Wrap yourself up, in fold, upon fold of voluptuous, velvety red petals. This is a Winter miracle; a gift of Red Roses, snipped from an indoor plant, and sent with love to you all on, Fabulous; it’s Friday.
Persephone and the Pomegranate….
Pomegranates; their rose-tinted, leathery skins, concealing chambers packed with seeds simply bursting with unique and tantalising flavour. At once sweet and tart, these ruby-hued grains, so magical, so enticing and so mythologically forbidden, sealed Persephone’s fate, entrapping her as Goddess of the underworld and binding her to Hades forever. Exciting and flavoursome and full of health giving properties (they are said to be a natural anti-inflammatory, to help to lower blood pressure and inhibit viral infections); they certainly bring colour and culinary pizzazz to any dish.
Why not become a gorgeous Goddess (of the domestic kind) yourself, by cooking this recipe? Mix up this magical, gem- scattered Winter hot-pot with the colours of a rich, warm tapestry. and make your taste- buds pop with the flavours of Juniper, Kitchen Garden vegetables, Rosemary and Pomegranate. I have eaten this dish and tasted the ‘forbidden’ seed, many times, and the only experience of the underworld I have had has come by turning the pages of my copy of The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology!
So why not add some glamour and pep to your seasonal January suppers, become a Goddess for a day…… and give it a try?
For the recipe for Winter Hot Pot with Pomegranate, please click here.
2014; “The Best of Times, the Worst of Times”
The warm Spring air of 2014 was scented with the fragrance of Gillyflowers, Sweet Rocket and Narcissus, and the garden bloomed, rested, then bloomed again with blood red, Summer, Flanders Poppies, rainbow coloured Zinnias and cobalt blue Cornflowers. But by the time the Autumn Rudbeckia were in flower and my cherry red sandals were quite worn, I was divorced and my beloved cat Ossie had died.
Whilst the garden was picture perfect, my inner world showed signs of stress. I got into multifarious muddles; with paperwork and bills, and with a chaotic untidiness inside the house, which made everything impossible to find. And I could not ever clear it up. I have swung from happiness to despair in a matter of moments and gone to mad making extremes, sometimes spending too much money, sometimes shopping at flea markets to survive.
I have cooked, baked, gardened and power- walked to excess, throughout the year, trying coming to come to terms with my new status as a single person whilst my ex-husband described the divorce as something he “did not see as a termination”, but, something he did “to draw a line, not to move on without each other”. By the time the flowers in the Cottage Garden were shedding their seeds, my confusion was complete and no weeding or pruning could seem to sever the invisible and deep rooted ties I felt I had to a 35 year old marriage.
Then, yesterday, under a cool blue sky, I returned to the garden to clear away dead leaves and found the shoots of Snowdrops breaking through the ground. Here was a sign of new growth! And I realised that my old life was all but gone and that it was time for the last remnants of it to be let go in order for a new life and vitality to blossom and flourish.
It is time to try to start living again……..
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Charles Dickens.
Christmas in England…..
SOOTHED by the stillness of frosty, sun-sparkly days in-between the magic of Christmas and the excitement of a new year, these deep blue Hyacinths, the colour of sky and sea, make me yearn for Spring.
Baked with Love at Christmas….
Luxuriant with butter, laden with toasted nuts and rum-soaked fruits and cushioned with a moist layer of crème d’amande, this unashamedly rich Stollen is a heavenly Christmas treat.
A labour of love to make; a slow, rhythmic exercise of sifting, blending, creaming and rising where every step is an investment of devotion and tenderness as the dough is gently worked and protected.
Baked with love, I send this festive confection, to you, to all my friends around the world. It comes with my very best Christmas Wishes and thanks to you all for your sincere and valued friendship.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
With love from
Karen x
Vort Limpa; the perfect Christmas Bread
Mysteriously dark, fragrantly flavoured with beer, orange peel and fennel and sticky with molasses, Vort Limpa is my favourite Christmas bread.
This spicy Scandinavian rye loaf is named after the Vort or Wort which is the liquid that results from the mashing process in the making of beer, before fermentation begins. The story goes that whilst the men of the household would be making their beer at Christmastime some of the vort would be given to their wives, to bake a special festive bread during December and up until the day after Christmas.
Perfect served with butter as a tea time treat, or fabulous toasted for salami sandwiches the, scent of it as it is cooking, is, for me, the smell of Christmas.
For the recipe for Vort Limpa, please click here.
“A Shock of Summer Colour”
A shock of summer colour in hot, electric pink and sharp chartreuse; jazzy with garden Geraniums and Nicotiana langsdorffi and nearly as bright as a neon sign.
The Memory of Touch…..
Early morning sees me scrambling up into a thick Devon hedge opposite my house to pick Honesty seed heads. Honesty; that fickle, wayward and gregarious flower which seems happier tangled amongst the Hawthorn, Blackthorn and Hazel than where it started its life, cosseted in my Cottage Garden.
Back indoors, something extraordinary happens as soon as I hold these delicate, papery, soft brown, translucent pods. My fingers start to move by themselves and I just watch in amazement as my hands decide to peel back the outer layers of the seed cases. Wondrously and in a way that I have not done since I was a child, I reveal shimmering, magical discs of pure moonlight and my heart is at once full of feelings of happiness.
I am immensely comforted and moved by this moment; a surprise sensory pleasure and memory evoked by a gentle touch made so many years ago. It is immensely consoling to discover such a powerful tactile tool and my first experience of how recollections may be triggered and reclaimed, even when for so many, those pathways in the brain may have been eroded by age or Alzheimer’s disease.
And how wonderful a thing it is to know that each time we touch or hold something which we love, that the sensation will never actually be lost, but will be preserved in a little time capsule, waiting to be released, just like the Honesty seeds.
Before Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
Weeks of vintage glamour, brocade evening gowns and delicate glass glistening with gold now comes to an end and I find myself in the Meadow Garden after a month of garden neglect. The wind has torn off, tangled up and ripped out of the ground the rabbit proof gate and post and beaten my tall, statuesque Brussels Sprouts plants to the ground. Unhappily, at first, I breath in the peaty Moorland air as I squelch in my wellington boots onto the sodden grass to pull up the gate. Another deep breath and then, very soon after, I find myself soothed by this manual task and am now content and accepting of the force of the wind and nature which governs this wild terrain where I chose to live my life.
As I harvest my Red Cabbage crop, I am quickly muddy and wet and an old Zen proverb, shared with me by a special friend, many years ago, begins to seep into my thoughts.
Before Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
And I feel good and happy and free and so grateful that I know the value of the simple tasks and of hard work. Gardening is like that, it clears a path to something elemental which feeds the body and the soul.
And it feels so good!
Vintage Kind of Gal….
I am a vintage kind of gal with an innate love and nostalgia for all kinds of ephemera from the past. Collecting since my early teens, I am happiest in a house adorned with pre-loved items which come with a little wear and tear and a tale to tell.
Today, I go on the road with a capsule collection of Karen B Vintage treasures when I have a stand at the Cowslip Workshops Christmas Fair. 3 glorious days of winter wonderland heaven!
Just in case you can’t drop by and say hello, here is a little taster of some of the items which it will be hard for me to say goodbye to: click here.
Dartmoor Flower Shed 