Wilfrid wouldn't know the place

What? No gales? The temperate weather of late is distracting me. It should be windy, raining, cold and dark. Instead there is a pleasant breeze, the sun is shining beautifully and I keep seeing people eating ice creams. This is distinctly strange for October. How am I meant to provide recipes for comfort food when the weather keeps suggesting you have not quite missed the last alfresco opportunity?

Anyhow, St. Wilfrid comes up on the calender today. He does not get a feast, or even an optional memorial as far as I can make out. He just gets a mention. He was born c.634 in Northumbria and educated in Lindisfarne. After a visit to Rome he became a promoter of Roman customs, which he successfully championed at the Synod of Whitby. It is the mention of all these Northern coasts that makes me think this is a day for fresh scampi. No, not frozen. No, not like you get in a dodgy inland pub. Proper scampi prepared in your kitchen, with proper chips cut from potatoes with a knife and proper mushy peas, freshly made with a sprig of mint from the garden. The lack of a gale force wind and biting temperatures though makes me wonder if I am going to have to wait.

Good old Wilfrid seems to have got into a bit of trouble later in life. He became archbishop of York, but when his diocese was divided without reference to him, he appealed to the Pope (the first English bishop to do so) and on his way to Rome spent a year preaching the Gospel in the Low Countries. On his return from Rome he went as a missionary to Sussex and the Isle of Wight. Although he had been reinstated in York, he then fell out again with the king and the other bishops, and had to exercise his ministry in the East Midlands and finally at Hexham, dying in 709, possibly at Oundle in Northamptonshire. He is remembered for his forceful personality and his apostolic spirit, as a founder of churches and monasteries, and as a patron of the arts. What a traveler. Maybe that is how fish and chips became a national favourite from Whitby to the Isle of Wight? By the way, if you think 'scampi' is too 'chav' for your dinner table, called it breaded langoustine tails and have done? Its the same thing. Want to give it an Irish twist? Breaded Dublin Bay Prawns - again, same thing. Just make sure they are as fresh as you can possibly possibly get them.

250g scampi/langoustine/Dublin bay prawn tails (depending on how posh you would like to sound - remember though, they are all the same thing!)

seasoned flour

2 eggs beaten

150g fresh breadcrumbs

hot oil for frying

Pat dry the scampi tails on some kitchen towel and roll them in the seasoned flour to coat. Heat the oil to 180C. When the oil is hot dip the coated scampi into the beaten egg and coat them in the breadcrumbs. Fry them for about 4-6 minutes until golden brown. serve immediately.

If you are serving with your own homemade chips, it is best to do these first. Heat the oil in a big pan to about 180C. Chop your potatoes into fat chip shapes, skins on! When the oil is hot place your potatoes in the pan and fry until golden brown and yummy looking, about 10 minutes. Rescue the chips with a slotted spoon and drain them on kitchen towel. These will be okay waiting while you do the scampi, but don't take too long!

Proper mushy peas only take a second. In a salted, boiling pan of water pour in your yummy frozen peas (this is winter, I am taking it there are none in your garden). Boil them for just a minute or two. Drain and place in a bowl, add a sprig of mint from the garden and season to taste. Use a hand held blender for a second to make mushy. Yum.

Serve all of the above with fresh salad leaves and tartare sauce. Comfort food.

Newman's Vintage

Vintage Oxford Marmalade Cake

I chose Frank Cooper's Vintage Oxford Marmalade to make this cake because, well, Newman is 'vintage' and he loved Oxford.

You need:

6oz self raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

5oz Golden Syrup

5oz butter

4tblsp milk

8oz Oxford Vintage Marmalade

2 large eggs

4oz cream cheese

Grease and fully line your baking tin. It should be an 8in square, but I do not have one of those, so mine was round and did not measure 8in. That's life.

Sieve the flour into a large bowl with the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Weigh the butter, golden syrup, 6oz of the marmalade and milk into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring. Make a well in your sieved flour. Beat two large eggs in a bowl. Pour in your melted ingredients to the well, add the beaten eggs and mix the whole lot together until it is smooth. Pour the mixture into your lined and greased tin. Bake at 150C for approx 35 mins, cover with greaseproof paper if it is browning too quickly. Check if it is cooked by inserting a sharp knife into the centre, if it comes out clean, it is done!

Remove from the oven to cool while you are making the topping. Mix together the remaining Vintage Oxford Marmalade with the cream cheese until smooth. Wait for your cake to cool completely on a rack. Spread the cheese topping thinly over the cake. Cut into very polite squares or triangles - think 19th Century England. Serve with tea, in front of a roaring fire. Sneak a glass of Sherry. Or, go all Oxford College pudding and make some Bird's Eye Custard, or bring out the vanilla ice cream. Read Apologia Pro Vita Sua. The first feast of Newman - sorted.

Choosing for a tricky customer

Today is the first feast of Blessed John Henry Newman. This means he doesn't have a traditional food yet. I have been weighing up the options, based on what I know about his attitudes to food and how I imagine him to be. As a young man, Newman was impressed by College food and drink: 'Fish, flesh and fowl, beautiful salmon, haunches of mutton, lamb etc and fine, very fine (to my taste) strong beer, served up on old pewter plates, and [in] mis-shapen earthenware jugs. Tell Mama,' he wrote to his father, 'there are gooseberry, raspberry and apricot pies'. Excellent.

Okay, he found the drinking culture of his fellow undergraduates a bit hard to take, remarking, 'if anyone should ask me what qualifications were necessary for Trinity College, I should say there was only one, - Drink, drink, drink', but all in all he seemed a happy chap. His college bill for his first full term included six bottles of the 'Best Sherry' and eighteen of the 'Best Port'.

In his 30's Newman traveled to Italy. Food and drink not being his particular concern, he doesn't write much about it, until he is ill with fever when we hear that he 'tried a rhubarb and ginger pill and sent out Gennaro for Camomile'. Sheridan Gilley has it that, 'Newman considered the tea from the leaves too rough, but one made with flowers was 'beautiful' and 'most refreshing'.

Newman moved to Littlemore in 1842, where he lived a very austere and simple life. On the evening of 8th October 1844, Bl. Dominic Barberi, a Passionist priest traveling through Oxford on route to Belgium, and a friend of Dalgairns, stayed at Littlemore. He arrived on top of the Birmingham coach, dripping with rain. As he dried himself by the fire Newman asked to become a Catholic. I mention this because Newman's feast has been chosen to commemorate the day of his conversion, not the anniversary of his death. He felt that it was this day that his life began again. Also, an open fire provides many opportunities for cooking snacks.

By this time he is 44 - at a feast for St. Cecilia (the Patron saint of Music) he visits Oscott Seminary where he finds 'the whole establishment turning fiddles and making punch'. Wiseman gives him a glass, which he insists is 'lemonade', and Newman finds it so strong he 'was obliged to dilute it twice or thrice of its quantity with water.'

The Birmingham Oratory is first established on the site of on an old gin factory. I am quite sure that Newman would not have had a liking for gin, but I did look up ingredients that hail from Birmingham. I came up with: Limes (being imported to Edgebaston in the mid to late nineteenth century), Bournville, Birds Eye Custard, Blue Bird Toffee, Cadbury's, Typhoo Tea and HP Sauce. I am not sure whether I can go anywhere with that little lot, but Bournville might make an appearance one year.

In Ireland, whilst working to set up a Catholic university, at the table of the Bishop of Limerick, Newman trembled at the sight of rare mutton, 'how it blushed on the first cut, but his Lordship was merciful and let me dine in the brown.' So, I am thinking meat is out. He just didn't seem to have much of a passion for it in his later years.

I don't know about you, but when I look at images of Newman as an older man, there is something of the Werther's Original about him. He is just so....English. I can imagine him taking tea in a sunlit lounge with a view of the garden, declaring everything is simply 'splendid'. I can see childish delight on his wizened face when someone treats him to a light tea cake. I am almost certain that he would have taken light meals and been fond of sweet treats. There are many ingredients to choose from here, lots of inspirations - but I think in the end, I am going to head for Vintage Oxford Marmalade Cake served with tea, or (perhaps) sherry. Another close runner was to make toast on the open fire and smother it in butter and Oxford Marmalade. Whatever is chosen, I think, it has to be something you would look forward to if, having walked for miles in the cold, dark rain, you entered a room with a blazing fire, an armchair and an ambition to talk far into the night with a warm hearted friend.

(Click Vintage Oxford Marmalade Cake to see the recipe)

Cloister Organised

I have been organizing my blog this evening and so there are a few changes. Firstly, the buttons on the side still direct you to the most recent post in any given theme, so that's good. I also wanted to make it easier for my readers (i.e. me) to find older posts on different topics. Particularly, I thought it might be nice to look up authors and books I have written about. And, what with my new series on food, I wanted people to be able to find recipes. So, I have added a section along the sidebar for indexes. Each one shows up the different posts so they can be easily found. Okay, it is not strictly alphabetical or numerical, but if I did that I would consider myself a changed human being. The lists are fairly short at the moment, but I hope I will have the determination to allow them to grow gradually. The first series of this blog, back when it was called Under the Cross, has also been logged more effectively so you can look up each of the Stations of the Cross. It nice to feel that everything is getting into order!

Blue is for Rosemary

I am sure that many of you think that recipes and food can have very little to do with odd religion. However, never one to disappoint, I though would just share with you a delicious dish which is great shared with friends AND some stories about the ingredients which make it appropriate for Marian feast days and family parties.

Rosemary Oven Roasted Potatoes

Peel and chop into little 1/2 inch cubes some fresh waxy potatoes and place them into a non stick oven dish. Drizzle them liberally with olive oil and season with sea salt and cracked black pepper. Grab a good sized handful of rosemary sprigs. Taking two or three of the sprigs, hold each one upright and run your forefinger and thumb down the central twig to release the leaves. Stir these into the potatoes and tuck the remaining whole sprigs into the dish strategically. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes turning the little gems over frequently until they are golden.

This is a great side dish, it is great at a barbeque, as an alternative to chips, as a snack served in paper cones....anytime really.

Now, those stories:

Rosemary

Rosemary originated in the Mediterraean, but has now spread to most temperate climates. It holds the ancient Latin name lamiaceae, which means 'sea dew'. You may thing that this is because of the oceanic colour of its' flowers, and perhaps you are right, but there are more entertaining tales to be had about its' foliage. Rumour has it that during their flight into Egypt the Holy Family had cause to hide from some soldiers. Mary threw her cloak over a rosemary bush and knelt behind it with the child, Jesus. When she rose again, in safety, the flowers of the sweet smelling plant miraculously turned from white to blue in her honour.

You might think that one miracle story would be enough for rosemary, but no. The plant is also said to bloom at midnight on Christmas eve (no I have never checked, don't spoil it). It apparently will only grow for 33 years, the age of Christ, and then will wither and die.

Shakespeare's Ophelia famously says 'There's Rosemary, that is for remembrance", and indeed, it used to be common practice for mourners to throw rosemary onto the coffin from the graveside. Strangely, it has also been a traditional plant for the bride to have in her bouquet and is said to bring happiness to the couple. Often grown at the front of the house Rosemary has the reputation of being able to keep spirits, thieves and witches at bay. Medicinally it is a good cure for headaches and, the oil makes both excellent antiseptic and insect repellant.

Potatoes

Put the first new potato of the year in your overcoat pocket and you will be cured of rheumatism for life, so says the old folklore cure. The humble potato once fetched £300 a pound as an aphrodisiac. For Irish Farmers the best day to plant a field of spuds is the feast of St. Patrick, but should this day be missed Good Friday is a close second. Traditionally potato fields in Ireland were dressed with the blessed Easter Palm in the hope of a good harvest. At 'Lughnasa', celebrated on the Sunday nearest the 1st August, the first new potatoes should be tasted by the whole family for prosperity and good health to flourish during the year.

Now you are fully informed you can choose the most prestigious day on which to mix these two yummy ingredients! I think they are good for today, Our Lady of the Rosary. And I think they might be good for every other day too! (is that cheating?) Now, I know some (very few) of you might be thinking that I should have written something with a Dominican connection as well today. Maybe so. My best advice is to make up for it by serving these with some excellent wine, good friends and laughter.

Bruno's Soup

As luck would have it there was spinach in the garden and potatoes in the basket, so I decided to jazz up the supper of the Carthusians in Into Great Silence. Similar budget here, I am unemployed after all. So, two handfuls of spinach, three potatoes about the size of your hand, three small onions, two cloves of garlic, vegetable stock and grated nutmeg. And some pepper for seasoning. No salt though, the stock is salty enough.

I sliced the onions and garlic finely, and gently fried them in a little oil. Then I grated a generous amount of nutmeg over the top. It smelled yummy. Then I roughly chopped the three potatoes, skins on and threw them into the pot. A few minutes later I sprinkled a teaspoon and a half of the vegetable stock powder over the top of the frying potatoes and boiled the kettle. When the water was hot I poured enough over to just cover the potatoes, put the lid on the pot and made a cup of coffee to drink in the garden. Once the potatoes were soft I added the spinach and put the lid on again for a few moments. Then I whizzed the whole lot gently with a hand held blender. My un-Carthusian touch was a splash of cream to serve. Eat with fresh crusty bread.

Ages ago I wrote a post about my favourite sounds of silence, and today, thinking about Carthusians has had me remember it. Silence is really very noisy, there are so many sounds to a very quiet place. I made this soup while the house was quiet, just taking the time to myself. I could hear the birds, the sounds of the kitchen, the passing of a car on the road outside. Here - listen! The sound of the making of Bruno's Soup. :)

A bear called Bruno

I had a bear called Bruno when I was little, so I will always associate the name with him and with a frantic search to find him under the bed before I could possibly consider anything so restful as sleep. (Okay, I still have a bear called Bruno, but he just sits quietly on a cupboard now). Saint Bruno, whose feast it is today, was born in 1085. He was educated in Paris and ordained priest - he taught theology. However, wanting to lead a solitary life he founded a monastery called La Grand Chartreuse. He didn't get away with that peaceful existence for long though, he was called to be an advisor to Pope Urban II. He died in 1101.

The thing about Bruno, aside from the bear, is that he also reminds me of an adventure to see a film in Cambridge some years ago. My brother was home from one of his many travels. Into Great Silence (2005) was on at the Cambridge Arts Cinema and I really wanted to see it. But, having explained the plot (?) to a few people I couldn't get any takers. The film, directed by Phillip Groning, is an intimate portrayal of everyday life in the Grand Chartreuse. Groning proposed the film to the monks in 1985, and 16 years later they contacted him to say they had agreed to his project. Everything takes time. Groning then went, by himself, to live with the monks in the monastery where visitors are not normally allowed. He stayed 4 and a half months from March in 2002. The sounds in the film were recorded by Groning alone. No artificial light was used to create the remarkable images. My brother said he would come. So, we booked tickets and drove the 30 or so miles to Cambridge, parked the car and went in. For me, it was one of the most amazing films I have ever seen. I loved it. Dan said afterwards it wasn't so much a film as a meditation, and I guess that is right. There is no commentary, just the sights and sounds, the rhythm of monastic life. I bought it on DVD afterwards and used it in the classroom. Then I lent it to someone and never saw it again.

I guess there is a theme here. Bruno - the bear - has to be found for peace to reign, but Bruno -the Saint - shows that silence can never last forever, there are jobs to be done. The film was just a moment to be caught and appreciated like the precious silences that come our way, every now and then.

Those of you who saw the film might remember this still image of dinner. Okay, so it is spinach and potatoes - very simple - but you have got to be able to do more with it than that. Simplicity is no excuse! With that in mind, two books that might help can be found here and here. Cook with them quietly! If I grab a moment today I am going to make spinach and potato soup, and maybe a loaf of bread.

Wolf Paw Cookies

This post about cookies for the Feast of St. Francis really makes me go, 'awww, ahhhh' almost as much as watching a squirrel burying a nut in the herb patch of the garden today.

:) i lufs him. :)

Pimientos de Padron

I have come to Bedford to visit my sister, and she has bought pimientos de Padron for me to prepare! I am very excited! It is quite unusual to find these peppers outside of Spain. Basically, in my experience, eating these is a bit like playing Russian roulette. Some of these beautiful green peppers are so sweet they will make you melt, and others are super hot and will have you running for a cold beer (which, incidentally, doesn't help). As the Galicians say: Os pementos de Padrón, uns pican e outros non" . The peppers of Padron, some are hot, some are not. Fairly self- explanatory really!

I learnt about pimientos de Padron whilst living in Salamanca, in a bar very near the beautiful Dominican church of San Sebastian. There was a guitarist in the bar who was very handsome, and he sang traditional Spanish folk songs most weekends. Also, the bar man was very keen to encourage strangers to test his food, especially these capsicums. Part of the fun was that sometimes tourists would squeal with the heat, and the locals would laugh.

Pimientos de Padron are about the size of your thumb. They are fried in olive oil, salted and served. Some say that the largest ones are the hottest, others say one in five will have you begging for mercy. There is only one way to find out for sure, pick one up and eat it whole, from the stem!

They take a whole 10 minutes to prepare, and can have a group of friends laughing for hours.

You need: Olive oil, pimientos de Padron and good quality coarse ground salt. Wash the peppers and dry them properly. Heat a heavy bottomed frying pan with a healthy splash of olive oil, add the peppers and fry them until they blister and get some colour. Tip the peppers onto some kitchen towel and pat dry, then salt them (don't be shy). Serve with bread.

Eat and enjoy. Don't eat the stalks - they are just handles to save you on washing cutlery.

Pimientos de Padron are one of the oldest non hybrid peppers. As the story goes, Franciscan monks brought them to Spain from Mexico in the 16th Century. They gained a name for themselves in the town of Padron, Galicia (that's near Santiago de Compostela everyone - my favourite place in the whole wide world!). OK, so the fiesta of the Pimientos de Padron is on the first Sunday in August, but it is held in the courtyard of the Franciscan Convent of Herbon. In keeping with the Franciscan spirit of poverty, this little delicacy is cheap and cheerful! I am claiming it for the Feast of St. Francis, even though it is, technically, not Italian.

A little internet research informs me that, aside from a magic place in Bedford, pimientos de Padron can be sourced in the UK from here. For those of you who are finding the peppers hard to source, might I suggest growing your own?

Maybe later I will add some pictures of myself and my sister enjoying our capsicum adventures. I am going to serve them up as a starter before our main meal, comfort food of the highest order, patatas a lo pobre con setas, or 'Poor Man's potatoes with mushrooms'. I might get the recipe for that up too, when I have decided what it is. :)

Nature is an angel's favourite hiding place

Whoop! Whoop! It is the feast of Guardian Angels today - a much neglected memoria in the Church Year. One of my Facebook friends has suggested that today would be a good day to have a post about Angel Cake, and preferably a recipe. And that is true, today is an appropriate day for Angel Cake. But, I am all caked out following Michaelmas, and today I have lots and lots of tidying to do so no time for baking. If you feel up to the challenge though, there is a good recipe here.

Trying to suit your cooking to the time of year is very fashionable these days, and rightly so. It is also a source of great fun! I am tempted to make pineapple upside down cake with my nieces today, and arrange the pineapples into an angel shape at the bottom of the tin. Yeah! After all, GK Chesterton did say that 'the reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly!' Sadly, what I have said above still applies. Housework. Boo! Still, I might make time!

Anyhow, because finding something appropriate for dinner according to the Church year is very similar to finding something appropriate for dinner according to earthly seasons, today is the day to compose something beautiful out of these great ingredients - all in season, at their most abundant and cheapest right now.

Heavenly Food of the Day

Oysters -

they can take people to heaven and back (apparently)

Other Seasonally Angelic Suggestions

Vegetables: artichokes, aubergines, beetroots, broccolis, butternut squashes, carrots, celeriacs (the shek of root vegetables - makes great chips), parsnips, celery, chillies, courgettes, fennel, garlic, horseradish, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuces and salad leaves (especially lambs lettuce), marrows, onions, peppers, main crop potatoes, radishes, rocket, sweetcorn, turnips, spinach and watercress (eat with red wine for a taste bud explosion!) Fruits: apples, blackberries, elderberries, pears, plums, quince, tomatoes On the wild side: cobnuts, nettles, mushrooms (especially puffballs - particularly angelic looking) and all the fruits above (obviously) Meat: rabbits (awwww - you wouldn't!....ok, you would), chicken, pork (it's that hog time of year again!) and things like pheasant Herbs: sage, thyme, mint, parsley, chives From the Sea: Mussels, clams, crab, haddock (get it smoked and make chowder - heaven!), mackerel, monkfish, lemon sole, john dory, lobster, plaice, prawns, scallops, squid, sea bream, hake, skate. Skate Swimming: Looks like a proper angel see? None of your 18th Century cherub nonsense here. Oh no! Selecting a heavenly feast from that little lot has got to be easy. It's the choice that is tricky. I think I might, if I had the time, go for: Pan fried skate with a black peppercorn and butter sauce (like my brother does it), served with spinach and crushed spuds. The vegetarian option would definitely have to be something adventurous with a puff ball mushroom. And dessert? Blackberries in a pie with vanilla ice cream.

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