Degrees of Separation

Much has been made of “degrees of separation” – that moment when you realise that the stranger you are talking to at a function is actually your aunt’s second cousin on your mother’s side. This sets you on a road of familial discovery which, if you are lucky, is a blessing, and if you’re not, may just be plain embarrassing.
Here is my “degrees of separation” story. I find I may have made an immense discovery in the last few weeks, which isn’t covered in the history books of Iron Age and Roman Britain. It concerns the Macaroon (or Macaron, as the French would have it).
During the Iron Age, many areas of Britain were settled by Celtic tribes, one of them in the region I hail from. This particular tribe were from the area of France on the Seine where Notre Dame Cathedral is now standing. This tribe reputedly founded the town I was born in.
Fast forward to my Grandma Alice. As a child I was a great fan of my Grandma’s baking. One thing she was a bit of a whizz at was macaroons. Not the fluffy almond sandwich type you find in every arrondissement bakery in Paris, but the type which was a like a mini tart, pastry on the bottom, filled with jam and then topped with the “gooey on the inside, crunchy on the outside” almond topping – the Macaroon.
Macaron in France are the Piece de Resistance of every high end Bakery. They come in hand made boxes with organza ribbons and you take out a second mortgage to buy them. They are quintessentially, elegantly French. Or are they?
Here’s my theory. The Parisi tribe of E. Yorkshire, who founded the settlement which was to become Eboracum (York) under the Roman legions, invented the Macaroon. When the Romans left, the recipe left with them, but the Army cooks couldn’t be bothered with the pastry part, but kept baking the almond topping. I mean, let’s face it, would a retreating army bother with packing its rolling pins? They had to march light.
Hence the fluffy lightweight, oh so elegant Macaron is actually not a French confection at all, but invented in Yorkshire by my Parisi ancestors.

Bee Lore

Today I had one of those “aha moments”. I was chatting with a good friend who has introduced me to bee keeping. It has been a bumper season and we will be extracting the honey from the comb in two weeks.
We were just having a leisurely chat amongst the hives. The bees are at that “grumpy” end of the season when they know that winter is approaching (hmm, I know that feeling). My friend turned to me and said, “Do you have any idea how tidy and clean bees are?” This was obviously a “Bee-keeper 101” question. I shook my head. He went on to explain. His bees had been so busy recently, that they were running out of room for the honey, so he dug out an old comb from storage in his garage. He told me it was in terrible state. The comb was cracked, and dusty; in real estate terms, a real “doer upper”.
Several days later he was checking on the introduced comb and couldn’t believe his eyes. The bees had repaired the comb, thrown out the cobwebs, dusted, cleaned and it was as good as new and gleaming with honey. The ladies had done the spring cleaning and were filling the pantry for the long winter.
So my new theory is that is why bees are grumpy at this time of year – too much extra housework!

Sun sink into the sea and vanish from my world

Sunday perambulation

A stroll along the bay on a dreamy Sunday.

The Postboxes around the bay

Jane / Julia

I just started to read the book “Julie/Julia”, on which the very successful film with Meryl Streep is based. I have had a number of girlfriends tell me that I MUST see the film. One young friend, in her 20’s told me that I reminded her very much of Julia Child and that she’d chuckled at the similarities.
I still haven’t got around to seeing the film, but I have already learned from the book that Julia was 6’2” (I’m also tall, but not QUITE that statuesque), worked for a division of the secret service (ahem, I also aspired to that kind of work post graduation), and didn’t know a bull’s derriere from its elbow when she first started to write her book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.
I suspect that the similarities end there. I’ve never lived in Paris (dare I say, I don’t particularly like the place) and did not teach an entire nation to cook.
What started me on this? Well, I have wandered down yet another memory trail this evening. It involves another cook book, known and beloved to anyone who was raised in Britain in the 1950s or 1960s; The Be-Ro Book. Be-Ro is a brand of flour (a bit like Edmonds in New Zealand). The book contains basics like pancakes, Victoria Sponge, Rock Buns and Melting Moments. The exotic Cream Horns and Choux pastry come later in the book, when you’ve got a few dozen cheese scones and Maids of Honour under your belt.
My Be-Ro book is the Centenary Edition that I purchased in 1980, just before heading off to University. It is dog eared, and marked with imprints left from fingers that had just rolled out marzipan or nipped together short crust pastry. As I flipped pancakes this evening, I have been thinking it would be fun to relive my childhood and student years by baking my way through the Be-Ro’s floury pages. I could impress visitors with my Marmalade slice and Madeleines, and sink the odd battleship with a steak and kidney pud.


Not quite in the league of Julie/Julia, more Jane dreaming of Delia.

The silver of Yemen

I have had a weekend indulging very happy memories with three visitors from my time in the Arabian Gulf. One was my former boss and longtime friend. The other two guests a fantastic couple that were friends, confidantes and the “guardians of my sanity” during my years in the desert. This morning, I cried when they left – thankfully they didn’t see me.
Later in the afternoon my husband and I took advantage of the good weather and had a wander in town. I dragged him into a new shop in the waterfront, which to my surprise was filled with jewellery from Israel. I had fun trying on the silver rings and giving a short lesson in the history of Jewish silversmiths to the young shop assistant. My day had came full circle; I had learned these snippets of jewellery history in Yemen, meandering through the labyrinth that is the Old City of Sana’a. The unique designs belonged to dynasties of silversmiths, each craftsman known by his particular pattern. When the Jews left Yemen, they took their craft with them to Israel, where the marks of Beit Badihi (“The House of Badihi”) and Beit Bawsani, now adorn the fingers of trendy sabra girls in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
And just for fun, here is a picture of me 11 years ago, adorned with wedding jewellery made by some of the old Yemenite silversmiths.