Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Rest in Pieces

Today

Last night I watched. mesmerised, as a heavy item fell from the worktop and smashed straight onto my mixing bowl which I'd just placed in the dishwasher. I bewailed this fact on Facebook and Beatrice demanded a blog.

In My Day

Any family that does serious cookery will have a large mixing bowl. Mamma used to have a ceramic one which was beige on the outside and white inside. Although. bizarrely, she used to tip pastry ingredients straight onto a wooden baking board and mix them there, the mixing bowl was used for everything else.

I can't remember when I bought mine, which was Pyrex; at least forty years ago, I think. The inside of the bowl had myriad marks where spoons and mixers had scraped the sides. It has spent long hours sitting in airing cupboards, holding bread dough as it rose overnight. Cakes and pastry have been mixed therein. Eggs have been whisked and cream whipped, nut and cottage cheese loaves have received the final stirrings. 

Apples have been pushed through sieves into it to make apfelmus. And I couldn't make my famous spinach roulade without this bowl. 

Many a Shrove Tuesday has been celebrated by making pancake mixture in the bowl from which I would dip cupfuls to pour straight into the frying pan.

Children have excitedly given the Christmas pudding a stir and made a wish, or have happily dipped their hands into flour and butter to make scones. And, of course, they were always allowed to "lick the bowl" after cake mixture had gone in the oven.

The bowl also did service at parties to hold industrial sized quantities of potato salad.

Becky asked me if it was the one that Paul once used disastrously to make instant whip. No, that was using a smoked glass fruit bowl that had been Mamma's. Bored with the prospect of whisking by hand, he decided that the best tool was his power drill. Somehow he attached my rotary whisk to the machine and got going. I went into the kitchen to find out what the noise was to see Instant Whip and shards of glass flying everywhere. We dumped the bowl, together with its splinter-filled mixture and went without Instant Whip that night.

I shall have to buy another one today, Pyrex again, I think. Pyrex is guaranteed for 10 years against the effects of heat, but when broken it smashes into an unbelievably large number of pieces that spread a long way, rivalling the experience with the drill.

I hope that this one will last long enough to be passed down to my grandchildren.


Tuesday, August 09, 2016

First Edition

Today

I popped over to my neighbour's house this morning to collect my keys, following her doing a spot of cat-sitting. The inevitable tea was offered and, as we chatted, she showed me a book she's been asked to sell for someone else. "It's the most valuable book I've ever handled", she said and showed me the most beautifully bound book of Audubon plates. "I love Audubon", I enthused "and I have a book of his pictures, but nothing like this".

In My Day

When I was in the sixth form at Selhurst Grammar School for Girls, one of my subjects was English Literature. We were studying "Mansfield Park" and we were expected to do a little reading around it. We read Northanger Abbey" alongside it. One of the English Teachers, who had a flat in South Croydon, invited some of us over to her place one Saturday morning. Over coffee and biscuits she showed us her collection of first editions: "The Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole, "The Mysteries of Udolpho" by Ann Radcliffe and "Evelina" by Fanny Burney are among the ones I recall seeing. We tenderly touched the pages and marvelled at the beautiful binding and engravings. We feared they might turn to dust.

Imagine our amazement when she told us to take any that we fancied to borrow! What an honour! I remember taking home "Evelina" and enjoying the humour very much as well as the beautiful engravings. Later I read "The Castle of Otranto" about which I remember little. I think we went back again a couple of times to talk about what we had learned and also to return the books.

It was one of those moments that make education seem such a precious thing.