The Good Life - Harvest on the 25th July

After a long week working and attending my parents' birthday parties on Thursday and Friday, I was looking forward to Saturday but in an unplanned and spontaneous way. Lets face it, I was too tired to plan and just wanted to get out and breath in the fresh air. These were the instant thoughts occurring to me as I woke early, but immediately declined the opportunity to leave the bed as crawling and struggling were a little beyond my abilities. Eventually at 8 a.m. I swung my feet out from under the duvet and wandered like an uncoordrinated crippled crustacean across the room. Making it past the door and into the kitchen where a pot of coffee was prepped we found our milk had set over night and the kettle was boiled to thin the coffee, making it a less lethal dose. During the week I had been collecting blackcurrants in the late evening and by midnight most nights a few more jars of jam had made it into the safety of my store. Toast was buttered and decorated with a thick layer of blackcurrant jam whereupon I was ready for to take on the world again aided by the bright morning sunshine.


We headed down to the allotment intending to stay for half an hour but stayed for three. Having pulled at a few pea plants it was decided to clear the entire bed and prepare it to transplant some lettuce and fennel. Corrine does not like slugs and at times I could hear her muttering softly in a French/Dublin accent while stabbing her trowl into the ground "You guys have got to go or I will kill you". I pretended to pay no attention but it was amusing and I suppose slugs do bring the worst out in you!

First Brown Birch Bolet of the Season

We made our way to the birch forests and were quite surprised to find a few bolet mushrooms. They were ten to fourteen days old and I was quite interested to see them fruiting in mid July because we would normally be collecting them in September. My information from Poland told me they had arrived there some weeks agol. Over night, having given the issue due consideration I decided to do a little more foraging and visit a few spots which always seemed to produce good specimens. I was not disappointed. A dozen good sized mushrooms were located however they were past their best and cooking them was out of the question because they had become spongy and contaminated by our old friends the slugs and maggots.

The first crop of Brown Birch Bolet

Back in the apartment we were preparing meals for the week ahead and cooking Sunday dinner but also trying to make the place look somewhat presentable. Trays of potatoes should not be in the hallway but they are. My jam making efforts had left a large impact on the sink and this unfortunately had to be dealt with; a further kilo of blackcurrants were languishing in the fridge requiring attention and eventually I gathered the enthusiasm to stand over them in the pot for forty minutes to jam them.

I was feeling quite lazy by Sunday afternoon and required a simple quick and tasty pudding for desert to keep everybody happy. I decided to consult my book of post war cookery, namely the "The Penguin Cookery Book" by Bee Nilson published in 1952. Its a small tome which lacks the synthetic colour which Fanny Craddock brough to cooking in the resurgent 1970s but it contains over 850 recipes from the little known "Ragout of Turnip" to the even less celebrated "Boiled Finnan Haddock". Recipe 773 "Bread Custard" is what one might use in a base for Queen of Puddings (a.k.a. Queen's Pudding and I thought it would go well with vanilla ice cream and a spoon of blackcurrant jam which were all to hand.

To make Bread Custard you will require the following: 4 oz bread crumbs, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons of sugar, half teaspoon of vanilla essence, 1 pint of milk, a pinch of salt and butter to grease the bowl. I blended a stale baguette for bread crumbs and heated the milk in the microwave (about all it is good for), then beat the sugar, egg and vanilla together. I poured the milk into the egg mixture and whisked to blend well. At this point I departed from the recipe and threw a handful of sultanas into the warmed milk and egg mix and left it to stand for a few minutes before pouring it over the breadcrumbs. Thereafter it was placed into the oven at 180 degrees Celsius and cooked for about three quarters of an hour.

The vanilla ice cream and blackcurrant jam worked a treat. You may not get this bin end delight in the top restaurants but it was everything a desert should be. The visiting dog had little to savour from the plates before they were cast on the mountainous pile that had grown up in the sink over the afternoon.