Warm Food for Cold Nights

In these more sophisticated days girls and boys find no use for such superstitious practices; Hallowe'en, where it is still observed, is just another opportunity of harmless merrymaking for the children.

Because the days are short and dismal, the Children's Party fits well into November's sequence...

From Children's Games Throughout the Year (1949) by Leslie Daiken

It is interesting that amidst the solemnity of early November's Days of Remembrance (All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, and Remembrance Sunday) we have two major and ancient festivals which are mainly celebrated by children. The origins of the two festivals - Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes' Night - are a bit of a heady mix, particularly for observant Christians: pagan origins or religious and civil unrest which fractured Britain?...take your pick! However, what I think is most interesting about this time of year it that we both commemorate our dead and give parties for our young, for who else is Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes' Night for except children. There is death and sadness, but there is also life and vibrancy and hope in our young. There is something truly wonderful about getting all wrapped up and going outside on a cold, winter's night with the rest of your family and community and watching the bonfire. Also, like all good festivals there is ritual in the celebration: bonfires, fireworks, dressing up, party games: these things haven't changed appreciably for generations. Celebrations keep the year glued together, without them there is nothing but the drudgery of modern life, just tea in front of the telly, school and work.

The foods that were eaten at Bonfire Night/Hallowe'en/Guy Fawkes' Night are a constant. They are the punctuation marks of the festival: fireworks then jacket potatoes, the bonfire and then ginger cake, apple bobbing and then sausages. It seems worng not to indulge in them at this time of year, somehow. Particularly, as they are the kind of seasonal and warming foods which are so very appropriate to our climate as it changes from autumn to winter.

I think what is important, with any kind of celebration, is that we keep the good of others, our children and our community in mind. A celebration should be peaceful and positive and not about the excesses of the modern age. (Here endeth the lesson).

So, however you choose to party in the coming few days, here are a few good, tried and tested , recipes which go with the season.

Jean Toynbee's Ginger Cake - a Two Fat Ladies Recipe. The best I've ever had, they suggest serving it with stem ginger and clotted cream - and why not?

Shropshire Soul Cakes - please email me for the excellent Mary Norwak recipe or go here. You can go here to read more about the origins of this lovely bread.

You may want to try this easy Ginger Shortbread.

Here's one my gran used to do for us, and a recipe I found in an old WWII cookbook. Use and apple corer to hollow out a large, scrubbed, potato. Fill the hollow with a longish chipolata sausage. Pop in the oven for a few hours, serve with butter and chutney when done.

The Blessed Delia of the Mispronunciation's Root Vegetable Soup. Truly very nice and warms the hands after a cold night around the bonfire.

Here's a Casa Domum tradition. Nigella Lawson's Rocky Roads. She doesn't muck about with broken biscuits or bits of dried fruit in her original recipe. Just nuts, marshmallows and chocolate and for this we salute her. My eldest girl added a broken up bar of unmelted white chocolate to a recent batch of this delicious treat and a very fine addition it was. Email me for the recipe if you don't already have it.

Well, enjoy goode huswives and until anon!

Snow Day

I know I said I'd be back during the mid-term break to regale you with tales of daring-do in "the big city school", but after two days of full-time work I've got a snow day! You're probably quite pleased to know that so far I've been using this time off effectively: planning for future lessons; updating my teaching skills; going on the Teachit website and so on... Oh heck, like George Washington, I cannot tell a lie! I've actually been looking at old pictures of Warwickshire in the snow on the Windows on Warwickshire website and eating peanut butter out of the jar with my finger. Simple pleasures for a simple person.

You know, I don't want to say it too loudly, but I've been very much enjoying my job so far. The kids I teach are genuinely charming: they actually thank me after the lesson for teaching them; they say I have nice hair! My colleagues seem friendly and I've made a chums with the maths teacher who has a room near me, we share flasks of coffee during breaktimes and talk about Pashley bicycles. I do, however, have a permanent headache. I haven't been able to shift it since I started work, it's all of the thinking I'm doing. There's a lot of thinking in teaching, not just about your subject, but about how to handle the various personalities and learning styles of the kids you're responsible for, also I'm having to think about home organisation much more. I know I won't shift my bad head until I'm used to my routine.
My only grumble is that I do not like the city I work in. It is not the city's fault. It got hammered by the Luftwaffe during the war and never recovered, the horrible 1950s town planning and bloody awful corresponding architecture just made the city centre grim: grey and grim, particularly in the slush. I don't like walking through the various underpasses and overpasses in the dim morning light, you get quite a vulnerable feeling. It's one of those cities where idealistic architects built living spaces according to academic and experimental principles, but never thought to ask the bombed out citizens how they would want to live.

My own children seem to be quite happy(ish) with our new family arrangements. For my eldest girl, very little has changed. She was always home around 4:00 and now lets herself in and watches "Come Dine with Me" in peace and quiet until I'm home with her little sister at 4:15. My youngest really enjoys her after-school club, and complains that I pick her up too early "I was in the middle of building a Lego tower with..." However, this morning when I was gettting her ready for school (which has been her dad's job since I started work) she complained that she wants me to work at her school. "You're a teacher, you can work at my school, not the school for big kids!" She has also said that she misses me walking her to school, her routine has been disrupted and she's feeling it. Not too much, she's quite tough, but enough for us both to feel a bit sorry and sad. I hope that when her new routine is established she enjoys her dad taking her to school, I know that he's enjoying more practical involvement with the girls and is making a real effort to keep them happy and buoyant and not missing mummy in the mornings too much.

Well, I suppose I really should adieu. I'm going to mop floors and prepare a proper roast dinner whilst I've got the opportunity...oh, and eat a little more peanut butter form the jar. Anon, goode huswives, anon!

Oh England, My Lionheart

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet the heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. William Wordsworth

The air is soft and delicious. The men are sensible and intelligent. Many of them are learned. They know their classics, and so accurately that I have lost little in not going to Italy. The English girls are divinely pretty and they have one custom which cannot be too much admired. When you go anywhere on a visit, the girls kiss you. They kiss you when you arrive. They kiss you when you go away. They kiss you when you return. Once you have tasted how soft and fragrant those lips are, you could spend your life there. Desiderius Erasmus

Heaven take thy soul, and England keep my bones! William Shakespeare

Happy birthday to Bill the Bard (no not Billy Bragg, Frances) and Happy St George's Day to one and all!

Jobs in January

Want to know what your grannies were up to this month seventy years ago? Well, let's ask Aunt Kate, of Household Guide fame, the 1930s doyenne of home-efficiency, baby waders and crazy flavoured jam.

Extra warmth is necessary on these cold wintry days. A new fur coat is not enough for the purpose; the "inner man" must be considered too. Hot steaks and steamed puddings should all play prominent parts in the menu these days. Do not make the meals too heavy, however, but make discriminating use of recipes containing fat, sugar and starch for their heat-giving properties.

Don't be afraid to let Baby out in the fresh air, however cold the weather. Wrap him up warmly in his pram, and place him in a part of the garden which is sheltered from the wind. See that the hood of the pram is up properly. Wrap a hot water bag up in a flannel, place it at the foot of the pram, and Baby will be as cosy as can be.

The Sales are on! This is the time of year when normally level-headed women are apt to lose their sense of balance. It's easy enough when you are surrounded on all sides bu so-called "bargain." But remember that nothing is a bargain unless you have a use for it. Look out for substantial reductions in linens, household goods, lengths of material suitable for skirts and dresses, and your visits to the Sales will be worth while.

Washing day in winter is dreaded by housewives, one and all. The actual washing may be got through more or less as usual, but the drying off presents a problem. This is the time of year to take advantage of the laundry for "big things" such as sheets and tablecloths. You will not begrudge the cost when you find your washing so much easier to handle minus all the major articles.

However heat-giving and decorative the modern gas or electric fires, there is nothing to beat the comfort and cosiness of a coal fire. Big fires, of course, mean big accounts to the coalman, and so here is a hint on coal economy. Half a teaspoon of saltpetre mixed with half a cup of water and poured of a scuttle of coals will not only induce a brighter fire, but will make the coal last longer.

You know, gentlemen often come up to me and say, "Dulce Domum, you seem to have an inexhaustible amount of pep and ginger. How do you, as a member of the gentler sex, fill your day? Tell me the mysteries of the average housewife." I of course refer them to this 1930s education video on Youtube, when you get similar enquiries I suggest you do the same. Enjoy!