible collector of cookbooks there’s always something with a bit of novelty value to look at. It’s this time of year that I reach for ‘Short and Sweet’, and this time of year that I realise again how good it is.

It’s still in print, and if you don’t know it, it’s worth seeking out. Still thinking about Christmas I’ve just found a good looking mincemeat recipe that doesn’t need to be matured. I would contend that making your own mincemeat is one of life’s pleasures - something that makes you slow down and enjoy the process of what you’re doing. Which is what I think Christmas baking should be about, if you don’t enjoy doing it there’s no point, but if you do it’s surprisingly mindful (mindful is not a word I love, but it’s accurate enough here).

As I’m currently time rich I’m going to go beyond the Christmas staples and have some fun with this book over the next couple of months (starting with some orange and almond biscuits). I can’t remember exactly who gave me this (it would have been my mother or my sister) but they deserve another thank you.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

What Next?

I’m now officially unemployed (since Friday) and finally feeling the emotional side of redundancy. I’m not going to miss the actual job which has left me with a legacy of repetitive strain injuries (wrist, elbow, and tendons in my right foot) and wasn’t great for my mental health either. I am going to miss a lot of the people I worked with and some of the customers.

Initially the plan was to look for some Christmas temp work and then see where I was in January, but after looking around it’s become fairly clear that temping hours are not great. 16 - 20 hours a week, weekends and late nights, expected to be available Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. The pay is around minimum wage too, and shifts often only 4 hours (which means you don’t have to give employees breaks) which ups the transport costs.

The plan now is to take the next 2 months off and start looking for work in January. I know this makes sense, but it also feels weird. I’ve had periods of being of relative unemployment before, but I’ve always been job hunting through them, and quite often doing part time stuff or odd jobs. I’ve day dreamed about a Christmas off for the last 20 years. Finally being able to take one is unexpectedly discombobulating.

It’s not that I’m short of things to do (there are so many things that I need to do) but my sense of where I am in the year has gone to pot. Closing a shop at the time it would normally be filling up with stock was disorienting. I’ve put off making Christmas cakes and such until I finished work and would have all the time to make them without the stress but because I haven’t started I can’t quite believe it’s almost mid November.

The baking, chutney, and mincemeat making have also been a long standing way of dealing with the stress of work, trying to carve out moments to feel some goodwill in. Taking away the main cause of stress (the work environment rather than the work) is going to take some getting used too. It’s also something I really need to do.

What next is feeling like a big question right now, equal parts exciting and anxiety inducing, but meanwhile I’ve made the Christmas chutney today, and tomorrow I might start on the cakes.

Monday, November 4, 2019

Evil Roots: KillerTales of the Botanical Gothic edited by Daisy Butcher

This has to be a contender for personal favourite book title - everything about it appeals to me, and it turned out to be the perfect book to read over Halloween. I love a good collection of short stories at anytime, appreciate them even more in times of stress (last week was the last customer facing week at work, the next couple of days are the clear out and clean up then I’m done), and this collection lived up to the promise of the title.

I found Mellisa Edmundson’s ‘Women’s Weird’ genuinely unsettling - it was definitely a book that had me looking over my shoulder, ‘Evil Roots’ not so much. Maybe this is because I don’t know any mad scientists, or own a flesh eating plant. Or possibly because I already have a healthy suspicion of plant life (is it poisonous, will it scratch me, is a branch going to fall off it as I’m walking past, will that creeper damage the brickwork, will that seaweed drown me*, am I going to be sent out for interminable hours to cut it down**) born of a country childhood and a love of gardening.

Anyway. There are a trio of stories here that really stood out - M. R. James’ The Ash Tree’ which is the sort of class act you would expect from James. Abraham Merritt’s The Woman of the Wood which nicely picks up on the eerie quality trees can have, and Edith Nesbit’s ‘The Pavillion’. The Pavilion is a genius bit of storytelling.

There are a few flesh eating plants that get out of hand which not only illustrate the Victorian unease with scientific advances, but are an interesting parallel with current debates about GM crops - the fear is just the same. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Giant Wisteria’ is here too - I wish I admired this more than I do, but it’s fun to compare it with Ambrose Bierce’s ‘A Vine on a House’ - or maybe pair is a better word.

Essentially these are family friendly weird tales, the sort that are as likely to make you laugh as shudder, and where you can sit in dim lighting without assuming something is coming to get you (maybe not next to any plants though). Daisy Butcher has done a splendid job of finding ‘the very best tales from the undergrowth of Gothic fiction’, it’s a collection that’s fun to read, gives food for thought, and has some real gems in it.



*There’s a long stringy weed that we called Drewie lines when I was a child, we were told it would wrap round your legs and drown you if you swam through it, though in truth the actual temperature of the sea was the most effective deterrent to wild swimming. It is however a nasty weed to get tangled around a propeller, or oars, and it still gives me the horrors.

** My father has a vendetta against thistles, they continue to win the battle.

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Dracula - A Ballet by David Nixon OBE

I don’t normally take much notice of Halloween beyond digging out some very mild ghost stories or similar weird tales. It was a big thing for children in Shetland when I was growing up, but I don’t remember it being much of an adult affair, and I’m not sure I much like the all out, all October, selling opportunity it’s become. Although if you are going to spend money on a pile of spooky plastic tat you might as well get a proper amount of enjoyment out of it.

What I can get right behind was the chance to see Northern Ballet do their Dracula via cinema live. It’s a wonderfully atmospheric performance with every gothic bit of trimming you could want. It stays true to the book almost until the end and has some brilliant visual effects - the opening scenes are particularly good, as is Dracula’s castle. The bits with Renfield in the asylum also really stand out.

The relationship between Mina and the Count is beautifully portrayed, the brides of Dracula are fabulous, and basically we loved all of it. The only quibble is that seeing it on a cinema screen meant that the dancers were larger than life at all times, even more so when the camera zooms in on the dancers. It’s amazing to be able to see the details, but at the same time it can be distracting as facial expressions and movements designed to be seen from a distance have a different impact when they’re blown up like this.

I’d love to actually see this live one day, it was all the excellence I’ve come to expect from Northern Ballet, and meanwhile it is at least something to have seen it on screen where at least we got the bonus of an interview with Javier Torres (who was dancing the part of the young Dracula).

Monday, October 28, 2019

Sour - Mark Diacono

I bought a few cookbooks back in September whilst I was posting about Vermouth, and because I've thought about them a bit since then keep thinking I've posted about them too. Mostly It turns out I haven't, and that's a particular omission when it comes to 'Sour' which is truly something a bit special.

If I struggle to get on with bitter (well, I struggle with Campari anyway), I like sour - it is the magical element that can transform your cooking. This book has also transformed my view of quinces which is why I've put off making dinner to write about it immediately.

I have a troubled relationship with quinces - they make a tremendous jelly (Diana Henry's Recipe with star anise is brilliant and now a yearly staple, although this year I was impatient and potted it about 5 minutes before I should have, it's a very loose set.) but I've really disliked everything else I've ever made with them. I find the grainy texture unappealing in tarts and pies, didn't like them in a tahini, really didn't like what they did to Brandy, and had almost given up on anything but jelly.

That was before I tried a slice of pickled quince about an hour ago... I had more of them than I needed for the jelly, and there was a recipe in 'Sour' for them - as there is in 'Salt, Sugar, Spice', but this is the one that actually made me tackle peeling the dratted things. In pickle form the grainy texture of the fruit works for me, the scent of them is tremendous, and the balance of flavours is spot on (a hint of clove and juniper, the perfumed personality of the quince, sugar sweetness, and a just sharp enough vinegar hit - it's perfect).

I can't overstate how big a thing this is for me (it feels like the happy end of a long and arduous quest), but it's probably time to move on... Quinces aside, 'Sour' is a beautifully written book. Diacono's books are always enjoyable to read, his combination of enthusiasm, knowledge, humour, and anecdote is particularly engaging.

The book gives an excellent overview of what sourness is, and various souring skills, before giving recipes for food and drinks. It's a wonderful book to go into this winter with (citrus season is here) when I think a lot of us will want those bright lively flavours. Flicking through it again now I'm making a mental list of all sorts of things I'll have time for when redundancy lands in just over a week. Getting another sourdough starter going, looking out for winter herring to souse, maybe start making my own yoghurt...

I know I have recipes or instructions for all of these things elsewhere, but it's the opening chapters of this book which are making more sense of the whole idea of sourness to me - bringing things together with an enthusiasm I can't resist. It's the sort of book that changes how you think about food and flavour, and which I expect to be comprehensively nominated for awards (which it deserves to win). The sort of book that takes you on a journey and sends you off to learn all sorts of other things (there's a handy list of resources at the back to help with just that).

Quinces should still be available to pickle (I will be looking for more) this is Diana Henry's Recipe, but seriously, buy 'Sour', you need it.

If you buy directly from the Otter farm Website there are a choice of price bands based on what you can afford - buying the book at full price will subsidise discounts for those who can't afford it, it's a project worth supporting - the souring skills are the kind of thing that we all ought to be learning for so many reasons.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

A Knitting Post

Because I don't mind the dark, and don't have children or pets who are oblivious to clock time, the day the clocks go back is my favourite of the year. This is my season and I embrace it, not only do I love the extra hour of today, but it's enough of a change to really improve my sleep patterns.

I've spent the day pottering, admiring books, and knitting, so it seemed a good time to share my latest knitting projects. It's basically the Scalloway Shawl (or is it a scarf?) from Maria de Haan's 'Uradale Shawls'. The Scalloway is a sort of scarf, shawl, wrap hybrid (its long even for a scarf, widens to a central point like a shawl, and is a cosy thing to wrap up in). It's a simple pattern with a medative quality to it, it's also big enough to take a slow knitter like me a while to get through. The 2 I have knitted so far have seen me through the almost 4 months of the redundancy process at work.





They've been perfect for that because I've been in no mood to concentrate on anything which would demand more attention, but the stripes stop it from getting boring. Knitting is a godsend at times like this.

For the first Scalloway I stuck as close to the original Uradale colours as I could, mostly using Jamieson's Spindrift from my yarn stash. Still, they weren't exact and I made a couple of changes along the way. I also found myself messing around with the order of the colours too.

For the second Scalloway I picked colours I'd thought about putting in the first one, and that were more autumnal. Because I'm lazy about switching there are a couple of shades that I'm not entirely convinced by. I also decided that I'd definitely move everything around in each sequence apart from one colour which would always mark the start/finish each set of stripes. I'm happy with that decision, whilst knitting it's fun to mix them up - and I'm always fascinated by how differently the colours behave next to each other. I also started with less stitches so the ends would taper more, and so it would be a marginally quicker knit.

I've now started a third project inspired by the Scalloway but using only 2 colours, different textured yarns, and in a different shape. It might end up with tassels on it. Which leads me to the question - when does it stop being somebody else's patterns and start being mine?

Knitting invites plagerism as well as adaptation. The more competent the knitter the easier it is to reverse engineer something that you've seen and liked - it's a natural thing to do, though rightly contentious when people are selling patterns. My third project is the result of weeks of what ifs, it won't look anything much like the first Scalloway, or feel like it, but it wouldn't exist without it either.

Anyway, the Uradale Shawls book is a lovely thing, the Scalloway a great project for even the most inexperienced knitter. It's an excellent chance to play around with colour combinations (it's an object lesson in colour theory) and I can recommend it as a project for uncertain times.



Thursday, October 24, 2019

Women's Weird: Strange Stories by Women 1890-1940 - edited by Melissa Edmundson

The nights have thoroughly drawn in already (and will do so even more at the weekend when the clocks go back), leaves are finally falling off trees, and it is definitely the season to be easily spooked.  I've been anticipating 'Women's Weird' from Handheld Press for months now and it has not disappointed.

There's nothing in here that's too terrifying, but plenty that's unsettling enough to make it the wrong book to go to bed with. It's also an object lesson in what an editor can do when putting together a collection. I need to dig out my Virago book of ghost stories for comparison, because Mellisa Edmundson has concentrated on the domestic here in a way I haven't particularly noticed before.

The opening story 'The Weird of the Walfords' by Louisa Baldwin sets the tone for the book - its male protagonist has conceived a dislike for certain family traditions and is determined to break them, but the traditions have other ideas. Baldwin makes her old house and its trappings not haunted but greedy for birth and death, especially death. Domesticity and expectations are equal burdens here, and so the place that should feel safest becomes the most dangerous.

Mary Cholmondeley's 'Let Loose' places the unseen menace in the crypt of a church - another place that should offer sanctuary but does not, and proves an ineffective prison to boot. 'With and Without Buttons' by Mary Butts is a masterwork in taking something mundane and making it terrifying - this one really did give me the creeps with imagery that's hard to forget.

I had read Margaret Irwin's 'The Book' before in the British Library anthology 'The Haunted Library' and remembered it as a particular gem. It still is, with the added bonus that now I can consider the difference the context of the anthology it's in makes. In the BL collection it was the details that I noticed, here it's that once again the horror has invaded the home.

Appropriately there are 13 strange stories in total, the strangest probably being May Sinclair's 'Where Their Fire is not Quenched' which thematically feels quite different to the other tales which all deal in a more familiar sort of strange or uncanny. 'Where Their Fire is not Quenched' is troubling for altogether different reasons, it's inclusion part of what makes this book more than the sum of its parts.

Altogether it's an excellent collection of stories that are agreeably scary whilst your reading them, and provide much more to think about when you're not. Officially published for Halloween it's ridiculously cheap if you want a kindle version, otherwise go direct to Handheld (the paper version is extremely nice to handle, the print very easy on the eye, and they have a really great list to explore).