Christmas Pain!

Don't worry, we are all ok - but here's a French Christmas recipe for you. It was featured one day last week on my beautiful Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendar - a set of traditional seasonal recipes. This year's calendar has a Parisienne theme. So here is Pain D'Épices.

PAIN D'ÉPICES - This classic spice-laden quick bread is served alongside savoury dishes (such as foie gras or cheeses) or warmed with butter.

• 250ml/9fl oz mil
• 250g/9oz honey
• 170g/6oz rye flour 
• 125g/4oz plain (all-purpose) flour 
• 50g/2oz brown sugar
• 1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) 
• 1½ tsp salt
• 1½ tsp finely grated orange zest
• ½ tsp black pepper
• Mixed spice (adjusted per your taste):1½ tsp ground cinnamon, 1½ tsp ground ginger, ½ tsp ground nutmeg, ½ tsp ground cloves, ½ tsp anise seeds

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, brown sugar, bicarbonate of soda, orange zest, salt, pepper and spices. Warm the milk and honey in a small saucepan, stirring until the honey is dissolved. Gradually add the milk and honey to the flour mixture, stirring until a smooth, uniform paste is achieved.
2. Pour the batter into a prepared, buttered and floured, loaf pan (23x5cm/9x2in). Bake in the centre of a preheated oven at 165C°/325°F for 40-45 minutes, until deeply browned. Transfer the loaf to a cooling rack for 10 minutes, then tip out of the pan. Allow to cool completely before slicing and serving.

I decided to make this on Saturday afternoon. Bob was a great help - I had no anise seeds, so he ground up a little bit of star anise in the pestle and mortar. 

The method was very easy - but I needed slightly longer in the oven than I thought - 50 minutes. The finished loaf looked, and smelt great!

And while it cooked, I took down all my spices, wiped the jars, removed outdated stuff, and put them back in proper alphabetical order! All ready for a New Year of Baking.

I have hung a few late arrival random decorations on the rack, along with the lovely spice star Liz bought me years ago from a German Xmas Market. You can just see my jug of twigs and baubles which was a fiver from a Dorset CS in 2018. This year, under the twiggy 'tree' I've placed a shepherd. He was £1.50 in a CS in Manchester last month. Bob and I both liked the simplicity of the figure.

As I was pottering in the kitchen, Bob came in and said he thought he'd heard a car and voices outside. I went to check, in case we had visitors. It was a young family who had driven into the Close to look at the Nativity Tableau. They had brought their little boy last year, and he'd really loved it, so they decided to visit again. This charming 5 year old had all sorts of questions, and wanted to tell me about his baby sister, who was asleep in her car seat. We chatted for a while then he went home with his family, with some Christmas Chocolate. A delightful unexpected visitor.

The JWs had come round a little earlier, wanting to ask me what I thought about Jesus. "Which way did you come into the Close? from the left or the right? They pointed , and I said "So did you see the tableau? I believe Jesus is the Reason for The Season" Had I actually read the Bible recently? "Yes," I said, "this morning. I'm sorry, I have to go, I am in the middle of baking. God bless you!"

Advent 4 - Stars

It was inevitable really,  my first Advent post was about circles, and then I had to find different shapes for the next 3 Sundays, and after squares came triangles...but the most common Christmas shape has to be a star, doesn't it?

The Bible is full of references to stars - the one we'll hear most this week is from Matthew's gospel

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem and asked King Herod “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” [Herd had no idea!] And they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.  When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him, giving gifts of gold , frankincense and myrrh

But from the very beginning, stars have been important, and Jewish tradition has referred to the Messiah as the Star of Jacob.King David chose a star for his royal seal, and the Star of David has long been the symbol of the Jewish people.
In the old Testament we read about God's creation of the stars [in Job 38 and Amos 5]
Where were you when I created the earth? …While the morning stars sang in chorus and all the angels shouted for joy? 
The Lord made the stars, the Pleiades and Orion. He turns darkness into daylight and day into night.

The Psalmist is overawed by the beauty of the night sky, and marvels that the One who created the galaxies created and cares for mere mortals

When I look at the sky, which you have made, at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places—what are human beings, … that you care for them? And yet you crowned them with glory and honour. O Lord, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world!  

In the book of Revelation, Jesus is called the Bright Morning Star

And,here's a challenge, we too are called to be like stars. Paul's letter to the Philippians says...

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may be innocent and pure as God's perfect children, who live in a world of corrupt and sinful people. You must sparkle among them like stars lighting up the sky, as you offer them the message of life 

How many references to 'Star' can you find in the Christmas carols you've heard recently? Here is John Rutter's lovely "Star Carol" 

Reason For The Season

Here's one of our two CoverStory pieces, which should have arrived with Kirsten by now, I draped it over a box before I posted it, it gives you an idea of how far we are progressing [although the vertical  lines have got a bit distorted]  My December piece is on the left, made with Christmas prints - one mixed strip, top to bottom, and two thinner red strips filling in the gaps around my "Orange Vintage Ads"  panel

Initially I had thought to make my December strip very sparkly, but Kirsten's blue November piece is like that. I determined instead to use up some of my scraps of Xmas prints [trimmings from the tissue holders in my shop] I was going to use the "strip and flip" technique. But I got a little carried away and incorporated triangles and narrower strips into my design, exposing sections of the red foundation fabric.

If you look at it carefully, you may be able to read a very special Christmas word, reminding us that we're celebrating God With Us

A Season Of Gifts And Yellow Fruitfulness

 As the poet Keats didn't quite say.

We were eating some fruit the other afternoon and Bob asked the difference between a tangerine and an 'easy peeler'. I wasn't sure, so I have been down the Research Rabbit Hole and discovered so fascinating facts.

Tangerine is the old name for the Mandarin - and that is the generic name for citrus fruit from several trees. Tangerine is the popular term in the USA, but in the 1960s, the British fruit industry phased it out in favour of the more exotic term Mandarin . Older people [like me!] often say "And we always had a tangerine at the bottom of our Christmas Stockings"

As well as a piece of fruit, Mandarin can also mean the standard, official Chinese language, spoken by over 730M people, or a high ranking civil servant, or a slightly dodgy Lego figure. Tangerine is also the name of a deep orangey red colour.

Satsumas are a variety of mandarin, popular for being easy peeling, and seedless. In 2005 , Tesco actually launched a Save Our Satsuma campaign, because growers in Spain and Morocco were changing satsuma orchards for other more profitable options. Britain is the world's biggest importer of satsumas - parents love them because often children who don't eat fruit will eat these.

Just don't tell the children that satsuma, a Japanese word, is also the name of a type of land snail,

It can also be beautiful Japanese pottery, richly decorated, with crazing on the glaze and embellished with gold.

Well what about clementines, then? Do they have anything to do with the darling miner's daughter? Nope - they were named,  for the french missionary priest and nurseryman, Father Marie-Clement Rodier who grew them in the garden of the orphanage in Algeria where he worked for half a century. Originally he called this hybrid cultivar a mandarinette but it was renamed for him in 1902 a couple of years before his death.

I can understand why supermarkets like the general term "easy peelers"

One final thing - the mandarin is an "ancestor" fruit. There are three ancestor citrus fruits, and all our other citrus fruits are hybrids of these. The other two ancestors are the citron and the pomelo. From the citron [called etrog in Yiddish] are derived lemons and limes. The latter is also called the shaddock [named for the British Sea Captain who first took the fruit from South East Asia and set up plantations in Barbados in 1640] The grapefruit is a pomelo/mandarin hybrid [and do be careful, grapefruit can interact with prescription drugs] 

I found this chart quite appeeling!

We should all be eating more fruit!

Basketwork

Many years ago I blogged about the expression "Basketwork" meaning a Friday afternoon lesson where children just work on paper, and at the end of the day, it is just screwed up [unmarked] and put in the waste basket. Not an activity I would ever do with the children!

This week I have been doing different 'basketwork'

I have three laundry baskets, the brown one I got in 1977 when I had my first flat, then two larger grey ones I got in the 80's when two growing children added considerably to my washload. I admit to not being very diligent about pitting away laundry, and sometimes one basket is full of last week's 'dry washing to be put away' a second is 'stuff to be ironed sometime' and the third is in use carrying this week's washing between the machine and the whirligig dryer, or the Drying Rack in the Futility Room. Bob clearly had a few 'formal' events in the last fortnight, as there were more shirts than usual in the brown ironing basket. I did get them done though [whilst catching up with Strike]

I put away all the other washing, and used one of the big grey baskets for my wrapped Christmas presents. That job is[almost] done and dusted now.

My sewing basket has been full too...I have been working on my CoverStory stitching this week. Rosie has asked for a bowtie for Cat-Cat [her bedtime toy since she was a baby] and in November George requested pjs for TeddyDinosaur and Kezzie commissioned an embellished teeshirt for a colleague who wears different festive outfits all through the last weeks of the Christmas Term.

This was a fun challenge- as requested,  I embroidered a crown with snowflakes and Christmas Clothing Queen then added sparkly ribbon trim, five colourful pompoms, and lots of spangles and sequins. Then I appliqued it to the front of the teeshirt Kezzie had sent me. That is now safely in Essex.

Then there's the shopping basket [I suppose technically called a trolley, or if you are in the USA, a cart] Bob kindly came with me for the Big Shop yesterday - which began with an early start and bacon baps in Costa! Mainly Aldi then a top-up in the Sainsbury's across the road. Mostly OK, we stuck diligently to our carefully planned list.

 But for the 3rd time in a row, I had to have a rescan. I am beginning to suspect the Smartshop App on my phone is dodgy - every time, the final item appears to have not scanned properly. Bob said to the assistant that he had been watching me and seen me scan each item - and if I was trying to con them, surely it would be on the large chicken, not the tube of toothpaste. She was really nice about it, and suggested next time I should use a handset, and possibly uninstall and reinstall the app on my phone. I still felt like a criminal though.

As we unloaded the bags into the car, the pot of cream split! That was a bit messy to say the least. But otherwise I think we have more than enough food for the festive family feasting.

A Post From The Past

I rarely re-post, but I was looking for something else, and found this one from December 2013. It seems to me that it's still relevant [still trouble in Syria]  That year I posted each Advent Sunday about my Willow Tree Angels. 

‘Angel Of Courage’

This angel reminds me of the importance of the ministry of encouragement. The dictionary defines that word as “to inspire with hope, courage or confidence; to hearten."

I love this angel so much, because this is a pose I so frequently adopt myself. I throw my arms in the air, and shout “Hallelujah!” or “Yessss!!” or “We’ve done it!” or “Jesus, you’re amazing!” or “It’s finished!” [sometimes my fists clenched purposefully, other times, hands open, fingers pointing heavenwards]

I walk through the busy streets, and see the people hurrying along, getting ready for Christmas – many look harassed, fraught, anxious, worrying about whether they should spend their money on all this stuff, whether they can pay off the Credit Card bill. Others are struggling to carry loads of bags [probably full of inappropriate, overpriced gifts, many of which will be forgotten very quickly.] In the shop, the lady behind me in the queue is talking about a family member who has been diagnosed with major illness, and a neighbour recently bereaved. At the bus stop, they are discussing what will happen to their jobs next year, and how yet another local firm has gone into receivership, and how they will struggle to meet the mortgage payment in January.

And I want to encourage each one of them, and say “Christmas is not about giving stuff from Argos and Tesco and M&S…it’s about receiving hope. Not about feeling a failure because you cannot provide all the material things that the ads imply you must have if you are a ‘perfect’ family, it’s about triumphing gratefully in the many blessings you have been given. Love, friendship, home, family, friends, food and clothes. Not about being anxious about the things that might [or might not] happen in the New Year, it’s about receiving courage to face what lies ahead.”

I have no idea what your situation is, what you are facing right now – or what you will be facing in the year ahead. But be encouraged, because Christmas reminds us that the Son of God became man, he lived and died – and rose again – for us. Immanuel – God with us. And He will walk with us through every day of our lives - to give us hope, and inspiration and courage. 

I'm not perfect – I have ‘wobbly moments’ [usually around 4am] when I start stressing about things [great and small ]…the lack of Supply Teaching Income, two daughters living 100 miles away, the many tasks I have ‘left undone’, the odd socks lurking in the bottom of the laundry basket forever seeking their mates, the latest proclamation from Mr Gove, my inability to make gravy, the troubles in Syria…but then God’s gracious Spirit reminds me that He is there and He does care. And then I throw up my arms and shout “Hallelujah! Thank you Lord!”  and I get on with my day [unless it is actually 4am, in which case I stay very still and rejoice silently, in case I wake my beloved ]

Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go

I'm Knot Convinced!

We had a brilliant time at our Craft Group Christmas Get Together. We chatted*, and ate festive food and played games - and Janet taught us to make Macrame trees.

Our results were very diverse because we had different thicknesses of string. I was fairly happy with my little green tree, but I'm not planning to make any more!

After lunch I sorted out the freezer food, and made a sensible shopping list. 

We watched the final episode of Wolf Hall on Sunday night. I wasn't quite sure about the end... I must check the book again.

George was a sheep in his school nativity play yesterday, and remembered his line. I'm very proud of him for overcoming his shyness, I'm so pleased his Mum and Dad were able to go and watch the production. I sometimes feel there's a lot of pressure put on the youngest children in school. 

It's only "eight more sleeps"and I'm not convinced I'll be fully organised for the 25th, but if things don't get done, that doesn't matter. 

*one person asked us not to say who had won Strictly as they had yet to watch the final on iPlayer. How had they managed to avoid finding out for 36 hours? I don't usually watch the show, but I saw the last 10 minutes on Saturday night, and was very happy about the result.