Taking a Little Comfort as the Days Draw in ...

From Wilhelm Busch, who was rather fond of puddings

The days are getting shorter, and - occasionally at least - colder, so naturally one's mind turns to steamed puddings.  Steamed puddings with suet, naturally.  

I recently managed to find a supply of real suet - not the dry long life variety, but fresh from the butchers.  I just bought two kilos of the stuff and froze it, so I am all set for the winter.  Today I decided to try out my new Quick Cooker pudding bowl.

I achieved good results, and the pudding cooked within 1,5 hours, twice as fast as usual. However, the funnel in the middle also needs to be coated with a layer of pastry, so the relation of pastry to filling came down decidedly on the side of pastry!

I made beef and mushroom pie, which was good but needed a bit more gravy.  With the leftover pastry I also made an apple pudding, in an old Oxford Blue Cheese container.  It worked well, but the pastry lid stuck to the pot lid.

With regard to the string I used to tie up my pudding containers, the kitchen string I used for the large bowl worked OK but needed to be discarded after use.

For the small pudding container I used some Hermes ribbon, the sort they use  to tie up the box their scarves come in, and it was excellent!!!  If I think of all the things I use this ribbon for (see also orange pomanders below) I have to conclude that buying all those scarves was an excellent investment, even just on the basis of the many uses I find for this ribbon...

Steamer pot - it has an insert, very handy for resting the pudding basins on

 

Beef and mushroom pudding

Turned out of the form very easily

Cut open - not enough gravy!

Apple pudding in an Oxford Blue cheese jar, tied up with Hermes ribbon

Top stuck to lide

Again, turned out of the pot easily

Too much pastry versus fruit?

Yesterday I also involved myself in a comforting activity - making orange and cloves pomanders! Basically, you stick cloves into oranges, dust the result in a mix of different powdered spices like cinnamon and cardamon, and hang them up to dry.

The string I used for tying around and hanging up was, you guessed it, Hermes ribbon!

It is very a restful activity, sitting with a bowl in your lap, poking cloves into oranges! I did seven oranges and felt quite mellow afterwards.

In my house whatever needs hanging and drying inevitably ends up on the chandelier. What else are they for? In the kitchen things get moldy more easily, so the parlour is the natural place for this.
I think this is what our ancestors did, too - one reads in old novels about visitors being put up in the parlour or 'best chamber', where they made themselves at home amongst hanging bacon flitches and sausages and hams, and drying bunches of herbs and garlic and onions, and even Christmas puddings and cakes.....

Well, why not? The parlour is the least used room of the house, usually unheated, and less prone to dust and creepy crawlies, given the lack of use.

Resplendent and useful chandelier

Newspaper rack also pressed into service

Orange and cloves poander

Parlour window looking good, with thyme and hyacinth

 

It's the scarf wot lost it!

The little known role of the Hermes scarf in British politics:

          L'Ivresse De L'Infini, L'Indomptable, and Le Redoutable

Yes, we have had another electoral upset!  Obviously I have opinions about this, but I am somewhat ashamed of my Schadenfreude, and don't feel it appropriate to alert my readers to the nocturnal libations I have poured for the goddess Hybris:

"HYBRIS was the goddess or personified spirit (daimona) of insolence, hubris, violence, reckless pride, arrogance and outrageous behaviour in general. Her Roman name was Petulantia."

However, I do think it appropriate to draw my readers' attention to the role that Theresa May's scarf played in last Thursday's tragedy.

She wore it with a tomato-red suit, the same ensemble she had during her mug-up with Trump, the one were he held her hand rather longer than was called for - another disastrous occasion, and no doubt also causally enabled by the same scarf.

The villainous silk square is called  L'Ivresse De L'Infini; it was issued by Hermes and designed by Zoe Pauwels.  It refers to the madness, the vast incomprehensibility of the universe - a visual representation of the swirling atoms that form the chaos that is the universe.  If one if full of ill will and in a mischievous mood, one might hide behind one's flawed command of the French language and translate the title of this scarf as 'Infinite Madness' - and that is exactly what I am doing here!

What were you thinking woman, wearing a scarf like that while 'negotiating' with Trump, or during a general election day?  On occasions like that one should wear a masterful, dominating scarf - ideally, obviously, one depicting a nuclear submarine!

Since I have disabled comments on this blog there is no way you can argue this point, but it is surely unnecessary anyway - where I am right, I am right!

Look at the photos of the scarves below, and admit that I am so totally right! 

Luckily I actually own these scarves, so I can provide photographic evidence below.  By the way, if you are interested in the French nuclear submarines depicted below, try this link|:

Wikipedia entry for Redoubtable class of French nuclear submarine

I am still looking for the scarf that depicts Le Foudroyant ....

By the way, have you investigated Macron's ties lately?

Hermes scarf L'Ivresse De L'Infini

Hermes scarf L'Indomptable

Hermes Scarf Le Redoubtable

Strolling along the Seine on an overcast day

Duck family on the banks of the Seine

I was in Paris this weekend, first time this year.  The weather was overcast and we didn't do much.  After a long leisurely lunch in a little cafe near Notre Dame we wandered along the banks of the river, which has recently been pedestrianised.  So wonderful to be able to promenade where cars used to speed and pollute!

Half way along I remembered that I still needed a hat for my royal garden party and we headed for the only hat shop (or so it seems) in Paris.  A grave disappointment, like most hat shops.  All I want is a green hat, green with yellow undertones, a green like new leaves in Spring, with little flecks of yellow - you would think this to be a popular colour, available in every half decent hat shop, but no such luck.  Black brown and grey, that's about all that wass available.

We then nipped into my favourite scarf shop, but didn't see anything worth buying.  Finally we drifted into Richard Grand, whose cashmere shawls have long tickled my fancy, and I fell for a bright orange one which should look very nice with green or yellow.

After that there was the Panhaligon's shop, where A discovered that her favourite perfume had been discontinued - isn't that always the way?

Then we had drinks and discussed the upcoming election.

We live in trying times!

Thank God for scarves and Picsou!

 

Cafe instead of cars!

And lots of little play grounds!

The removed the locks from the bridges, but they found new homes!

Gardens on ships, one of my favourite sights!

Is that lettuce I spot?

An anchored little island ...

...for a duck sanctuary!

I still think it is a shocking treatment for scarves!