It's too darn hot.

Adventures in foraging frugally and scavenging sustainably while living and eating well.

Cherry ripe

The bowl I found in the student recycling bin came in handy when I saw cherries.

On the unlikely chance that you came looking for me this week you might have found me underneath a gooseberry bush. It’s stifling in Yorkshire as temperatures soar towards breaking the UK June record, not by a smidgen but by a disastrous dollop. To have any chance of getting gardening done in comfort I have had to get to the allotment very early. Fruit is ripening fast and if I don’t pick and process it I’ll be sorry later.

Loganberries

I’m jam making in earnest. On Saturday morning I picked the last of the gooseberries and the first of the loganberries and I’m counting and cleaning my empty jars. Foraged cherries went to make jam which will be welcome when warm mornings are a distant memory. The tree I pick from is dripping with them and there is more than enough for the birds and me.

It turns out that gooseberry meringue pie is a good idea. I started with a favourite sweet shortcrust pastry I learned years ago from the Roux Brothers’ Cooking for Two. The pastry lined a loose bottomed pie dish and was blind baked. Then I made a filling of not too sweet stewed and sieved gooseberry puree. I used 500g of fruit. Once the gooseberry goo had cooled I beat in three egg yolks. Think of it as a gooseberry baked custard mix. I filled the pie crust and baked it in a medium oven until the filling thickened. Then I whipped the reserved whites with sugar to make a French meringue, topped the pie with it, returned to the oven, and baked until it was golden on top and marshmallowy within.

The gooseberry filling was slightly runny but tasted very good. I’ll need to make it again (such hardship) to get it completely right. More egg yolks or a longer initial bake? I’m not sure.

I’m now thinking of gooseberries on a nutty meringue base. Thanks to my antipodean friend Tim for suggesting pavlova.

I’ve been ogling the peas on other plots as mine are pathetic this year. Only a few straggling plants survived pigeon and pheasant depredations. I wonder if Steve could be persuaded to trade some of his surplus for a jar of gooseberry jam?

A freshly picked pea sweet from the pod is a marvel. Cheryl Queen of Markets celebrates a profusion of peas in her recent post. She is well worth a read.

Peas Above Your Station

Litter pickings

Next to my allotment plot, students are moving out from their halls of residences so I prowled the University recycling bins to inspect their leavings. Last year they presented me with pudding bowls. This year I rescued a large sieve, a metal folding chair, a plastic mixing bowl, a small artificial Christmas tree (I know, I know but I couldn’t help myself), two full rolls of sellotape and a pair of craft scissors. Don’t tell the beloved.

A spare folding chair always comes in useful.

Mystery Dance

Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill
He jumped out the window 'cause he couldn't sit still
Juliet was waiting with a safety net
He said, "Don't bury me 'cause I'm not dead yet"

Why don't you tell me about the mystery dance
I want to know about the mystery dance
Why don't you show me
'Cause I've tried and I've tried, and I'm still mystified
I can't do it anymore and I'm not satisfied

Well, I remember when the lights went out
And I was tryin' to make it look like it was never in doubt
She thought that I knew, and I thought that she knew
So both of us were willing, but we didn't know how to do it

from Elvis Costello's 'Mystery Dance'

A long long time ago, the young men I found attractive were spectacle wearing and book reading types. If they were interested in music, food and art, and had the ability to string a sentence together while maintaining eye contact, I was susceptible. It was lucky for me that louche, leather jacketed, heartbreaking moody types didn’t float my boat. That would have been a disaster as those unlikely lads didn’t tend to fancy opinionated bookworms like me.

In my first year at Trinity College in Dublin I watched the beloved stride across Front Square in the rain. He looked like a taller (and better looking) version of Elvis Costello. Suddenly I was smitten. Damn it, he even played guitar and liked poetry. The poor boy never stood a chance.

Elvis poses geekily for the back cover of the 1977 classic LP My Aim is True

We went to see Elvis Costello at the York Barbican last Wednesday. It was a pleasure to find that the early Costello song book is wearing well even if the fans are a little frayed around the edges. A bonus was neatly avoiding having to watch England playing Croatia in the World Cup.

Blind date with a book

Most weeks I start my volunteer shift at York’s Amnesty Bookshop making parcels for the ‘Blind Date with a Book’ box. I enjoy concocting blurbs to tempt book shoppers and messing with brown paper and coloured markers. The mystery books are very popular with people who are happy to be surprised. A young woman bought two on Monday, one for herself and the other for a friend. ‘It’s like getting a present’ she said. As for me, I rarely buy a book without first judging its cover.

Drapery

Good quality made to measure curtains don’t come cheap. We needed new ones for our refurbished bedroom and of course I balked at spending hundreds of pounds. I had visions of floor length velvet drapes and trawled the internet in a fruitless search. It turns out that even secondhand curtains command premium prices. For weeks I’ve been haunting the charity shops in vain.

Thrift rarely offers an instant solution to a home furnishing challenge but on Thursday, in the Sue Ryder shop on York’s Goodramgate, I found a pair of well made, properly lined and neatly finished curtains for under £20. They aren’t the velvet I dreamed of but a good heavy linen. The size was right and the colour perfect. We even managed to hang them up without rancour or recrimination.