By Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet

At the risk of this sporadic blog simply being a depository for mad things my kids say, I shall indeed again regale you with mad things my kids say. This time it is the little one who came up with a real corker. We were on the way to "Wall" in Staffordshire to see the Roman wall when the following conversation occurred.

Little One: Mum, what was I going to be called if I was a boy?

Me: Thomas or Oliver.

Little One: What was Big Girl going to be called if she was a boy? 

Me: Oscar or Linus. Daddy didn't like Linus. Our family names are William and George.

Little One: What are family names? 

Me: Family names are when the first baby boy born to a family has the same name as the father or grandfather. There are lots of Williams in my family and lots of Georges in dad's family. My grandpa was called William and Pap's real name was George.

Little One: So if I had two boys I could call them William and George.

Me: Yes, those are our family names.

Little One: What if I have more than two boys?

Me: Well, you could call them after dad and granddad. You could have William, George, Richard and Andrew.

Little One: What if I have more than four boys? 

Me: You don't have to have family names you can choose any name you like.

Little One (after some thought): I'm going to call my boys, Sir Lancelot, King Charles II and The National Trust.

Stunned silence ensued.

Here's a bit of the Merry Monarch for the little one to enjoy - I hope you like it too. 

Anon!

Ploughing Your Own Furrow

We call my dad "Fleetwood Mac". This is because he goes his own way. And, when it comes to eccentricity, my mum can give Quentin Crisp a run for his money. In fact, eccentricity comes so naturally to my parents it shocks people. On the outside, they seem like a nice, reasonably prosperous couple, in  late middle age. My mum keeps a clean house, wears sensible clothes and shoes and my dad can talk golf like any other reasonably prosperous man in late middle age, but deep down they are truly eccentric. It is not a posture, it comes to them like breathing and is a symptom of a personalities who are confident in the rightness of their own preferences. Why conform if you don't like it? Why be like other people if you don't like them? I really didn't know quite how eccentric they were until I met my husband's family, who were, and still are, a very respectable working class family - the stalwart kind from David Lean war films - the kind of family that made Britain great. John Mills would have played my late father-in-law in a film. 

When I first brought the DH home to meet the parentals, they were most amused by his beard, his love of folk music and liking for real ale. He reminded them of a friend they had in the 1970s. Much was said on this. The parentals went out and left us to our own devices. When they came home, my dad gave the DH a pint of beer. Bought in the pub, in a pub pint glass: the beer was covered in cling film. They had driven home from the pub with a pint for the DH, my dad driving carefully along the country lanes so that my mum didn't spill it. Of course, the DH was overwhelmed by the kindness and the significance of the gesture, but also  the sheer weirdness of it. How did they get the pint out of the pub? Where did they get the cling film? How will they return the pint glass? The DH would simply not have done this, just in case it would draw attention to himself - and the the DH, this would be horrific. 

This streak of eccentricity runs deep in me. I don't purposefully go against the tide, I just do it. And, like my parents, I'm actually quite respectable. No piercings or anything. However, I didn't think I'd passed it onto the girls until recently. Here's a conversation I had with the eldest.

Mum: What do you want for your birthday?

Big Girl: A top hat.

Mum: We can get you one of those at auction. What colour?

Big Girl: Black, preferably Victorian.

Mum: Fine, what are you going to do with it?

Big Girl: Wear it. I look good in hats.

Mum: You're intending to wear a Victorian top hat around the estate?

Big Girl: Yes.

Now, the big girl wears as much eyeliner as any other girl her age who is probably going to do an art A' Level, but she is famed within the family for being like her dad and not wanting to draw attention to herself. The thought of her popping up the post office looking like Slash from Guns 'n' Roses is both odd and strangely disturbing. Now, this wasn't a bit of teenage posturing because she doesn't do teenage posturing. It was a simple expression of aesthetic preference. She likes top hats. She looks good in hats. She wants a top hat. Genes, gentle reader, will out. The upshot of this is that she didn't get the hat for her birthday - she needed a new amp for her bass, but I'm bidding on a hat today and she'll have one for Christmas. Perhaps she'll go carolling in it, like an old-timey Dickensian urchin. Who knows what she's got planned? I don't know but I bet it will be something just a little bit weird.

Frugal - But Not Super Frugal - Menu Plan

So here's the next menu plan. This is a reasonable menu plan. Reasonably cheap, reasonably ethical, reasonably seasonal and reasonably  nutritious. The older I get, the more I realise that the act of compromise is deeply embedded in my psyche.

Breakfast
Boiled egg and soldiers - exceptionally good for youngsters according to the Nourishing Traditions lady.
Elevensies
Coffee for mum - Fairtrade and from the Co-Op - exceptionally good for me, according to the Bread and Roses lady.
Lunch
Tuna pasta salad. My kids favourite and can be as healthy as you  make it.
Tea
A light tea of cheap supermarket fruit, the Co-Op is a five minute walk from my house so I do pop in most days and buy up the marked down fruit and veg. I also grow my own strawberries, blueberries and rhubarb.
Dinner
Aldi free range chicken and cous cous and chick pea salad. Blackberry and apple cake for pudding (with our without creme fraiche as budget or waste line dictate).

Tuesday
Breakfast
Toast and marmalade. One of the traditions I still kept up while I was working full time was the summer frenzy of jam making and February marmalade.
Lunch
Homemade (or not, depending on time and budget) humus and salad wraps. Greek yogurt (Aldi is the cheapest) and fruit.
Tea
Scones and jam.
Dinner
Delia Smith's Pasta Puttanesca. Blackberry cake again.

Wednesday
Breakfast
Porridge
Elevensies - a healthy herbal tea...no,  not that, anything but that!
Lunch
Wraps again - with tuna and salad.
Tea
The rest of the blackberry cake.
Dinner
The DH's superb chicken curry - use the rest of the yogurt as a garnish or as a riata.

Thursday
Breakfast
Scrambled eggs on toast.
Lunch
Jacket potato with cheese and baked beans.
Tea
Get the kids to make brownies as a project and eat them gleefully whilst watching The Biggest Loser.
Dinner
A really nice ratatouille with rice. Go all out on the sauteing in olive oil and don't stint on basil or parsley.

Friday
Toast and marmalade.
Elevensies
You know what I'm going to say.
Lunch
Summer vegetable soup and bread.
Tea
Rest of the brownies for the kids - a slice of toast for me, if I'm hungry.
Dinner
Salmon (or any seasonal fish), new potatoes and seasonal veg. Strawberry and rhubarb pie, creme fraiche.

Saturday
Breakfast
American pancakes and maple syrup.
Elevensies
Coffee for the DH and myself.
Lunch
Omelet and salad. Fruit.
Early Dinner
Homemade burgers, wedges and various garnishes. The rest of the strawberry and rhubarb pie.

Sunday
Breakfast
Bacon and eggs.
Elevensies
Yes, free at church!
Lunch
Slow roast belly pork with roasted new potatoes and garlicky greens.
High Tea - taken at dinner time
Tinned salmon and cucumber sandwiches, scones and jam.

You don't know how much easier it was to create this menu. It was an awful lot easier in the cooking too.
Anyway, anon goode huswives!

Super Frugal Menu Plans - Austerity Without the Pain?

Oh my goodness. I thought creating a menu plan that all my family would like, one that would be properly balanced and one that didn't feel frugal even though it was would be a piece of proverbial cake. I was very wrong. It was a headache. However, I'm glad I've done it and I'm glad I have had the opportunity to shake up our meal times...because, even though I didn't realise it at the time, my meal planning needed a boost. Now, I've done two weeks worth of menus. This one is the super frugal and is largely vegetarian. I shall publish the frugal menu on Monday.

Anyway, before I detail the menus. Here are just a few things I discovered if you want to be super frugal in you cooking, but don't want to compromise on taste or nutrition. Here come the lovely bullet points!

• You have to have plenty of time to shop. Particularly if you are ethically minded...markets, supermarkets, farm shop, your own garden. You must plunder every resource to get a bargain.
• You have to be reasonably flexible in your plans. For example, if a recipe calls for courgettes but aubergines are cheaper that day, then go for the cheaper option.
• You have to be a keen cook. You will feel slightly chained to the stove (I love to cook and bake and yet baking is something of a chore on the super frugal menu plan).
• Your kids need to be adventurous. You need to explore the peasant foods of the world so that your diet doesn't become monotonous.
• Your plan must include breakfast and lunch as well as dinner. If you just plan for dinners you will start to waste food and simply have what you fancy for lunch. Also, your nutrition may be compromised, become too carb heavy etc if you don't plan in a healthy lunch.
• Meals are cheaper when the kids are at home. Packed lunch peer pressure demands yoghurts, crips and biscuits.
• You need to plan in for a formal snack time. Otherwise empty tummies demand crisps and biscuits.
• If you want to be extra frugal then make everything yourself. Don't buy packet stuffing. Don't buy shop bought naan or garlic bread or rolls. Homemade bread and stuffing taste a lot nicer and are an awful lot cheaper.
• If you're not growing herbs then consider it. Herbs make frugal cooking something special.
• You need to have plenty of time to cook.

Also, here are a few costings for basics.

12 Free Range eggs - £1.80.

Potatoes  - £5 per 10k sack.

Lard - 45p per 8 oz

Butter (basics) - £1.20

Flour - 80p per bag (cheaper for supermarket basics)

Olive oil - £3.99 per litre

Pasta - 80p per bag (cheaper for supermarket basics)

Chick peas - £1.20 for a 500g bag from Indian supermarket.

Lentils - see above.

Garlic - 80p for 6 from Indian supermarket.

Onions - £1.20 for 4k bag from Indian supermarket.

Monday

Breakfast - Porridge with milk and maple syrup (or sugar if you can't afford the syrup).

Elevensies - Coffee for adults (planned in so it is costed - my coffee habit costs a fortune).

Lunch - Jacket potato with baked beans and cheese.

Tea - Blackberry and lemon cake (see previous posts for recipes). Tea, squash.

Dinner - Courgette lasagne, salad. Cheap supermarket fruit. Go early in the morning (9.00) to find bargains.

Tuesday

Breakfast - Boiled egg and soldiers.

Elevensies - Coffee for adults - squash and cheap supermarket fruit for kids.

Lunch - Homemade tomato soup and crusty bread.

Tea - Blackberry and lemon cake. Tea, squash.

Dinner - Pan Haggarty with sage and seasonal veg (supermarket cheap/marked down). Tinned peaches.

Wednesday

Breakfast - Toast and marmalade (have a very frugal and good recipe for grapefruit marmalade).

Elevensies - as for the rest of the week.

Lunch - Cheese and homemade coleslaw sandwiches. (Make enough coleslaw for two days).

Tea - Homemade scones and jam 9see previous posts for recipes). Drinks as per rest of week.

Dinner - Quiche (make enough for left overs), salad, potatoes. Fruit.

Thursday

Breakfast - Scrambled egg on toast. Drinks.

Elevensies - See rest of week.

Lunch - Quiche and coleslaw.

Tea - Toast and Marmite. Drinks.

Dinner - Dahl, rice, cucumber salad, yoghurt (or make a proper raita), naan (or homemade pitta), supermarket fruit.

Friday

Breakfast - Porridge.

Elevensies - See rest of the week.

Lunch - Jacket potatoes with tuna, sweetcorn & coleslaw.

Tea - Scones.

Dinner - Kedgeree. Brownies and ice cream.

Saturday

Breakfast - Bacon sandwiches.

Elevensies - see above.

Lunch - Homemade veg soup. Or, sweetcorn chowder. Or, lentil soup.

Dinner - Make your own pizza. You'll have tinned tuna, cheese, tomatoes, onions, garlic leftover from the other meals. Add extras to make it fun. Garlic bread, salad. Brownies and ice cream.

Sunday

Breakfast - Bacon and eggs. (Light, not the full English).

Elevensies - (ahem) free at church!

Lunch - Chicken (free range from Aldi £4.99), stuffing, veg, spuds, gravy. Strawberry and rhubarb crumble, ice cream.

No tea - will be stuffed.

Supper - Cheese on toast. Tinned fruit.

Well, that's the first of the menus. I have recipes for all of the meals published so please just email if you want a more detailed breakdown.
Anon, goodehuswives!

The Commodification of Love - Now & Then

I read this article in the Telegraph with such sadness. I truly hope this in not an accurate portrayal of modern relationships. It made me think of Thomas Hardy's The Ruined Maid, an exploration of love as a commercial transaction from a completely different era.

The Ruined Maid - a poem by Thomas Hardy

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!

Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?

And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"

"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

 

"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,

Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;

And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"

"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

-"At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'

And 'thik oon,' and 'theäs oon,' and 't'other'; but now

Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"

"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.

 

"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak

But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,

And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"

"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.

"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,

And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem

To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"

"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.

 

"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,

And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"

"My dear a raw country girl, such as you be,

Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.

Keepers

My mum and dad have been back from Spain for about 18 months now and my mum is loving being back. She works for my sister for three days a week, she does her accounts, answers the phone, picks up my niece from school and all sorts of other bits and bobs. She thoroughly enjoys it because my sister runs her own interior design business. My mum is very creative and she's a self-admitted butterfly. When we were kids we could never know what kind of living room we'd come back to. She'd be constantly re-arranging furniture, decorating, cleaning and having all sorts of new ideas about the way she wanted her home. Luckily, my dad was running his own soft furnishing company: supplying hotels, pubs, restaurants and so on with furniture, carpets and curtains. He could get everything she wanted at trade prices and would often make what she needed himself.

When mum is not with Mel, she's with me. She likes to come at the end of the week and pick through what I've bought at auction. She loves it. She coos and ahhs her way through the stock. She has the gift of seeing through the encrusted muck and moth and tarnish and she helps me out when she can. Last week I gave her a good chunk of Mrs Cooper Smith's linen, which she dutifully bleached, washed and ironed. She also forced my dad to put on his reading glasses and examine Mrs Cooper Smith's fine stitching. She appreciates what I'm doing and she's my main encouragement.

This week she came at the beginning of the week to drop off the washed linen. Keeping the stock in a small-ish suburban house is a pain. Many things I keep on display all over the house until they've sold. Lots of things are in my conservatory and dining room in storage boxes and many are all wrapped up in boxes waiting for the postie to come and collect. There's a constant movement of "nice things" (family saying) and I am beginning to get the feeling that I'm living in an antique shop. So in comes mum, linen in hand, and while I'm making her requisite sweet coffee, she's padding about putting Mrs Cooper Smith's doilies underneath the all of the "nice things" in the living room. I know what's she's doing, because she does it all the time. She makes mini still lives out of the stock as soon as she comes through the door and she doesn't even ask. She's the boss, she's my mum. By the time I've made the coffee there are clusters of early 19th century blue and white pottery (her favourite) on the table in the bay window, she silently points to an American walnut mantel clock on mantel, there's an Edwardian biscuit barrel on the side table by my knitting and she has rearranged all of the cushions.

I look at her with sympathy and say, "it's all sold, mum. I've got to wrap it today."

"I don't know how you bear it," she says vaguely disappointed.

She points at the pink roses in the cranberry glass jug on the table and simply says, "beautiful!" The jug is on sale this week and I know it will sell. She begins to wax lyrical about the day I will finally get "premises". She'll come in and help, she'll polish the furniture and arrange the stock...she'll let me do the buying. She thinks there should be a chenille curtain separating the antique shop from the tea shop - I object to chenille and think it should be Sanderson's vintage chintz. She wrinkles her nose, but concedes. She thinks the shop should be arranged like a living room, so that everything seems useful, beautiful and appropriate. She says that we should offer a curtain making service. She is old enough to realise that a virtual antiques shop is nowhere near as aesthetically fulfilling as a real one. When she talks about the virtual shop she says "you" when she talks about the fantasy real shop she says "we".

"Don't you ever keep the things you really love?" she asks.

I tell her that I sell everything. However, I also say that when I really love something I put it on sale for a high starting price. I describe the Victorian salad dish with the roses and bluebirds on it and say that I thought it would never sell because I put it on for a £34.99 start - but it did sell and I dutifully packed it off to America. She points to Mrs Cooper Smith's cushion which I cleaned and re-stuffed last weekend and says, "but you're keeping that."

I consider for a moment and smile, "yes, mum. I think I will keep that. Just to please Mrs Cooper Smith." Mum smiles and understands.

Mrs Cooper Smith Kept a Good House...and more meals for a fiver

The linen sheets should be kept separate from the cotton sheets, the small bed from the large bed sheets, and so forth, and every article should be plainly marked with the name of the set of which is a member, and the date of purchase, thus: "A. E. Brown. 12. 1902." Taken from How to Keep House by Mrs C. S. Peel.

Mrs Cooper Smith knew this of course. She may even have had Mrs C. S. Peel's book as a wedding present from her mother. She was well trained, she was efficient, she kept a formal and somewhat wealthy household, she was a fine needlewoman and she was a member of the Leicester Protestant Debating Society. How do I know so much about Mrs Cooper Smith? I know this because I have just bought a substantial chunk of her linen cupboard. Wednesdays are always busy for me. On Tuesday I bid at a local auction and often come home with mixed lots - generally china, often silver plate, but sometimes, if I'm lucky, linen. I come home and unwrap my treasures and sort the wheat form the chaff. I clean and clean and clean again and then I put them on eBay and all of this unwrapping and cleaning  and photographing keeps the proverbial wolf from our door. This time, however, I hit the linen motherload. I bid on a box of linen and came home with reams of damask and lace, all neatly labelled with name and date, just as Mrs Peel advises. One of the reasons I love my business is that it fulfils my need to be an incorrigible nosey parker. I have this insight into the minutiae of people's lives just by looking at their stuff. And what strikes me most about their lives is the formality. Damask at every meal, different spoons for strawberries, a separate breakfast dish for bacon, heavily laced hand towels, silver (plate!) tea services and fine bone china. All of my stuff speaks of a time when home, for the middle classes at least, was sumptuous and ritualised - and that entertainment was home-based. My home, however, looks far from formal and sumptuous, in fact it looks a lot like Steptoe's yard and Widow Twanky's place of business. Oh, the glamour of the antiques trade.

Next up, a family meal for a fiver. Although I am sure that Mrs Cooper Smith would have approved of my thrift, she may not have approved of the fact that we ate our meal whilst watching Murray vs Ferrer.

This recipe stretches £3.50 worth of butcher's shin of beef with the generous help of yet more Co-op marked down mushrooms. See ingredients and method below.

Shin of beef 1 lb (£3.50)

Mushrooms (49p)

Shallots (pack cost 49p I used approx. 5p worth)

Carrots ( as above).

Celery (as above).

Thyme (growing in the garden).

Garlic (10p)

Sour Cream (£1.10)

Homemade bread (30p)

Total cost for a family of four (generous portions) £5.64

Method: chop, brown, add stock/wine/water, simmer for an age, add tub of cream. Eat while dreaming of Wimbledon glory for our very own Murray.

Now, I don't know how many of you got around to reading Zillah's blog on austerity bread. If not, here's an extract.

So although it might seem a little counter-intuitive to say that high-quality, artisan bread is austerity bread, I have found this to be the case.  When every penny of the food budget needs to be counted, every mouthful that money pays for must do its work.

Zillah is, of course, quite right. When you have a limited amount to spend on food, you mustn't waste in feeding the nippers nought but empty calories. And, to be honest with you, you'd be amazed at how many of our young people survive on cornflakes and coke. I still feel pretty desperate about some of the kids I used to teach - but that's another story. Anyway, my round about point is this. Homemade bread, artisan bread, is a lovely as Zillah says, it is one of life's great pleasures and you don't have to be rich to enjoy it. My beef stew would cost you a tenner each in a gastropub, a fool like me can whip up scones in minutes which are a lot lighter and tastier than the £1.80 for six Tesco variety, with a little time and skill you could have a linen cupboard to rival the Cooper Smiths of this world and when Murray wins Wimbledon you can celebrate by eating home grown strawberries...Life is good and rich and healthy and textured when you can bake and cook and sew and grow. Over the past decades we have lost our sense of practicality, confidence in doing things for ourselves, with our own two hands, and the understanding that life, truly is, what we make it. Idle consumption is a waste of time and money. I've come to the conclusion that I'm better off poor and truly rich.

Here endeth the lesson.

Anon, goode huswives.