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.

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.

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.

Gawd,  I can be such a prima donna!  Or maybe I just think I come across like that sometimes.  Steve says I’m not as bad as I think I am and that he understands about wanting to get things just right.   I went on a three day Enneagram retreat (Spiritual Gifts and Antidotes) last week in which I learned, among many other things, that when I am feeling comfortable and secure, I move towards Type 1 (The Perfectionist) behaviour.  When I’m there, I not only ‘notice error and correct it’, but can get unbearably tight-assed about everything.  Blecch!  But, ya know?  The great thing about learning about this stuff is gaining Self awareness and having the choice to stay in the behaviour, or not.  But it kind of sucks being in this place of awareness and not being able to get out of the old behaviour or thought patterns right away.

I made my first New York style cheesecake last night.  We had a couple of friends over for lunch today, one of whom keeps talking about a Snicker’s Pie I made about 3 years ago, so I wanted to make a special dessert.

I have a great German springform pan and adapted a recipe from Closet Cooking, using Ginger Nuts and McVitie’s Digestive Biscuits in place of graham crackers for the crust.  Since I quadrupled the mini cheesecake recipe from the other blog, I wasn’t entirely sure about the cooking time.  It wasn’t until it had cooked about 10 minutes too long that I learned about turning the oven off just when the centre is set and leaving the cheesecake in the oven to cool.  So my cheesecake ended up with a crack on the top and I was really bent out of shape about it all morning.

Long story short, when our guests arrived I forgot all about the cheesecake, enjoyed being with everyone and after I’d brought dessert out and served it, Steve asked if they’d noticed the crack and they said ‘What crack?’.  I had to laugh at myself and thanked Steve for making the point.

Maple Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake

Preheat oven to 325°F/160°C

Crust

• ½ cup/50 grams Ginger Nut or ginger snap crumbs
• 1 ½ cups/150 grams digestive biscuit or graham cracker crumbs
• ¼ cup/60 grams soft brown sugar
• ¼ cup/60 ml maple syrup
• ¼ cup/60 grams melted butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg

Mix all of the above together and press into the bottom of a 9″ springform pan.

Filling

• 2 lbs/1 kg cream (Philadelphia) cheese (softened)
• 2 cups/450 grams pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs (slightly beaten)
• 1 cup/250 grams soft brown sugar
• ½ cup/ 120 mls maple syrup
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• ½ tsp ginger

Mix all of the above until smooth and pour into the prepared pan.  Bake for about an hour or until the centre is set, but still wobbly.  Turn the oven off and leave to cool with the oven door closed.

I’ve just read Thomas Merton’s Dark Path by William Shannon.  William Shannon takes Merton’s writings and life experiences to provide a field book for the apophatic spiritual path. The apophatic tradition begins with the premise that God or Truth can never be captured in language, and can therefore only be described by what it is not. Apophatic mysticism is found within all of the religious traditions and seeks a direct experience of the divine reality, beyond the realm of our ordinary minds or senses. This divine union is the goal of all seekers, and is the only solution to the riddle of life and death. Nothing else we can say, do, think, or become will satisfy the need we feel so desperately to know that “all shall be well” and that our doubts, fears, and perceived inadequacies are all, in the end, unfounded.

This book gives an overview of Merton’s major writings on contemplative prayer.  I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but was captured by the chapters on The Inner Experience, a book which in part compares the contemplative to the existentialist.  As Merton was a ‘rip roaring Trappist’, his path and views are invariably rooted in Christianity.  Yet I was able to strip away the religious references and find much food for thought rooted in his writings and thoughts on contemplation, views on the darkness and his ‘discovery’ of Zen Bhuddism and Eastern mysticism.  Ironically though, and as Merton himself wrote (here I paraphrase) one doesn’t learn about contemplation by reading about it, but by direct experience of it.  But one who has been there can have an ‘Aha’ experience when reading that which is so difficult to put into words and at which Merton is so eloquent.

“The darkness becomes an atmosphere of breathless clarity, in which we find peace and the deep night becomes the brightness of the noonday sun in which we find the one our heart desires.”     – Thomas Merton

According to the apophatic way, in order to engage the spiritual source with the most intense intimacy, at the moment of union the mystic suspends all beliefs and disbeliefs. Taking an empty mind and an open heart, she steps over the mystical threshold and crosses into the realm of the unimaginable. This crossing into the state of complete surrender is the way of the apophatic mystic.

Once again, I am beckoned into the darkness.  I am coming to know it as a friend and willingly heed its summons.  I can look back on a time when I was literally dragged very reluctantly, heels dug in, into a dark night, but somehow stayed in it and came out the other side much richer for the experience.  It is so tempting for the uninitiated to try and avoid a dark night at all costs or to cling on to the first piece of flotsam drifting past just to make it end sooner!  But the price that we pay for avoidance is not finding the treasures in our depths.  A dark night is the subject of one of my next fibre art pieces.  I wrote a poem just when I was coming out of it and will use screen printing to put it into the piece.

Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire

C. R. W. Nevinson, A Bursting Shell, 1915

from ‘Salutation’

“And see the confluence of our dreams
That clashed together in our night,
One river born of many streams
Roll in one blaze of blinding light.”

George William Russell, 1917

One of the best things about being with Steve is that we both love to do wonderful things together and we really appreciate them.  The planning and anticipation can almost be as fulfilling as the doing, and we love to remember and talk about the experience afterwards. So it’s like we get to do something three times instead of just once.

Today, Steve and I went to Gidleigh Park for afternoon tea.  Gidleigh Park is a luxury country house hotel located on Dartmoor near the village of Chagford.  It’s a mile drive up a single track road so we really felt like we were getting away from everything.  We saw a heron fishing and two pairs of deer en route.

Gidleigh Park

On our arrival, we were greeted and as we were early (afternoon tea is served at 4pm) we went for a walk around the grounds to build up our appetite.   The surrounding area is wild Dartmoor at it’s best – mature woodlands with the very same River Teign that I cycle along on my way to work running through it.

Once we arrived back at the hotel, we were shown into the beautiful oak panelled library and settled in next to the fire.   In keeping with the period of the building, there are architectural and design influences from the Arts and Crafts Movement and the décor is understated, British elegance.  Owners Andrew and Christina Brownsword also run ABode Hotels, where Steve and I had our cheap date a few weeks back.  Once again the service was excellent and BTW Gidleigh Park has been named England’s Hotel of the Year. Gidleigh Park is renowned for its food and has earned two Michelin stars.  Definitely somewhere we plan to return to for a special meal sometime.

In the library

We ordered the High Tea with smoked salmon, ham, chicken and egg & cress sandwiches (crusts removed, of course);  lemon, chocolate and carrot cake, an exquisite fruit tart; scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream and four types of cookies.  I chose Gidleigh Park blend tea, which was a mix of English Breakfast and Earl Grey and Steve had a cafetiere of very good coffee.

Afterwards, we were left to relax in front of the fire and stayed until night had fallen.  The drive home was lovely with the nearly full moon lighting our way.

A proper cup of tea

]]> http://melindaschwakhofer.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/tea-for-two/feed/ 5 Inspirationist Gidleigh1 Gidleigh3_1 Gidleigh2_1 Gidleigh4_1 gidleigh5_2 gidleigh6_2 Gidleigh6_1 Gidleigh7_1 http://melindaschwakhofer.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/a-brunch-by-any-other-name/ http://melindaschwakhofer.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/a-brunch-by-any-other-name/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:11:06 +0000 Melinda http://melindaschwakhofer.wordpress.com/?p=4443 ]]>

Brunch \ˈbrənch\ n [breakfast + lunch] (1896) : a meal usually taken late in the morning that combines a late breakfast and an early lunch.  The French try to avoid English terms being introduced into their language so they call it le grand petit déjeuner translated as the “big breakfast”.  Austrians start their day with a light meal followed by mid-morning Gabelfrühstück meaning “fork breakfast”.  From the Netherlands we have zondagsontbijt or “Sunday breakfast”.  When I was in college, my German friend Sigrid used to give me not one but two breakfasts!  Zweites Frühstück or second breakfast is still served throughout Germany most notably in Bavaria (there also called brotzeit, literally “bread time”).

In the immortal words of the great bard himself (sort of):

“What’s in a name? That which we call a brunch
By any other name would still be good to eat”

Obviously, the word brunch is a marriage between breakfast and lunch, but why not leakfest?. Actually I just googled it and got a plethora of links to a huge variety of websites, blogs and forums including security/media leaks (obviously), vintage amplifiers, coolant/oil leaks in car engines, but nothing at all about food or a regatta gone horribly wrong.

Steve works from home and I go out to work three days a week, so we have the opportunity to begin four days a week with brunch.  This morning, I got up and put the pureed pumpkin I made on Sunday night into Zip-loc freezer bags, a really good storage idea I got from Pioneer Woman.  I measured it into 2-cup portions, handy for the recipes I plan to cook with it, and they stack very neatly away in the freezer.

Speaking of pumpkin puree recipes, this morning I am making Pumpkin Pie French Toast from Kevin at Closet Cooking, one of my favourite food blogs. I slightly modified the recipe with my ideal proportion of eggs to liquid, which is 1 egg to 1/3 cup liquid, increased the amount of vanilla extract and substituted crystallized ginger for ground ginger.

Pumpkin Pie French Toast

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/3 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 teaspoon Bourbon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon finely chopped crystallized ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 8 slices of bread
• Butter for cooking
• Maple cured bacon
• Maple syrup

Mix everything in a shallow dish.  Soak the bread into the egg mixture on both sides until it absorbs the liquid.   Saute in a pan until lightly golden brown, about 2-3 minute per side.  Serve with maple syrup and bacon and coffee.

Worth sleeping in for!

I practice a policy of gastronomic laissez-faire and say “Live and let live, but if you hunger for a critter, try to get one that has been raised and killed humanely”.  If possible get it from the source and don’t waste any part of it.  Thank it’s soul for giving itself so that I may eat, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.

I was once very irritated by a smug, holier-than-thou vegetarian who said, “I don’t eat anything that has a face” and I know of certain carnivores (who shall remain nameless) who won’t eat an animal which has a name, eg Bossy the Cow or Chicken Little.  Well, even my vegetables have names and faces.  Enter Sam and Petunia, our Jack-o’-Lanterns.  They both have both names and faces and are both going to be eaten.

Sam & Petunia

Sourced from Michael Howard’s deli, just across the street from us; all of their meat and vegetables can be traced to the farm it came from.

Sam and Petunia had a happy, free range life in their pumpkin patch  .  .  .  .  .

and fulfilled their duty as Jack-o’-Lanterns, sitting at the top of our stairs and welcoming our dinner party guests.

I started with the offal and made toasted pumpkin seeds for hors d’oeuvre at our Samhain Feast on Saturday.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

• Pumpkin seeds
• Olive oil
• Sea salt
• Soy sauce and chili powder, or freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to about 350° F/180°C.   Toss the seeds with olive oil and salt.  Sprinkle with either soy sauce and chili powder or toss with Parmesan cheese.  Spread on a cookie sheet and roast for about a half hour, tossing about every 1o minutes.

Tonight I made pureed pumpkin which I’ll freeze and use for soup. pumpkin cheesecake and our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.  Sorry Linus!

“Yuck” my colleague Ann, who gardens, said when I told her what I intended to do with the green tomatoes she brought me.  In the UK, people make chutney from the early autumn green tomatoes that never get around to ripening.   But I’m a Southern girl at heart and know about Fried Green Tomatoes.  Even though I grew up in Southern California, my parents were from the South – my Mom, Nell Rose, hailed from North Carolina and my dad, Frank, was an Okie from Muscogee.

Before

After

Steve and I are hosting a Samhain (pronounced SOW-in) feast on Saturday night.  Samhain is a festival held at the end of the harvest season in Gaelic cultures. Principally a harvest festival, it also has aspects of a festival of the dead and is a time to honour the ancestors.  We’re cooking a huge pot of cassoulet as the centrepiece of the meal and we’ve asked each of our guests to make and bring a dish that some of their ancestors would have eaten.   My contribution will be fried green tomatoes and okra.  More on the whole Samhain thing in another post, now let’s have something to eat!

Fried Green Tomatoes

• One or two medium green tomatoes per person
• Salt and pepper
• Cornmeal or polenta
• Bacon drippings, sunflower oil or sunflower oil that streaky bacon has been cooked in

Slice the tomatoes about ¼-inch thick, season with salt and pepper and then coat both sides in cornmeal.  In a large skillet, heat enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan and fry tomatoes until lightly browned on both sides.

Steve says, ‘Surprisingly, tasty!”

When I made these the other night, I fried up some boneless chicken fillets, Southern style, made a pan of buttermilk biscuits and boiled some green beans for a Southern meal.

Last night I made BFGT sandwiches for dinner.

BFGT Sandwich

• Three slices of streaky bacon
• Three slices of fried green tomato
• Welsh Rabbit cheese sauce or Mature cheddar cheese
• Ciabatta
• Butter
• Jalapeño peppers

Cook and drain the bacon slices.  Fry the tomatoes in the fat.  Split the ciabatta lengthwise and toast under a grill  Butter it and spread with cheese sauce or thin slices of cheddar.  Grill until brown and bubbly.  To assemble the BFGT, layer bacon and fried tomatoes on one half of the bread, add a few sliced jalapeño peppers and top with the other slice.

Pretty dang good!

Wow, this is an awesome song and music video I encountered for the first time a week ago.

Crazy is is the first single from Gnarls Barkley, a musical collaboration between Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo, and is taken from their 2006 debut album St. Elsewhere.  It’s a great song.  Going along with the psychiatric theme of the song, Gnarls Barkley’s music video for “Crazy” is done in the style of the Rorschach inkblot test. Animated, mirrored inkblots morph into another, while taking on ambiguous shapes.  The inkblot illustrations were done by art director and motion graphic designer  Bryan Louie.

Crazy

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place.
Even your emotions had an echo
In so much space

And when you’re out there
Without care,
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn’t because I didn’t know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly

And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that’s my only advice

Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are,
Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you’re in control

Well, I think you’re crazy
I think you’re crazy
I think you’re crazy
Just like me

My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them
Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it’s no coincidence I’ve come
And I can die when I’m done

Maybe I’m crazy
Maybe you’re crazy
Maybe we’re crazy
Probably