Year round Nigel Slater discussion thread Part 2

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Hello, all and welcome to this lovely space for our continued chats.

A bit of background for anyone not familiar with this topic:

The Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles readalong usually takes place here between November and February each year (the Christmas Chronicles being a book written by Nigel Slater full of winter recipes and anecdotes) It's been running for a few years, and the contributors have collectively decided it would be nice to have it running all year round.

So here it is. It is a place to appreciate all things Nigel-esque. Think seasonal food and recipes, enjoyment of nature, gardening, appreciation of the weather, and sharing of news and small moments of joy. It's a calm, cosy space for gentle chat and merriment so pull up a deckchair, grab a drink and relax.

A very hearty welcome to friends new and old!

@EndlesslyDecluttering , @Bimblesalong and I both live a couple of miles outside Chester (although in different directions!) Hope you enjoyed our pretty city

It was very blowy here last night and I could hear something banging away on and off which seemed to go on for most of the night. Not a clue as to what or where it is. Beyond a dog walk, we will not be venturing far today. It is however nice and bright with plenty of blue sky (at least at the moment).

I have a list of varying things I want to do as part of winter/christmas prep (all fairly mundane), so may get on and tackle some of that today.

Unexpected duvet day here today as DD has come down with tonsillitis. I knew she was exhausted after our Scarecrow Festival so had a feeling she was coming down with somwthing. She's done well as she's not really been poorly since Easter which is amazing for her considering her Autoimmune conditions and past tendency to come down with something once a month!

I have a couple of quick honey deliveries to do, then I think I may also get on with some Christmas planning and tidying. DD also wants my Christmas list from me. Must use up the final, final tomatoes. Thinking of some sort of puff pastry tart and some more tomato butter sauce. (Never comes in wrong)

Hope you enjoy Paris @Bimblesalong I seem to remember @LillianGishtelling us that the weather was glorious there in mid to late September last year, too.

We will be reading a few chapters of A Christmas Carol later today as DD wants to keep up with her English class while she's off, then I think we will also be finishing the last part of Wednesday by candlelight.

@Bimblesalong @SheherazadesSpringNonsense we did indeed, although it was a bit wet. We wanted a relaxed week so we stayed in a holiday lodge with a woodburner and hot tub, had lazy mornings in the hot tub, a few hours out and about then a pub meal and back to the hot tub and woodburner. One day in Chester, one along the North Wales coast and one visiting a friend near Manchester. I haven't been to Cheshire much before (once years ago to the Staffordshire end) but was struck by all the pretty towns and villages. We normally whizz through on the M6.

@RainbowZebraWarrior I hope DD isn't too ill or for too long poor thing.

Well remembered @RainbowZebraWarrior - though in fact it was quite chilly last week, so much so that I cosied inside making chutney and picked up these acorn lights (shown here with Normandy walnuts!). The weekend was particularly damp and drab, but the forecast is for 29 degrees on Friday (DH’s birthday!) - so I will be back in my summer frocks.

Hope you’re DD gets better soon @RainbowZebraWarrior

it is blowing a right hoolie here in Cornwall. One of those days when you want to just get cosy at him after work and not go to choir in a church in the middle of nowehere. But have been for a while so will be nice to catch up with everyone

Chester looks lovely @EndlesslyDecluttering

RainbowZebraWarrior; How about this? https://www.thekitchn.com/end-of-summer-recipe-three-che-154226

Love reading this thread. Well 3 loads of washing hung out in the wind and dried in record time. Didn't lose anything thankfully 😁

Going to re listen to the Christmas chronicles this week and make a start on my Christmas shopping tomorrow 😃👍

May I join?
Neighbour gave me tons of plums so did Nigel’s sugar plum récipé today.
i think I took the sérum too far but will see!

Syrup

Just back from late appointment at docs with DD. Antibiotics duly administered. Hopefully they kick in soon.

@LillianGish your chutney looks lovely and your acorn lights (and Normandy walnuts) are divine ❤️ I love walnuts and toyed with the idea of planting a walnut tree this year, but I've ran out of room due to my fruit tree obsession. In the early 90s a friend of mine relocated to Italy and inherited a farmhouse with a large (orchard?) of Walnut trees. She had the place valued not long after moving there and the Italian estate agent said the farmhouse was quite something, but that the walnut trees were 'priceless' in his opinion.

Boring RZW anecdote incoming (thinking of nut trees): when I travelled round Aus and NZ in 2006, I did a home stay on a Macadamia farm just outside Auckland. One of my first jobs was to count the trees as they'd had a bad winter storm-wise just before I arrived in the Spring. I still remember counting the rows and checking for damage, and the overall number being 1298. My second job there was to tie rat traps to the branches. Hard work, but an absolutely brilliant experience, and I had my own little cottage among the macadamia trees.

A very hearty welcome to you @Words and I hope the recipe has turned out well in the end. I never know what to do with plums as we always have too many and I just give up with them at the end due to other competing gluts.

@AutumnLover1989 you've reminded me that I never did my mid-year listen to the CC this year, and I rather miss Nigel's voice. A friend of ours has recently started a podcast (it's about Pokemon) so I started that yesterday, but it's not quite the same as Nigel's dulcet tones. I swear Nigel has ruined my enjoyment of Audible in a way as I get bored very bored with other offerings.

@sueelleker now that looks like a recipe I'd enjoy. I still have about 5 kilos of tomatoes to use up, so that is definitely next on my list!

@Confusedmeanderings blowing a hoolie here, too. My dahlias have taken a right battering, so I ran out in between showers earlier to cut the ones who's stems were broken. I now have them scattered around the house in various receptacles. This one being my most prized. (Ignore the plastic water bottle masquerading as a vase)

Just a thought for those of you in the Cheshire area, I'm always looking at what other beekeepers are doing and I happened upon Mayflower Apiaries online. I bought some of their beeswax and honey handcream which is more like a balm. I can't believe they sell it for only £4 for a 100ml tub. It's lovely and I use it on arms and elbows as well as my hands. They also sell their honey at a really good price. I'm not affiliated in any way, just happened upon them like I say by buying a gift set on Vinted. Here's a link to their website.

https://www.mayflowerapiaries.co.uk/shop-1

Some pics of said cream... I'm just slathering it on my dry legs now and trying to fathom from the ingredients if I can make it myself.

Any idea of where to look welcome. I like doing cross-stitch however I can’t follow a traditional black and white pattern. So I’m after a good quality cross stitch with the pattern printed on the fabric. All the ones I come across are kids my first cross stitch type things or cheap Chinese ones where the quantity surveying of the amount of thread needed is much to be desired. Hard to look at online because it’s never immediately obvious that the pattern has been printed on the fabric

@Bimblesalong and @SheherazadesSpringNonsense I absolutely have to tell you about our weekend spent in Chester many years ago. It was in the days before the internet was ubiquitous and what you used to find a place to stay when you went away was a listings guide to bed and breakfasts in book form. No reviews to read or photos to look at. We found a B and B in the book that was very close to the centre of Chester and duly booked it. When we arrived the hosts did seem a bit surprised by our appearance and did question whether we were staying the whole night. They also seemed surprised when we asked what time breakfast was. We didn't think anything of it however. At least not until we got to the room. It was clean, but a bit Spartan and the decor was a bit lurid. It was when I was perusing the price list on the back of the bedroom door and wondering why anybody would want to rent a room for an hour or so, that the penny dropped. Yup, we were staying in a brothel! By this time it was so late we couldn't look for somewhere else to stay, but we were out of there pretty promptly in the morning! That wasn't the end of our adventures though. The following night we went to an Italian restaurant that had been recommended to us. The waiter who showed us to our table told us apologetically that there were two separate largish groups in that night and he hoped we wouldn't be inconvenienced. Well the first group turned out to be a choir, and the more alcohol they had, the more they sang. And they were jolly good - we thoroughly enjoyed the musical accompaniment to our meal! The second group turned out to be a hen party. As the night went on, they got increasingly merry. Someone from the party sent us a couple of drinks to apologise for the racket they were making. Someone else called out "Don't drink them by yourselves, come and join us!" So we did! Absolutely no idea who they were, but we had a brilliant time. It turned out to be one of the best nights ever!

I've been looking into this too as I'm now struggling to follow the traditional black and white patterns so have been making it up as I go along

I've found this which is rather garish, but has good reviews and if you look through the photos on the reviews it's clear that it's printed onto the aida. I'm contemplating buying one to try, but I'm going to have a bit more of a search online first so if I come up with anything else I'll let you know.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/cukol-Embroidery-Beginners-Crossstitch-Needlepoint/dp/B0CBWYYQV8/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?adgrpid=159860719166&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._ZL0gpvnw5wTg8YM_aIdV3T1b4WFll_WPxfV7xODZpCCqBgkP-K8u7p4GM3whkv_5G9LQzPGIxyVfxH0qmptgvRF96iHxCYP1ydmEjiGZjUssfYNArqjhX52GMJrjLmnWEwE20BwP9bXCvrT-3otRlbyOdJaa-RXtVsZS6rqnFxeSaBApjLXrT2xZlaF3o4qOCY7Q46gAO9xejmQFapkug.34oQCOIxlW25uqRSAEgHDgwBiYoDoTVvrVdrVJO4RHo&dib_tag=se&gad_source=1&hvadid=772493535248&hvdev=m&hvexpln=70&hvlocphy=1006948&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=7566625770580768865--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=7566625770580768865&hvtargid=kwd-2189061986286&hydadcr=26163_2895691&keywords=printed%2Bcross-stitch%2Bkits&mcid=2227721412c837fc8e0e0b708560a197&qid=1758093686&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm&psc=1&th=1

@CrushingOnRubies there's also this one which is less garish and there's a video review showing the printed aida. Highland cows seem very popular at the moment!

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BYJ5N6B8/ref=sspa_mw_detail_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9kZXRhaWw&aref=8eO3VGTm0s&sp_cr=ZAZ#averageCustomerReviewsAnchor

@CrushingOnRubies In the past I have done Ehrman wool tapestries, which are printed canvas. I appreciate it’s a step different from cross stitch (which I can’t do as I can’t keep up with the counting!).

@Confusedmeanderings that is blooming brilliant. I hanker for pre internet times, sometimes, although much prefer to book accom from a reviewed site rather than the books we used to carry round with us!

@RainbowZebraWarrior I hope dd is on the mend. That product looks lovely! Your comment on audiobooks has prompted me to listen to Nigel reading ATF whilst I’m travelling. Ta!

@Confusedmeanderings that's a brilliant story!

I need to forage for elderberries today but it's raining and DD is still off school. I will never forgive my neighbour for cutting down the large elder that overhung into my garden therfore I considered it mine it was very handy!

I've also decided to 'tidy up' my honey as in the jars I get left with after we've finished a batch of jarring. I'll use some of the set stuff to melt down and make elderberry tonic and I think I might pour some odds and sods into a large, decorative jar over some walnuts. It might free up a bit of space in the pantry as I probably have a dozen jars in there at the moment from various harvests over the past few years.

The bees come back from their holidays at Derwent reservoir in a couple of weeks. They would usually be back by now, but we have to leave them longer now as the local farmers are now growing wild flower crops which means the bees have been feeding on those rather than the heather. Now that the wild flowers are dying off, the bees will naturally go to their usual heather supplies and give us some lovely heather honey.

Ooh that's not far from me...I've always wanted local honey rather than Aldi's best, so I may reach out and order some. Thanks @RainbowZebraWarrior xx

@Confusedmeanderings love it. Chester is still very popular for hen dos!
I was actually thinking last week about how we used to book holidays. When I came to visit Chester, with my mum and dad, before starting my first job here (having never been here before), we stayed in a hotel. I have no idea now how we found it, how we booked it ... maybe we rang Chester tourist board for recommendations? But how would we have found their number?

@SheherazadesSpringNonsense directory enquiries perhaps? We had a lot of fun with that book. You never quite knew what you were booking into. There were some absolute gems, and some others not quite so much! I remember being quite excited by the sound of a converted railway cottage on the edge of a marina. It turned out to be a 1940s pebble dashed house built next to the disused railway line, in the middle of an industrial estate in the corner of which boat repairs were carried out!

I remember booking hotels and log cabins that were advertised in the back pages of magazines and newspapers. My Dad found a wonderful place called the Nanny Brow in the back of a magazine which happened to be a total gem that my parents returned to year after year. Otherwise, we would just drive to the Lakes and knock on the door of any B&B that looked nice with a 'Vacancies' sign up. Obviously you just had to ask at the door what the price was. Same with campsites. I also used to love going to the travel agents and coming home with an arm full of holiday brochures to pore over.

I'm feeling a bit shattered but accomplished tonight. I've just made 2 litres of beeswax and honey whipped hand and body butter. All completely natural and all for a total of about £5. I've added Lavender and Frankincense oils to fragrance it and the house now smells amazing. Been meaning to do it for ages, so finally happy to have managed to get it all to work first time. (Many hours of YouTube videos have been watched).

Here's the various stages. I'm now left with a bowl and a spatula as you would do after whipping cream. Waste not, want not is my motto, so I'm going to slather it on my hands, arms and legs!

@RainbowZebraWarriori think I prefer the garish ones better, that cow one looks like a lot of beige and harder to do.

i bet your body butter smells amazing.