June reading

Well, June hasn't been the greatest month for reading. I've mentioned a few times that I've spent quite a lot of the month drugged up and unable to read proper books. So how did you read 75 books then? Partly, because a lot of what I was reading were re-reads of children's books and reading Babysitters Club books, the latter especially are not particularly taxing and can even be read fairly fast by someone with little concentration. And the other reason is that you can see that much of the rest of what I read were non fiction titles, mainly recipe books, which are the sort of reading that one dips in and out of, mainly looking at the pictures. But the non fiction reflects some of my preoccupations this month, particularly with wedding cakes!

I did get a few VMCs read, and the VVV blog has been ticking over as I had a huge backlog of reviews. And at the end of the month, the lovely new Bloomsbury group books provided me with enjoyable reading that felt like I was reading "proper" books again and managed to get me back into the groove this month.

I did far better with book acqusitions this month, only acquiring 19 new books, of which five were sent by publishers! *edit* I wrote this a week ago, and unfortunately, this is now not quite true....still, I suppose 47 books isn't *too* bad?!

In terms of blogging, I felt that I centred very much more on things that I wanted to write about, particularly with my various domestic arts projects - jam, cross stitch, knitting, cake decorating, baking, and I will probably continue this focus, especially as I start to plan my wedding cake. In terms of reading, I shall be reading things from my library pile, my TBR, and a vast box of books that Simon from stuck-in-a-book has lent me - no specific plans, and I'm putting my Orange Wednesday posts on hold for a little bit. I've enjoyed the ones that I've read so far and will certainly be reading more from the Orange backlist in due course but it's not a priority at the moment.

So here's the list for June!

Daylight and the dust	Frame, Janet	VMC SS
Trooper to the southern cross	Thirkell, Angela	VMC
Kristy and the snobs	Martin, Ann	C
The camomile	Carswell, Catherine	VMC
Three houses	Thirkell, Angela	NF
Mary Plain goes bob-a-jobbing	Rae, Gwynedd	C
Ship of adventure	Blyton, Enid	C RR
Jessi's secret language	Martin, Ann	C
The class	Begaudeau, Francois	NF
The birds fall down	West, Rebecca	VMC
Kristy's big day	Martin, Ann	C
Little gods	Richards, Anna
Mostly Mary	Rae, Gwynedd	C
All about Mary	Rae, Gwynedd	C
Mary Anne's mystery	Martin, Ann	C
The old man's birthday	Crompton, Richmal
Sea city here we come	Martin, Ann	C
Murder at the flood	Allen, Mabel Esther
Goodbye Stacey, Goodbye	Martin, Ann	C
A stable for Jill	Ferguson, Ruby	C RR
Brown girl, brownstones	Marshall, Paule	VMC
At home	Bryson, Bill	NF
The Aloe	Mansfield, Katherine	VMC
Mary Plain in town	Rae, Gwynedd	C
Mary Plain on holiday	Rae, Gwynedd	C
Foursome	Fallon, Jane
50 things you can do to manage insomnia	Green, Wendy	NF
Stacey's big mistake	Martin, Ann	C
Living with a black dog		NF
The street	Petry, Ann	VMC
So much to tell	Grove, Valerie	B
The camping cookbook	Bell, Annie	NF
50 things you can do to manage IBS	Green, Wendy	NF
Another country: children's books of the lake district	Mackensie, James	NF
Old school ties	Harrison, Kate
Claudia and the bad joke	Martin, Ann	C
Everyday suppers	Delicious magazine	NF
Children at the shop	Ferguson, Ruby	AB
Kristy and the walking disaster	Martin, Ann	C
Stone in a landslide	Tartara, Pedro de
Dying to be thin	Grahame, Niki	AB
IBS cookbook for dummies	Deane, Carolyn	NF
Summer before	Martin, Ann	C
The wild geese	Boland, Bridget	VMC
A likely lad	Avery, Gillian	C RR
Mallory and the trouble with twins	Martin, Ann	C
Bloke's guide to getting hitched	Smith, Jonathon	NF
After the party	Jewell, Lisa
Fell trek	Lloyd, Marjorie	C
I like this story	Webb, Kaye	C anthol
Dawn on the coast	Martin, Ann	C
Landed	Pears, Tim
Wedding cakes you can make	Wilson, Dede	NF
Cake decorator's bible	Dunn, Alan
Days of grace	Hall, Catherine
Marcella	Ward, Mrs Humphrey	VMC
Hester Lilly	Taylor, Elizabeth	VMC
My experimental life	Jacobs, A.J.	NF
Claudia and the sad goodbye	Martin, Ann	C
Animal, vegetable, miracle	Kingsolver, Barbara	NF
Everything changes	Martin, Ann	C
Let's kill Uncle	O'Grady, Rohan
Keep out Claudia	Martin, Ann	C
Mrs Harris goes to Paris	Gallico, Paul
Mrs Harris goes to New York	Gallico, Paul
Mrs Ames	E.F. Benson
Dawn saves the planet	Martin, Ann	C
Henrietta sees it through	Dennys, Joyce
Twice dead	Channon, E.M.
Mr Almost Right	Moran, Eleanor
Cakes for fun	Asher, Jane	NF
Flavour thesaurus	Segnit, Niki	NF
The lessons	Alderman, Naomi
Holiday summer	Merwin, Decie	C
Essential guide to cake decorating	Barker, Alex	NF
BSC in the USA	Martin, Ann	C
Starring the BSC	Martin, Ann	C
Mother and son	Compton-Burnett, Ivy	VMC
Picnic for Bunnikins	Warrener	C
Kristy's big news	Martin, Ann	C
Cullum	Robertson, E Arnot	VMC

The cakes that must not be eaten

I've made three cakes this week which Must Not Be Eaten. So I didn't photograph them as I couldn't cut them and need to avoid all temptation.

The first is a ginger cake, incredibly dark and treacly, and apparently is best served several days after baking. Since I've always been of the opinion that cakes are best on the day that they are made, and am always keen to get immediate feedback on my baking, it was very hard not to serve up a piece for my fiance. Especially since we had strawberries and in my opinion, strawberries and ginger are a wonderful combination of flavours.

The second and third cakes are a pair of cakes which I have made to test wedding cake recipes. As both myself, and a number of key wedding guests currently avoid dairy and/or gluten or wheat, I am very keen to come up with a cake which can be eaten by everybody. I found a recipe for a vegan fruit cake in Fiona Cairn's Bake and Decorate, and have tried to modify it. I used ground almonds in half of the mixture and gluten free flour in the other half, and made two cakes. The gluten free one came out quite dry and crispy, but the almond one looks very moist. Anyway, fruit cakes have to be fed and left to mature for a while (although this one will not keep as long as a traditional fruitcake), so I will provide you with a verdict and whether or not I have solved my vegan/gluten free wedding cake issue or not in due course...

Mrs 'Arris (Bloomsbury Group book)

Originally titled Flowers for Mrs Harris, Mrs Harris goes to Paris by Paul Gallico, is another one of the Bloomsbury Group books published this summer. I think this was the title that most intrigued me from this summer's titles, partly because I knew that my friend Claire was one of the people who had suggested it to Bloomsbury for republication, but mainly because I had only encountered Paul Gallico once before in his novella The snow goose. This beautiful tale had me in such floods of tears aged eleven that I have been unable to read the book since. I knew that Mrs Harris was supposed to be an entertaining and enjoyable read and thus completely different to The Snow Goose.

From the start I was absolutely captivated. Mrs Harris, or rather Mrs 'Arris as she tends to think of herself, is a cockney charlady with a number of clients who she "does" for. One day she espies a beautiful Dior dress in the wardrobe of one of these people; a vivid contrast to her drab existence:
"Mrs Harris had always felt a craving for beauty and colour .......she stood before the stunning creation hanging in the wardrobe and found herself face to face with a new kind of beauty - an artificial one created by the hand of man the artist, but aimed directly and cunningly at the heart of woman. In that very instant she fell victim to the artist; at that very moment there was born within her the craving to possess such a garment"

Whilst doing the football pools one day sometime later, she has a premonition that she is going to win, and the yearning for the Dior dress comes back to her. She knows that when she wins she will be able to go to Paris and buy her own dress. Amazingly, she does win on the pools, but only £100, not even a quarter of the money she needs. But she sees this as a sign that she is meant to have the dress, and starts scrimping and saving. Finally she has enough money to go to Paris, where she does indeed get her dress but at the same time becoming involved with a cast of Parisian characters. The book began to remind me of Winifred Watson's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day; the ordinary person who has a wonderful adventure, developing in the process, but also touching other people's lives and changing them. She returns to London certainly changed by the experience, which turns out to have been so much more valuable than the dress itself. There is then a fantastic little twist in the plot towards the end which had me gasp out loud in shock; I want to say more about this episode but I don't want to spoil it!

After enjoying Mrs Harris goes to Paris so much I wondered what I would make of Mrs Harris goes to New York, the second Mrs Harris book which Bloomsbury have also released in this volume. I wondered whether or not any sequel could match it; a different story about the same woman might just be dull, and if it was too similar to the first book then it might not be so refreshing. Fortunately, I also enjoyed Mrs Harris goes to New York, a completely different but equally captivating read. This sees the indomitable Mrs Harris accompany one of her cleaning clients who is relocating to New York to settle in, but also using the opportunity to right a situation which has been on her mind for some time. The wonderful Dior dress makes an appearance too, being worn to dinner on the voyage over! Like the earlier book, I was gripped by Gallico's writing, finding it impossible to put the story down.

These hugely entertaining novels were so different from The Snow Goose that I'm wondering about the rest of Gallico's work - is it more akin to Mrs Harris or The Snow Goose or is it different again? But definitely one of my favourite reads of this year, and one that I'd recommend as something a bit different for a summer read.

And finally, I'm now extremely keen to read the rest of Mrs Harris' adventures - Bloomsbury please can you bring out Mrs Harris goes to Russia and Mrs Harris MP next summer please? As I commented on Elaine's blog about the same book - I'll camp out on their doorstep until they do!

My book collection

A friend recently said to me:

"I can't believe you own quite that many books living in a flat that doesn't sound particularly vast!"

So I said I'd take some pictures to show her how they fitted in...
The bulk of my fiction is on these shelves, alphabetically by author surname (except where size means they don't fit on the right shelf (the big tower on the right hand small book case is ones that I have yet to read)...but the fiction now extends round the corner, as we've put some cases in the kitchen area now:

There were just two cases here, but we're getting a Kenwood mixer, and it needed something to sit on so I have to relinquish the second small one for the cube shaped one (currently inhabited by cookbooks), but as we don't have the heating on at the moment, I've put it in front of the storage heater so it's got another 4-5 months grace.

Then by the tv...
I keep my DVDs, a selection of non fiction and my collection of cookery magazines.

Behind the sofa...
is the smart bookcase with biographies and my posh hardbacks, and there is overflow non-fiction on the little case next to it and some cake decorating magazines and my library books.

And finally, in our bedroom...
is my collection of Chalet School books since they are the only thing that will fit on this little case! Would you believe it that when I moved into this flat, this was the only bookcase I had? I had one tall case of books in my parents flat, but that was it.

So where are my fiances books? Mostly in storage...occasionally I have offered him shelf space when I have got new shelves but they have always ended up being filled before he took up the offer. I really hope we can buy a house soon!

A box of Bloomsbury Group

Actually, they came in a very large padded envelope, but I was extremely excited to recieve all four of the new Bloomsbury Group titles. Last year's publication of 6 "lost classics from the early twentieth century" was one of the most enthused about events of the year on book blogs and I saw many reviews of the books. I'm lucky enough to see this year's titles before their publication and can participate even more fully in the excitement - I should say that above all, regardless of whether or not I liked the books, it is the principle behind the books that excites me - the desire to bring back books which would otherwise languish forgotten. This seems to be a trend for the 21st century in publishing and many of the best books that I have read in recent years. I was going to write about all of them in one go, but that would make for a very long post, so I will wet your appetite with one today and write about the rest very soon - my reading ability has just recovered enough to cope with them and fortunately they are reasonably light.

I started with Let's tell uncle by Rohan O'Grady*. I chose this one because out of the four, its author was the only one that I had not encountered before, and it was the only title that I have yet to see mentioned and I wanted to have a chance to read it before I read any reviews or hype about it. According to a note at the beginning of the volume, Rohan O'Grady is the pseudonym for June Margaret O'Grady; she was born in Vancouver and produced five novels, of which Let's kill Uncle, written in 1963, was her third.

Set on a remote island in Canada, the book revolves around two children, Barnaby and Christie who are visiting for the summer. Barnaby is somewhat of a tearaway; Christie is thin, quiet and reluctant to interact socially. But encouraged by those looking after them, they become friends, playing pranks on the villagers and enjoying what seems to be an idyllic existence. But it isn't. Barnaby is heir to a large fortune, and believes that his uncle is after his inheritance and trying to kill him. What is he to do when no-one believes him? Christie is the one who comes up with the answer - Barnaby will have to kill his uncle before his uncle kills him...

I'm not sure whether this book, entertaining and dark by turns, was originally written for children or adults. Like last year's Bloomsbury Group children's book (A kid for two farthings) it is captivating and written in a way that makes me think that it would probably appeal to both groups alike, although it is a more substantial read and at terms disturbing. Also apart from a beautiful preliminary page, there aren't any pictures in the book (which is a shame, I think that there is a lot of potential for illustrating this tale). I think this would make an excellent book to read aloud to an older child/pre-teenager; I would have enjoyed listening to my Dad read me this and would probably have needed the reassurance of having it read to me.

There is also a movie, quite old, made in 1966, which I would be curious to see. Wonder if this republication will prompt a remake?

*As an aside, I think the title alone is extremely entertaining and am contemplating giving it to one of my fiance's nephews as a joke present sometime!

Cake decorating class (Domestic Arts 5)

I went on a Cake Decorating Course last Friday as I wanted to add another string to my bow of Domestic Arts. I had an ulterior motive; I wanted to find out whether I might be capable of decorating my wedding cake next year. I know I can cook a wedding cake, but could I decorate it? So, I booked myself onto Introduction to Celebration Cakes run by Lindy Smith of Lindy's Cakes. It was a fantastic day, and I learnt a lot. The day was divided between demonstration by Lindy, and hands on practice ourselves, and I took some photos to show what I did.

We started off by learning how to knead and colour sugarpaste and then to roll it out evenly. We then used it to cover the base board:

Next came preparing the cake. We had all been instructed to bake a 6 egg madeira in an 8" tin. As I did not have a big enough tin I had borrowed one from a colleague who has a side line in cake decorating. Unfortunately she lent me the wrong size! And my 8" mixture was baked in a 10" tin! Disaster! I was not able to level my cake like the other students as it wouldn't have left me with a deep enough cake to cover. But Lindy had a wonderful solution - I inverted the cake...
and then filled in the gaps with sugar paste...
This was then smoothed off, and you couldn't tell in the finished covered cake, only when it was sliced (and then not as badly as anticipated). The cake was then covered with buttercream, to give it a smooth finish (I forgot to take a picture of this stage), and then covered with white sugarpaste. We used smoothers to give it a smooth finish.
The afternoon was devoted to the decoration of the cake. Lindy demonstrated a number of techniques and tools and then we got to go and have a play! I decided to use cutters, although I also used a roller to make a ribbon out of coloured sugarpaste to go around my cake.
I was really pleased with the result, and my fiance said that he'd be proud to have this as our wedding cake.

I am DEFINITELY going to attempt to do my own wedding cake. I have lots of ideas floating around my head and I am sure I will be blogging more about my plans. We've just ordered a Kenwood Mixer to help me, and first up will be some cake recipe testing and sampling. I'd quite like to post about this so hope that it won't bore too many people - at the moment I can barely stop talking about wedding cakes so it would be a bit weird if my blog didn't reflect that!



(PS: Do you want to see what the disaster looked like inside?

not so bad at all - the extra sugarpaste padding isn't as noticeable as I thought it would be!)

Orange Wednesday: It so happens (Ferguson)

When I started out on my Orange Wednesday project, to read titles from previous Orange longlists as a way of extending my modern literary reading, I spent a while typing titles into Amazon and library to read their synopses and reviews and decide whether or not they were titles which interested me. It so happens was a title which I found in that way; its premise of an original novel set in a retirement home interested me, having greatly enjoyed both Jerusalem and Mrs Palfrey at the Claremount which have similar settings.

This is a quirky book about eccentric characters. Rosemary, the deputy warden who loves to cook, and who falls in love with a conman (although one would like to think that her incredibly light sticky toffee pudding initially charmed him). Annie, who has been profoundly deaf since child hood. Althea, who develops cataracts, the overbearing and formiddable warden Betty Potts are both hugely entertaining and engaging, compelling the reader to read on as much to find out about them as about the plot.

The plot itself is a somewhat gothic tale of what happens when Betty tries to restore the home towards its former grandeur ; a mysterious past is uncovered. I won't give anymore away about it, but following the prologue to the book it would be impossible not to read on to find out what happens.

One thing that puzzled me though was the publication, by Solidus press. The book itself was somewhat flimsy, almost as if it had been selfpublished. I felt intrigued that something so obviously out of the mainstream could make it onto the Orange longlist.

The book was longlisted in 2005 and Patricia Ferguson wrote another longlisted title in 2007 called Peripheral Vision which I am equally intrigued to read and have added to my library wishlist.

2005

Two sorts of biscuits

It didn't take long for the cyclist to get through the stack of biscuits that I baked last week; the uphill bike rides had evidently made a very large biscuit shaped hole inside him. Unfortunately, he came back with a horrible cold and spent 3 days last week feeling quite sorry for himself. So I decided to do a bit more baking to cheer him up.

Firstly, I made some ginger topped shortbread from the M and S Easy Baking book which I have wanted to try for some time. Ginger is meant to be good for warding off colds and this recipe is for a ginger-flavoured shortbread with a topping made from butter, golden syrup and more ginger. It was deemed very tasty, although he felt that the topping wasn't necessarily needed.
I then got Baking Magic out again and started suggesting recipes from it to try. Following the success of the Party Rings and the Chocolate Bourbons, he was keen to try another homemade version of a supermarket favourite and said "chocolate hobnobs". There wasn't actually a recipe for chocolate hobnobs, but there was for chocolate digestives, which amazing turned out more hobnobby in character than digestivey. These were a HUGE hit.

Comfort reading follow up

I had an absolutely overwhelming response to the post I wrote about comfort reading this time last week, and there were so many comments that mentioned books which people turned to that I thought I would write a follow up and share them. Perhaps if you're feeling in need of comfort reading, then you might like to try one of someone else's ideas (although that may by implication take you out of the comfort zone...). I've had another week of feeling doped up and confused by some new medication that I've been taking, which has rendered me almost completely incapable of reading anything particularly literary, although I did manage Valerie Grove's Kaye Webb biography, because it was so very good. So much of my "reading" this week has comprised the perusal of recipe books, particularly cake decorating ones, and more Babysitters Club and Enid Blyton.

Children's literature was unsurprisingly mentioned frequently. Specific titles included The white horse by Elizabeth Gouge, The swish of the curtain by Pamela Brown, and specific authors such as Judy Blume and Roald Dahl and Louisa May Alcott. But more often series were mentioned - Anne of Green Gables, the Flambards books (KM Peyton), the Green Knowe books, Famous Five (and other Enid Blyton series), Sadlers Wells, Nancy Drew, the Little House on the Prairie books, and the Chalet School. Ann P made the important point in that series tend to be so comforting because one meets the characters again and again and so they seem like "old friends" even if the plot itself is new.

But some adult books were revealed; David, who inspired the original post, said that he didn't read much children's literature as a child and didn't become a literary addict until he was an adult, aimplying that he didn't have the same sense of nostalgia that those who read as much as children. He thus turns to the Alexander McCall Smith books. Crime is also the comfort of choice for Hannah, who says that she hasn't actually read any children's books since childhood, and likes Agatha Christie and murder mysteries when she needs to relax. Simon from Stuck in a book highlighted perhaps the most literary of all of the books mentioned - the Diaries of a Provincial Lady.

I suppose the most important thing for many of us with comfort reading is familiarity, and turning to a book that one has read several times before. As an adult I tend to reread books less than I did as a child, mainly because now I have a huge awareness of the numbers of books out there that I want to read, but also because the supply is greater - I can go to the library every day if I want and I can order books at whim from Amazon, rather than relying on the once-weekly excursion into town or birthday booktokens. So the books with which I am most familiar are those read as a child.

The picture by the way is of some perfect food to accompany comfort reading; chocolate, cake, toast, scones - anything carbohydratey would be perfect I'm sure.

I'm still indulging in lots of comfort reading as I'm currently taking some medication which is making me extremely dopey and unable to focus. So there may be some hiatus in replying to comments/visiting blogs. It's starting to wear off and I managed a Virago Modern Classic at the weekend but unfortunately I have to put the dose up again...

Jam making (domestic arts 4)

This week's domestic art is jam making - I've done it before, and was surprised how easy it was. But it seemed even easier this time around, as you'll see from my pictures.

All you need is a large saucepan, or a couple of smaller ones, some jam sugar (which even comes with the recipe on the back) and lots of strawberries. It was a good job we bought several punnets from the Pick Your Own shop as they were so yummy compared to some rather dismal supermarket strawberries that there might not have been any left for jam making!


You also need a collection of jars.

First, weigh out 800g of strawberries (I had to split mine between two saucepans), and mash them up.
Add a kilo of jam sugar (jam sugar has some added pectin in to help it set)
Gently warm (left saucepan) until it comes to a boil (right saucepan) and then boil vigorously for 4 minutes. This is the only potentially dodgy part as molten strawberry sugar mixture can be quite lethal, but this year I even managed not to cover the kitchen in pink goo (the key was not to overfill the saucepans!) or myself.

Pour into jars...and then enjoy. So far we've enjoyed it on toast, in a Victoria jam sponge, and straight out of the pot...