Becky Bakes…

Over the last few days we’ve had ripe tomatoes and two cucumbers…tomatoes fresh from the plant don’t last long though as they taste amazing warm and just picked. When we bought the greenhouse, the plan was that I’d be able to have a pot of freesias just inside the door – we’d share it. Well I can report that hasn’t happened 😉 My reason for requesting a pot was that an old friend, who we lost earlier this year, had a lovely pot which smelled wonderful when the door was opened. I can’t complain though, as we have peppers and salad leaves along with tomatoes of all colours and sizes, along with lots more cucumbers to come. It’s a lovely time of year, the leeks are doing well as are the beans. French beans are our favourite and already we’ve picked several handfuls. How does your garden grow? x

…the jasmine’s in bloom. It’s a song I love which speaks of July being dressed in a tune. Only this week there was a magical tune audible in our little High Street – it was coming from the “crocodiles” of children walking from the railway station to the beach, with cries of “I can see the sea !!” All the schools have now finished for the holidays and many parents are calling for the holiday to be shortened to four weeks. Now, it’s just my opinion, but I think six weeks is great, although the end of term should be brought forward to early July when the weather is better. Children need time to relax and do nothing. They need to make a tent , read a book, paddle, play with their friends and wonder what to do next (the word ‘bored’ has always been banned in our house) Getting messy in the kitchen is always a treat for little people and I appreciate that child care is an issue for many and that’s where grandparents can help. We made a new video this week which is waiting to be edited, but it’s perfect for little hands. It’s Little Lemon Curd tarts and is perfect for tiny helpers to get involved, so look out – it’s coming soon! 🙂

It’s been wall to wall coverage of Wimbledon for these two weeks so if you aren’t a fan, then it must have been a pain! For me, it’s been brilliant. I started to play at secondary school and even represented the school in a match against a prestigious Bedfordshire school. Did we win? Honestly I can’t remember, but I loved it. Later I watched the Dewar Cup tournament played in Nottingham with Nastase as a star competitor. A trip to Wimbledon centre court was a dream, but once was enough. So many people and such heat, which has been the situation this year. No wonder spectators have been taken ill, sitting in the extreme heat. It’s been great fun messaging friends who are watching the same match, though, sharing our thoughts about the grunts and groans of certain players as well as “ooh”s and “aah”s when a serve hits the spot or a rally of several shots creates excitement. Strawberries and cream in a cardboard box doesn’t appeal though 😉

Somewhere, at the back of a high cupboard, I have a book called “Listeria Hysteria”. It’s with “Panic Nation” and “You are what you eat”. Where are these books? I’m not sure. But Listeria is a dangerous bacteria causing Listeriosis and is particularly dangerous to pregnant women, young children and the elderly. Quite where elderly kicks in, I’m not sure so I’d rather say people over seventy whose resistance might be reduced. Listeria has been found in a number of foods but this time it’s blueberries and seems to be the ones grown in Georgia, USA. Blueberries are useful fruits as they have a mild flavour and are good eaten raw but equally good when put into muffins, as they pop and create pockets of juice. For now, though, I think we need to be watchful – look at the label and check where they were grown. Stay safe peeps xx

We’ve had such a busy week. Just now I realised that it’s so important to have those moments when nothing much is happening and even this afternoon I spent time with a friend just sorting through buttons. Why? you might ask… well my Macmillan group was given yet another jar of very old, stale fastenings. Not just buttons, but snap fasteners, and suspenders with hooks and eyes. We never know what we’ll find and many of them smell nasty, so today they were washed and rinsed, dried in the sunshine before we started sorting. Lots were thrown away – broken, damaged or plain dirty. But the action of trawling through them is quiet and relaxing – just what we needed after such a busy week. 😉

Goodness me, it’s hot. It’s a lot hotter in South Carolina though and we’re able to keep an eye on the temperature there as we have an old friend from Lexington staying with us. She’s become an intrepid traveller spending a week in Kent, visiting London, Whitstable and Canterbury before taking Eurostar to Paris – and now in sunny Felixstowe. So of course we took a trip to Norwich yesterday, lunching at Bread Source and wandering the cobbled streets. She missed out on macarons in Paris so we sampled a selection for dessert last night. Today the National Trust will entertain and inform us at Sutton Hoo. Catching up with her family news has been a joy – who knew a farm with horses and chickens/hens could have a vicious rooster?! He attacked so many people, old and young, that he was finally(summarily) dispatched. I’ll spare you the details, but could he have been plucked and eaten, or would he have been a tough old bird? We shall never know 😉

Looking back I’ve always been fascinated by food, whether “helping” my mother or Granny in the kitchen at an early age or being transfixed by Miss Hobby, my first Cookery teacher. She was of the jolly-hockeysticks brigade who had a very sensible way of teaching. She left the High School and Mrs.White arrived, with tales of her husband and his motor bike. Then we moved house and I met Mrs. Maltby and Miss Gatley who took an instant dislike to me and declared I’d never make any good of myself…So a variety of influences by the time I was eighteen. Fast forward to life today and the influencers now seem to upload videos to tik-tok, strangers, yet widely admired by the young people of today. Parents no longer seem to have any input, rather having become sidelined and declared old-fashioned. We have a wealth of experience to share and some wisdom too, so take a moment to consider who is the best person to ask. x

A couple of news items caught my attention this week. The first is the proposal to offer free school lunches to all children whose families receive Universal credit in England. That’s great as long as the quality of the food is taken into consideration when the costs are looked at. Let’s not go back to re-heated pizzas and Turkey Twizzlers! The second item is a bit more complicated. Essentially we’re being told that obesity should be blamed on the highly processed and refined foods that we’re all presented with. Apparently we can’t be bothered or don’t know how to make wise choices to cook with fresh ingredients. Bring in Henry Dimbleby – the champion of Cookery in schools. He rightly pointed out that many schools don’t offer Food Tech/Home Ec/Cookery in schools at all and they get away with that because OFSTED never look at those lessons. Absolutely true. I know this from experience. I’ve prepared for inspections just like all other subjects, yet never has an inspector crossed my threshold. I even invited one in, as he passed by, but he declined to come in. Bring back proper Cookery lessons so that consumers understand about their food – but train the teachers too! (That’s another story….) x

Not clouds, but cake tins. This week I caught sight of a celebrity chef taking a baked cheesecake out of its’ tin and the amount of crumpled paper hanging over the edge of the tin was not just untidy but an unnecessary waste. Lining a tin needs to be done accurately and may well involve the use of a pencil and a pair of scissors. It just isn’t clever to take a sheet of paper and ram it into the tin in a haphazard way. Lining a tin for Brownies this week I sat the tin on the sheet of greaseproof which was slightly bigger all round, then marked each corner with a small pencil stroke. Take the tin off the paper and fold the paper on the pencil marks making firm creases. Lift it and lay in the base of the tin, raising up the sides and putting extra creases in the corners to give a snug fit and create a paper tray. It’s worth doing a good job to get neat edges, but I have to confess to being a convert to ready-made liners for loaf tins 😉

We’ve just come back from Norwich – a place we like a lot and, of course, people we like a lot too. I had my picture taken with Paddington Bear and delivered cake to the Cathedral (Emmaus House to be precise), had lunch with a young friend and discovered mutual friends and colleagues with Canon Aiden, causing great amusement along the way. But it’s “that” day – the Friday before half term… no wonder there was so much traffic on the road as families set off for a few days away. In my last school it was Sports Day and one of my responsibilities was to make sure the staff’s thirst was kept at bay. They’d had early lunch so weren’t hungry, but a massive batch of scones was always appreciated as they consumed their refreshments. Now, of course there was tea and coffee, but we also had iced tea and another similar beverage of a similar colour which would be served from a ceramic jug as opposed to a glass jug. Are you with me? There were strawberries floating in both of them to help with the deception 😉 Sports day always went well…. Our house move coincided with it one year and so I had to find someone to cover for me so I could at least be home by lunchtime. Thankfully I found a willing volunteer and that year it rained – nobody wanted cold drinks, just coffee and tea, so the cold drinks stayed in the fridge! Phew 🙂