Same time next year...
Same time as last year, the year before that, and the one before that too; and back and back even before those…for it’s Elderflower time and I’ve just returned to the kitchen with a laden basket of enormous heads filled with tiny, delicate, white flowers. So before I get any further with today’s post…I’m just going to prepare part one of a batch of elderflower cordial - the first of the season, before these beauties have a chance to wilt…even if I’m going to cause them to do just that, when I drown them in boiling water! I’ll be back in a tick…
As clouds of steam swirl up to engulf my anticipatory olfactory system…
Aaaaah…
The aroma emanating from that bowl on the kitchen bench is so strong now; it’s even eclipsing that of the tray of ripe apricots alongside!
What utter joy! A basket of elderflowers and a tray of apricots…but please don’t think I ever, ever take any of this for granted! It was all a very long time in the making: derived from a childhood yearning for a particular way of life, and I well recognise how lucky I’ve been to live out that dream for a good long while by now (it came with and continues with a good dose of hard yakka, believe me!).
Somehow this week, we seem to have had a string of visitors who have not been to Glenmore before; unaware of our long-ago arrival and journey; the bare earth (literally) that surrounded the forlorn collection of buildings that over time we would restore and of the garden we would make. I think once the book was published, I kind of thought I’d stop repeating myself…for I feel it’s an old story now. But no…there I was again, searching for the page that contains some of the original images of the (very unrestored!) Barn, Stables and Dairy (taken from the lump of stone we placed to serve as a step at the back door of the little stone house of which there’s also a very early image) floating…all of them, in a sea of hard-packed clay. So still for me, with every evening basket of produce I bring to the kitchen; linen bag of rose petals, colander of orange blossom or hessian sack of lavender I haul to the Dairy at their respective moments of peak, seasonal heavenliness for distillation; every armful of flowers or each individual bloom to sit in a jar on the windowsill…I feel a childlike sense of wonder at the fact I can and still have to pinch myself that I do. Of course such glory doesn’t fill my every waking hour - these are stolen moments of delight that never fail to simply bring the most enormous thrill!
It sure has been a week for picking! And in the case of our mid-week City, Coast & Country book event with Adelaide Bragg…a pure indulgence for me. ‘Tis not for everyone I pick Oakleaf hydrangeas; not even for me! (Oh and Jardine Hansen!). OK, I did pick one last week, just because it had flopped over the verandah floor and I thought someone might tread on it - so that was an exception! If their journey from peak pristine beauty to mottled magnificence didn’t make for such an integral experience to entering the garden courtyard, I’d feel more inclined to pick to my heart’s content - but weighing up garden versus flower arrangement is always a balancing act - for we all know the latter will be the more short-lived of the two!
But how fun it was to pick an arrangement especially for Adelaide! Little quinces on the stem (before the cockatoos took most of them); a chunky stem of soft, fuzzy Roldana leaves; trailing passionfruit vine, a few budding coral/russet stems of Macleaya cordata; with their large, oak-like, grey-green leaves; the gentle flowers of ornamental purple carrot and an irresistible multi-headed stem of fennel in flower, to suggest an air of romance amongst more sturdy companions; and one of Achillea ‘Cloth of Gold’ for that ‘pop of yellow’ that Adelaide mentions at intervals throughout her weighty and glorious tome.
I could have kept adding, but I had to stop as the minutes were ticking and I had no business losing myself in such reverie when there was so much other setting up to do!
Thank goodness for intermittent showers of rain on Saturday - without them causing me to down tools on several occasions, I’m not sure I’d have managed to read the chapters of Adelaide’s book that I did (happily!) get through (I just had to be careful not to drip all over the pages!). For once the day came, a conversation had been promised…
As guests made their way from the Hayshed (thirsts quenched with a glass of elderflower cordial on a hot and steamy morning…yes, last year’s batch - it keeps well in the cellar!); banks of cloud began to fill the sky to the west. No sooner had Adelaide and I launched in; ceiling fans gently tick-ticking overhead, than rumbles of thunder joined our conversation - what a way to electrify the atmosphere!
From Adelaide’s dedication page (lovely, to her Mum and Dad) and Robyn Lea’s opening line in the introduction: “Adelaide Bragg’s identity was shaped in childhood on the vast plateau crowning Rossgole Mountain” (which I can’t help but think as evocative as Karen Blixen’s “I had a farm in Africa”), I asked Adelaide to read aloud and explain her reason for including an excerpt from Banjo Paterson’s ‘Clancy of the Overflow’. From there, as gusts of wind sent every loose thing inside flying, and a wild shower of horizontal rain had us closing windows tight to our backs; we lost ourselves in the magic of Adelaide’s formative years, progressing through her long and substantial career as one of our country’s leading interior designers; touching on all her influences, details and beliefs, through which she interprets her clients’ homes with a deft hand. What a captivating interlude…
And then, as the sun shone bright in a blue sky once again, and I ladled that favourite aromatic veg broth into little cups so peeps could wander the garden and sip in tandem; another bout of clouds unleashed their fury! All the wall cushions were removed in haste…I switched sides of the table for serving the clear and refreshing broth; puddles formed on the wall…the power went out, and our water and internet with it…then five minutes later, the second storm was all over! Half a dozen animated guests appeared from the lower garden - having taken shelter in the potting shed and were keen to have their cups filled along with everyone else’s!
By the time I loaded the trays of sandwiches (that Kim had compiled so beautifully with all the fillings I’d made the previous day); and picked and added stems of fennel flowers that just a minute earlier had been heavy with raindrops; you’d never have known the weather was anything but a glorious sunny day! The whole thing was completely bonkers!
How I love to see peeps chatting away…old friends and new…filling that Dairy and loggia space and meandering in the garden. Of course no images - once we’re underway, it’s near impossible for me to take them and I’m hoping Adelaide’s lovely assistant might forward one or two when she has a chance!
Before guests took another chance on a garden ramble, we filled the coffee plungers with what little water had been on hand (Kim decanted the contents of the hot water urn into a pan to boil on the gas cooktop) and I served scoops of an experimental Apricot Ice Cream! Made on the spur of the moment the day before…would it or would it not be a good combination I wondered? As I’d made a batch of apricot jam on Monday evening with the first tray of fruit picked; and while doing so recalled some long-ago conversation Adelaide and I had once had about her grandmother making apricot jam with dried fruit; and given the weather prediction for a stifling day, I decided I couldn’t resist the temptation to give a batch of apricot ice cream a whirl!
And the verdict? There was not one little dish returned not completely clean! (Had they not been in company, there may have been bowls licked!). Although it’s the same recipe I’ve shared before for Seville Orange Ice Cream; given the rip-roaring approval rating of this one on Wednesday, and multiple requests for the ice cream recipe again…I’ll repeat it for you here, with the marmalade swapped out for apricot jam!
Apricot Ice Cream
Ingredients
300ml pouring cream
60g rapadura sugar
1 egg, separated
1 - 2 tablespoons apricot jam (if you can make it from fresh apricots then do…but I completely understand if you use store-bought! The highlight in the previous line will take you to the recipe I included this time last year - and how I wish I’d remembered I’d done so when I went in search of my apricot jam recipe on Monday!)
Method
chill a large bowl (I use stainless steel) and two small ones for the separated egg and utensils you’ll likely use - the whisk, a spoon and I use one of those rubber spatulas - a few minutes in the fridge is enough
separate the egg into two bowls - put the egg white in the fridge for later
using a hand-held electric mixer, beat the cream and sugar together ‘til lovely and thick, but don’t overdo it…
beat the egg yolk, then fold into the cream/sugar mix
add the apricot jam and fold gently through the mix
scrape into a lidded container and pop into the freezer
wash the bowl and whisk and when dry, return to the fridge to chill again
PRECISELY ONE HOUR LATER…!! Beat the egg whites ‘til solid, but again not overly so…
take the container from the freezer and empty the contents into the re-chilled bowl
thoroughly but gently, fold through the egg whites
return mix to the container; pop on the lid and return to the freezer
I suggest making a day in advance but you could make it a week in advance to free up your time! I’ve been saying seemingly forever, that the making of it takes two lots of five minutes exactly one hour apart - it’s really not hard! Let me know how you go! It won’t be long now, ‘til I’m swapping out the jam for Rum & Raisin as the Christmas season approaches…have you noticed peeps are beginning to wish each other Happy Christmas already? Well…I’d much rather than that than the stream of Black Friday ads - which I seem to have been deleting one after the other at a rate of knots!
The power outage of course, continued long after the guests and Adelaide and Kim…had gone! With no water, Kim neatly stacked as best she could, all the plates, glasses, dishes and spoons; and all I could do was wait…’til the next day as it turned out! So I put all the furniture away and swept ‘til everything was neat as a pin. The howling wind that caused more devastation elsewhere than we experienced here, worsened as the afternoon wore on to evening, and I sat for a few minutes to watch the poor trees bend and leaves and branches snap and fly away.
A moment to pause without distraction…doesn’t occur often enough as there is simply always so much to be done. Funnily enough, as I set out yesterday to a site visit, I heard part of a radio interview about the value of silence and gazing. I gathered the interviewee had a connection to Quakerism (I didn’t hear the whole thing - should look it up but probably won’t have time…RN about 2.30pm Thursday 27 November if you’d like to follow up! I’ve found it so maybe I will backtrack when I have a chance!) but the part I did hear resonated. I spend most of my daily hours in silence, and happily so. Those of you who’ve been following along here for a while know that all too well! And it was one of the reasons the book to which I referred a handful of posts back ‘The Morville Hours’, Katherine Swift; resonated so deeply. But ‘gazing’? It’s something I know I did a great deal as a child…as a young woman; and even as a young mother. Not with intention, but it always was perhaps, my happy place. But more latterly life has been so relentlessly fast-paced and task-driven, that though I take great joy in ‘doing’ and drinking in all I see as I do; it has to be said that these days I rarely just gaze. It’s different to looking and even to absorbing. It isn’t stimulating, but perhaps as close as I’m likely to get to meditating. So note to self: I do need to go back to gazing…if I can just find some time with nothing better to do. (On reflection, if I think about it…I come from a family of gazers…but to others it can no doubt be perceived as doing nothing! Hmmm…!!)
Well…dream on! Today anyway! I must wrap up and bring all the washing from Wednesday’s event in from the line (there was no power for the washing machine ‘til this morning!). And I need to get my head into a ‘Kitchen Gardening Day’ frame of mind for that very special day on Sunday, to which I cannot wait to welcome participants, so they can see the garden at this ideal moment in the season from which they can really learn.
I hope you have some beauties to pick from your garden too, and if not…what a time to visit your favourite florist or flower vendor at the market!
By now the elderflower aroma has been eclipsed by that of the apricots once again…covered as the bowl containing the elderflower is, with a heavy cloth! Now I really must go and get the washing! I wish you all a very happy weekend and week ahead.
Mickey x
Productive garden notes:
Eating from the garden:
Potatoes (new), carrots (a huge haul!), coloured chard, beetroot, garlic, asparagus, lettuce, rhubarb. Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme. Chive flowers, fennel fronds, fennel pollen, fresh fennel seeds, poppy seeds
Going / gone: parsnip, leek, nasturtium petals
Seed saving: rocket and (Australian yellow lettuce leaf on the way - it’s in flower!), coriander…the fresh seeds are drying on the stem now
Sowing: beans*, corn*, sunflower*, zinnia, (could sow zucchini and cucumber but I’m inclined to sow seedlings of these two instead), rocket and parsley (under shade); beetroot*, parsnip*, carrot, radish (also under shade) *be sure to soak the seed before sowing
You could also sow pumpkins…I know many peeps do, but I find it better here to sow or plant seedlings in late November/early December - we all get to become familiar with our own microclimates…eventually!
Planting: lettuce, coloured chard, tomatoes, aubergine, capsicum, cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin
Ornamental garden notes:
Picking for the house: Blowout arrangement for Adelaide aside…so I could pick all those lovelies listed above again…a magnolia here and there, a gardenia or two too, a rose here and there, still a few Solandra trumpets and a sprig of Burmese honeysuckle from time to time…
Perfumes and aromas: Burmese honeysuckle, Crinum lily, gardenia, magnolia. There are so many oakleaf hydrangea flowers this year that their number are creating a lovely honey scent in the courtyard. Buddleja ‘Black Knight’ is in full flower now, casting a rich honey scent through the borders and loggia. Frangipani! The Cistus ladanifer spreads its labdanum odour when the weather is just right…always catching one by surprise and the huge patch of spinach down the back is still spilling its honey scent. The coriander in seed is also highly aromatic and I keep forgetting to mention the early spikes of Nicotiana that have popped up here and there in the kitchen garden and chook run. I know there’s something else pricking the back of my mind…there was something unusual I noted the other day and now I just can’t think what it was!
Pruning and other: the hedge man is here again - he’s working on the Juniper hedge in the Barn Garden - the one that needs most help, that’s made such a come back since the drought. He’s making good progress! The Dentata lavender at the Dairy looked so ugly with its spent flowers I asked Thalia to cut them all off with her shears…which is something I never do! I’ve always done stem by stem, down to the core - it’s a method that’s kept them going all these thirty-plus years; but I could not have them the way they were as the backdrop to Adelaide’s event! So we’ll have to come back for a second pass. The tall, bulky, spent flower heads of the Echium in the Barn Garden went yesterday, and at the same time the Ceanothus ‘Trewithen Blue’ had its annual spring cut, post-flowering; and now it’s onto cutting back the Rose Pelargonium in the Field. I did a great deal more in the kitchen garden at the weekend - sieving and barrowing six loads of compost in so I could almost complete the planting - not quite, but nearly! I’ve been in two minds about pulling the onions and completing that bed, or leaving it as example for Sunday…the latter the side on which I’ve erred!
Oh bravo dear India!!! The idea of elder flowering by the sea fills me with goosebumps...just don't plant them too close to the neighbouring fence! Mxxx
Thank goodness you captured Glenmore’s history and food culture in your book. Such a brilliant reference during harvests. I’ll seek out Adelaide’s book!