'The Right Way to Make Jams'

In 1993 Ben was browsing through a charity book shop in Bristol with our friend Bob - they were at the Methodist Conference that year, which is why he can put a date to the memory after all these years. I don't know what Bob was looking for, but Ben found this very dated little book, which seemed worth the asking price... And Ben was off!

He'd made a few jams beforehand, but always to a generic recipe. This book, first published in 1974, promised more - specific recipes and also advice on how to get it right!About three years ago the book fell apart, but it's so valuable to Ben that I took it to bits, punched holes in its pages and put it into a little ring binder for him. I wish I'd kept the broken old cover now - it was orange with line drawings on it - very '70s.The author is a man, and I think Ben likes that. We've nicknamed this chap Colonel Cyril Grange, although we have no evidence he was in the army except for his very clipped and insistent style. He's a bit of an old bossy boots, but he does know his stuff. And here are the first fruits of the book this spring!This is the kind of thing Ben finds useful - lots of 'what's right, what's wrong' info, so that you actually understand the process of jam making.

And here is my cute guy himself, with IPOD but without apron this time - instead his T-shirt nicely matches the cherries he's been picking from a friend's tree! (They went off to the Chelsea Flower Show, lucky things, and invited us in to pick their cherries.)Ben picked mountains of them! We didn't go with him, as Son 1 was having a bit of an iffy day, probably due to the quantity of strawberries he'd consumed in the previous 48 hours...Raja, the faithful hound, lay at his feet as he stoned the cherries, wating for any that fell... But not many did!In the kitchen, scary amounts of sugar awaited the fruit...Many of the cherries we pick don't go into jam, because they bottle so nicely. It's a taste of early summer all year round.

Two boilers, ready to go...And some were saved for eating now! We taught the boys 'Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor', and then Son 2 asked, 'Can you make that great cherry pudding tomorrow?' Yes, indeed, this was not Son 'I can make myself sick on seasonal fruit' 1, but Son 'You'll have to force me to eat anthing that's not a banana' 2, asking for a fruit pudding! There was much excitement, and I got out the recipe book to check if he meant this one, which he did.

For you:

Cherry Layer Pudding

8oz (225g) sugar
¼ pint (150ml) white wine

1¼ lb (550g) pitted cherries
5 oz (150g) butter
2 eggs, separated
a generous pinch of ground cinnamon
5oz (150g) fresh white breadcrumbs
4 tablespoons (4 X 15ml spoon) milk

Oven temperature:
Gas Mark 7/425°F/220°C

Cook 3oz (75g) of the sugar and the white wine together, to make a syrup. Add the cherries and poach for a few minutes until the syrup is coloured and flavoured. Drain the cherries, reserving the syrup.
Preheat the oven. Cream together the butter and the remaining sugar. Beat the egg yolks and add with the cinnamon. Stir in the breadcrumbs and the milk. Lastly, beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture as lightly and swiftly as possible. Layer this mixture with the cherries in a greased, shallow pie dish (starting with a cherry layer), and bake in the preheated oven for half an hour. Turn out, and serve with the reheated syrup and some cream.

I don't normally turn it out - that can cause disasters and there's no point in spoiling a perfect pudding!

'Le Parfait' weekend, or, as Pa Larkin would translate it, 'perfik'!You are all invited to my blog Garden Party - see the post below for all the details!

You are invited to my Garden Party!

This is an updated post, which is linked to the invitations to my real garden party on June 27th, for my local friends. However, in case my friends who can read English would like to visit some of the other virtual parties which other bloggers held in my honour, please click here!

This is what happened:

The idea is that, on the weekend of 20th-21st June, all the 'guests' who've accepted my invitation do a post on their blog, with lots of lovely garden party images.

You might want to include a photo of your dream garden party dress...

or a hat you would wear:
or bunting for the garden:

or some Pimms recipes or other garden party delights!

I leave it up to your imagination, and will find a little French vintage prize for the most entertaining post!

Practical details: please leave a comment on this post if you would like to 'come to my party', and I will list everyone taking part, with links, on the weekend of my birthday, so everyone can check out the other guests' posts!

Please right click on my party invitiation (above) and save it for use on your own blog - in the sidebar with a link to this post, or in your own garden party post.

Anyone can join in - you don't have to have been commenting on my blog beforehand, as it's great to meet new people!

So, please come to my Garden Party, June 20th or 21st!

P.S. Thanks very much to Sonia for the lovely artwork for my invitation.

The Moated Village

Yesterday was Ascension Day, a national holiday in France. Because Ascension is always a Thursday, people often work the Thursday and take the Friday off instead, but the children had Wednesday in school in order to take both Thursday and Friday off - a very long weekend! Today is called the 'pont d'Ascension' - the 'Ascension bridge', taking us to the weekend. Ben worked yesterday and has the day off today, so yesterday it was just me and the boys, following some directions off the internet to a small village nearby which was having a bank holiday Vide Greniers. We parked the car here: Yes, this village is one of the ones which has its own moat!

The boys and I had never been there before, but we loved it, and took loads of photos. The houses are built linked together, inside the moat and encircling the church and the village green. It would have been quite an effective defence - maybe against the English!Circling up past the end of the moat, we found the Vide Greniers on the defended and tree-lined village green. Very picturesque.Son 1 bought some additions to his domino toppling kit. Son 2 found absolutely nothing to interest him, so asked to play the 2 Euro Challenge.He bought this marbled, pressed glass vase. I don't particularly go for this kind of style, but I think it's rather a good buy, all the same.We're going to do some internet research together to find out more about its origins (and to find out if 2 euros was a good price).I found relatively little - this blue and white china clip-top jar for the kitchen,

and a sweet little vintage tin for my cloth buttons.This is the current display of button tins and boxes.

They're on a little vintage lace and embroidery runner I bought in Veti Relais a few months ago.
Out in the garden, things got a bit crazy as Son 2's shoes (bought for my sister's wedding last summer) were retired, broken, but I couldn't bear to throw them out...This footwear-as-planter thing is getting out of hand, methinks. The plants should live, Olga - the big boots on the left were planted up a year ago and the sempervivums are thriving. The clue is in the name - most plants wouldn't like to live like this, but sempervivums ('always alives') love to grow in stony, exposed places - the only thing they can't stand is poor drainage. The boots and shoes will rot and fall apart in the end, but it's good to give them a bit more use before they do.The sempervivums which were on the window ledge have made way for some summer bulbs, which are just coming into beautiful flower.
Now, have you noticed that a number of great bloggers are called Sarah? I am going to have to differentiate between my numerous Sarah friends somehow. So, NZ Sarah, of Red Gingham, has involved me in the game she says is: "called 'Desafio'. It's a Spanish word and means 'Challenge' in English. This game is about getting to know each other better. In order to this we must share 7 things about ourselves and then we must send the game to 7 other bloggers. "

Well, in French, this game would be called 'Défi', which shows the close links between French and Spanish, I think! Thanks for the 'défi', Sarah! Here goes on 7 things about me:

I spent my childhood moving around; living in at least three English counties, the United States, and Scotland. My dad was in the Navy!

Ben and I got married when I was 21 and he was 22. Some people wondered if we were too young, but we were sure it was the right thing to do and 19 years on and two sons later we are still sure.

I love chili con carne but almost never cook it any more - somehow our French lifestyle doesn't seem to include it!

I studied Archaeology at University, but am now a trained dyselxia teacher.

I tried knitting a blanket square at Guides once and it turned into a hexagonal doughnut. I think knitting has too much to do with maths for me.

I'm a Christian and my heroes are those who live their faith more than they talk about it.

I am half Welsh, quarter English, and quarter Irish, and my parents now live in Scotland. 'So Breetish' as the French would say.

That's enough about me - these are the 7 people to whom I pass on the 'Challenge':

Josie-Mary

Ashley

Juanita

Fleur

Lululiz

Jackie

Glenda

Have fun, ladies! If you happen to have done the challenge before, just give us a link to your previous answers if you don't want to think up another seven.

Tomorrow: more of the 'cute guy in the apron' and his jam-making!

Flowers, strawberries and... vinegar?

Hello again! Thanks for all your lovely comments. I had a productive day yesterday, posting off my Sweet Tweet Swap parcel to Ele in the USA, and the Auld Alliance Giveaway to Olga in Poland. I learned a lot too - Olga is originally from Belarus - I told you she is well travelled.

For those who aren't sure how to pick up my award, I know the feeling! I finally discovered that you just right click on the picture, click 'save as' and use it exactly as you would a photo in your post or on your side bar. But it took me a while to work that out... My lessons were all cancelled yesterday, as my private pupils were in school (usually, Wednesday is a sports and outside activities day for children in French primary schools). Son 1 had the afternoon off as usual, being in secondary school, but he was my only company all day... I got sewing, taking my small sewing basket to his piano lesson with me. When I glimpsed it inside our modern(ish) car I realised how vintage everything in it is!

My mother and I both collected, and used, vintage sewing items through the 1980s. We had a natural division of the spoils - she prefers more elegant, 'Edwardian Lady' type pieces, while I have always loved the 1930s 'Milly Molly Mandy' flowers... I'll try to get some photos of her vintage sewing things when I'm in Edinburgh next month.My little sewing project for the day was fabric flowers. So many of you have been asking 'what are you going to do with all those buttons?' that I thought I'd better get started! I quite like these, although if any of you has a pattern for something more realistic I'd be interested to try it. I think I'll use them at my 40th birthday Garden Party (more on that soon...)Whilst both boys were enjoying the pool in the sunny early evening, I got round to cleaning out the fire. It's our only real source of heat throughout the winter, and we lit it several times in April to dry out soggy cyclists and wet clothes when we had a spell of bad weather. Therefore, I'm always reluctant to put it into summer mode too quickly - but now is the time!French fires have a wonderful glass door which allows you to keep the fire burning all night without risk. By the end of the winter the glass looks like this:But I have a secret weapon:

Spot the gingham, Sarah!

Once everything was clean, I stacked up some pretty logs (including ones from our poor fallen tree) and some pine cones, and shut the glass doors until autumn.

Before I got vinegary, I finally baked the wonderful shortbread recipe that Sumea's friend Betty gave her. I totally recommend it, as do the rest of the family!We ate it with strawberries, peaches and cream or ice cream of choice...It being strawberry season, Ben got making jam again...Sticky kitchen season starts again - it's another long weekend here for us, and we'll be cherry picking tomorrow!

Annoucing a winner... and awards...

Drum roll, please... This lovely ideal of Scottish beauty, as imagined by a French photographer, has an announcement to make.... Out of 117 possible entries, a random number generator chose the number 78 from my excel list...

This means that the winner of my first, Franco-Scottish giveaway, is Olga, of the excellent blog 'Where are you, Olga?' The 'Scottish' lovely above is the extra vintage photo I said I'd add - she has some 'English' and 'Irish' friends on the same photo... So, Olga, congratulations and please email me your address, and I will get posting!However, Olga and everyone else should keep reading, because Melanie, of A Country Dream, has very kindly given me this award. Thanks so much, Melanie - you have a lovely blog yourself! I need to pass it on to 10 other blogs I think are lovely – only 10? That’s always the problem, when there are so many wonderful blogs and kind bloggers around…
But I have managed to narrow it down to 10, so here are some blogs I would recommend to all, each with a very charming and friendly blogger:
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Olga, whose blog ‘Where are you, Olga?’ is an almost daily glimpse into an amazing part of the world or an inspirational art form. Olga is Polish and wonderfully well travelled! (I have to tell you I wrote this bit this morning, so I had no idea that you were going to be a double winner today, Olga!)
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Fleur, from Marble Rose – what entertaining things she finds and makes! I’m also currently envying her piano stool…
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Mandy, from Live, Laugh, Love – you can do all those things by following Mandy’s blog – it’s lovely to keep up with her family and her vintage news…
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Stacey, at Polka Dot Daze (I like the pun in the title), who is an incredible crafter, making wonderful things for her charming children, and blogging about everything so sweetly.
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Sarah who loves Red Gingham so much that her blog is both named after it and full of it! I love reading about her family and her crafting activities in New Zealand (Stacey is in New Zealand too – the world seems smaller through blogging!)
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Lululiz, who can be found in Lalaland (!?) and has some seriously good vintage shopping finds at car boot sales. She also makes soap and has a cottage in France which she can’t currently visit… read her blog to find out more…
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Julia at Vintage Heaven – just looking at her blog title pictures makes me smile; I don’t even have to get as far as the beautiful posts before I’m grinning…
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Joe, at Josie-Mary, another really friendly blogger who you just feel at home with when you read about her crafting, shopping or life…
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Beck, at Dandelion, who is a country-dwelling Australian who has taught me more that I ever thought I’d learn about organic garlic farming, and generally about living the Good Life, Australian style!
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and last but by no means least:
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Jeannette from Sans Soucis, who has one of the first blogs I ever read – it is a beautiful inspiration for calm vintage style (as opposed to my own) and has the added treat of letting you see everything written in Dutch as well as English, which is fun.
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I realise that awards can be a burden as well as an honour, so if you have time you are asked to pass this award on to 10 more 'Lovely Blogs', but if you don't have time, please just relax and know that I think you really do have a lovely blog - surely that's all you need to know...

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I am going to take a day off from the computer tomorrow (Wednesday) so if you find me sneaking a look at your blog and leaving a comment after this evening, tell me off!