Runnin’ Down a Dream

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, 1977

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are my favourite rock band, ever since my big sister gave me a copy of their debut album in 1977 when I inherited her Pioneer stereo.  I was 14 and have grown up over the past 34 years  listening to their music.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1976, album cover.

I was pretty excited when I saw an ad in The Guardian that they’d be playing at The Royal Albert Hall this June on their first UK tour in 20 years.  I had to work the day tickets went on sale, but I left Steve with strict instructions to get online and at the end of the phone at 9am.  He did his best, but tickets sold out in about 10 minutes.  I tried to be philosophical and not too bummed about it.  After all, I’d seen Tom and the boys at The Hollywood Bowl in the mid 1990′s and again in Raleigh, NC in 2002.  As a consolation prize, we bought Peter Bogdanovich’s excellent documentary on The Heartbreakers, “Runnin’ Down a Dream”.

We watched Part One and a week later, planned to watch Part Two.  I was on Facebook and decided to post the documentary trailer beforehand.  I found it on YouTube and somewhat cynically clicked the ‘On Tour 2012 Buy Tickets’ button.  It took me to the Official Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ website.  I trawled around in the Tour Dates area and saw that there was a show in Cork, Ireland on 6/8/2012.  I said “Whoa, they’re coming back in August!”  Steve said “Are you sure it’s not June 8th?”.  Ya see, I’m in the middle of two cultures and sometimes forget that the US and the UK transpose the month and day.

Anyhow, long story short, a Cork show had been added in June after their Dublin show.  Tickets went on sale the next day and we got ourselves two of ‘em! I’m officially stoked.

So we’re planning a road trip to Southern Ireland for our 2nd wedding anniversary.  Steve got a MP3 adaptor for his car cassette deck so we can spin Tom Petty tunes all the way.

Night Driver

‘Night Driver’ was the first one I played.  It’s one of my favourites from the Highway Companion album.

Koffie en cake

On our trip to The Netherlands, Steve and I bought a Douwe Egberts coffee grinder from a junk shop in Utrecht.  Steve likes his daily cup of Joe and I’ll have a cup about once a week, usually with cake or dessert.

By the way, according to the BBC h2g2 website, one theory of where ‘ a cup of Joe’ originates is as follows.  ‘Joe’ is a derivation of ‘Java’.   Java itself became a popular American nickname for coffee in the 19th Century when the island of Java in Indonesia was a major source of the world’s coffee.

Steve and I normally buy Douwe Egberts ground coffee and use a cafetiere.  Douwe Egberts (often abbreviated as DE) is a Dutch corporation that processes and trades coffee, tea, and other groceries. Its full name is Douwe Egberts Koninklijke Tabaksfabriek-Koffiebranderijen-Theehandel NV, which translates as “Douwe Egberts Royal Tobacco Factory – Coffee Roasters – Tea Traders, Plc.”.

Coffee was introduced to Europe from the Middle East via Italy in the 1600s.  The race among Europeans to make off with some live coffee trees or beans was eventually won by the Dutch in the late 17th century, when they allied with the natives of Kerala against the Portuguese and brought some live plants back from Malabar to Holland, where they were grown in greenhouses. The Dutch began growing coffee at their forts in Malabar, India, and in 1699 took some to Batavia in Java, in what is now Indonesia.

Within a few years the Dutch colonies (Java in Asia, Surinam in Americas) had become the main suppliers of coffee to Europe.  By 1780 Douwe Egberts started processing and trading coffee, tea, and tobacco.  So our new little coffee grinder has quite an illustrious provenance.

We cleaned it up (discarding the second hand coffee beans that came with it)

and installed it next to our tea and coffee corner.

To celebrate, I made Dutch apple cake to have with our first cups of freshly ground coffee.  This recipe is from Rachel Allen, who is apparently the blonde, Irish version of Nigella Lawson.

Dutch Apple Cake

• 2 eggs
• 175 g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 85 g butter
• 75 ml milk
• 125 g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
• 75 ml double cream, to serve

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Line the sides and base of a 20 x 20cm/8 x 8in  square cake tin with parchment paper.

2. Using an electric whisk, whisk the eggs, caster sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl until the mixture is thick and mousse-like and the whisk leaves a figure of eight pattern (this will take about 5 minutes).

3. Melt the butter in a saucepan with the milk, then pour onto the eggs, whisking all the time. Sift in the flour, cinnamon and baking powder and fold carefully into the batter so that there are no lumps of flour. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface.

4. Arrange the apple slices over the batter. (They will sink to the bottom.) Sprinkle over a tablespoon of sugar and bake in the oven for ten minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180C/350F and bake for a further 20–25 minutes or until well risen and golden brown.

5. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the tin. Cut into squares and serve warm with cream.

Heerlijk!

‘Joe’ is a derivation of ‘Java’. Java itself became a popular American nickname for coffee in the 19th Century when the island of Java in Indonesia was a major source of the world’s coffee.

Time After Time

Steve and I have just returned from Amsterdam, which is one of my favourite cities in the world.  I love the creative vibe in the air, all of the interesting shops and galleries, the wide variety of excellent options for eating – restaurants, takeaways, markets and most of all, that I can stand on a busy street and no two people passing by are wearing the same clothes.  There is so much individuality in Dutch style.

Steve and I went to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of the night we met (September 5th).  We love travelling and exploring together.  One of the things we did was pay a visit to the Prins Hendrik Hotel, where American singer and trumpeter Chet Baker died on May 13, 1988.

A plaque outside the hotel now memorializes him.

Chet Baker (1929-1988) was an idol during his early career in music. Good-looking, talented, he played trumpet mainly by ear and sang in a soft, attractive style. He won polls, travelled to Europe, made recordings, was in films, played with Charlie Parker, and featured briefly in the remarkable Gerry Mulligan Quartet, unique for its not have a piano in the band.

Baker developed a heroin habit in the 1950s, something that would plague him the rest of his life and cause him to spend time in prison. Some of his recordings are brilliant, while others are unfortunate, driven more by need than inspiration. There was a time when damage to his teeth limited Baker’s playing; he eventually had dentures made and slowly relearned his playing ability using an altered embouchere. By the mid 1980′s, Baker was in good form again.  Fans and critics alike agree that the live album Chet Baker in Tokyo, recorded less than a year before his death and released posthumously, ranks among Baker’s very best.

In May of 1988, Baker’s body was found on Prins Hendrikkade, near Zeedijk, on the street below his second-story room at the Prins Hendrik Hotel in Amsterdam. There were wounds to his head. Drugs were found in his room. There have been many stories about whether he fell, jumped or was pushed, but an autopsy revealed no evidence of a struggle, so his death was ruled an accident.

Chet Baker gave us some beautiful music, music that will endure.  Steve and I discovered his music about a year and a half ago, and put some of his recordings onto our wedding reception playlist.  I made this video from film that I recorded on Raamgracht, a canal near the old part of Amsterdam, set to one of my favourite Chet Baker covers Time After Time.

Chicken saté, frites and a Black Russian

You Are Here

A couple of our friends went to Mexico earlier this year.  Jenny is a visual artist and Simon is a photographer with a fantastic blog.  They sent us a pair of birthday cards made with photos Simon took in Mexico City.

I’ve been so busy with my recent quilt deadlines that I didn’t manage to get a birthday card off in time for the day, so to continue in a creative vein, but working in mixed media, I made a special belated birthday card for Simon.

I’m really interested in maps and layers.  I made a card with a map of Ravello, Italy (on the Amalfi Coast where Steve and I spent our honeymoon) and a some of my street photography.  I printed the map onto handmade paper and deckled the edges, then printed the photo onto acetate and riveted it to the card.

Here are a few more of my photos from Italy and a promise of more to come.

Vespa

Amalfi

Shoe shop, Capri

Bambino

Atrani cat

Sunny Southbank

We just returned from a long weekend in London.  Steve and I went to do some shopping for our trousseaux and I took some photos around the Southbank, where we were staying.  I adore this part of London.  The Thames was at our feet and the vibe is fantastic.  There is the Southbank Centre – the largest single-run arts centre in the world, the Globe Theatre, the Tate Modern museum, National Film Theatre (currently running a Paul Newman season – we saw The Sting) and lots of restaurants and cool shops.

I also love the architecture and got a chance to take some photos on our way to and from our hotel.

Southbank Centre and St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral and Millenium Bridge

Here’s one from Steve

Friday 23rd April is Shakespeare’s birthday and spectators enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine and some of the great wordslinger’s scenes being declaimed in this amphitheatre.

Tower Bridge

I always like to check out the graffiti outside the National Film Theatre where the skaters hang out . . . .

sk8er boiz

After the film, we were serenaded by a saxophone player beneath Jubilee Bridge.

Portrait of a Garden

One of the great things that Steve and I did on our trip to Kent this summer was visit Sissinghurst Castle Garden.  I first heard of Sissinghurst when I was living in Pasadena, California in the 80′s.  My next door neighbours, Chris and Armand had a pair of Airedale terriers named Windsor and Vita.  Vita was named after Vita Sackville-West, an English novelist and gardener.  I delved a bit at the time and learned about her unusual marriage to Harold Nicholson and the amazing garden they created together at their home, Sissinghurst.  I resolved then and there to visit one day.

Sissinghurst Castle was once a splendid mansion built for Sir Richard Baker in the mid-16th century. The moated Tudor house, set high on a ridge above the Vale of Kent, was one of the first buildings in England to be constructed of brick.

By 1800, however, the house was neglected and decayed. At this time the building was partially demolished leaving substantial fragments for use as barns, stables and cottages for labourers.

Over the next hundred years Sissinghurst slowly degenerated and would probably be a ruin today if it had not been rescued in 1930 by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson. The couple were both writers, she a poet and novelist and he an historian, biographer and diarist. They bought the romantic remains, repaired the brick structures and then gradually began to create a garden between the old walls and buildings.

Harold Nicolson planned the garden but it was Vita Sackville-West who devised the inspired planting schemes and carried out the work. She had an abhorrence of regimented rows of flowers and carefully grouped the plants according to colour, texture and season.

Harold and Vita, 1960

Sissinghurst is a sophisticated garden, with the plantings deliberately varied from one part to another. The gardens are laid out in ten distinct “rooms,” each with a different feel, built around the remnants of a once-grand Elizabethan manor house. The formal herb garden and paved lime walk contrasts with the unmown orchard; the cottage garden boasts a profusion of flowers in hot colours, while the white garden eliminates all colours but white and green. Harold’s taste leaned toward the classical, with its geometrical patterns and symmetrical arrangement of steps, paths, pots and statuary, while Vita preferred a more romantic approach. She filled the beds and enclosures he created with a profusion of plants that might spill onto or creep over the path – but the hedges were always neatly trimmed and plantings kept free of weeds with a mulch of spent hops.

The focal point of the garden is the four-storey Elizabethan prospect tower with its two octagonal turrets.

A spiral staircase leads to the top of the tower past the cluttered room where Vita Sackville-West wrote.  Ssssshhh!  A bit blurry because I wasn’t supposed to take a photo.  But how could I resist?

The view from the roof is one of the loveliest in southern England.  The gardens are truly amazing and at their most gorgeous in the summertime.

Sissinghurst Garden is owned and managed by the National Trust.  There was a medieval tournament set up on the outer lawn.

We spent a lovely afternoon on a perfect English summer’s day wandering around the grounds and through the garden ‘rooms’.  Carefully contrived vistas criss-cross the garden terminating at a statue, a poplar or a distant view of the Weald. On either side of the walks and vistas smaller gardens open unexpectedly.

The charm of the garden owes much to the Tudor buildings which provide a romantic backdrop to the planting.

Against the brick buildings roses and honeysuckle climb to the eaves.

There is a formal herb garden with its medicinal and aromatic plants.

Echinacea

The Cottage Garden retains its original colour scheme of sunset hues.

The White Garden is probably the most famous of Sissinghurst’s plantings.  Here all the blossoms, including lavender, old roses, clematis and a double primrose are white and much of the foliage is grey.

Oast Houses

Early this autumn I read ‘From Violet to Vita’ and reread ‘Portrait of a Marriage’.  I think I’ll save these books and my thoughts for a future post.