may 07 newsletter

good cateress, newsletter, May ‘07


May. The beginning of the New season of fruits and vegetables, something truly worth celebrating! Although this year for us in the North East it will be a little later than usual, due to our very sad April. In England they spent Easter sunbathing in their gardens, while we in New York were inside with rain and cold, feeling quite miserable. I have ventured to the Green Market two or three times in recent weeks, full of expectation, there are a few ramps; last week a few asparagus.

In previous years we have been eating the new seasons greens; Turnips, mustards, collards, chard even these hardy growers are still to be seen. For some reason I dont regard these as Spring vegetables, although clearly they are

When I think of ’new’ vegetables, the one’s we wished on the first time we ate them that year, I am talking of shelling peas, fava beans, new potatoes, carrots and asparagus followed by soft fruits, strawberries, raspberries and then my personal favourites currants and gooseberries, rarely found here, although Chip in the Green Market usually has a few.

As a toddler, I am told, I would stand in among the rows of peas, you could quickly tell how tall I was or how far I could reach by the height of the remaining peas. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on the kitchen table with the large yellow colander next to me, shucking peas, my mother was guiding me in this enterprise, helping me to put some peas in the colander not just my mouth. My mother always cooked the new peas with a couple of good pods and a sprig of mint in the water. Divine!

My other favourite shucker that appears now are Broad Beans known here
as Fava beans. In England we plant them in the Fall and they grow
through the winter ready for an early spring harvest. We grew them ourselves and occasionally would cut the top leaves off the plant , depending on the black fly that seemed to find these plants particularly tasty, and sauté them with garlic. They were always sweeter and younger than the store bought beans, as the farmer wanted a fuller pod for the weight. In England we eat these beans in their pale grey/green outer skins, which gives them a distinctive slightly bitter taste. I enjoy them out of those skins as they serve them here, but I tend to think of them as an entirely different vegetable.

Baby new carrots! I can eat 3 or 4 while driving back uptown from Union Square. Crunchy, earthy, sweet. The perfect snack and nothing like the hideous little carrots in bags at the supermarket, again not even the same vegetable. As I crunch away on the carrots, I am reminded of Peter Rabbit stealing the farmers carrots in the Beatrix Potter book.

When I had my appendix removed at the age of 16, in the midst of moving from the Folly to the Clarendon in Chale on the south side of the Isle of Wight. The Clarendon an old coaching Inn that had stood there for 400 or so years, with long views of the west Wight coastline. A couple of days after the operation, these were in the days when you kept you in hospital for a week, Mum and Janette appeared in the ward with a trug filled with Mrs. Kings new carrots and peas to cheer me up. It was heaven after the truly inedible hospital food, I happily sat up in bed shucking the peas, chomping the carrots and quickly thereafter recovered. The hospital staff and other people in the ward just thought it was all too peculiar!

Asparagus too. My mother always had asparagus for her birthday in May, in honour of her on her birthday I always eat them and toast her, fortunately on saturday at Union Square there were a few local asparagus. My first asparagus, having grown up in Germany were the large white European variety. We did love those large white asparagus, we were allowed four stalks of mums birthday treat. For those that don't know, the Peruvian white asparagus available here while they might look like European white asparagus, actually bear no resemblance to them at all; although the distinctive flavor is mildly sensed.

Our first year back on the Isle of wight, we had been living there about a month, it was May mums birthday I thought I would buy her Isle of Wight asparagus for her present, the shopkeeper showed me green asparagus. I was horrified I had never seen them that colour and declined them! I quickly grew to love and appreciate them.

But my favourite of all new Spring produce is buttery new potatoes, boiled with a mint sprig, giving them a slight minty flavour. Why is it so hard to find good new potatoes that you scrape rather than peel here? It has always bewildered me the lack of seasonal and variety of potatoes here in America. Every where we lived in Europe we had them, so why is America so happy to put up with an Idaho baker year round, so boring. In his book Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan talks about potatoes and how the Peruvian Inca’s grew 100’s of different varieties of potatoes for many different things, perhaps they should go back to that and stop growing white asparagus.

A new potato has skin that you can literally remove by running your thumbnail across it, hence scraping them. At the end of May beginning of June in England, the Jersey Royals arrive from the Channel islands. Perhaps the king of new potatoes, as a child I could eat 15 or so potatoes in one sitting.

Is there a meal more redolent of Spring than Roast leg or shoulder of local new lamb served with fresh garden picked mint sauce; new potatoes, carrots and peas, followed by local strawberries and cream. I can smell and taste it all.

Finally, in May the woods and copses are full of bluebells, you look at a carpet of blue, with a light fragrance and the buzzing of insects sucking the nectar of pollen.


Here we go into summer....

mar 07 newsletter

good cateress, newsletter. March/April 07

Last year as I began to formulate the possibility of a newsletter in my mind, I had always known that the topic for the March newsletter would be my grandmothers Nettle Soup. It was part of our family lore. In the early Spring we could not drive from Whippingham to Wootton on the back road that ran through Brocks Copse without my mother looking at the side of the road, where the new Stinging Nettles were about 4 - 6 inches high. Nettle Soup she would say with a shudder.

In the depression of the 30’s and then into the war years with its rationing, each Spring, on Sunday afternoons after church, my grandmother with her young family would head by bike to Brocks Copse specifically for the young nettles.

Brocks Copse is a dark wooded area with the old road running through it, so named for its badgers. However I always thought it was a foxy place, dark and rather like the wood Beatrix Potter wrote her story of the fox. I would go there to pick the pale yellow wild primrose, that makes the nursery bred Primula seem such a tawdry upstart. The hedgerows would be full of pussy willow and catkins, later in the Spring there would be some of the few remaining wild daffodils. We would never tell where these precious remnants of flowers that at one point had been a carpet of bobbing yellow reminiscent of Wordworths daffodils in the Lake District; people had dug up the bulbs for their gardens, where they had for the most part died. On the bend of the road there is a lone house, my aunt Janette had stayed with her Grandmother here as a child, she remembered there being no electricity and the house was lit by candles and paraffin lamps.

So, as a family they would head out to pick the dreaded nettles. My grandmother made the soup as a Spring tonic to clean the blood of the winters ailments. Apparently the soup was hugely cleansing and we were always led to believe that we should be grateful that we were not made to drink this awful concoction. Although my mother wanted us to understand clearly that in case of the apocalypse and we survive this was an easy source of nutrition.

Last summer while visiting dad he had given me my grandmothers recipe book. I already had my mothers, in which at about the age of 10 I had began to write my own recipes. There in Mahala’s book was the infamous recipe for Nettle Soup, I read it, it seemed rather like Spinach soup and I did wonder what all the fuss must have been about. As I am rarely in England at this time of year, I have not tried the recipe for lack of young stinging nettles. I have never seen them growing here in the US as they do in England, where you cannot walk in the Country without being stung around your ankles, and you pray for the lowly Dock leaf to be somewhere nearby so you can rub the dock leaf on the sting to ease the stinging rash.

So I was really surprised to open both Martha Stewart and Gourmet magazine this month and find recipes for Nettle Soup. Clearly Carl Jung's collective unconscious is much in play.

We are slowly inching our way towards my favourite time of year. I have already began to prepare the soil for planting my garden here in Harlem. There are signs of growth, although my first daffodils bloomed on New years day and all through January and now look like a mess, others are budding. The chives are up and the Clematis are sending forth their first green shoots. My Basil and Tomato seeds are in their peat pots on the windowsill.

Then there is the 127th Street Playlot. I have become involved with the Playlot through the Block Association and working with the Abyssinian Development Corp. The Playlot has a couple of childrens play frames, empty planters and tree’s, the magnolia is getting ready to bloom. We have just won a small but significant grant from Citizens for NYC.

The award ceremony was one of my great moments in NYC. There were awards large and small given to various groups from all five boroughs, all made up of people from all walks of life and nationalities, interested in improving their neighborhoods and exchanging information abut where to get more help. Ranging from places like East New York Farms, an amazing endeavour in Brooklyn that has rescued abandoned lots and literally turned them into a neighborhood farm, to groups like our Block Association who are just beginning to make that change.

We have a difficult time ahead of us. We began with a clean up day on Saturday and we can now see what we need to do. We have a lot of empty beds but hopefully with the help from various New York charities we can get plants, tools, soil. In the summer we hope to have Yoga and calisthenics, art and music classes.

I have heard it said many times that one person can make a difference and for me, West 127th Street is where I would like to do that.

Happy Passover. Happy Easter

jan/feb 07

good cateress, newsletter. Jan/Feb ‘07


During the bitter cold of the last few weeks, I have had the joys of comfort food on my mind. Be it warming soups, stews and casseroles; to desserts of steamed treacle pudding, blackberry and apple crumble. I have always felt that England's food triumphs are these because we needed these foods to counteract the invasive cold damp winters. In England we rarely if ever, had these harsh freezing bright days but the constant grey low clouds, and the damp that seeps into the very marrow of your bones.

The aga was our saviour during the winter in particular. Although a Swedish invention, they became intrinsically English. To this day when I go into someone’s house and see an Aga, even in the heat of the summer, I rush forward to lean against the front bar, back to the warmth being generated from this gentle giant of the cooking world. Coming home from school, after walking down Folly Lane, in the backdoor and immediately lift the lid of the hot plate and hold my hands over the plate to warm up; the large aga kettle was already simmering with boiling water for tea. Other friends would jump up on the side warming plate of the Aga, that overtime gained a dip on it from being sat on.

The Aga was also the perfect cooker for comfort food, with it’s four ovens of varying temperatures. A casserole could be put in the semi slow oven and be left to slowly stew for hours, flavours melding together without burning.
Jacket potatoes in the top oven. A steamer for a pudding on the top quietly bubbling away.

Everyone in my family loved steak and kidney pudding with its suet dough on top. I must confess this was never a favourite, Kidney was a major texture problem and the doughy suet top, was difficult to swallow. I was the spoiler but we still had it a lot. Chicken pie, Steak pie, yes they had my name on. Of course Shepherds pie, I think this was first savoury thing I learnt to make. It remains my favourite comfort food of all, but it needs to be home made.
Every family has its own recipe. There was a time when we were older, when we would be home between travels, Mum would ask Simon and I to each make dinner once a week. You could rest assured that I would make Shepherds Pie, Simon would look recipes up and experiment.

For my shepherds pie, I sauté onion and garlic in a little butter and oil, adding a piece of chopped celery, diced carrot and slices of mushroom; seasoned with salt, pepper and a good amount of worcester sauce I add a mix of chopped sirloin and ground round, a little water, bring to boil, let simmer for 45 minutes or so. In the meantime make mashed potatoes. Place meat in a baking dish of the appropriate size, place potatoes on top with a couple of dabs of butter on top. Place in 375 degree oven. Bake until golden and crisp.

Sundays were always days for walks or trips. Winter walks across downs or cliffs, wind whipping the hair around my face, squally rain coming in blasts, me moaning all the way, but quietly enjoying it nonetheless.

The South Wight was always the best walk at all times of year. Here the waves would come crashing in from the Channel. We would close the Folly (our pub, see Nov/Dec newsletter ‘06) and drive South across the island, to Compton beach, Atherfield or Whale chines. The fields leading to the cliffs filled with cabbages and cauliflower's; the smell of damp Brassica’s underlying the brackiness of the salt carried on the wind. It is here along these cliffs that dinosaur remains abound, on Brook beach there are dinosaur footprints in the sand. Ammonite fossils could be found lying on the beach as the sandstone cliffs crumble. We would look for fossilized shark teeth and the like. After scrambling down the wet slippery cliffs; inevitably the stairs would be partly washed away, we would walk the beach, dogs running in and out of the cold water. There might be a brave surfer or two. The sea air blowing from our brains all thoughts, just the elements and walking remained. Of course the climb back up the cliff was always difficult but by this time we were looking forward to tea.

In those days Hannover House in Brook was the best tea on the island. All home made cakes and scones while sitting next to a roaring fire, large pots of tea with refills. The first order was for toasted tea cakes, with butter melting on top. Scones and clotted cream, followed by coffee and walnut cake. We would often know other people as the room filled with other brave walkers or people just out for tea. These thoughts make me want to jump up, turn the oven on, throw a batch of scones together and eat them warm from the oven.

Cheese scones: 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, pinch of salt, 1 teaspoon of dry mustard, pinch cayenne pepper, 4 tablespoons butter, 4 oz grated cheddar, roughly 2/3 cup of milk.
Mix dry ingredients together in bowl, cut butter into flour, using rub in method or with a mixer and paddle attachment mix until it resembles fine bread crumbs, add grated cheese and slowly add milk, giving a fairly soft light dough. Roll out until 3/4 inch think cut into rounds, although I like to make a large round and cut into triangles. Place on buttered baking sheet, brush tops with milk, place in 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

I love to eat hot from oven with raspberry or damson jam.


Keep warm and stay healthy

Nov/Dec 06 newsletter

good cateress, newsletter. Nov/Dec 06



When I started to write the newsletters I knew the November and December would be the hardest to write, as they are my busiest months. So I have decided to combine them. As a caterer any sense of joy for the Christmas season is lost, but in my teen years I still had it.

I need to write a little explanation here, about where I am writing about. For the most part it will be the Isle of Wight, and in particular the River Medina area from Cowes up the river to Newport. My cousin Diana, an archivist, has traced my mothers family back to the 14th Century; we are all christened, married and buried in the four parishes along the river, Cowes, East Cowes, Northwood and Whippingham. It is still for the most part a beautiful river valley although Cowes and East Cowes ccontinue to grow along it, but much of it is unchanged for centuries. Pastoral farm land the most part, with a public footpath that runs along the East bank. As I write this in my office in Harlem I can look up at the wall above my desk filled with Victorian prints of the river, Whippingham Church, Uncles house in Cowes, but mostly the river from different angles and I am transported back to my roots.

My parents, my aunt Janette and uncle Murray in a variety of partnerships and singly had the pub called The Folly Inn on the river. Originally, The Polly, a working barge in the 17th Century which had been swept aground in one of our notorious sou’westers, presumably during the equinox high tides and it had never been able to float again. At some point it had become an Inn and so it remains. When Murray and Janette had the Folly in the 60’s, while doing some renovations they had discovered that the original hull was still fairly intact and had installed Plexiglas in the floor so you could see it. Further renovations had removed all that, but in the attic there were still parts of the original deck.

Also living on the river were the Cundall family. Pam and Allan with their sons, Robert, Colin and Philip ran sailing holidays on their boat the Rene Phillippe. The Rene was a large wooden motor boat, I thought she went to Dunkirk, but everybody tells me I am wrong. People came from around the world for the sailing holidays and Pam's amazing cooking.

It was a wonderful life for all of us, particularly the children. We lived on a tidal river, played around on boats, Simon fished and so dug for rag worms for bait in the river silts st low tide he was always being rescued from the gooey sucking mud. There was a copse behind the Folly for us to play in, during the Spring there were primroses and wild daffodils, Blue bells in May. We went to sleep at night with the Halyards beating tunes on the masts and the night wading birds chirping to each other as our lullabys.

Come early December their would be an invitation from Pam to help her make sweets/candy as Christmas presents. Some years the Rene would be tied up along the jetty, but one year I do remember rowing out to the Rene. Pam and Lucy, my mother would have worked out all the ingredients ahead of time, and of course, what I would be doing, my job was to show up. I always showed up I loved this day. One of my favorite things, was candy making.
Fudge, coconut ice, truffles, marzipan fruits, chocolate corn flakes. Anything with sugar and butter.

We started with fudge. As the sugar melted into the condensed milk, the tangy air of the river faded as the sweet smell pervaded the boat. I had to stir almost continuously to stop the sugar from burning on the bottom of the pan; something that with Pam's gentle reminders never happened, but when I was alone frequently did. This was a job that called for patience, something I didn't have much of, as I stirred and watched, stirred and waited for ‘soft ball’ phase to be reached. Pam would talk to me, distracting me from my impatience with a small chore here and there that could be done during the stirring. Then without warning we were there. The smell would change. It was exciting pouring the molten mixture into trays to cool, ready to be cut into squares. Of course, I wanted to try it hot from the pan, burnt fingers and certainly scalded tongue followed.

My next sweet was coconut ice. I enjoyed making it but I could never quite get my mind around laying the pink and white on top of each other, I wanted them to be side by side.

Chocolate and cream turning into ganache for truffle, with each year a different flavor. Sometimes chopped apricots, always some liquor. It was put away in the fridge to solidify ready to be scooped with a melon baller and rolled in cocoa.

By now the portholes were running with condensation from the steam. The water lapped against the boat as the tide turned.

The following week we would get together again. Pam was very creative and had found small trays to pack our sweets on, with colored doilies as a liner and sprigs of holly with berries from the copse. It looked and felt like Christmas.

I really enjoyed these times, but one year I stopped helping Pam, I forget why, I was a teenager and it probably seemed unimportant. But I never stopped making sweets. For a brief moment in my early twenties I decided that was what I would be a sweet maker. After all I would make fudge, coconut ice and sell it to my friends. My then boyfriend, older and wiser than me, said the words that I have subsequently used on many occasions. “You will have to make an awful lot of sweets to make any money,” Its true but homemade sweets, jam, cookies and cakes are really the nicest gift to give and receive.

Old fashioned Vanilla fudge

1lb Sugar 2oz butter 300 ml Magnolia vanilla essence

Grease a tin 6inch x 6inch

Put the sugar, butter and magnolia in a large heavy based pan, heat gently until the sugar has dissolved and butter melted. Bring to boil and boil steadily to 240 F or soft boil stage, stirring frequently. Remove the pan from heat to cool surface, add the essence and beat until mixture becomes thick and creamy and grains form - minute crystals. Pour into tin. Leave uintil nearly cold and mark into squares with sharp knife. When it is firm cut into squares.


Merry Christmas Happy Hannukah
Beautiful New Year

oct 06 newsletter

good cateress, newsletter. Oct 06

Late last summer while staying at our friend Pippa’s house in the Green Mountains of southern Vermont. A clear glorious morning, I was walking beside the river that runs through the property observing damage from a storm the previous day. As the storm, that was clearly far worse further up the valley, had cleared, I had gone outside to watch the otter play in the pond, I could not think what the sudden roaring noise was or even where it was coming from. Looking down the hill from the house I realized that our usual sedate, lazy river was now a raging torrent of brown furious water, sweeping everything in its path away. I had never seen anything like it.

Today however the sun was out, the frogs and birds were singing; bees and butterflies flew feverishly among the late summer wild flowers, as if sensing the storm had presaged the end of summer.

Nearing the woods, where the ferns still dripped rainwater, the earth smell changed to the peaty mold of Fall. Here the fallen trees had tree mushrooms growing on them, the ripples of growth reminding me of waves on a beach. I had passed a few puffballs, still quite small, smiling in remembrance of jumping on the giant puffballs in England, watching the ‘puff’ of spores explode out of them. I had been told many times how delicious they were sautéed in butter but had never been tempted to try them. In fact after the heavy rains, there were now mushrooms and toadstools coming up everywhere, in a myriad of shapes and sizes, from the tiny fluorescent orange smaller than my finger nail, to huge wet brown shapes that I did not recognize. If only I knew what they were?

I walked further into the woods and stopped in my tracks. There before me was a Porcini mushroom. I knelt down beside the mushroom, looked at it from every angle, smelt it, looked underneath at the gills. I know that toadstools like to mimic mushrooms and the surefire way to tell is the color of the gills. This however looked like the real thing. I walked on but kept coming back to the ‘porcini’ looking at it wondering; worried about it. After a good amount of time, I carefully picked the ‘porcini’ and carried it back to the house. It was a beautiful mushroom.

For the rest of the day I came back to the mushroom and thought about it. Would I or wouldn’t I cook it? In the end I did not cook it, I was too worried about being alone and eating a poisonous mushroom. All the childhood tales of people dying from poisonous mushrooms, adult tales too. I couldn’t do it. I threw the mushroom out. I still think about it. I know it would have been divine!

In England a slightly different experience of mushrooming, here we knew our favorite mushroom, where it grew and when to pick. After the first September rains, the sou’wester I realize now are the remnants of Atlantic Hurricanes. We would ready ourselves for the appearance of the first field mushrooms. Looking out of the upstairs windows we could see our nearest mushroom field. Simon, my brother, would walk the dogs over it that afternoon reporting back that there was no sign of any mushrooms. A decision would be made that we would get up early , certain that by the next morning the mushrooms would appear.

Walking along the River Medina, we climbed over the wooden stile into the field, the dogs slid underneath and were already running around excitedly. A low lying mist lay along the field as the rains and dew were burnt off by the warming sun. We all set off in different directions, heads bent to the ground, in my case I looked up periodically to check the field and where exactly the cows were. All the mushroom fields seemed to have cows in them, apparently the two things went together. I had been chased and herded by cows through all too many a field.

Simon, who inherited my fathers mushroom instinct, was always the first to shout ‘I've got one,’ slowly there would be echoes of “me too” and then silence we were all too intent on picking.

There they would be; the white caps peeking through the long grass. The ancestor of the cultivated white mushroom, full of flavor. The smaller mushrooms caps tight and furled; others opening up in the warmth of the sun ready to drop their spores. Mushrooms in fairy circles mixed with fairy cap toadstools which amazed and delighted me. As we were in cow pastures, some came up through cow pats, no one picked those ones. Some had maggots, how? They were a few hours old, but everything wanted a taste of mushroom.

Walking home the air was full of the musty mushroom smell; we were starting to salivate with anticipation over our breakfast treat. We were barely in the door, knowing instinctively our task, mum was laying out rashers of bacon on the grill pan. We were spreading the mushrooms out on newspapers on the kitchen table, sorting them. Peeling the ones we were having for breakfast; setting aside others for soup for lunch. A little bacon grease in the skillet, the sliced mushrooms were added, the kitchen full of the woodsy aroma of cooking mushrooms, toast was being made. This, one of the great all time breakfasts, something I have not eaten in 23 years.

Mushroom soup remains one of my favorite things to eat. I buy a mix of mushrooms; button, cremini, shiitake and a portabella. Saute onions and garlic in butter, then add the wiped and sliced mushrooms, gently cooking the juices flowing, I like fresh marjoram, sherry and a little cayenne for flavor. I learnt while cooking with two Sicilian lady cooks, about the Fungi stock cubes from Italy. For the longest time you could not get them here and I would ask friends going to Italy to look for them, but Star brand now sells them here, I find that this adds that wild mushroom flavor to soups, stews and risottos, which makes such a difference to the taste. I let the mess ‘o’ mushrooms, cook quietly for about an hour, until the flavors are melded. I add flour to make a roux paste, then slowly add a combination of milk and homemade chicken stock.



jane mcqueen-mason
212 665 2704

sept 06 good cateress newsletter

As I stand peeling and chopping peaches from the North Fork for an end of summer jam and a peach-ginger chutney. I cannot help but reflect on jam -and chutney - making in my childhood.

My earliest real memory of making jam with my mother is when I was 10 years old, we were living on Salisbury Plain, in the South of England. We were an army family and this was the first time I had lived in England since I was three. In the 60’s Salisbury Plain had vast tracts of land owned by the Ministry of Defense used by the army for Exercises. It has always been a strange irony for me, that the MOD lands took in some of the best preserved natural landscape, where wildlife was still abundant. In the late spring and early summer we walked the areas around Sidbury Down, picking wildflowers - this was the 60’s remember, and no-one foresaw that England's natural resource becoming so diminished in a few years. I recall one walk in particular when we picked one of each flower that we saw, so that we could go home and look them up in our wildflower book. We got home with over 20 varieties.

By late summer the hedgerows were laden with blackberries, large and juicy, deep purple mixed in with the green and reds. We set off on a warm Sunday morning; we lugged baskets, buckets, trugs plus a walking stick to reach the high berries, somehow always the sweetest. We had a picnic for lunch: cheese and tomato; ham; chicken sandwiches and thermoses of orange and lime squash. Our friends, the Theobalds, were with us, and all of us children were very excited, skipping along laughing, talking about who would pick the most berries and no doubt replaying England's win in the World Cup earlier in the summer.

High up on Sidbury Down, we found our spot, a meadow filled with long pale grasses and waning summer wildflowers, blackberry bushes scattered through the meadow and forming a natural hedge around it all.

After our picnic we set to work; the sun beating down on our backs, we could even take off our cardigans. The children picking and eating at the same time, the quiet afternoon disturbed occasionally by shrieks -- there were wasps around us, we were caught on the brambles or our hands had got scratched. Our fingertips dyed purple from the juice. Our various containers filling rapidly with the bounty.

Walking home late afternoon, cooler now, tireder now; laden with berries, talking about pies and crumbles to be made for dinner that night, our preferences for cream or custard.

But before dinner could begin, the blackberries reserved for jelly would be washed in the large colander in batches, then tipped into the largest kettle , apples cut up into the blackberries for their pectin, and the whole set on the fire to start cooking. When mum deemed the batch ready; Dad would be called to stretch the large square of old linen sheet over the crockery bowl . As she tipped the hot fragrant mixture, we would watch the purple liquid come through the sheet into said bowl, the sheet tied at the top of the blackberry mixture and set to strain overnight, extracting all the juice, a clear purple nectar.

The next morning an astonishing amount of sugar would be added to the liquid which was put back on to boil. Amazing to us all, as we learnt to tell how the boiling bubbles would change as the set got closer. Our old jam jars were washed and in the oven sterilizing ready to receive the jelly. Many of the jars with previous years labels on them, like layers of paint on a wall, each layer revealing part of a different story.

We ate the jelly all year ‘round, on toast, between layers of Victoria sponge cake, on rice pudding, each bite a taste of summer happiness. Other people we knew made their own syrups, wines and jam.

I make the blackberry jelly occasionally here in NYC, and it tastes almost the same, but the experience is a different one. Now I go to Union Square and buy the apples and blackberries from the farmers; I have a jelly strainer; I buy my mason jars at Zabars.

Now my favorite jam now is damson. It is unlike any other jam, with a richness akin to eating purple velvet. One year I lazily left the pits in the fruit when I cooked it, so you had to remove the pits as you consumed the jam. That year my mother, came to visit and went to try the Damson Jam; I never heard the end of the pits. Needless, to say I now pit the damsons. I am awaiting their arrival in the market, maybe next week.



Blackberry and Apple Jelly

2lbs Blackberries
1lb Apples, tart - granny smith or something similar
2 cups water

Wash the blackberries; wash and cut up the apples, without peeling or coring. Put the fruit in a pan with the water and simmer gently for about 40 minutes, until the fruit is really soft and pulped.
Strain through a jelly cloth overnight.
Measure the extract, return it to clean pan with 1lb sugar to 2 cups of liquid extract. Stir until the sugar has dissolved; boil rapidly until setting point is reached by testing. I take liquid from entre of pan and put a small amount on to a plate, after a minute or so, I push the liquid with my finger, when ready a skin forms on the jelly.
Pour into hot, sterile jars, tighten lid and leave to cool.

july 07

good cateress newsletter, aug 07

We spent a good part of the 60’s, my early childhood years, in Germany. Dad was a Military man. From 1963 - 66 we lived in Berlin, those years we would drive down to Riccione on the Adriatic coast of Italy for our summer holidays. Usually we left right after my birthday in late July, after all I had to have a birthday party with my friends.

Mum and dad would get us up in the dark, for an early start. The car a German Ford Taurus station wagon, would have been packed the night before. It is hard to imagine living in New York that we could do such a thing, but after all it was not theft that we were worried about. Dad wanted us through the various checkpoints; Allied, East German and Russian before first light to avoid the queues and searches of that time. I do remember how quiet and desolate the Berlin Corridor was at that time. You did not stop or get off that road. Once we were through East Germany into the West how different it was. There was a British outpost immediately after the Border where we stopped for the necessary bathroom stop and breakfast.

From here the drive was long and hot on the autobahns; no air conditioning in cars then. The windows were all open, a breeze blew in from the motion of the car. Mum had her Triptik of the trip, as each year passed more notes were added. I learnt early on from these long journeys to pack things to do; books, crayons and paper, one doll. No chocolate it melted but chewy sweets. Mum made cool thermos’s filled with icy lime squash a prerequisite for every picnic. (in England and other European countries we have flavoured syrups and squash’s that we add to water, it is where Roses Lime Juice came from). We sang, ‘Ten green bottles’, ‘One man went to Mow’; ‘Twinkle Twinkle little star’; ‘I’m a little teapot’. Played I spy and other games.

Looked for trains. In the early years we were excited to see an electric train rather than steam; slowly that changed in the final years the electric far outnumbered steam. Simon and I got peevish and quarrelsome.

A couple of years ago I read Caramba by Nina Marie Martinez, in which she describes her family’s drive from Chicago to Mexico in the summers of the 60’s. As I read I had a huge flashback of our travels to Riccione. The heat, the laughter, the grumblings.

Our first night’s stop would be in a hotel down in Bavaria just outside Munich. It was always fascinating to Simon and I they had framed photos on the wall of Berlin before the wall went up, which amazed us as we had never seen it without the wall. We loved to stay here, they knew us after many years. I always had Steak and Pommes Frites, the frites were incredible, long and thin, brown and crispy. Our beds all had old fashioned feather duvets, that were huge and you shook them all out.

The next day we would play, who would be the first to see Mountains. Suddenly there they would be purple in the light rising high into the blue sky. The drive through the alps ws the day of the trip we loved most; the air was cooler, for a start. Each year we had watched one of the huge bridges, maybe the one over the Brenner pass, be built. It was scary to think of men being brave enough to build towers that high in a valley. Our favourite part of this drive was that night we camped on the side of a small road, beside a mountain stream. Dad would get up the next morning and bring us ice cold water from the river to drink, as he put the kettel on the camping gaz stove to make delicious tea.

One year at dusk, as we came down through the Italian Alps, we could see people climbing the mountains with lanterns. Lots of people swinging lanterns all across the valley. It was mystical and beautiful to see the mountains outlined with swinging lights; something out of a movie. I believe it was a saints festival.

And so from the cool of the mountains to the heat of the Italian plains. Italy looked totally different from Germany. Scruffier somehow. It had huge billboards along the roads with a scary dragon breathing fire. Noisier too.

By late afternoon we had arrived at the Hotel Jeuness in Riccione. The hotel was a mid sized family owned Hotel where three generations of the family worked here. The son Manueli was slightly older than me, my one great memory is of constantly hearing his mother or grandmother calling for him from the back door. Manueli taught Simon and I to play a card game, Scallacaranta, that all the grown ups played on the balcony surrounding the hotel. Manueli was really good at this game and often beat the grown ups.

Now here is the sad part for me as an adult. I now know that the food was incredible, mum and dad loved it, for mum it was why we went. Lunch every day was a different pasta, followed by a fish or meat and vegetable. I remember the smells; occasionally I go into an Italian restaurant and I am taken back to Riccione. I feel sure that I have mentioned before that I was a dreadful eater, fussy would be a mild description. Sometimes I ate plain pasta, sometimes some sauce, rarely the two together; Fish, there might be a bone. Salad and bread and butter were good! I do remember the zucchini fries, thin, juicy, crispy on the outside, nothing at all to do with the fried zucchini I once ordered here in the states. Dessert was mostly incredible fruit, peaches, apricots, cherries served in a clear bowl of iced water.

Our first morning Simon was up early eager to be at the beach and see his friend Tonino. We rented space on the beach under a long sunshade from Tonino, he was also a fisherman, who occasionally took Simon out in his boat to help him take the fish from his nets, he let Simon kill the crabs in the nets with a mallet.

The beach by late morning was packed with people, a lot of Germans. We would swim, play on the beach, walk with our baby nets and catch little shrimp and fish to look at, oh yes and sea horses. I have never seen a sea horses since then, but we would catch one or two, such amazing creatures. Small planes would fly over trailing advertisements, dropping samples and leaflets. There were boat trips to the Island Catolica.

People walked up and down the beach selling things; cold drinks, ice creams, fruit and the like. We were allowed one thing in the morning and one in the afternoon. My morning item was a banana ice cream, shaped like a banana, it came from the cafe a little further up the beach on the promenade with the beach huts. It was full of load people and a juke box, I remember “Volare” being played; I wanted to be older and part of this group!

In the afternoon a man came along with a case strapped around his neck; the case was filled with jewel-like fruit and nuts. The fruits were on skewers and had been dipped in a light caramel that then set around the fruit and was crunchy. When you bit through the crunch there was the soft chilled fruit, it was divine. Like nothing I have had since.

The days passed. Melding into each other. The walk down the road to the beach, sun, sea and sand. Chat before meals on the balcony. There seemed to be fireworks every other night for a different Saints holiday. One night there was a huge storm, the sea was really churned up the next day, with big waves and really warm sea.

Before we knew it was time to leave. Lots of Ciao’s, see you next year.

The return journey always seemed to go faster. There was a place on a road where mum and dad had spotted walnut trees, we stopped for lunch nearby and scrumped ‘wet’ walnuts to take home, dad’s favourite. Was it this roadside restaurant or another where we stopped and I ate the most delicious meat, wanted more, such a surprise to everyone. I kept asking what it was, as I also went out to pet the calf tied out back. One trip we stopped at a truck stop, where I had a salad of some sort. There was a red thing I didn’t recognize, everyone waited with trepidation as I tried it. I loved it, peppers and asked for more.

We moved back to England, our holidays were to France and Spain. For me the Hotel Jeunesse and Riccione remain a favourite.


Stay cool in the sizzling dog days of summer

june 07

good cateress newsletter June/July 07


Summer Sundays at the Folly, while setting up we would periodically stand in the windows and watch all the yachts sailing up the river Medina, tying up to come ashore for lunch. In those days pubs were open from 12 - 2pm on Sunday lunchtimes. Groups of people would be waiting on the balcony, having already bagged their tables, for Dad to open the doors. We would barely lift our heads for those two hours. Some Sundays we would completely run out of glasses, despite constantly going out to buss.

When we were living on the mainland in the mid 60’s we would drive down to help Murray and Janette for the summer weekends. I loved to be the snack bar girl; Mum and Janette would be back in the kitchen, baking more sausages and chicken, and making more soup. I was very good at adding and for the most part polite. When it was quiet I could eat a Mars bar or Kit Kat, and I got ‘tips’ far more than when I was older when I had become Jaded Jane. I always confused customers as I asked whether they would prefer breast or thigh of the chicken and then gave them the opposite as I thought one was the other!

Because we closed at 2pm we had time for ourselves on sundays, and our favourite destination was Mrs. Holbrookes over in Bembridge at the easterly point of the island.

I first remember going to Mrs. Holbrookes when I was 11 or so years
old. Unfortunately the thing I remember about that first tea, was my
father called Simon his son and heir. I pointed out that I was the
oldest and therefore the heir. Dads response was I said son and heir.
For the first time I realized I was a girl, a woman, and that women
didn’t always count. It rather took away from the Mrs. Holbrookes
experience. Subsequently it was all about the prawns.

Mrs. Holbrooke lived in a Bungalow in the Forelands part of Bembridge . There is a pebbly, windy beach that is also home to the RNLI rescue boat. I always thought Mrs. Holbrooke was old but in truth she was probably not that much older than mum and dad, the gray permed hair, that was such a part of an older generation of British women added to that impression. Mr. Holbrooke was a fisherman, he had crab, lobster and prawn pots, nets for the prawns. I don't ever remember seeing him but I loved his shellfish and have never had any shellfish as good. In the summer the Holbrookes turned their dining room and living room into a tea room.

Our table would be waiting for us, depending on how many of us there
would be, but mostly we had the large table on the left as we walked
in. There were basically three choices, Prawn salad, dressed crab salad
or half a lobster salad, served with either brown or white bread and
butter; hot cups of steaming tea. I think you could also have cheese
salad or a ham salad, but we never did.

Mr. Holbrooke had pulled the makings of our tea that morning from his pots. Prawns bright pink some carrying their egg sacks between their legs. The sweetest most delicious shellfish ever. They are similar to the Maine shrimp we get here occasionally in the winter.

Dressed crab in its shell, picked white meat down the center, brown
meat on the sides with a sprig of parsley.

Lobster, Mums favourite, she would eat every piece of meat from
hers. Sucking the meat from the legs, there would literally just be the
dry carcass left. I like Lobster well enough, but I suspect it is
wasted on me!

Big bowls of salad, but old fashioned English salad. What I refer to as
limpy lettuce, (Boston), slices of tomato, Isle of Wight of course,
cucumber and hard boiled egg, usually served with salad cream rather
than mayonaise but it was heaven. Mum and I would often talk about
taking some Mayonaise, but we never did. It would have changed the
entire experience.

The prawns still had their shells on; twist of the head, peel the body
armour off, pinch the tail and wallah a luscious prawn. The first one
or two popped instantly into the mouth, tasting of the briny sea. I
would eat them with a triangle of brown bread and butter, instantly
feeling rejuvenated. Silence at the table as we all ate and slowly
recovered, broken only by ‘pass the bread’ or ‘can I have another cup of
tea’. I would then move onto the Dressed crab, mixing the brown and
white meat with a little salt, pepper and salad cream. I have never
been sure why there is no brown meat with the crab here, I assume it is
because they are different crabs, certainly the blue crabs would not
have the brown meat. In England we have both, even the frozen has half white and half brown, they taste quite different and are magical when mixed together. I make crab tea sandwiches for good cateress, in honour
of Mrs. Holbrooke, yes, with the brown bread and butter, limpy lettuce,
but I use mayonaise to moisten the crab.

There were cakes and ices too for afters, but we didn’t often need them.
We would head down to the beach. Simon, mum and Bilbo, our
retriever, would swim. It would have to be REALLY hot for me to get in
the water and it never was. I would walk and look in the rock pools if
the tide was out. Someone would find a decent stick washed up on the
beach and we would have a game of Rounders or Cricket, before heading home.

Once home we would retire to our own places for a peace or a nap. I
would often lie down on the lawn in the grass, watching the bees buzzing
in the flowers and gently fall asleep. A perfect summers Sunday
afternoon, replete and content.



Have a wonderful 4th July!