A small story.

This morning, running errands in the village which is two villages along, I saw a pair of household names. Rather oddly, this part of Scotland quite often does have a household name roaming about in the wild. We could not be further from Claridge’s or The Groucho, and there are parts of the county where 1979 went to die, but still, sometimes a titanically famous person appears. In the village two villages along, people still remember when Robin Williams and Steve Martin bought some socks in the country store.

I did that thing you do. I did the understanding-the-nature-of-fame face. This is something I developed from long years of walking past celebrated actors coming out of looping studios in Soho. My theory went: if you should happen to catch their eye, you give a blinding but slightly innocent smile. The smile says: I know you are very famous, but I’m not going to make a thing of it. I’m just going to give you the lovely, merry grin that any nice person in the street would get. (I admit, I am slightly alone in this. It is not very British to smile at strangers in the street, but I do it all the time, and I get varying reactions, from simple friendliness to outright fear.) The smile also says: I am not going to invade your privacy, or shout your most famous line at you, or ask you for your autograph. It says: I loved your last film (or book or play or equivalent), but I’m going to let you go about your business as if you were an ordinary person, although I know you are not.

I’ve only broken this not-speaking rule once. I was at university, and the cast of White Mischief had arrived to shoot the courtroom scenes in the town hall. I was very poncy in those days, and it was high summer, and I used to waft around wearing a Panama hat. I thought it was the last word in chic. It was the eighties and I was eighteen; what can I tell you? Walking across the sloping cobbles of Oriel Square, I saw Ray McAnnally coming towards me. I broke out a blazing smile. He was one of the actors I adored the most at the time. As he reached me, he smiled back, rather quizzically, with a mischievous gleam in his dear old eye, and said: ‘I like your hat.’

I practically fell over.

‘I like your acting,’ I yelled, giddy with delight. I was in a hazy trance of pleasure for the rest of the day.

Anyway, there I was this morning, in the village with the two household names. I passed them on the street; they looked very nice and very happy and very normal. How lovely, I thought, that they can come to dear old Scotland and be left alone to take their ease. Nobody bothered them; nobody much even looked.

Ten minutes later, I was in a small shop. The car was parked just outside. I suddenly heard a volley of barking as Stanley the Dog took exception to a passing Westie.

‘Stanley,’ I called out, running to the motor to settle him. ‘Leave the small dogs alone.’

I walked back into the shop to pay for my things. ‘Sorry about that,’ I said to the man behind the counter. I turned, to find myself face to face with one of the household names. I did the nuanced nature-of-fame smile, with a little bit of welcome to my neighbourhood thrown in. I got a charming smile back, with, I suspected, a tiny trace of dog understanding; just a glimmer, but I was certain it was there. At that moment, I almost broke all the rules, and had to restrain myself from offering an introduction to my handsome canine.  

I went back home, rather foolishly bathed in reflected glory. I was idiotically pleased to have given the household name a welcoming smile, and I was glad I had been given such a good one in return. I was a perfect ambassadress for my locality, spreading good cheer.

Then I saw my reflection in the looking glass. I had a long brown smear all the way across my forehead.

Oh, no, I thought. The household name smile was not one of delight, but pity.

The HN must have thought I was one of those special people, some kind of community project, allowed out for a little shopping experiment. I had been feeding Red the Mare before I went on my errands. Her delicious daily breakfast is a sort of earthy mash; I usually mix it with my hands. Clearly, I had pushed my hair out of my eyes and left the tell-tale smear behind. So now, I thought, the household name will go back home and think not of the friendliness of the Scottish peoples, but of the most peculiar females one may encounter in small country shops.

And that, my darlings, is why I don’t get out much. Really, I’m not sure I am safe to leave the house.

 

Today’s pictures:

The leaves are really turning now:

And falling too:

I love sage:

The last leaves clinging to the little fruit tree:

One of my favourite of the HorseBack horses, who was working well this morning:

My perfect dozy girl:

EXTREME HANDSOMENESS ALERT:

I really should have introduced him to the Household Name. How could anyone resist Stan the Man?

We haven’t had a recipe in forever. So here is a little tangy salad of my own invention. Finely dice some cucumber and tomatoes. The dicing is important. Equally finely chop some parsley. This is a faux tabbouleh, without the bulgur wheat, so I think quite a lot of parsley. Chop some good black olives. Dress with a lot of good olive oil, more lemon juice than you might think, and a good dose of sea salt:

And eat it looking at a hill:

Only joking. The hill is optional.

Brevity, and soup.

Today, the blog is late, and short. This is because I did actual social life. Instead of making jokes on Facebook with my virtual humans, I actually interacted (I believe that is the technical term) with sentient beings IN REAL LIFE.

This was reasonably rare for me even before the explosion of the internet. I have advanced hermit-like tendencies, and really am very happy alone in my room. But I drank too much champagne at my sister’s new year’s eve party and rashly made a date, and the nice people took me literally. (I am always faintly astonished when this happens.)

At first, I panicked. The house must be tidied, logs brought in, risotto cooked, candles lit, cushions plumped. I suddenly decided the guests must have four different kinds of cheese, so an emergency trip to the village was required, in the blizzard. I even arranged tulips and hyacinths, for extra points.

In the end, of course, it was absolutely delightful. It was lovely to see the real life humans, and they all had second helpings of the risotto, and admired the dog. The conversation veered wildly all over the place, from autism to the American gun lobby to the in-breeding of canines. There were enchanting young people, one of whom is studying to be a writer. ‘I must just ask you about plot arc,’ he said, as they were leaving.

‘I’m not awfully brilliant at plot,’ I said.

We discussed his difficulty for a moment. The designated driver was revving the car, needing to get off on the journey north before new snow set in. The writer had to go. He had moved on from plot to point of view.

My parting shot, as they drove away, was: ‘Now you are into the treacherous waters of the omniscient narrator....’

I really do sometimes wonder at the sentences that come out of my mouth.

It was very sweet and lovely and now we are all hunkered down for the promised storms to come. The snow has swept across the south and west, and is heading straight for us. Luckily, the field shelter for the horses is finally finished, and we showed it to them this morning. It seemed to gain their approval. (Autumn the Filly was especially impressed. Red was a little more doubtful about the idea of inside, and snorted quite a lot, as if to say: you mean I have to lead my band into this strange wooden place? She takes her duties as lead mare very seriously.)

All week, I have been promising one of the Dear Readers a recipe for soup. It was supposed to be my new chicken soup, but that is not yet perfected and I am too tired now to write it. So here is a very quick, back of a postcard, completely cheating sort of soup, which is simple and fast and good for the winter chill.

First take your stock. If you have some chicken stock, hurrah. I’m afraid I just used my favourite Marigold powder. If you are going to use instant, I would only recommend Marigold, as all other brands I find greasy and too salty and not quite right. A litre will be plenty.

Into it, put eight or nine roughly chopped tomatoes, two fat garlic cloves, and three or four cooked beetroots. I use the ones that come vacuum-packed. Not the ones in vinegar, whatever you do. Add a sprinkle of dried chilli. Simmer for ten minutes.

Liquidise, quickly, with a good dollop of extra virgin olive oil and a good squeeze of lemon. Don’t over-process. Sieve. This is important, because you want a thin, spicy, rich broth, with no pulp. Adjust seasoning; it may need a little Maldon salt.

And there you are. It’s my own invention, and it’s a good, brightly coloured, fierce thing. Perfect for the snow. We drank it out of little Moroccan tea glasses, just because.

 

No time for pictures today. Just one very dear face, also much admired by the lovely guests, and a blue, blurry evening hill:

A good man

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

On this day, one year ago, my funny, clever, tall, handsome, kind cousin died at the stupid age of 57.

He did lots of interesting and rather impressive things in his life: he made olive oil, he designed gardens, he spoke perfect Italian. But what I really remember him for was his ability to make your heart lift, when you walked into a room and saw him standing there.

He had that kind of easy charm that is so bone-deep that it’s not like charm at all. It’s a lovely human facility to make other humans feel comfortable and happy and as if they are suddenly a little bit more brilliant and amusing than they thought themselves five minutes before.

One of my other relations says that you can divide people into drainers and radiators. There are those ones that suck the very will to live out of you, with their insistence on looking on the bleak side, or their dedicated neediness, or their dramatic sense of self, which means that every single thing that ever happens is all about them. Then there are the radiators, who radiate laughter and good times and general approval and a clever sense of their own essential absurdity, which allows you to be absurd too, and not to worry about it.

Well, the cousin was a radiator. I remember him always laughing. I remember him wry and teasing and dry as a bone. It’s idiotic that he is not here. He is the one I am thinking of today, and those who loved him, and whom he loved right back.

 

For some reason, in a kind of living well, seize the day kind of manner, I decided to make a really proper dinner. Delightful baked Portobello mushrooms, which I put in dish, scattered with marjoram from the garden, crushed garlic, lots of Maldon salt and black pepper and a huge knob of butter, and am now cooking for about twenty minutes. I'm going to eat them with a very bloody sirloin steak, and that is that:

Outside, the garden was blooming in the gloaming:

The Pigeon, blue in the light, had found a most excellent stick:

Up in her field, Red the Mare would be gazing out to the west, which is what she has been doing most of the day, as if there is something there of infinite fascination:

And the hill is its majestic, hilly self, unmoved by small human regrets:

Christmas spirit and chocolate fridge cake

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

THE PARCELS ARE POSTED. THE PARCELS ARE POSTED.

This is not code. I am not doing espionage. These are not Moscow Rules. I am not sidling up to a sauve-looking gent in St James’s park and murmuring: ‘The geese are flying south for winter.’ I am not communicating with my handler. I actually went to the actual post office with actual packages and put actual stamps on them and sent them off.

The postmistress thought the whole thing very funny. I was right up to the deadline this year; only by next day delivery could I guarantee success. Never mind. Someone has to keep the Royal Mail going, and this year it is I. (The queue behind me did not think it quite so funny, as I produced package after package.)

I gave the postmistress some of the special fridge cake, which I had wrapped up in a silver bag and tied with a ribbon. I was afraid that this might count as bribing a public official, or that health and safety would forbid it, but she seemed delighted. And for a special bonus, she was speaking Doric as I came in. ‘Are ye biding at hame, or fit are ye doing?’ she was asking a venerable old gent. (Trans: Are you staying at home, or what are you doing?) I love biding at hame. I am the mistress of biding at hame.

More Christmassy miracles happened. A kind gentleman arrived with a vast load of beech logs, so there shall be crackling beechy fires this Christmas. I made some more of the fridge cake and took it over to The Landlord’s office, which is just across the road. There are about eight of them in there, still working hard, and I thought they needed festive chocolate. And then, dear Amazon in America informed me that if I ordered in the next two hours, and paid an extra seven pounds, I could make sure that the godson in Santa Monica would get his present tomorrow morning. (That does seem almost in the realm of the impossible, a real magical elf feat.) I threw in a present for his mother, my old friend The Expatriate, because I love her and miss her. So they shall have happy reading on Christmas morning.

And since I seem to have dragged myself out of my Scroogish mood, here is the fridge cake recipe for you. I invented it last year. I was starting to make my traditional Christmas truffles for The Brother-in-Law. He adores them, and I like to give him a batch each year, made with love. But there was no cream, and I could not be fagged to go to the shop. So I improvised with what I had, and I came up with this very special sort of fudgy, truffly, chocolaty thing.

Take five bars of best black chocolate. I used Chocolat Menier this year, because it was on special offer in the shop. Also, I love the beautiful green wrapping, and I remember it fondly from my childhood. Add one bar of milk chocolate. I used a Green and Black one with butterscotch chips for extra loveliness.

Break them up and put in a big non-stick pan. Add 150g of unsalted butter, and two tablespoons of runny honey. Very, very gently, melt the whole lot. This will take about five minutes over a low heat. Give it a stir from time to time, but try not to disturb it too much. It’s a texture thing. Chocolate can go a bit funny if you fuss it.

Then take about 100g of hazelnuts and roughly chop them. You can do this by hand, or blitz them up in a processor. Ideally, you want quite big, rough chunks, not nut dust, so go gently.

Then take a pot of glacé cherries. Do not be alarmed. I know that glacé cherries are ghastly orphans of the 1970s. Also, if you are like me, you may have strong feelings about not mixing chocolate and fruit. However, the cherries in this do not taste at all. I think the chocolate mixture is so strong that it overpowers them. What they do is add a wonderful gooey, chewy texture to the whole. Roughly chop them too.

At this stage, you may want to add some bashed up biscuits. This is entirely up to you. I am currently favouring no biscuits.

Put the nuts and cherries into a shallow, rectangular dish. I use a nice white porcelain one that is meant for vegetables; it is about ten inches long, six wide, and two deep. Think about the size of a hardback book.

Pour the chocolate mixture over. Using a spatula, very gently mix it all up, so the nuts and cherries are evenly distributed. Put in the fridge, and chill for at least six hours, or until well set. Then cut it into small squares. It is very rich, so you don’t want huge pieces. The cutting is quite hard, since the thing is very dense; you need a good sharp knife. Then you will have to lever the stuff out with the point of the knife. The end result is not terribly neat, but it has the virtue of looking very homemade indeed.

This amount will make about thirty pieces. If I give these for presents, I put them in pretty silver paper freezer bags and tie them with blue and red striped ribbon. You could put a label on, if you were being creative. I can guarantee that anyone who gets them will love you very, very much, with a fierce cupboard love. I often do inventions which are rank disasters. There is a reason that recipes are recipes. Sometimes, when you go off-piste, you end up arse over tit in a snowdrift. (Did I extend that metaphor a bit too far?) But in this case I got lucky. This really is a lovely and indulgent thing, and absurdly easy to make. I hope you enjoy it.

This is what it looks like:

And, in other pictures:

It was sunny and mild today; the light was quite outrageous. As you may see:

Inside, it was getting quite Christmassy, and the tulips were still going strong:

Suddenly realised we have had an awful lot of Serious Pigeon lately. Here is a smiling one:

The happiness is because she has a really, really splendid stick:

And the blue hill:

Finally, for those of you in my hemisphere, there is GOOD NEWS. Yesterday was the winter solstice, which I quite missed, but which always makes me happy because it means that from now on, the afternoons shall get lighter, little by little, each day. I love the thought of that.

Beetroot

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Time for a recipe. I invented this salad on Saturday. I had a vague memory of reading something, somewhere, about beetroot with slivered almonds, so I cannot claim utter originality. They are lovely complements to each other, anyway.

This is a simple, elegant, fresh spring salad.

Take two cooked beetroots. I use the ready-cooked ones in the little vacuum packs, but if you are feeling strong, you can boil your own.

Dice them into small, delicate cubes. The smallness and delicacy is, I think, important. It's a texture thing. This is not a rough, rustic salad, but a light, refined thing.

Do the same with half a peeled cucumber. Again, the peeling and dicing is important.

Finely slice a few radishes.

Arrange, on a large white plate. Do not mix them about, or the beetroot will bleed, and you will be left with a purple mess. Take some feta cheese, as much as you want. I used about a quarter of a regular packet. Crumble it over the salad. Gently toast a handful of slivered almonds in a dry frying pan. Scatter them about the plate. Take four or five leaves of mint, slice very finely, and add these.

Dress with a pinch of sea salt, a squeeze of lemon, and a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. And that is it.

Now for pictures: