jane brocket

book for cook

 

After thinking about it for a long, long time, I finally got round to making a book for Phoebe one afternoon in December. I'd imagined it would take me ages to sort it out which is why I put it off for so long, but in the end I was very pleasantly surprised as it only took a few hours to put together Phoebe's Cakes.

 

As you know, I like to photograph Phoebe's amazing baking creations. She is very patient and knows not to disturb, alter or, heaven forbid, eat anything until the camera has been whipped out. (It pains me when she makes great cakes for friends' birthdays in the evening when it's dark - cakes don't look great with a flash - and then takes them to school the next morning before the sun is up again. We've missed out on quite a few good cake shots this way).

 

I collected photos of her cakes into a file as I went along, and it occurred to me that she should have her own cake book which brings together her 'work', just as an artist has a portfolio to show off their talents. She is extremely modest about her baking skills and I wanted her to have some tangible proof of how good she is. Nevertheless, it took me a shockingly long time to sit down and do it (at least that gave me more to work with) and now I realise it's as easy as pie (cherry with a nice piece of lattice-work pastry on the top, I think).

 

I used Bob Books and even though I did it very close to Christmas, the copies arrived after only three days which I think is amazing. I made a hardback photobook and it was incredibly straightforward, although I now have renewed admiration for book designers who make it look all too easy. I stuck to a very simple design and played with sizes and positioning, but nothing fancier or more sophisticated than that - it really was a matter of 'I've started so I will finish'.

 

Phoebe is delighted with her first book. When she showed it to a group of our friends, they asked in all seriousness how many copies she had sold. I wish. I only made two, but I like to think that this at least gives Phoebe's Cakes a certain cult cachet.

 

 

[Best place for more obtainable but definitely less unique cookery titles: Books for Cooks]

textures

 

All through their childhood, I read enormous numbers of books to Tom, Alice and Phoebe. (We still laugh at memories of Phoebe bringing in at least fifteen books when asked to find something for me or Simon to read to her.) Books were undoubtedly the best way of creating calm, restoring peace, reducing noise levels, starting dicussions, sitting closely, and keeping all three happy at the same time (the other solution was fresh air). We read colour books, fairy tales, animal stories, rhymes, modern books, classics, and lots of beautifully illustrated books. But the one thing I always felt was missing was a range of books with photographs in them,  and what a missed opportunity that was.

Even though I could see the gap in the market, I never thought I'd ever have my name on a children's book. So it's still quite a surprise to see this cover (it will be even more exciting when I hold a real book in my hands) because this is my photography between the covers of a book for young children (say in the 4-8 year range although it's very suitable for younger children, too). It is the first of four 'concept' books for Millbrook Press which is part of Lerner Publications, and it's been quite an educational experience writing it (quite apposite, as Millbrook is an educational imprint).

It all came about because of blogging. Carol, now my fantastic editor, is a passionate knitter and started reading Yarnstorm a long time ago. She contacted me out of the blue to say that she thought my photographs and style might be suitable for children's books, and would I be interested in writing a proposal? Well, it doesn't take much for me to imagine new books (as Dr Seuss says, 'Oh the things you can think up, if only you try') so I came up with ideas, Millbrook liked them, I then realised that writing books for children is nowwhere near as easy as it looks, and now we are getting closer and closer to the publication of the first title in the series in March 2011. And when my copies arrive the tables will be turned and I shall be bringing a pile of books to my children with a big smile and asking them to read to me. 

(The book is also available retail from Amazon.com,Amazon.co.uk and even Amazon.co.jp)

...and five good things on wednesday

1. The crochet

The more I look at them, the more I like and appreciate old-fashioned crocheted 'granny square' blankets. It seems they appear everywhere these days - I even spotted one in a scene in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (no doubt an acrylic number as the film was made in1964). This could be because I'm noticing them for the first time or maybe because people becoming far less apologetic about the wonderful mismatches of fibre colour and displaying their previously hidden gems now that crochet is out of the closet once more. I found these great vintage blankets on eBay when I went in search of inspiration and confidence. Because that's what they are really all about: confidence to crochet as you please and to use up yarn, and not to fit in with others' ideas of what constitutes good taste and grown-up colour schemes.

2. The inspirational book

This talk of colour and confidence brings me neatly onto the next good thing which is Color by Kristin Nicholas. Now this, too, is really about confidence, and seems to me to contain enough material for two or three books which makes it amazing value. It's about colour, design and the joy of knitting, and I found goodness knows how many great ideas and inspirations in here - and that's without even looking at the patterns themselves. 

3. The vintage film

As I am very much aware of my own vintage status at the moment, when I discovered Hell is a City, a film made on location in Manchester in 1959, I knew I would be watching a little bit of my own history. And, sure enough, the film is packed with the Manchester landmarks of my childhood (and a number of unplaceable 'Manchester' accents). Great stuff. (It also led me to the fascinating and painstakingly researched website I have linked to - just one example of how the internet is so brilliant for sharing esoteric information. Without George Nixon's meticulous research, I would never have known that a house I walked past many a time as a child is a location in the film.)

4. The unironic CD

So while I buying the Dolly CD (see yesterday's post), I thought I might as well have a look at the Johnny Cash offerings. I grew up thinking Johnny Cash was all about 'A Boy Named Sue', the 1970s 'Man in Black'  and bad TV shows, but in the last couple of years - mainly via the Bob Dylan Theme Time Radio shows - I have come to realise that there was/is a much greater significance to Johnny Cash than I'd previously suspected. This was underscored by Walk the Line (even though I had to fast-forward the druggy bits, just as I had with Ray, because they make me feel quite ill) which was a revelation. This means I can alternate ironic but brilliant Dolly with the unironic and similarly brilliant Johnny, and really go country in the car.

5. The history

My natural inclinations and interests tend towards the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but having gone to university in one of the most beautiful Georgian cities in England and having lived in various beautifully proportioned, high-ceilinged, sash-windowed houses with original heating (ie none), I am nevertheless drawn to the eighteenth century as a period of transition and taste. Amanda Vickery is an entertaining and readable historian with a genuine and highly engaging enthusiasm for domestic life (she also wrote and presented a wonderful Radio 4 series). Behind Closed Doors is an illuminating study of Georgian home life, with a particularly interesting chapter on 'What Women Made' which takes a new (and sensible) approach to understanding women's crafts and domestic accomplishments at that time.

and one for good luck: the genius

To mark his 75th birthday, BBC Four is having an Alan Bennett fest this week. His work ages beautifully, or maybe it just doesn't age at all, and is still as fresh, funny and moving as it ever was. What a treat to be able to watch and listen to a cornucopia of marvellously crafted plays, talks and monologues.

bulb

When I moved in with Simon 24 years ago, I promptly took over his garage with pots and pots and bowls and bowls of bulbs for forcing. Never had I come across such a good spot; I'd been forcing bulbs under my bed in rented rooms for the previous couple of years (a good indication of just how cold they were) but now I had all the dark, cold space I needed for hyacinths, tiny narcissi and even tulips. There was no question of Simon getting his car in there - it was more a matter of 'love me, love my bulbs'. (Not much has changed and Simon is still putting up with the bulbmania each autumn.)

We didn't stay long in the flat that went with my bulb garage but that first year produced an amazing array of indoor bulbs that seemed to go on for ever, and took up all the surfaces when they came indoors. I've never since quite reached those dizzying heights, but I have forced bulbs in every subsequent house we have lived in. This year I have found the second-best place, a mere 11 years after moving into this house. It's the cold, dark entrance space behind the front door which is never used as front door as we use the back door as our front door because the front door is always blocked by wellies and coats and shoes. This year, however, it is blocked with vases and pots of hyacinths and paperwhites. So little do we use this small space, that it was only when I was looking for some shoes yesterday that I suddenly saw just how much the bulbs have grown since I hid them there a few weeks ago.

There is nothing to beat the thrill of seeing something you have sown, planted or just sat above water start to grow. These fat 'buds' on the hyacinths tell me that all is well with nature (you can never be sure) and that my bulbs like their new forcing place. And now, after a quick photoshoot, they are back in the cool darkness, putting out more white roots that stretch down then curl round the vases and force the green stalks upwards. It won't be too long before I can bring them into the relative warmth and watch them flower. Amazing.

I've been reading Bulb by Anna Pavord (one of my tulip gurus, together with Sarah Raven) and it has some of the best pieces of practical advice about forcing bulbs that I have read. Plus the photos are brilliant, and the descriptions make you want to plant every bulb in the book.

what to read at dusk

I am always painfully, acutely aware of the fading light at this time of year.  I really do not like the fact that the lights have to be switched on as early as 3pm, that the children come home in the dark, that I can't take photos after lunch, that it seems like ages till spring.

But this year I am determined not to see the waning light as a negative hole in the day. Instead I'm thinking of it in poetic terms, such as 'half-light' (WB Yeats), or the the 'violet hour' (TS Eliot) or 'dusk, 'gloaming', 'twilight' and 'crepuscule', and engaging with it rather than denying it from behind drawn curtains. And, funnily enough, it is Virginia Woolf who is reshaping my view.

I picked up a copy of the Selected Diaries last week, wishing once again that the 5 volume set was as easily available as it once was (when I was reading library copies I should have been investing in my own volumes as I went along). VW's diaries are simply wonderful, but what has really struck me in the last few days is her way with the weather and the light. I've been reading entries for October and November and the sparse but beautiful details of her afternoon walks with Leonard by the river or in the parks near Richmond, returning home to tea by the fire.

That's the way to do it, I see now. I need a fire, good books, gentle lamplight, tea and cake or crumpets. But first I need the walk (with or without my own Leonard), the bite of cold, wind or rain to make me appreciate the coming indoors. Then, and only then, will I be able to wax lyrical about the dusk.

delight

Delight by JB Priestley is itself a delight. Some of his delights such as trying new mixes of tobacco and smoking a pipe in the bath in the morning may appear dated now, but they aren't that far removed from trying new wines and drinking a glass of champagne in the bath, both of which would appear on my list of delights.

Three nights in Aldeburgh are a delight, too.

As is all this wonderful space full of fresh air and light.

 

And the chance to be alone yet stay in touch.

To be able to read three books in three days. And get my work done. And plenty of knitting.

To watch the sky change colour. To wonder what it would be like to sit at the top of this tower and gaze out to sea.

 
To expand my literary horizons with Eric Newby and Susan Hill (both books are a delight).

To call this place home for a short time, but not do any cooking for a change.*

To come home with a head full of fresh delights and a box full of Burt's Chips which are the very best crisps in the universe but difficult to find, so we always stop to stock up here. 

*Best of Suffolk is exactly that, and Naomi who runs the company with her husband is, you've guessed it, delightful. We book all our Aldeburgh holidays with them.

sorting

 This is when I think I could do with either a real librarian or a real librarian's qualification. For the nth time this summer, we are sorting out books and it's taking up all the imaginative, categorising and sorting skills I have. So we aren't getting far.

We've taken books off shelves, packed them in rented crates for several months, unpacked the crates so that we didn't have to pay to have them for longer than necessary, sorted out the books according the space available in the new kitchen, resorted the rest in the garage (which will need re-resorting before the onset of damp), put the chosen books back on shelves, taken them off so that the shelves could be repainted, and now we have a hall full of books that need sorting out yet again and putting back on newly painted shelves.

But how best to sort them? As I'm not up to using the Dewey Decimal System, we have to decide whether to go alphabetically, by matching height, by matching jacket colour (there are some great photos on Flickr of colourful arrangements), by subject, by publisher, by edition, according to weight (don't want the shelves to sag), most used/least used (least used on top and bottom shelves, most used at eye level), stacked vertically, stacked horizontally, stacked vertically and horizontally, making a concave/Golden Gate Bridge design on each shelf, making a convex/hillocky design on each shelf, putting objets d'art (should we happen to have any) between books, not filling/filling every shelf so that we have interesting positive/negative space things going on, slipping in the odd bar of chocolate camouflaged in Penguin/Persephone colours for emergencies, or a mix of each and every system just to keep us on our toes when we need to find a particular book.

Or maybe we just leave them on the floor a little longer.

good blues

There are good blues and bad blues. I've got the good blues at the moment; a mix of real blues around me and the bittersweet awareness that we are coming to the end of summer and that autumn is round the corner.

To make a change from high summer hot oranges and pinks I painted my nails a shimmery, turquoisey blue which I'd call 'Mermaids' Toes' (if they had any) but which OPI call 'Mermaid for You' (I could spend hours in Sephora  reading the names of the OPI nail varnishes which are wonderfully creative and silly). This colour won the approval of Alice and Phoebe - a rare commodity these days.

My real sky-high sunflowers (as opposed to Tom, see below) look majestic against the vivid blue  morning sky.

The book I'm reading fits into my scheme, too. It's a good, absorbing read; I haven't finished it yet and am waiting for more skeletons to fall out of closets.

And at the end of last week, I discovered that I do have some of my very favourite blues of all, a tiny number of morning glories in my nasturtium and sunflower jungle. I'd thought they'd given up on summer altogether so was inordinately pleased to see them and have my faith restored.

I guess that's why I call it the good blues  [sic].

my sort of nothing

 

I have always maintained that I am a fundamentally lazy person. So it's a mystery to me that I do so much when my basic instinct is to do nothing at all. I spend a lot of time imagining how it would be to have a day, a week, a month, doing nothing. But then I remember that by 'nothing' I mean cooking and baking when I feel like it, reading as much as I like, watching films when it pleases me, talking to Simon and the children without actually moving too much, going for a stroll round a beautiful garden. And so on.

The trouble is that I don't allow myself many such days (but my current year plan does incorporate many more than I've had in the last few years) which is why yesterday's Bank Holiday Monday was such bliss. The children were happily back from Canada/Reading Festival/Wales/Italy/GCSE results. Simon was happily cycling some long distance. I was happily in the house and garden and it was warm and sunny and quiet; the perfect day for doing nothing at all.

I had a lovely time baking and cooking after two months' without a kitchen (the new one is almost finished but usable) and tested out all the appliances making cake, biscuits, quiche, pasta. I knitted with soft alpaca wool. I read Julia Child's recipes, about Julia Child and Julia Child's accounts of living in France (having just seen the film Julie and Julia I'm a newly, Childishly inspired). I listened to the fantastic Beatles programmes on the BBC Radio 2 Beatles Bank Holiday.

Later, we found an unlabelled bottle of Riesling in the wine-rack; we know it's from Dr Loosen but the classification and vintage were a mystery so the wine was an absolutely delicious, serendipitous surprise. And in the evening we basked in the warmth and late summer light with our glasses of wine, and did nothing. Well, my sort of nothing.

ripe plums

 

I don't think there's a single summer picnic in the Famous Five books (and many others) by Enid Blyton that doesn't feature ripe plums. They are stuffed in pockets, knapsacks, bicycle baskets and paper bags, they are enjoyed by rivers, streams, lakes, pools and campfires, at the tops of hills and at the edges of cliffs, on grass, sand and heather. I think of all these warm, juicy plums eaten by Anne and George, Dick and Julian every time I see plums in markets and greengrocers' shops and most especially when they are weighing down the branches of trees, begging to be picked. I didn't have a bag or a basket with me when my friend said I could have as many as I liked, so I picked a pinnyful of plums to eat immediately.

 

And the leftovers went in the fridge so that I could eat them while thinking of my other favourite plummy writer, William Carlos Williams: in this poem here that I have loved since I first read it as an imperssionable teenager and in this poem here that tells me I might still be finding solace in plums when I am old (and preferably wearing purple and a red hat).