jam for Ash Wednesday

The internet has been positively buzzing this week with suggestions for marking Lent. From pledging to wear only six items of clothing for the duration, through undertaking a good old-fashioned fast, to spending time outside in bare feet, it seems there is no shortage of creative ideas for anyone who wants to live more thoughtfully in the run-up to Easter.

The challenge for me has been finding something that will work as I enter a season of great busyness, with work intensifying just as my university studies also gather speed towards a couple of big assignments. Give up chocolate? Er, not very likely! Instead I’ve been looking for a way of marking Lent that ensures that the relentless pressure to meet deadlines does not crowd out everything else that is important. This is not just about dealing with stress – although that comes into it – but about something far more fundamental. The Welsh poet and priest RS Thomas describes it beautifully.

The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

RS Thomas

This is about seeing the difference between what can never last and what is of eternal significance; between a flame in a tinder-dry bush that will burn itself out in seconds, and a sacred fire that encompasses the very presence of God (Exodus 3: 1-6).

Phew! How do we learn to do this? How do we develop ways of living that enable us to accomplish all the very many things that are put before us each day while simultaneously being alert to the times and places where God is breaking into the ordinary?  I suspect this is a lifetime’s work, but two things I have found helpful are:

• Regularly set aside time to be still before God (I find this a real challenge)
• Never rush

For Lent I plan to add a third, less obvious discipline. Last year, my daughter set me the challenge of taking a photograph every day. In the end I failed, although I did manage to keep it up for more than 200 of the 365 days. I learnt a lot from doing it. I learnt that when you are always looking out for pictures, you see everything in a new way. That even when you have ‘done’ the picture for the day, you carry on looking more attentively at the world around you.

So I plan to take a photograph for each of the 40 days of Lent as one small way of ensuring that I do not become consumed by the insistent urgency of work and study. I am not saying that I expect to find my own burning bush in a photograph – although I suppose anything is possible! What I am hopeful of is that the discipline of framing just one moment out of every day will help me develop an attitude of attentiveness, so that maybe, just maybe, I will be more prepared to turn aside for a miracle.

Today’s photograph is from Todmorden, where sheets of rain were sweeping through the valley all day. So I was all the more cheered by the lady who gave me some freshly made raspberry jam. I know Ash Wednesday isn’t usually celebrated with pots of jam but this, for me, was one of the most touching moments of my day: a stranger, who was already freely giving me her time, also thinking of extending this lovely gift.

Pierce Penniless and the vegbox

Not long ago the River Cottage chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall was famous, notorious even, for his red-blooded approach to meat eating.  At a time when most people’s meat came in polystyrene trays from the supermarket. Hugh was out there fearlessly slaughtering his own pigs and even tucking into roadkill.

Then he shocked everyone by bringing out a book extolling vegetables, and a very fine book it is too, with over 200 recipes and not a shred of meat in sight. The reason? Well, as someone who hates factory farming and fears for the future of our fish stocks, he realises that we need to eat far more vegetables and much less flesh if we are going to stop damaging our planet.

I love it when my studies connect in unexpected ways with other parts of my life. It’s one of the advantages of being a mature student, I think – the upside of having to keep so many balls in the air simultaneously. I am doing a wonderful module this semester on Renaissance literature and could not help thinking of HFW last week when the set text was Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Devil by Thomas Nashe. More than 400 years ago, Pierce was saying stuff about the English diet which chimes remarkable closely with Hugh’s thoughts on the subject.

It is not for nothing that other countries whom we upbraid with drunkenness call us bursten-bellied gluttons, for we … eat more meat at one meal than the Spaniard or Italian in a month. Good thrifty men, they draw out a dinner with sallets (salads) … and make Madonna Nature their best caterer.

It gets worse. We are, says Pierce,

‘such flesh-eating Saracans that chaste fish may not content us but we delight in the murder of innocent mutton, in the unpluming of pullery (poultry), and quartering of calves and oxen. It is horrible and detestable; no godly fishmonger can digest it.’

Since our family started getting a weekly veg box, we too have been proving that ‘Madonna Nature’ is the best caterer. In fact, veg has played such a starring role at the dinner table that I’ve barely needed to go near a butcher or a fishmonger, godly or otherwise. It’s not that we’ve turned vegetarian, but rather a shifting of emphasis. As HFW says, it’s quite liberating not to have ‘a tyrannical piece of meat dominating the agenda, making everything else feel like a supporting act’. It’s also loads cheaper, which is pretty amazing given that our veg is now organic and delivered to the door.

The contents of the box got used up with unusual speed this week so I don’t have a photo of the beautiful curly kale or the little fat carrots that were so fresh I could smell them before I even cut them. Here’s some romanesco instead – unfortunately not in season at the moment, but surely one of the most stunning vegetables in Madonna Nature’s treasure chest.

best of Yorkshire

After nearly ten years in Sheffield, I still get excited about the first Yorkshire rhubarb. Forced in dark sheds on farms in the famous Rhubarb Triangle (roughly between Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield), it comes out the most glorious shade of pink.

I love the contrast with the yellowy, crumpled leaves.

This delicate, early crop is quite different from the coarse stuff that comes along later. The challenge is always to find a recipe that does it justice. It’s pretty much perfect when simply roasted with sugar and a vanilla pod; however this year I experimented a bit and came up with something I think is just as good.

I got the idea from Liz, who had in turn adapted it from Smitten Kitchen.

Behold: Rhubarb Sharlotka.

This is a winner on all counts. It tastes fabulous and really lets the rhubarb flavour sing. It is quick and easy to make. Also, unbelievably, it is cake without the calories. Or with fewer calories, anyway. No fat, apart from what is in the eggs, and only a small amount of flour. I had to bulk out the rhubarb with a cooking apple. Rhubarb and apple are great together, but purists could always replace the apple with a couple more sticks of rhubarb.

Rhubarb sharlotka

7 sticks Yorkshire rhubarb

I medium cooking apple

4 medium eggs

200 grams caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

125 grams plain flour

I cooked it in a deep, non-stick cake tin with a 20cm removable base.

:: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees

:: Line the base of the tin and butter the sides.

:: Chop the rhubarb and apple into robust chunks and pile them into the tin.

:: Beat the eggs with the sugar until thick. The whisk should leave trails in the egg mixture.

:: Beat in the vanilla extract.

:: Lightly stir in the flour.

:: Tip the batter over the rhubarb and apple and smooth the surface. You need to press down a bit too, to encourage it to penetrate the gaps between the chunks of fruit.

:: Bake for 55 minutes. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or cold, dusted with icing sugar, on its own or with cream or crème fraîche. A mug of Yorkshire tea would be a fine accompaniment.

why pray when you can worry?

The Christian writer and doctor John White has an alarming story about the early days of his medical career. Within just a year of completing his training, he was frequently put in charge of all the night time emergency surgery in a large city hospital (wisely, he does not tell us which one). During the day, he was often given his own operating list. He goes on:

Understandably, sometimes things went wrong – seriously wrong. In the operating room, a wave of panic would sometimes rise in me as with horror I would see that the operation was getting in a deeper and deeper mess.*

White eventually went on to become a psychiatrist. You might assume that he withdrew from surgery because of a string of disasters on the operating table, but that was not the case.  In fact his patients seem to have survived despite his inexperience, thanks to a valuable lesson he learnt about thinking under pressure.

During these white-knuckle sessions in theatre, White discovered that his brain’s first reaction was to freeze. His movements became pointless and repetitive. He would look desperately at his assisting team, but all eyes just stared back at him: he was the guy in charge. All he could do at that point was to force himself to think carefully and deliberately. ‘Now take it easy,’ he would say to himself. ‘What’s my immediate aim? What should I do first?’

Slowly, with a sense of growing confidence and relief, I found my way through the difficulties, successfully completing what could have been a tragically botched operation. My mind had been freed to accept new ideas, to remember old principles and to force myself to rely on them and go ahead.

The most interesting thing for me about this story (apart from the reassuring fact that fatalities were averted) is what happened to White’s prayers when panic took over.  White describes them as becoming like ‘muttered incantations’. ‘Oh Lord, help! Lord, don’t let it go wrong! Lord, don’t let it get in a mess! Don’t let her die!’

I have never had the type of life-and-death responsibility that faces a surgeon, thank goodness, but I do recognise this kind of ‘incantation’. It is what I do when I sense life is getting out of control. I have come to see it as one of the early signs that my mental health is at risk. ‘Oh Lord, help! Oh Lord, stop me from getting so tired that I bite everyone’s head off! Oh Lord, don’t let me get depressed again!’

As White wisely points out, this is not prayer. This is not communicating with God; it is ‘expressing panic in parrot talk’. Saints through the ages have taught us that prayer leads to peace and freedom from our anxieties. Unfortunately, if we do not recognise the difference between panicky parrot talk and really communicating with a God we trust, things will actually get worse, not better. ‘Why don’t I feel any peace? Why am I even more worried now than I was an hour ago? Oh God I am such a terrible Christian!’

As part of my recovery from the mental distress that used to plague me with horrible regularity, I have discovered that sometimes before I pray I need to spend some time in careful, logical thought. Or as White puts it, sometimes before we talk to God, we have to talk to ourselves. ‘What really is the problem here? What solution do I want to see? What can I do about it? What do I need God to do about it?’

There are several situations that are causing me a bit of anxiety at the moment. Snowed in and unable to get to church this morning, it has been good to spend time thinking slowly about what needs to happen with each of them, and only then to bring them to God in prayer.  This makes my relationship with God feel much more real. I have a sense that together we will be able to work out a creative solution. Of course things may still not resolve themselves in the way I would like, but I am not panicking; my anxiety levels have dropped, and I have a genuine hope for each situation.

Finally, I couldn’t blog today without posting a snow picture. I spent two hours out walking with a camera today, but the photograph I like best was waiting for me back in the front garden.

*All quotations from John White’s book Parents in Pain. (Now out of print but available here.)

romancing the sprout

Some of my best days in 2011 were spent in the wonderful west Yorkshire town of Todmorden. I wrote here about my most recent visit and about the incredible edible project. You really can’t spend much time with Todmorden folk without becoming inspired to do more with vegetables and, more importantly, be honest about how your food choices affect the world around you.

Over the Christmas break I got to thinking about how our family could eat in a way that has less impact on the environment and is more sustainable in the long term. Growing more of our own food is an obvious first step and I have some plans in that direction, but for now it is January and there’s not much in the garden.

So I decided we should go back to having a weekly veg box, something we used to do but abandoned because I had an idea that it was too time consuming. I know organic parsnips with the mud still on them are much better all round than the anaemic, plastic-wrapped variety you get in the supermarket, but back when I had just started a degree and was juggling it with work and a teenager crisis, I felt I couldn’t cope with anything extra. If anything is worse than a shrink-wrapped courgette in Tesco, it’s a mouldy organic one looking at you accusingly from the bottom of the fridge. (Though I’ll admit it’s a close run thing.)

I hope to return to the issue of time in another post. I don’t think you can get away from the fact that doing things in a sustainable way often appears to gobble more time than the convenience option and may well actually do so. But speed can be overrated, I think. Just as I’d rather pay a few pence extra for fairly traded bananas, so I think I need to be wiser about how I spend my precious time.

Anyway, the first veg box arrived from the excellent Riverford. A stunningly beautiful red cabbage and some fabulous purple sprouting broccoli sat alongside more homely offerings such as carrots, potatoes, parsnips and leeks.

No problem deciding what to do with any of those, but I have to admit I was temporarily stumped by the bag of Brussels sprouts. The two teenagers who still live at home are definitely not picky eaters, but they really do not like sprouts. In their entire lives, they have never managed more than one at a time, and that is with the Christmas dinner. There was only one option – I would have to cook the sprouts for my Friday night ‘date’ with Julian.

This Friday tradition goes back to when our children were small and we couldn’t afford to go out and pay a babysitter too. It’s a great excuse to splash out a bit on posh food. Sometimes I get sea bass or tuna steaks from the fishmonger; sometimes we indulge in home made tortellini from the Italian deli. What we do not expect to eat is anything as homely as a Brussels sprout. But I love a challenge and what’s more I knew my amazing Leith’s Vegetarian Bible (now out of print, but there is a newer edition) was unlikely to let me down.

Enter the Brussels Sprouts Gratinée. Let me tell you, this did not look promising. But I put that down to the sprouts and all our prejudices about them. In fact – and as is usual with the Leith bible – the taste was excellent. Crunchy sprouts and a crispy, cheesy topping contrast perfectly with the creamy, paprika-spiked sauce and the smooth potatoes. Add candlelight and a glass or two of red wine and I promise you the humble sprout can be transformed into the food of romance.

Brussels Sprouts Gratinée

Sightly adapted from Leith’s Vegetarian Bible by Polly Tyrer

450g Brussels sprouts

350g unpeeled potatoes

1 teaspoon paprika

a pinch of cayenne pepper

200ml crème fraîche

50g wholemeal breadcrumbs

1 dessertspoon of butter, melted

15g Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Switch the oven to 200 degrees C and grease an ovenproof dish with butter. I used a round one; the base has a diameter of 21cm.

Trim the stalks and outer leaves from the sprouts. I didn’t bother making a little cross in the bottom, although I know some people say you should. Cook them in boiling salted water for just five minutes. Drain and allow to cool slightly.

Cut the potatoes into even sized shapes and cook in boiling salted water for about 10 minutes. They should be just tender. Drain and allow to cool slightly.

Cut the sprouts in half and slice the potatoes. Mix together gently and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Stir the paprika and cayenne into the crème fraîche and season.

Put half the sprouts and potatoes into the dish. Spread over half the crème fraîche. I found this a little tricky, but a bit of coaxing with a palette knife did the the trick. Top with the remaining vegetables, then the rest of the crème fraîche.

Mix the breadcrumbs with the melted butter. Stir in the cheese and parsley and spread on top.

Bake for about 20 minutes, by which time the vegetables will be hot and the crumbs crisp and brown.

beyond the comfort zone

So I’ve been right outside my comfort zone this week and I have loved it. I’m back in Bulgaria, visiting dear friends from way back who are doing astonishing work to bring about deinstitutionalisation of the orphanages here. (You can read about my previous visit here and here.)

This is what it looks like outside.

Beautiful, isn’t it? The only problem is that inside the central heating has broken down. Now anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a complete wimp about being cold. I have even been known to take a hot water bottle to bed in May. If you had told me the situation before I left I honestly might have wondered if I could cope. I can now see how pathetic that was and how much very good stuff I would have missed if I had chickened out. And frankly, I may be wearing a fleece and a woolly hat in bed but I am managing to have a perfectly good sleep every night!

This is a small and rather silly example but it did make me wonder how much else might be passing me by because of rigid ideas about what I need in order to function – and how many opportunities I might be missing to do something useful. My friends have been telling me about their early days out here and thoroughly humbling me. I’ll save you the horror stories of giving birth in a provincial Bulgarian hospital, but as another example, they moved into an unfinished house with a one-year-old child and all slept together on the floor while they gradually decorated it and installed a kitchen.

It is quite horrifying to think that if they had refused the challenge of moving well outside their comfort zone, many abandoned children here could still be incarcerated in a dilapidated, understaffed orphanage instead of settled in the beautiful small group homes that their charity has set up

cheered

Well I meant to have a little rest after all the Advent blogging, but not to be away for quite as long as this. I went down with a virus just after handing in a particularly demanding assignment – there are many things about student life that are actually easier when you are older, but staying up late to write essays is not one of them.

Still, there were some consolations about languishing in my sick bed and one of them was fellow mature student Jacqueline bestowing the ‘one lovely blog’ award on me. It was a wonderful surprise and cheered me up completely. Thank you so much, Jacqueline.

Although the award did not stipulate this, I would imagine I am supposed to pass it on. The problem is that nearly all the blogs I read are written by people who have been around for years and have thousands of followers and probably hundreds of awards too. So instead of directly passing it on, I thought I would share with you some of my favourite posts from the many I have read in the last couple of weeks.

Even if you don’t like knitting, you should take a look at this amazing design from Kate. I think it is something like a work of art. And in many ways it is typical of Kate’s blog, too – done to an extremely high standard but full of fun at the same time.

I have been visiting the Lake District since I was seven years old and many of my very happiest memories involve tramping the fells either alone or with people I love. So I was quite envious when I read that Felix was heading that way to record some sheep and develop a wool-related art project. Of course sheep are an essential part of the Cumbrian landscape; even so, when I listened to her first recording, of a Rough Fell ram, I was amazed that tears immediately sprang into my eyes. It seems that for me the sound of sheep has a direct link to some pretty deep emotions. Her sheep pictures are fabulous, too.

Moving some way away from sheep, this review of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American deals brilliantly with issues of colonialism, culture and mission.

Official ‘eco nomad’ Nick recently returned from Romania where he witnessed at first hand a fast-vanishing way of life on some remote hillside farms. His thoughts and pictures are fascinating.

Finally, here is a beautiful post from the ever-wise Soulemama on the importance of living life at the pace of your children (when they are small, that is – I definitely don’t plan to live life at the same speed as my teenagers do).