Archive for September 8th, 2009
Only one more this evening, I promise…that’s the trouble with writing about food, you always think you can fit another one in…in this case, one more blog post for the night.
One reason for blog absence in the last few months has been because of doing more stuff to our flat: this time, taking out the lovely fake fireplace in our bedroom (70s brickwork, anyone?), getting the wall replastered, plus new paint and carpet. A variant on the kind of things we had done last year, but with the added satisfaction of gaining a tool called a gorilla, for levering under bricks (and in the process worrying a few people who were trying to work out what on earth we were talking about on Facebook).
With the best of intentions, building projects don’t always finish when you intend…and some don’t quite get finished. But yesterday, we got some pictures back up on the walls, and had a sense of things being nearly done. Sometimes the list of DIY tasks sits unaltered for months, looking back at me reproachfully when I check in my useful notebook. But it’s great not just to tick them off the list - but enjoy the benefit of them as well.
One of the big gains, although not so much in feet and inches (or metric, for that matter), is some extra space in our bedroom where the fireplace and corner unit used to be. Now we can fit an armchair in, and start using the room for being somewhere quiet during the daytime or evening - in fact, I am writing from there. Sofas are quite fun for blogging from, but for now, armchairs are even better - particularly when I get a nice view of the sky when getting home from work early enough.
New rooms for old.
September 8th, 2009
I thought I’d write a food related post, just to flex the blogging muscles a little further. What I really meant to write about was starting making things again: jam, pickles, that sort of stuff. But that title just slipped in there…so I’d better try to incorporate it.
Seeing some friends recently, one spoke of the Economy Gastronomy series and book: encouraging us to get more meals out of our ingredients, as it were. Others have written on this before, under ‘100 ways with mince’ and other such inspiring terms (see, I knew I could make the connection sooner or later). But it’s quite fun not just to use free ingredients for cooking (last year’s stock of brambles in the freezer, for example), but to look at how to use what I’ve got in already, in different ways.
I don’t really want extra uses for mince, I suppose. But turning a rice and veg set of leftovers into little savoury burgers - that might be different. Or making things that I might otherwise have bought, such as flavoured oils. (I’d better not mention too many, or there will be no surprises left for my family at Christmas.)
I know it probably sounds too ‘knit your own yoghurt’ for some, but I have decided to make food related presents for family this year. Partly I think I’ve used up most of my good present ideas for them already; for some, they are not really looking for Things at this point, but Useful Presents of a food nature might just slip in under the wire.
What’s more, it’s been fun. Making maybe one thing a weekend, I’m trying some new things, or making extra of others that I already like, and know others like too. I’m not yet doing the bumper batch of Lebkuchen - I’ll wait until nearer Christmas for that - but this way, if something doesn’t work out, I’ve got time in hand to try something else.
So, hopefully if the rain lets up a bit, might be a chance to try picking this year’s crop of brambles, and putting them to work…
September 8th, 2009
So, hello! It must be the autumn, time to stay indoors, and maybe write a few blog posts again…
I’ll do a wee update blog in a bit, for anyone particularly concerned with chronology and Frydman activities in the last few months. For now, I’ll start with what’s been on my mind this week:
Started going through a whole collection of cards, birthday cards, postcards, letters, you name it - some recent, some going way back. I knew that my mum was good at sending cards of all kinds, but starting to stack them all up…really brought home her ongoing care towards me.
At this point, you may be wondering why I keep all this stuff anyway. But don’t we love rediscovering ‘treasures’ of various kinds from the past? Don’t we love receiving things through the post? According to a short piece in the Saturday Times recently (fount of a certain amount of my knowledge, as regular readers will know), there’s something of a renaissance going on in letter writing.
Email, texts, instant messaging, all good - but what happens when you turn off the device? I speak as one whose courtship partly started online (yes, there was a key email from Dan, and a lot more emails between us after that), but what I love to look back at is the cards and letters he sent me during our long first year apart, when I was teaching in Poland.
So far, so good, on the warm fuzzy feelings front. What feels stranger, and I’m still thinking over, is the potential for revisionist history when going back through all the letters. Friendship didn’t work out or only lasted for a time? Do I get rid of the letters they sent, and alter the history between us, as it were, or keep them but know I won’t necessarily read them again?
In other cases, there are friendships that have drifted - but I still think of the other person happily. The letter is a link with them - worth hanging onto a bit longer? And in a few cases, the other person has even taken the time to say that what you did, at a particular time, helped them or meant something to them. That thing may be long forgotten to them now - but it’s good to be reminded that you can help at points, even in a small way.
And in some situations, musing over a relationship that is not so good just now, the cards and letters remind me of another person’s care and attention, maybe over a long period of time. Is it not worth giving it another go?
I’m still working through the paper - and my reactions. I’m reminded of a quote I’ve used before, but this time to focus on another part of the quote:
“Sometimes the poet says to hell with words//And longs to dig ditches
She writes of her longing, and you, who are her friends, write back.”
September 8th, 2009