Food Sin
I bought a lardy cake for pudding.* I’m sitting here eyeing it right now.** As choices for menopausally challenged waistlines go, this is a baaaaad one, but I haven’t had a lardy cake in years and I really do have to do something heinous*** while Peter is gone.
I actually went food shopping today. Yeep. I mean, I do pop into the greengrocer’s for a hit of broccoli occasionally in preparation for a bridge-playing bell-ringing evening, but I don’t shop. Peter shops.† Peter’s the one out there with his knapsack†† prodding the produce and telling the butcher that chop, not that one. This is how I can even pretend to do as much extra-curricular nonsense as I do; I have Peter. And while it’s extremely nice having someone else putting a hot supper on the table several nights a week, I occasionally miss some of that immediate input to the meal plan: ooh, look, the broad beans/purple sprouting broccoli/brussel sprouts are in; ooh, that salmon looks gorgeous. Peter fancies himself as this gentle, modest, supportive individual, always willing to set himself aside for the betterment of others. Wrong. When the Dickinson juggernaut is rolling, get out of the way. Peter cooks. I get out of the way. I have my piano, my bells, my garden, my hellhounds . . . my horse††† . . . to distract me.
But it’s fun to play at being mistress of my own food fate for a few days. So I hung my tote bag over my arm this morning after the hellhounds and I returned from our usual morning sprint of making sure the landscape stays where it’s been put, and bought olives at the farmers’ market, and organic loose tea at the health food shop, and then I strayed into the new deli.
You poor sad deprived Americans have probably never experienced lardy cake, unless you’ve spent a lot of time in England.‡ If you google ‘recipe for lardy cake’ you’ll be spoilt for choice; I looked at the first three and they all look pretty good. It’s a sweet bread–that is to say yeast–dough that you then roll out, spread things on, chiefly sugar and currants, and fold over a few times, keeping the layers, so when you cut into the finished product it tears along the strata. And yes, it has lard in it. Lots of lard. That’s what makes it so delicious. And filling. And fattening. If you’re totally grossed out at the idea of lard in a sweet bread, well, that’s too bad. It works a treat. My own experience of lard is that it has very little flavour–let alone a pig flavour; it doesn’t taste of pork any more than goose fat, the deluxe rendered fat of fats, tastes of goose–and much as I adore butter, as a change the, ahem, subtlety of lard is very appealing.
. . . And this is an excellent exemplar of its genre. I can feel my belt getting tighter. . . .
PS: Peter arrived and has been heard from. I’ve had two cryptic emails, the second one informing me that he can’t get a connection at either the hotel‡‡ or my friend’s farm and so I had to ring him. A likely story. ‡‡‡ They’re just having too much fun. Without me. Waaaaah. Lardy cake is also comfort food par excellence: from certain angles and under certain circumstances there is even an argument that it may be superior to chocolate.§ It’s bigger and squashier. Sometimes you need bigger and squashier.
At least Souvenir de la Malmaison is blooming. (You take your comforts where they’re offered.) So are a lot of other things. My garden never looks as spectacular as Peter’s not only because it’s so much smaller but because I went the other route–I have something in flower all year round, but that means there’s never a moment when everything is a mad riot. But I wanted to get a photo of my little corner of the jungle so I was out there deadheading this afternoon, and then twilight caught up with me. Twilight? A week before the summer solstice? Oops. You just can’t expect a chronometrically challenged person to notice it’s getting late when it’s still daylight.
And Tomorrow: the Cranberry Lime Sorbet.
* * *
* Dessert. Whatever.
** Yes, it’s late. It’s even later than supper after bell ringing. Why? I don’t know. Hours pass.^ I just don’t do time. Time does me all right. But with Peter chivvying me all the, er, time I fall out of what little habit I have of meeting Time on its own terms. There have been at least two periods in my life when I worked myself right round the clock. I think maybe I’m Martian really, and my genes want to be on a 26 hour clock or something. I actually like going to bed mid morning, when the day is old enough to be getting boring, and waking in late afternoon, but this makes it too hard to live in this world. And the world makes it too hard for you, what with phones and deliveries and helpful postpersons knocking on your door at 7 am. That was this morning. I’m not going to have . . . uh, time, to move round the clock in the next five days, but if Peter were ever gone a fortnight. . . .
^ In this case at least one hour passed googling for piano sheet music to Gypsy Rover and Matty Groves/Little Musgrave. Any of you clever people who found the lyrics to Gypsy Rover for me who can suggest anything about the sheet music to go with it, I’d be very grateful. Meanwhile I did order another book of Scottish, Irish, and English folk songs because Edward Ardizzone illustrated it. It would be nice of course if the music is agreeable and not too hard to play+, but it doesn’t have either Matty or the Rover in it.
+ A more difficult combination than you might think, or anyway than I thought when I was first looking for folk music for piano. There is some astonishingly inept arranging out there.
*** Stop laughing. I don’t get along with recreational drugs any better than I get along with the medical variety, and neither bungie jumping nor bank robbery appeals to me.
† In my defense, we do more and more on the web. Which is to say I do it.
†† I am sorry to report the apparently total demise of the string bag, that fixture of British shopping in days of yore. Everybody carries tote bags any more, or knapsacks. The passing of an era.
††† I’ve ridden her once, she belongs to Jenny, and a third woman rides her too. Never mind. I fall in love easily. Well, with horses.
‡ I didn’t myself discover lardy cake till I moved over here. When I was only here for a few weeks as a tourist I concentrated on scones and clotted cream. That was in the days I was still eating dairy. Sigh. Clotted cream is a truly transcendent food sin. And up till eighteen years ago anyway you couldn’t get it in the States. Perhaps they’ve rewritten the Constitution to allow it. They really should.
‡‡ He says no one in the entire staff of the posh hotel has ever made an international phone call and can’t help him. So much for posh Midwestern hotels. But I bet nobody thought to ask the cleaners, who are probably trying to bring the rest of their family over from somewhere with even more economic problems and a worse president than the US, and call home every week.
‡‡‡ I just about believe it about the hotel, having stayed in similar hotels, where they train ‘em to smile, but not much else.
§ I don’t say that it is! Only that it may be! In certain extreme circumstances! Or you could have both, if you want to spend tomorrow buying a whole new wardrobe in a larger size!
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LOL Well it sounds like you will be having a little *fun* :) Now all it needs is some eccles cakes. ;) hehe
Haven’t tried Lardy cake although I have seen the recipes. I’ll admit the lard idea put me off. But there IS some in the fridge at the moment……
It only makes sense to sleep through the hottest part of the day. Why would anyone want to be awake for that? It’s *hot*.
But I think you know how I feel about appropriate times for sleeping! *grin*
Lardy cake sounds…lardy. I will trust that you know what you’re talking about and wouldn’t steer me wrong when it comes to dessert. If I ever go to England, I will make sure to try all the fattening desserts.
But I think you know how I feel about appropriate times for sleeping! *grin*
******** Variable! :)
Lardy cake sounds…lardy. I will trust that you know what you’re talking about and wouldn’t steer me wrong when it comes to dessert. If I ever go to England, I will make sure to try all the fattening desserts.
********* Of course. This is part of the requirement of being a world traveller. :)
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” In this case at least one hour passed googling for piano sheet music to Gypsy Rover and Matty Groves/Little Musgrave. Any of you clever people who found the lyrics to Gypsy Rover for me who can suggest anything about the sheet music to go with it, I’d be very grateful.”
http://search.musicnotes.com/?q=gypsy%20rover&hl=y&arp=1
Don’t know if this is any help?
MUSICNOTES!!! ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!! –I actually wrote their phone number down, so I can ring them and SCREAM.
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**MUSICNOTES!!! ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!! –I actually wrote their phone number down, so I can ring them and SCREAM.**
Oh dear.
What happened?
)(*&^%$£”!!!!!!!! is what happened. I was sent in an endless stupid circle of ‘if this doesn’t work, do this’ and then round and round again.
**)(*&^%$£”!!!!!!!! is what happened. I was sent in an endless stupid circle of ‘if this doesn’t work, do this’ and then round and round again.**
Oh dear, that is NOT good.
*sends Robin emergency Green and Black’s*
[virtual gobble gobble gobble] :)
I agree clotted cream is simply divine. It’s become easier to get in the US, but I just can’t justify buying an entire jar/bottle of it at the supermarket, just for me…
And oh, I am so envious of your food right now, you have no idea. =) I’m recovering from bacterial gastroenteritis (hence the long blog commenting silence), and I’m on a restricted diet. No dairy, nothing greasy, etc, except they’ve also banned me from any raw fruit or vegetables for a week. Which you wouldn’t think I would miss, but I had become accustomed to eating salad with dinner before I got sick… =)
Think of how good it will all taste in a week. :)
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I love being in college and getting to cook for myself…. though right now, I have no money, being a poor musician, and so I am living on baked potatos and canned soup. *sigh*
*evil grin* you’ll be getting the bug here any minute… once one starts buying music, one rarely stops, it’s rather a problem (so my mother has told me). Of course, most of my music is marimba music (or some other type of percussion) and always seems to be vastly more expensive than anyone else’s.
I’m not too familiar with music sites for England, but if you find them, I recomend things edited/arranged through Alfred Piano…. they are pretty good at keeping the gist of things together. Other books that I know my piano major friends have are
the Joan Baez Songbook
the Golden Encyclopedia of Folk Music
One of the sites that I use for finding sheet music is sheetmusicplus.com. They’re usually pretty good.
once one starts buying music, one rarely stops, it’s rather a problem
******** The friend who pointed this out to me KEEPS SENDING ME MORE.
Thanks!
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The lard totally kills it for me, but if it were butter, say, how bad could it be? Butter, flour, and sugar mixed together nearly always come out with something quite satisfactory.
i broke out the pint of blueberry cabernet gelato tonight, myself. it’s a fattening dessert kind of night!
Oooh, yum! Is this something you bought or made?
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it’s something bought. i got it at the supermarket, and you can look at all the flavors on http://www.ciaobellagelato.com. they’re all addictive!
. . . ** Zowie.**
We use Crisco (veg shortening) for biscuits and quick breads, so lardy cake isn’t too surprising. (Well, okay, the NAME is surprising, because they could have easily called it Pig in the Footling or something equally Brit-picturesque.)
As for clotted cream, we are fortunate in that there is a little store labeled BRITISH about a mile or two away, and they have Devonshire cream which is as close as it gets here, I think. And is yummy. I try not to visit BRITISH too often as I need to get rid of weight pounds and hang onto money pounds. BRITISH is too tempting. (They have plain chocolate Hobnobs. For $4 or $5 per packet!)
The string bag! I think I have one still tucked in my trunk. I tried to use it with my other totes for groceries, but gave it up when the #$&%^#& bagger filled it with CANS. I could barely hold it off the ground, it just kept stretching lower. It is obviously meant for veggies or bread or something lightweight, hello. (Using totes for groceries is nice and convenient, but I do find that many of the baggers here need to be educated on the fine points. They’ve all gotten too used to flinging one or two items in a plastic bag and moving on.)
Crisco. Heavens. Well, to each her own.
Hobnobs for FIVE DOLLARS????
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“They have plain chocolate Hobnobs. For $4 or $5 per packet!)”
Yeesh!! Well, looking at a representative UK price for the milk chocolate ones (http://www.sainsburys.com/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1213452258198 – and 300g is about 10oz) I think it’s brave of you to like them! Still, you wouldn’t want them to be too accessible, would you? :)
Gypsy Rover Sheet Music:
Took some searching, but here’s something:
http://www.8notes.com/scores/4791.asp?ftype=gif
I’ll post more links in another comment, as Blogmom informed me that the reason my comments never showed up probably had something to do with multiple links. (thanks again, blogmom!)
–Julia
Yes, well, that’s the one-finger-on-the-piano version. The tune I know is slightly different, but that’s normal. You sure can find stuff, though. :)
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Julia again. Post number 2 of sheet music links:
http://www.looksheetmusic.com/search.php?vsm=on&mn=on&musicroom=on&stagepass=on&orderby=1&Go=Go%21&submitted=true&q=gypsy+rover&br=&loc=
this one has multiple links on it.
but they aren’t free.
very cheap though. musicnotes is a site I have used before, worth looking at anyway.
more in a minute.
–Julia
Musicnotes is an evil demon from hell. I wasted twenty minutes going in circles about downloading sibelius scorch which I already HAVE thank you and have used just fine with musicroom, and after a lot of nonsense their email crashed me too.
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OH NO!
So sorry!
Arrgh!
(Growls and makes new scary face- at MUSICNOTES this time.)
Hugs for Robin.
Apologies and chocolate.
–Julia
NOT YOUR FAULT. Only ranting because my evil karma got in my way. I’m sure musicnotes has many friends. Just not including me.
One more link:
http://musicaviva.com/index.html
Actually, I was thinking. I might still have the sheet music from when I sang the song in chorus class. I’ll stop by my house after work and look, just in case. If I do, it will be the SATB arrangement, but still, I will look and if I find it, I’ll scan it and try to email it to you or something.
:)
–Julia
I will have a look–not now; I can’t bear to look at the time–but I wrestled a few falls with musicnotes.com earlier today and lost every one. Grrrrr.
But if you have the SATB version . . .
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Will stop at home tomorrow morning and hunt for sheet music.
Also, a whole bunch came into the library today as a donation for the book fair…… almost all piano (and organ) music- three boxes full!
in the meantime:
http://www.musicroom.com/LookInside.aspx?catalogno=GS32335&product_id=44826
here’s something.
and it came from here-
http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/044826/details.html
1.50 is not free, but better than nothing.
I’ll still look for my copy though.
Unless skatinglibrarian gets there first- I see she said she has a copy as well.
No matter… either way, it means that you will get a copy somehow.
NOW aren’t you glad you have this blog, and all of us along with it, to do things like photoshop pictures and locate mysterious photos from the guardian and look up music and so on!?!
heehee.
of course, with the solving of technical issues thing comes the retort that if you didn’t keep this, you wouldn’t have so many techical things to go awry. But maybe they just would be different things.
There. Now you have a reason other than blaming your publisher– blame the computer!
Hugs and chocolate and promises to keep hunting for the music.
…Now go to sleep!
Get some very well-deserved rest and maybe you will even eat breakfast tomorrow morning!
(it just occurred to me- NUTELLA! Chocolate is allowed at breakfast in the form of a chocolate hazelnut spread that tastes amazing on croissants or toast or whatever you want… but I am probably preaching to the choir here. You MUST have tried Nutella before.
it just may be the thing to get you to eat a good breakfast, though…)
–Julia
I have my limits, anad chocolate for breakfast is beyond them. Believe it or not.
And don’t forget you have a *life* beyond looking for sheet music, although I thank you. :)
So–There was a huge storm (flooded roads, cars stuck all over the place, everything!) last night, so I am only replying now. (Because we had no power until a little while ago).
————————————————————
Okay. Reality check. You are right.
But you MUST have tried Nutella at some point, even if not for breakfast, yes?!
So I looked at home yesterday, in between singing at church and dashing off to the piano recital. No luck.
So sorry.
You are very welcome, though. I do what I can.
Just must concede defeat in attempts to locate free sheet music for you in this instance.
Cheap sheet music, sure.
Not free though.
And since I can’t find my copy…
Oh well.
the now customary signing-off : Hugs
–Julia
“But I bet nobody thought to ask the cleaners,”
This is exactly what I was thinking! http://www.howtocallabroad.com/uk/ I wonder if that would help?
That might help. I’ve never tried to call England. I don’t even call my parents. I email them (and they email back!! :).
I don’t want to get all jaded and world weary here but international phone calls are FREQUENTLY a problem and they are VERY FREQUENTLY a problem from a hotel. This is pure business as usual as far as I’m concerned. ANNOYING business as usual, but nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing about outside lines and country codes.
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Not long til Peter’s back, so just keep eating and going to bed not-too-late, and it’ll come round quickly – I hope your “heinous” sin helped :) Gosh, lardy cake! Haven’t eaten that since I was about 5, when we used to buy it from a shop in Nettlebed… Never saw it in Sussex when I lived there, so maybe it’s a regional delicacy – although as “delicacies” go it’s not at all delicate! Yum!
******** Clotted cream is a truly transcendent food sin.
Yes!
What sort of off-road riding do you have round your way? Unfortunately here it’s very limited unless your horse can drive and then there are nice places to go like Cannock Chase. I really don’t like riding on roads any more – I like staying alive too much :(
******** because Edward Ardizzone illustrated it.
I have a copy of The Land of Green Ginger from childhood which I adore, mainly because the illustrations by Edward Ardizzone capture Boomalackawee, Tintac Ping Foo and Rubdub Ben Thud just as I imagined them. (Tho the story is pretty darn good too).
******** But I bet nobody thought to ask the cleaners, who are probably trying to bring the rest of their family over from somewhere with even more economic problems and a worse president than the US, and call home every week.
Yes, they WOULD know; I hope you hear enough from Peter so that you don’t either worry too much, or eat too much lardy cake.. (again) he’ll be back soon, Souvenir is bent on keeping you company (and very good it looks too), and there’s always that hack on Saturday to look forward to…
Virtual chocolate stash hidden in your cyber cupboard for you, just don’t leave crumbs for the hellhounds ;)
He is NOT almost back, we’re only BARELY HALF WAY.
[beeline for cyber cupboard . . . ]
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In case you need more to keep you going until Peter’s return, I’ve just topped up your chocolate stash, since you seem to have eaten ALL of it!!!!
Oh, you noticed? :)
This looks like it might help with the international dialing: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/dialing.html
If he’s using the hotel’s phone, they will have instructions to get an outside line, and then he needs to dial 01144 before your phone number. 011 is the code for an international call, and 44 is the code to reach the UK.
Um. Yes. I know. Of course. That doesn’t mean it WORKS.
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“I think maybe I’m Martian really, and my genes want to be on a 26 hour clock or something. I actually like going to bed mid morning, when the day is old enough to be getting boring, and waking in late afternoon, but this makes it too hard to live in this world.”
Chrono-sister! Maybe that unusual circadian rhythm helped you with writing Sunshine. I’ve been accused of vampirism more than once, being a night-owl who prefers to sleep the mornings away. :)
Enjoy the lardy goodness!
Yes. I wonder if that’s the real reason I’ve always been attracted to vampires–? :) (well, the right kind of vampires. . . . )
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Souvenir is beautiful, how nice that she decided to bloom for you after all. We have been having the drenching rains here (meaning across the upper Midwest and into Indiana)–had computers off all yesterday and last night because of terrible weather, although we have nothing to complain about because the flooding is in southern MN and Iowa. My plants are happy; unfortunately the mosquitoes are, too. But if the sun cooperates I will get some pics of hosta “Captain Kirk,” who was mentioned on the old blog, I think, and post them.
Layered sweet breads are yummy and immensely attractive to me. I think of honest-to-God Danish pastry, even better than croissants . . . You can get clotted cream here, at least in some markets; it is imported in jars so may not be quite the same as you would get locally. The instructions for making it at home all carry the same disclaimers that the creme fraiche recipes do–that your result will not be *exactly* clotted cream, but close. But pretty much all (good) cream is a transcendant food sin. My sister-in-law once remarked that she does not have a sweet tooth, she has a fat tooth; I totally relate to that.
I’m glad Peter arrived safely. Hope the posh hotel lives up to the adjective for the rest of his stay.
Diane in MN (possibly redundant, but I’m not sure the blog won’t post this as Anonymous)
There are so many anonymouses from people who are obviously familiar even if I don’t know who they are that I’m slightly losing the will to live about this. But I DO want names, not anonymouses. Ah well.
The posh hotel finally managed to let him call here, which is the important thing. Eeesh.
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Ah, lardy cake!!! **Yearn!** And you’re on the southern edge of its heartland there, with the rest of the most luscious variations popping up across Wiltshire and Oxfordshire. I can remember the wonderful oozing sweet scrunchiness there was in the traybake portions I used occasionally to buy from the little Oxfordshire village bakery I lived near many years ago. I used to come off shift in the mornings and sometimes buy a piece, all warm from its making, to eat before I went to sleep for the day… One can do that sort of things in one’s early 20s! I shall make a pilgrimage and see if that bakery is still there, one day. :) And I absolutely agree, there’s not even a hint of pork flavour in good lard.
Very glad to hear that Peter is surviving intact in your homeland. Does he like lardy cake? Or is that something that the ‘Dickinson juggernaut’ takes no cognizance of..? :)
He INTRODUCED us. :)
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“He INTRODUCED us. :)”
My word, that was brave of him! Suppose you had loved it so much you’d dived headfirst into every available tray of lardy cake thereafter… :)
I wonder if our Stone Age compatible metabolisms will ever adapt to Western modern lifestyles. I mean, Giant Pandas have problems partly because they evolved with the normal omnivorous digestive system of a bear but, as we all know, for some reason they now stick rigidly to bamboo leaves so they’re therefore always close to malnourishment. How come they changed to that diet – and is there any likelihood our systems could suddenly switch over to something different I wonder?
Well, define ‘suddenly’. And remember koalas, who sleep twenty hours a day because the single variety of eucalyptus they live off provides so little actual *nourishment* that they’re barely alive anyway. *And* they’re cranky.
Clotted cream is Not the Same as it once was before They made all milk/cream have to be pasteurised before the public can be allowed to touch it.
I read somewhere (Elizabeth David on bread, I think) that lardy cake was the English version of pizza – what you did with left-over dough. We spread ours with lard and butter and sugar; the Italians (and others) spread theirs with tomatoes and basil and olives….. or whatever was in the house!
Oh my. Now that goes to prove that one can have meat-product containing baked goods- this is a frequent topic for jokes among the kosher-keeping Jewish community, at least around me. I keep a muffin tin designated for meat-type meals, which along with my lack of most utensils for such meals, gives many of my friends a good giggle. Of course, I can’t use lard, and shmaltz does tend to taste of chicken, but still- it’s a thought…
I don’t think I’ve ever made lardy cake but I keep thinking I’d like to try, and use goose fat. Dunno if you can use goose fat either though. Is it one of those forbidden mixtures things, like cheeseburgers?
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Goose is a kosher bird, so as long as there are no dairy products involved, one could do a faux-lardy cake with goose fat and have it be kosher. (Birds are funny, because rather than giving a rule for what makes birds kosher, the Bible just gave us a list. Mammals and fish are easier, because there are Rules, so as long as it fits the rule, it should be ok, although that’s a slight simplification.) Cheeseburgers and other forbidden mixture things have to do, most essentially, with red meat and milk- the addition of not having bird with milk products is a rabbinic addition. This does mean that we can have fish with milk or cheese, seeming to imply that we don’t think that fish are really alive, which isn’t true.
seeming to imply that we don’t think that fish are really alive, which isn’t true.
********* LOL! Sorry, but complex rules in any situation tend to leave you with a few anomalies. You know the old chestnut the monks who ate venison on Fridays because really deer are fish? –But the wikipedia-which-therefore-may-be-wrong entry on coeliac-disease sufferers forbidden to become priests mentioned that the Jewish admin were much more pragmatic, and if you can’t have wine because it’ll make you sick, then God isn’t going to insist on wine.
The music for Gypsy Rover is in the Sing Out Songbook issued in the mid to late sixities. I have a copy at home, and will scan it (if you haven’t gotten one by then).
This is why I was/am a librarian, I seem to have very good recall for where to find things. I am an information dependent being, who needs it as much as I need sleep, sunshine, chocolate, and purring cats.
I am on the ” be kind to ancient parents beat” this weekend and should be back to my books and scanner by Monday.
I would be DELIGHTED for a scanned Gypsy Rover. If you send it (presumably) as an attachment–to the email address at the web site–BE SURE to tell me in the email who you are and what it is, or it’ll get deleted. In fact my computer is so set up for bears, the grizzly kind, that if I don’t acknowledge you’d better check it arrived.
But . . . THANK YOU.
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I have a string bag. I made it myself. :) Many of my friends have string bags – we had cloth bags before they were fashionable too! Quite good that ppl don’t look at me weird for using them any more though.
If you want a treasure trove of folk music, try http://www.mudcat.org…they have virtually every English-language folksong out there, and the forum is a spledid place to browse when you have dreary tasks like cat boxes, taxes or vacuuming that should be attended to. You can spend happy hours researching the history of the song and all 99 versions of the lyrics; including the ones that cannot be published in family music books. (I was able to look up the words to the feel-thy songs that my father would allude to but never share when I was growing up…and by the time we were both old enough to share such things, he could no longer remember them. grrr) Mudcat has lyrics and midi files of the tunes. Then there is a mirror site that will give you the tunes in sheet music for a variety of instruments and you can choose the key: http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/ It’s melody only, so you have to invent your own arrangements…but given that 99.9% of piano arrangements of folk songs are dreadful, you might as well splash about and make your own! Happy tuning!
Lardy cake sounds good, but too filling for hot summer days. I have now taken delivery of my friend’s ice cream maker and have a three-day weekend ahead when some time will be found (in amongst, work, pool, and much neglected social contact with friends) to make some sorbet. I cannot at this time decide what sorbet, but wandering home last night with a horrendous headache from lack of sleep (I had a night of insomnia that resulted in my falling asleep at 6:30 in the morning and had a headache all day in order to pay my debt to Morpheus) I found myself in front of this very expensive greengrocer’s that stocks exotic items like limes (one man’s everyday item is another woman’s exotic fruit), so I bought a precious few. I am thinking along the lines of a margarita granita, or perhaps a caipirinha, or maybe lemon and lime. I will let you know when I make up my mind.
In the meantime this item:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/06/13/noindex/church.xml&CMP=EMC-expat2008
crossed my path and shocked me most horrendously, particularly in view of your passion. What is the world coming to, if bells can’t be heard for long peals once a year in a traditional English village?
Yes, I agree (although admittedly I haven’t ever heard bells in traditional English villages, so I suppose I shouldn’t be wholeheartedly supporting them with no background). I was struck by one of the comments that I feel was made by Dorothy Sayers (probably in “Nine Taylors”); I don’t remember the exact words, but the gist was that it was beyond her (or beyond the person speaking) how people could object to things like bells while living in the age of the combustible motor. As someone who is driven mad by motors (rather unfortunate, since I live in a moderately large city), I can definitely relate.
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Good for Dorothy. I’d agree. And bells don’t stink and pollute your breathing air either.
I have a string bag, but I’m in Canada, so that doesn’t help with the Disappearing String Bags problem in Elngland. Maybe you could get them listed as Protected Wildlife and get people to reports sightings? Like birders?
You can tell I need more tea.
Clotted cream is unavailable here, and only a few lonbely places carry tiny tiny containers of double cream. Such sadness.
LOL! I wonder if string bags could learn to FLY?? –I need more *sleep*.
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Well I thought I had seen a recipe and I had… this is the one out of my “hasn’t failed yet” cookbook:
LARDY CAKE
15g compressed yeast
1 tsp castor sugar
¾ cup warm milk
2 cups plain flour
Pinch salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ cup currants
125g lard
1/3 cup castor sugar, extra
2 tsp oil
1 tbls crystal sugar
Cream yeast with castor sugar in small bowl; stir in milk, cover, stand in warm place about 15 minutes or until frothy. Grease deep 20cm (8”) round cake pan.
Sift flour and salt into large bowl, stir in yeast mixture, egg and currants; mix to soft dough. Turn dough onto floured surface, knead about 3 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic,
Roll dough to about 15cm x 30cm rectangle, spread half the lard over two thirds of the dough, sprinkle with half the extra castor sugar. Fold the unlarded third of the dough over. Fold the top third of the dough over, turn dough halfway round, open end towards you. Roll out dough and fold again using the remaining lard and extra castor sugar. Then roll and fold twice more, without lard and sugar.
Shape dough into a round by turning ends under, place into prepared pan, press dough to fit pan. Brush top with oil, sprinkle with crystal sugar. Stand, uncovered, in warm place about 45 minutes or until dough is well risen. Slash top of cake with a sharp knife in criss-cross fashion. Bake in moderately hot oven 40 minutes or until cake is well browned. Turn onto wire rack. Serve warm with butter.
Source: Sweet Old Fashioned Favourites, ACP.
Hot damn! thank you!
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