Winter - Val McDermid

I didn't read Michael Morpurgo's Spring, partly because whilst it might be impossible to dislike spring, it really isn't my favourite season. It drags somewhat in my mind, and weather that veers between unseasonably hot to bloody freezing is just annoying (ditto autumn, and keep your mists and mellow fruitfulness).

Winter on the other hand I love. I like the dark nights, the cold, the wild weather. This time of year city and town centres all lit up for Christmas absolutely look their best, the gold and blue frosty days feel like a gift, and there's a much better chance of actually managing to catch up with friends in the process of actual gift swapping. The food is good, and if the stress of work is real it also comes with the buzz of being constantly busy.

Winter is also the time of year when I really read seasonally. I'm an absolute sucker for a Christmas themed murder mystery, book about Christmas traditions/folklore/ recipe books, wintery short stories - all and any of it. Films, not so much somehow - unless it's a classic black and white something, though they;re harder to find now.

With all this in mind Val McDermid's Winter has been an absolute treat. Short and sweet, with charming illustrations. She sees Winter as a time of rest, retreat, and above all else, creativity (hard agree, these long dark nights are perfect for thinking and making). She talks about all of these things here, and looks back with nostalgia on her own Scottish working class upbringing where Winter started with Halloween. 

My Childhood Winters followed the same path. I hadn't realised that Christmas wasn't really celebrated in Scotland until late in the 1950s - December 25th didn't become a public holiday until 1958 which is a little bit mind-boggling. New year was always a much bigger deal, and even in my 1970s childhood, the feeling was that Christmas was for the bairns, New Years for the real party. 

I don't really know how much more commercial Christmas has become. A childhood in a not particularly wealthy rural area where everyone's expectations were similar, followed by an adulthood working in retail, where expectations often seem to be off the scale, has skewed my perception, but I share the nostalgia here for a simpler celebration, although a younger reader might roll their eyes a bit at the poor but happy inference.

Altogether a charming book with much to offer fellow lovers of Winter.

Hemlock and Silver - T. Kingfisher

Yet again my fond belief that I'm ready for Christmas has hit the wall of it being a bare month away with a very busy work schedule between me and any sort of merrymaking or relaxing. I don't mind working in the run-up to the day itself, but every year I resent how busy it remains after Christmas, and the impossibility of taking time off over New Year a little bit more. 

In an effort to get in the right frame of mind I've come home today, made advocaat, filtered the Christmas Schnaps I started macerating last week, done a batch of mince pies, and drunk a little more wine than might be sensible on a school night. As soon as I've written this I'll be off to bed to Finish Val McDermid's Winter book (a delight so far).

It's a while now since I read Hemlock and Silver, I thoroughly enjoyed it, it ticks all the Kingfisher boxes, and I'll read whatever comes my way by her - but 3 fairy tale retellings in there's a business as usual feel about these books. A heroine verging on middle age, a little plain, but not too plain, she is an educated woman who has her share of self-doubt, and she'll find a hero who is every bit her match, whilst overcoming something really quite horrible.

It's a pretty good formula, the books are well-paced and witty, full of humour and creeping unease. I absolutely recommend any one of them (Nettle and Bone and A Sorceress Comes to Call are the other two I've read) but maybe the issue of changing the focus from whoever would normally be the focal point of the fairy tale to someone who is generally a side character is a feeling that I've already read it. That said, I do love a middle-aged woman overcoming aching joints to sort stuff out, so it isn't much of a complaint.

Hemlock and Silver is a skewed version of Snow White where the Evil Queen exists within a mirror world (lots of excellent and horrible details to be had out of this idea when Anja the healer finds her way between worlds) and is trying hard to find a way into our world. There's a huge amount to like here and Winter is the perfect season to be just a little unsettled whilst waiting for a happy ending so it's well worth picking up a Kingfisher and enjoying it. 

Uneasy Elixirs - Virginia Miller

I didn't mean to disappear again - or at least I did in so much as I'm on holiday and haven't managed to settle to much reading and thought a break from screens would be welcome - but I did bring my laptop and I am so excited about 'Uneasy Elixirs', which came back from Edinburgh with me yesterday, that I can't wait to share it with you.

I'd seen this around on chat groups through work as a possible wild card Christmas title, I love Edward Gorey's work, and so altogether I thought it would be worth a look, although I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the cocktail recipes.

I shouldn't have been. Virginia Miller isn't a name I'm hugely familier with, but a quick google suggests she's a fairly well known travel food and drink writer, possibly more in America than here in the UK. Not knowing this is a reminder that I've been out of the wine trade for 6 years now and not keeping up with the reading (or the drinking but peri menopause and alcohol are not working well together for me, so there's that).

Uneasy Elixirs contains 50 "Curious Cocktails Inspired by the Works of Edward Gorey" and there's lots of Gorey to celebrate in here with illustrations, quotes, biographical teasers, and more about his work. The cocktails themselves are classics (new as well as old) with clever twists along with nicely thought through links back to Gorey and his works. 

Absinthe features quite a bit, I'm not a fan, but it's certainly authentic for the older drinks, and the Gorey vibe. I'm likely to replace with Pernod if I make any of those at all, which shares the same anise flavour but not the ferocious abv. It's interesting to see Cynar used - I've actually seen this for sale locally which surprises me, it must be having a moment, however unlikely that seems for an artichoke-based aperitif (I am not sophisticated enough). Calling the drink The Unknown Vegetable is genius on every level though.

Easier to feel real enthusiasm for is Henry's Demise, which takes a classic Army and Navy gin cocktail and uses Aquavit instead - if you get a bottle of Aquavit, Miller suggests this as something you can do with a lot of cocktails which is the kind of handy tip I love finding. One bottle, a lot of possibilities, and a worthwhile festive investment. 

Overall, an excellent book for cocktail lovers looking to up their game, Gorey fans, or anyone wondering what they might do with some of the odder things you find in bottle shops. 

Tasting History - Max Miller

October is probably my favourite part of Christmas - so far I've made mincemeat, Christmas puddings, quince jelly, pickled quinces, Christmas cake, and mixed a batch of mixed spice. Oh, and bought some rum to make advocaat. I love the preparation, the smells, and the anticipation. I'm also casually browsing for pajamas and failing to resist some (any?) of the really pretty books that appear in the autumn. 

One of these is Tasting History. I've seen some of Max Miller's reels and enjoyed them, I knew there was a book coming but I assumed it would be a mostly American thing. I pounced on it when I saw it. The first recipe I opened it at was for Hard Tack/sea biscuits, and from that point on it was coming home with me. One day, when I have time and access to an AGA or similar, I'll try making them just for fun. The 7 hour 20 minute cooking time does not encourage me to try it in my fan oven. 

Tasting History is the perfect combination of readable and usable. It skips through 4000 years and continents' worth of food history with easily digestible chunks of information and recipes that you can make if you choose. It's good to have a cookbook that's as much about the reading as it is the making, I don't get to cook in quite the way I used to. Between us we have to think more about cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar... allergies are suddenly developing (who knew you could spend 50 years fine with fish and then suddenly be very much not okay with it?), and between vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and dairy-free colleagues, I have fewer options there too. 

There's more and more that I can read about, but am unlikely to make - and that's fine. Collecting cookbooks is arguably a cheaper hobby than cooking is these days, and even if I never make anything I'm glad to have collected this one. It's a pleasure to spend time with and if you're beginning to think about Christmas presents for foodies in your life - well, you could definitely do worse. 

The Twelve Days of Christmas - Susan Stokes-Chapman

I have been excited about this book since early this year when Susan Stokes-Chapman made an unexpected visit to the shop. I loved 'Pandora', and really liked 'The Shadow Key', so there was a bit of a fan girl moment on my part (I think I more or less retained my cool). When she mentioned she was working on a set of short stories which made homage to Georgette Heyer it;s fair to say I was enthusiastic. Well now they're here, I've read them, and I'm still enthusiastic.

The Twelve Days of Christmas are 12 interconnected short stories that mirror the carol. I think on the whole it's a novel rather than a short story collection - it wouldn't make as much sense if you started in a middle chapter, but equally each chapter finishes with a satisfactory resolution so theoretically you could take them indeoendantly of one another. 

As well as Heyer there are references to Austen and Thackery, and very likely more - but those were the ones I picked up on this time around. I see from the afterword there are some odd little bits of real history in here as well, and generally you get the sense that Stokes-Chapman had a ball writing this. I have a quibble about a Duke being referred to Sir Robert throughout, I'm not convinced that's an accurate title, but apparently I've enjoyed reading this so much I can't find my normal pedentary about this sort of thing. 

It's a fun book. An excellent bit of historical fiction full of affection for it;s inspirartions but with a very definite voice of it's own. We get characters from all up and down the social scale, the human cost of the Napolionic wars is much in evidence, there is discussion about slavery, the likely fate of illegitamate children, the precarious social position of women, and the dangers of being homosexual. There's also romance, lost loves refound, unconventional families, heartbreak, christmas cake, plum pudding, mincepies, friendship, and more. 

I love a book that I can read in real time, I have a bit of a passion for Christmas books, I can imagine reading this year after year just because it's delightful and comforting. The Partridge in a Pear tree moment is possibly the highlight of the book for me, being both funny and sweet, but it's one of many clever vignettes. Altogether a book that more than lived up to my high expectations. I look forward to whatever Susan S-C does next.  

Simon The Coldheart - Georgette Heyer #1925Club

I can't quite believe that Simon and Kaggsy's book club has been running for a decade now. I'm obviously getting old. 

1925 turns out to be the year Simon the Coldheart was written, and by chance, I was already reading it for a book group -  nothing but peer pressure would have persuaded me to pick it up otherwise but it comes with a point worth discussing. 

'Simon' is a fairly early work for Heyer, and one that she ended up suppressing in her own lifetime. In 1977, 3 years after her death, her son decided it was worth reprinting. The dedication is 'To the memory of my father', I assume Heyer's father, this one having been published not long before he died. It's possible that the dedication is written by her son and references her husband, 1925 was also the year they married and the physical descriptions of Simon suggest a degree of infatuation that might indicate they are a description of her husband to be. Or not.

Briefly, Simon is an illegitimate orphan who decides to make his way in the world by becoming squire to someone who reads like a pen portrait of Brian Blessed, decades before Brian Blessed was born. This goes well and he rises through the ranks, does well in battle and then foils a plot against Henry IV, which gets him a knighthood. Then he goes off to more war, becomes best friends with his half-brother and Henry V, behaves in heroic fashion whilst being the perfect soldier, finally falls in love with a French countess, kills some people, gets his girl, and we can hope lives happily ever after.

My friend, who chose this one for our reading group loves this book. I think it's terrible and can absolutely see why Heyer didn't want it to see the light of day again. Imagine breathless Shakespeare fan fiction laced with a good bit of hero worship, and the kind of descriptions of a man's body that even Jilly Cooper might have drawn the line at. It's not the worst thing I've ever read, and it has a couple of moments that indicate the writer she will become, but overall, Heyer was right. 

This then is the question, and an apt one in a week when another cache of Harper Lee's works have been released to a public that seems underwhelmed by the opportunity to read her juvenilia. Do we respect an author's decision and leave well alone, or do we let curiosity get the better of us?

I don't have a clear answer for myself on this, but on balance, I land on the side of leaving well alone. At least as far as my own reading is concerned. I think an author has the right to say this book embarrasses me now (as well this one might with its mangling of the English language) and to have that respected, but then my friend loves this with a passion, and who am I to argue with the pleasure it brings her? 

I'm even less sure of this now that the internet is full of fan fiction of variable quality which nonetheless people are getting the joy of creating and reading from. Maybe now a 23 year old Heyer would have honed her craft on AO3 and left her experimental stuff under a pen name, available to anyone prepared to snoop hard enough to dig them out. I like to think she would have, her early books are full of homages to all the things that must have influenced her as her own style developed. 

In conclusion - read at your own risk, and preferably with a group of like-minded friends who do not mind poking fun at a book whilst still respecting the dignity and taste of those who do genuinely have a love for it. 

Brigands and Breadknives - Travis Baldree

I got a proof copy of this through work, and there's some demand for it amongst my colleagues, so before I forget any details and whilst I have the book to hand, I'm posting it up even if it is a month early. I really like Travis Baldree's books. I read Bookshops and Bonedust first, which is fine because it's a prequel to the earlier Legends and Lattes. They both serve equally well as prequels to Brigands and Breadknives - you could read this without having heard of Bookshops and Bonedust where we first meet Fern, it wouldn't make a significant difference.

The necessary information is that Fern has come to the city to catch up with her old friend Viv and to start a new bookselling business next to her cafe. But Fern is having something of a midlife crisis and whilst Viv the battle-weary Ork was ready to step back, put down roots, and open a coffee shop, Fern has had a life of roots and obligations. She wants adventure and maybe a new direction. This is covered with elegant economy in the first few chapters, and then the action moves on as Fern lets fate gather her up and put an end to her carefully ordered life. 

She finds herself travelling with a thousand-year-old elf - Astryx the Oathmaiden and a goblin force of chaos called Zyll who has an eyewateringly large bounty on her head and an even more eyewatering list of enemies after her. The three travel the country together, make friends, get into fights, and at least two of the characters reavalute who they are and what's important. 

It's still a cosy high fantasy, though with arguably higher stakes than in Legends and Lattes, life is like that sometimes. Baldree has the knack of spinning storytelling gold. He doesn't let it get too heavy; he brings the laughs, but Fern's dissatisfaction with her life is a darker thing than Viv's decision to hang up her sword in favour of making coffee, and for anyone thinking of making the uncertain choice so the slight change in tone is appropriate. 

It's cheesy to say Autumn is the right time for a book like this - it would be good in any season, but there's a sense of mists, colder nights, damp socks, and aches about it that does feel particularly well suited to be cosy, indoors, dry footed, and having a hot drink to hand. I don't know if there's further for this series to go - maybe not with these characters, but I do know that I'd read anything that Baldree writes at this point. He's had a lot of imitators, but I haven't found anyone doing exactly what he does nearly as well as he does it. 

The Christmas Companion - Skye McAlpine

It's been a while, and whilst I didn't plan a blogging break, it's been good to pause for a bit, not least because it's given me time to remember I enjoy doing this, which after 17 years I needed. 

I have a bit of a backlog of books to get through, but will start with something brand new that I bought this evening. I love a good book about Christmas - traditions, short stories, history of, meaning of, cookbooks, gift wrapping tips, the whole lot. Even though I will almost certainly never cook a Christmas dinner for more than a handful of people, should I be called on to cater a literal banquet I have all the advice I'm ever likely to need to do so on my shelves. 

Which is a very long way of saying I did not need this book, but I instantly wanted it. I opened at Gilded miniature baked potatoes with Creme Fraiche and Caviar. I used to have a stash of gold leaf, I used it on a Christmas cake. I now realise that the really stylish thing to do would have been to gild a potato - what could better encapsulate excessive consumption? I probably won't be trying this at home - though not from any particular moral objection on my part, but rather that I don't think the effort or expense would be particularly appreciated. 

Persimmon and pork loin on the other hand - that looks and sounds a winner, and despite the number of unashamedly luxury options there's a lot of practical stuff in here too. My main plan is to make the candy cane hot chocolate and enjoy a combination of browsing and daydreaming, for what is the point of Christmas planning if it's not to indulge in a bit of fantasy? 

On a more down to earth note, this is as beautifully produced as the other Skye McAlpine books have been, and as well thought through. Any one of them would be a brilliant gift for a keen cook and probably something they wouldn't already have as she's not quite a household name. There are lots of alternatives to Christmas cake, some excellent cocktail and mocktail recipes, and clever but easy things to do with Panettone and its several cousins, which will elevate them into something extra special. There's some good lists of edible gifts and thoughts on stocking fillers which I liked too. 

Cold Kitchen - Caroline Eden

Life has somewhat got in the way again with an exciting array of crises and much complaining about the damned humidity here in Leicestershire. I cannot cope with heat and humidity. I would very much like to be in a kitchen that's actually cold right now - I made Damson jelly in mine last week, which turned it into something like a sauna.

It's taken me a long time to get around to reading Cold Kitchens, probably because I bought it in hardback which means I don't carry it around with me, and then feel like I can;t buy the paperback which I would read because I already have the book, and this time I gave in and bought the paperback. 

I'm glad I did, I love Caroline Eden's writing and I really loved this book. Both for the sense of her Edinburgh basement kitchen and for her presence in the book which feels more personal than the trio of traveling food books she's done. Cold Kitchen still mixes genres; there's a recipe at the end of every chapter to evoke the place that she's been talking about.

The paperback edition of Cold Kitchens is an unassuming thing that it's easy to keep by a bed, in a bag, on a kitchen shelf, anywhere you might want a thoughtful essay that ties food, place, and memory together and a book that feels like a friend - Cold Kitchen's also serves as a sort of elegy for Eden's beloved dog who first enlivens the pages and then haunts them. I liked this too, though even prepared for his loss I still got ridiculously choked up when it happened. 

Altogether a book I highly recommend for the way it covers a life of adventure, travel, food and socialising, thought and memory. Caroline uses her Kitchen to revisit the memories of her travels, I haven't travelled as she does but the desire to remember and to explore drives my cooking just as much, and in lockdown, it offered much the same escape from the narrow confines of life in a small city centre flat. Reading recipes and wondering if I could source the ingredients in the prescribed outside time, cooking - this was something that gave my days structure and purpose. It's sometimes hard to grasp that we're five years down the line already and still coming to terms with the legacy of that strange year of limbo. 

Sour Cherries and Sunflowers - Anastasia Zolotarev

I bought this cookbook when I was in Edinburgh back in May, it looks beautiful and it passed the flick test (where the first few recipes you see are instantly appealing). Despite that I haven't cooked from it much yet - I haven't really been cooking very much at all this summer, husband has taken much of that side of our domestic lives over, and whilst he's away sailing, it's been too hot to view anything beyond chips and dips with much enthusiasm. 

Sour Cherries and Sunflowers has turned out to be mildly life changing in an unexpected way though, in an attempt to source some sour cherries for a Chocolate Buckwheat cake with sour cherry sauce, I asked my workmate with Polish family if they had any ideas where I could find some. She suggested an excellent Polish deli/supermarket conveniently close to work. They don't sell sour cherries fresh or frozen, though they did have heads of sunflowers full of seeds ready to eat when I popped in there on Saturday.

This shop (excellent air conditioning) has become something of an obsession in the last few weeks. Amazing filled rolls, excellent bread and pastries, beetroot in every iteration you could imagine, plus a few that I hadn't, and a ton of other tempting things. I keep trying to get the ladies to tell me what all the poppyseed cookies are called in Polish; they keep telling me poppyseed cookie, but I will learn. 

Despite the lack of sour cherries to make a sauce I made the chocolate part of the cake - the buckwheat makes it a very useful gluten free option to have. I tried using a jam instead which lead me to the conclusion that the cake works better without a topping.Certainly without a mix of sour cherry jam and sour cream, or yoghurt and sour cherry jam. Whipped cream with tart fresh fruit would be my preference for a topping if I wanted to make this something really special. 

Anastasia suggests this cake serves 6 to 8 - those would be extremely generous portions (I like her style), it will definitely go further, has the rich, damp loveliness of a good brownie whilst definitely being lighter, gluten free is a bonus, and there's all sorts of ways to dress it up so an all round winner in my opinion. 

You need 200g  of unslated butter, 200g of dark chocolate chopped into small chunks, 2 tbsp of espresso, 1 tsp of vanilla extract, and 1/4 of a teaspoon of salt. Melt these together in a heavy based saucepan or in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally.

Meanwhile take 5 eggs and 250g of brown sugar and whisk together (ideally in a stand mixer on a medium speed) for around 7 minutes until light and fluffy. Line and grease a 23 cm spring form tin. preheat a fan oven to 180 degrees. 

Now sieve 100g of buckwheat flour into the melted chocolate mixture, whisk in until thoroughly combined, and then stir in 125ml of soured cream. Blitz a 100g of walnuts in a food processor (or finely chop them).

Now fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture trying to keep as much air as possible into it, and finally add the walnuts and fold those through too. Then into the oven for 30-40 minutes or until cooked all the way through. Leave in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out to cool. This cake keeps well for several days.