Yesterday I decided the time had come to heave the eight foot ficus tree to the patio for the summer..

So, I hauled her out, scattering leaves everywhere, and set her against the fence where the butterfly bush next door and my Japanese maple would act as windbreaks and, with luck, keep her upright till she puts down roots and manages for herself.

This is the secret of her longevity, or part of it. She's well over 50 now, has been rootpruned and repotted twice only. But every summer I set her out where her roots can go through the pot into the earth and she gets a new lease of life. New foliage, looks very happy. 

In the Fall, as late as possible before first frost, I bring her in after severing the roots. Then she manages over the winter, till she gets a bit tired looking in spring, and the cycle starts again. Ficus are long lived but this is a way to avoid an ever bigger and less manageable pot. 

There she is, with friends.

And I took a look at the seeds I'd planted with crates over them

Morning glory and sunflowers. Doing okay. The basil haven't shown yet, but the marigolds are starting up.

Then out walking and bee spotting, on the wild blackberry, I think.

I also made the filling for pasties and had one yesterday. Mushrooms, yellow potatoes, cauliflower/asiago mash from a fancy food taste gift. Added to the previous roast onions and cauliflower leaves.

Then flattened into a Ziploc bag and frozen. This way I can break off what I need.

Today was less auspicious. I woke up about 4, decided I may as well make a pot of tea, brought back a cup to bed, set up a radio play. 

Then completely forgot about the full hot cup balanced on the bed beside me,  and turned to switch off the light.

So the rest of the night was occupied in stripping the bed, sponging off the mattress, dunking then drying the part of the quilt that was flooded, doing a load of laundry and then grumpily going downstairs to try to sleep on the sofa, the bed being uninhabitable. I did get to the end of the radio play. And I did see a dawn. So there's that.

Hoping the rest of the day goes well. Mammogram this morning if they haven't fouled up the system again, then movie this afternoon. Gosford Park. 

About Howard's End, I did try to watch it but soon found that as well as great actors such as Thompson and Hopkins, it also featured two of my least favorite overactors. Vanessa Redgrave and Helena Bonham Carter. I tried, I really did, but I ended up returning it to store. 

So that's us up to date. Now I have to empty the dryer before I go out, the last of the bedding.

Happy day everyone! Try not to spill the (literal) tea. The other meaning of spill the tea is fine. I love it.

Art and food, what a change

The statice you may remember from several weeks ago as the monthly fresh flowers has now graduated from water to a dry container and will become dried flowers. Along with honesty, it's a favorite for drying. 

And it's taken up its place on the mantelpiece, artfully dropping one flower, watercolor painting style.

And new ideas happened despite my having thought I had nothing to blog about today.

I woke up thinking about how that flour tortilla recipe is like the Swiss army knife of my food world.  We'll draw a veil over the benighted federal judge in California whose idea of a SAK leaves something to be desired. If the reference escapes you, count yourself blessed.

Anyway, this dough. I like it very much for pasties because it's crisp but strong enough to enclose a bunch of unruly ingredients. And it occurred to me with a rush, that those are the features you want in crackers. 

So since I had two clumps of dough left i made one into the planned pasty. Filling was broccolini, hot sausage, yellow potato, mixed mushrooms, scallions. And the other clump made a little batch of crackers.

Both in at 400°f, the crackers for 12 minutes, which I guessed, and the pasty 20 minutes, guessed way back, when I first tried them.

And, remember the chai  spice mix leftovers which I accidentally dried? I rolled some of them into the cracker dough, with seasalt, scored it with a pizza wheel, and it worked ok.

How it looks cooling

Then how nicely it broke along the fault lines I'd scored in it. Really pleasing.

Here's the pasty with a sprig of that peppermint I swiped, I mean imported, from my old planting at the condo. Chewed alternately with pasty, really worth trying. You can make a great mint sauce with malt vinegar, and a pinch of sugar, but you don't have to.

So when Handsome Son visits later today, bringing cheese, among other groceries, he'll get not only the purpose baked cornbread, but cheese and crackers to boot. 

And he'll take away my empty Misfits box for his decluttering, and help me hang the canvas summer door curtain and fold up the red felt winter one. All vital tasks.

Meanwhile I'm busy reading Austen Years before it expires. I can't renew because it's got a waitlist. 

Long time no figs, and other shouts from the past

Ages since I made Figgy Snack Cake, and I've had great Misfits dried figs in the freezer for a while. So last night I got one package out and left the figs overnight in water to soften and shape up.

Which they did, then I hauled out the Melissa Clark recipe, which you see here, not to squint at in order to use, just to get the reference if you're interested.

 

Usual disclaimers: I don't have demerera sugar and couldn't be bothered to mix molasses with white as a sub, so white it was. I don't have brandy, so added in extra milk for the liquid missing.  None of these makes a discernible difference, to me.

So here's the dough in process about to have an egg added. After this, alternating flour mixture and milk, and it's done, a spreadable dough. This makes a ton of cake.

And you halve the figs, press them in cut side down. The whole container did it. You could use any sturdy stone fruit.

And since I noticed the oven temp needed was 400°f, just right also for a pasty, I put the cake in the oven, then rolled out a chunk of dough to make a chicken pasty.

The cake was in for 45 minutes, so the pasty went in for the last 20. Worked fine.  

The filling was the rest of the chicken salad I'd made using a fancy flavored spreading cheese I found at a terrific price in my recent grocery outing. Close to sell by date, but I planned on using it right away, it was reduced from 4.99 to .99 that is not a typo. And it's Rondele, a brand I haven't thought of for years. 

You forget these little occasional treats when you don't shop at Western supermarkets for years. Between farm and Asian store and Misfits, I'm a stranger in the supermarket. 

Not a sad heart though. Do you know Randall Jarrell's A Sad Heart st the Supermarket? Wonderful writing, wonderful person, gone too soon.

Anyway here's lunch ready to go in.

And the cake and pie a while later. Both pretty good. After the cook's sample, there are containers in freezer and fridge. We're caked to saturation point for now.

It's fruit and whole wheat flour, milk, all suitable for breakfast. Or any time really.

Which is good because I have plenty of stuff to attend to. This is the latest Maisie Dobbs, and it's excellent. Runs from 1940 to  late 1941 in Britain. 

Great complications of spies being smuggled into occupied France, French spies in Britain liaising with secret operations, you never knew who would turn out to be an agent. 

Historically accurate even to the fast running little schoolboys acting as foot couriers for MI 5, under bombardment, everything, incredibly brave little kids, news to me. But the author's father was one of them, so she can attest.

And since I'm ready to assemble these pieces any time now, I need listening material, too.

Turns out this will be my Martha Stewart skirt, it evidently being a MS pillowslip, nice quality cotton, drapes well.

So here's an Angela Thirkell, she wrote a lot and you think of the books as thirkells like a unit of currency. 

I can't read her much in print, but with a terrific narrator like this one, known under various names, Nadia May, Wanda McCarron probably because she did a lot of work, it goes well.

She is excellent, well worth finding. Great perception of the subtleties, knows how the rhythm goes, plenty of energy but doesn't draw attention to herself. 

Thirkell wrote comedies of manners, similar social context as Austen, Pym, Benson, very wry, gentle but astute. Great to sew by.

And here's an ancient one I put on my Kindle for old times' sake, classic advice to writers which I read long ago, as a kid, and even then the library copy was tattered. 

This is a bit of memory lane as much as a reading event. It's about writing without trying to impress on the reader how hard it is to write material that's easy to read. She realizes there's no need, they'll find that out soon enough. It's encouraging instead, what a concept.

The decks are cleared for the arrival of the Misfits box this afternoon, all being well.  Then it's a frenzy of washing and slicing and chopping and freezing. And gloating, don't forget gloating.