Blooming eck! what show offs these aliens are.

I have only posted this because I love it.

The soft suede feel of a ripening plum is a textural pleasure that never lessens. Each year I wait for the grey purple blooming of the plump fruit, this year the trees are heavy with their burden and both the wasps, birds and I will be fighting over them.

I have heard rumours that eating pickled walnuts can lead to ill health, I was under the impression that you pickle the young green fruit prior to the nut and its shell forming but Sarah Ravens cookbook suggests you pickle in September/October when the fruit is far more mature, as yet I haven’t found any definitive answer.

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

2¼lb/1kg young green walnuts
¼lb/350g salt
3½pints/2 litres water
1oz/25g black peppercorns
1tsp allspice
2½ pints/1.5 litres wine vinegar
½tsp freshly grated dry ginger
2in/5cm stick of cinnamon, crumbled

Method

1. Prick the walnuts all over with a carpet needle.
Place the nuts in a ceramic bowl, dissolve half the salt in half the water and pour over the walnuts.
Cover and leave for 5 days in a cool place, stirring twice a day to ensure even brining.

2. Drain the walnuts, mix the remaining salt and water, pour over the brine and leave for another five days, stirring twice a day as before.
Drain, spread out in a single layer on a flat dish and leave to dry in the sun until they are black.

3. Crush the peppercorns and allspice berries and simmer the vinegar with the spices for 20 minutes.
Allow to cool and strain.
Pack the walnuts into sterilised, wide-necked jars, filling them no more than three-quarters full, and pour in the spiced vinegar.
Cover and leave in a cool place for 6 weeks before using.

It might be my liking for Alexandra McCall-Smith’s writing [he is in the orchestra] or the frustrations I have always had for being such an appauling pianist, possibly the later but The Really Terrible Orchestra is a delight, well maybe, but they are shining examples to all us under-rated, under-talent enthusiasts. Please do visit their website and listen to their charming homemade rendition of Ringo’s classic The Yellow Submarine, one can only hope that their playlist will extend to include such classics as My Grandfathers Clock and When the Red, Red Robin. They are to the genre of popular orchestrated music what John Shuttleworth is to popular song culture.

The alien spaceships are once again hovering over the boarder, they hang in clusters of five in a perpetual state of closure, ever threatening to attack with their glorious potential but tormenting me, resistant to my desire to see their beautiful flowering heads. Will they ever bloom these alien crafts?.

If you are travelling down the A1, north of Newcastle and close to the boarders look out for The Cedar Cafe, not only do they do a damn fine coffee but the poached eggs on toast are the best I have had in ages. People regularly overcook eggs, yolks like bullets, scrambled to a state of inedible dryness or frazzled in fat, but not so the tender pearly white poachers at The Cedar Cafe. They also have a selection of cakes and fruit pies and a fairly extensive lunch menu. Set in a small clearing on the south bound side with outside space for sunny days this is a must for all hungry travellers.

It doesn’t seem so long since I posted a photograph of the tiny plants peeping out through the soil surface but now look at them, about a month old but so big, hopefully they will flower just as soon and then it’ll be feasting time…

Ely High Street has several pleasent shops but the best is Topping and Co bookshop, they stock thousands of great titles, across hundreds of subjects, the staff are helpful and occasionally, time permitting, you can be offered a complimentary coffee in the reading area on the 1st floor. You can never have too many books or too much coffee.

The courgettes have been planted on, well at least some of them, one further plant is out with the potatoes, which are doing very well, and a further three plants have yet to be planted on. I have choosen to plant them up with tomatoes if only because I think they will look good together. The beans have been a bit of a problem, some sharp toothed insect has removed all the young leaves in a swoop attack, I blame it on the damp weather. I now have three bean plants in a pot with a teepee style climbing frame, hopefully safe from pests.

29 July: a plant exposion, there are tiny courgettes forming under those big leaves.