Winner of The Afternoon Tea Book

hjelliot, you are the winner of The Afternoon Tea Book!

Please click on the 'about me' tab under the blog header photo.
Then click on 'view my complete profile.'
Click 'email' and please send me your snail mail address so that I may mail the book to you.

Thanks to everyone who entered. I do appreciate your interest.

We'll Eat Again, recipes selected by Marguerite Patten

39. We'll Eat Again
A Collection of recipes from the war years selected by
Marguerite Patten
in association with The Imperial War Museum
nonfiction, 1985
sixth book for the Foodie's Reading Challenge
finished, 5/10/11




This book is an historical treasure. It offers not only recipes, but also photographs, slogans, cartoons, and cooking tips from the time of the Second World War in Britain. In the introduction by the director of The Imperial War Museum, Alan Borg, he writes:

This book is an exercise in nostalgia, but it is arguably more than that. The health of the nation was surprisingly good during the war years, despite the physical and emotional stresses so many had to endure. Infant mortality declined and the average age of death from natural causes increased. Part of the reason for this may have been the new eating patterns which were forced on the British public by the war. For many of the poorer sections of the community rationing introduced more protein and vitamins, while for others it involved a reduction in the consumption of meat, fats, eggs, and sugar.

Do we really have to be forced to eat what we know is good for us? It would seem so. There is no imposed limit on any food now, and people just go for it with gusto. 'All you can eat' meals at restaurants encourage just that. If you watch American television, you will have seen ads for various restaurant chains with food overflowing the plate. And that food is not vegetables or fruits. It consists mainly of meat, fish, and cheese, lots and lots of cheese. According to the USDA,

Average U.S. cheese consumption nearly tripled between 1970 and 2003, from 11 pounds per person to 31 pounds

We don't seem to be able to use any self-restraint when it comes to eating, as is evidenced by the increased obesity all around us. During the war people all over the world were thinner, of necessity. This book is all about nourishing a person which is, in fact, the reason for eating. But sadly, there seem to be other reasons which have crept into our relationship with food. When someone is feeling low, they will eat a pint of ice cream. We feel we deserve food when we've had a bad day. And those commercials for restaurants are all about conviviality and make the viewer think, oh, I'll go out and eat and eat and I'll have laughing friends and sparkling conversations just like those people in the ads. And we get fatter.

I think a book like this could be a wonderful teaching tool for children. For example, once a week a family could choose a recipe from We'll Eat Again, and make it for one of the daily meals. I could see an ingenious classroom teacher bringing in the book, and having the cafeteria make a World War II lunch. Nothing makes history more real to kids than something concrete. When Tom teaches the Holocaust to his students, he brings in a German helmet and flag that my father brought home from the War, and they are very moved.

This is simply a marvelous book, and I was so very pleased to find out that the author is still alive. You may see a photo of her, and read a great article here. And there's another wonderful piece here. Women like her have so much to teach us.

Maureen gave me this book two years ago, and I am so very grateful to her. I was fascinated by all the information, and the recipes. There are several I will be trying, and the one I made today is so delicious that it will become one of my regular suppers.

Vegetable Soup

METHOD: Fry 2 oz rolled oats or oatmeal in 1 oz margarine.


Blend with a little of 2 pints of water, then add the rest of the water and bring to a boil.
Add 3 potatoes, 4 carrots, 1/2 small swede, 1 leek if you have it, sliced or cut into cubes.


Cook for 1 hour.
Just before serving add pepper and salt and some chopped parsley.
The quantities given are sufficient for 4 helpings.

My notes: A swede is a rutabaga or turnip. I didn't have one so I used some summer squash from the freezer. I also didn't have any fresh parsley.
I didn't have margarine so used butter.


I'll tell you honestly, I didn't feel the least bit 'deprived' while eating this soup. It actually has more butter than I use when I make a soup and often I don't even use butter. Usually, I'll sauté some vegetables in olive oil before adding them to the soup. This was very rich tasting. I've never heard of 'frying' oats in butter, but it is a great idea.

Where Memories Lie by Deborah Crombie

38. Where Memories Lie - twelfth in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series
by Deborah Crombie
mystery, 2008
Kindle book - 21
finished, 5/6/11






Kincaid and James are back in London, and it is a few months after the events in Water Like a Stone. Erika Rosenthal, whom we met in A Finer End when she helped with the case, now has a problem and needs Gemma's help. A brooch which her father, a famous jeweler in pre-Nazi Germany, made, and which Erika hasn't seen since she left in the nineteen thirties, is up for auction. She wants to know who offered it to the auction house. Gemma makes an informal visit to 'Harrowby's', and shortly thereafter a young woman she spoke with is found dead, the victim of a hit-and-run driver. When another person is killed in the same way, we know there is a connection.We see how very difficult it is for the police when death after death occurs, and when the victims knew one another, and especially when someone thought to be a suspect also turns up dead.

Where Memories Lie reminds the reader of an important truth which we all too often forget. At one time or another in our lives we have all been guilty of judging an older person on how they are at this minute. We forget that they were young once. A sedate older woman may have had a wild youth. A gentle older man may have suffered the loss of a child. We must always remember that everyone may have had trouble and also great joy in earlier times.

As well as occurences in the present day, we meet a policeman from 1952, and find out over time that he is connected to today's crimes, and most importantly to one of the characters. I just love this in Crombie's work - the way the past and present seamlessly intertwine. The chapter headings are so important to this book, as they are in each one in the series.

The United Kingdom was the first refuge for perhaps half the 2,200 refugee scholars who had emigrated from Germany in 1938.
- Louise London, Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948

Even though the Allies were fighting a war against Nazi Germany, whose anti-Semitism was a central plank of its public policy, anti-Semitism did not suddenly disappear from Britain during the war, but persisted and even increased.
- Pamela Shatzkes, Holocaust and Rescue: Impotent or Indifferent? Anglo-Jewry, 1938-1945

December 1940
Monday, 9th
Last night was very bad indeed. Began soon after 5:30 pm.... I had to run from my place to the Sanctuary as the barrage was working up. It never ceased until 2:30 am. Many bombs came down ... some in our district. On enquiry today I find it was around the Sion Convent, Chepstow Villas and Dawson Place... people buried.
- Vere Hodgson, Few Eggs and No Oranges: The Diaries of Vere Hodgson, 1940-1945

I found this book to be very moving. Each character is particularly vivid. There are kindly souls and monsters; there is great love and great hatred. We see Kit, a young boy I haven't mentioned before because I haven't wanted to give anything away in terms of story development, displaying great empathy and even a bit of detective skill.

I do go on and on with each book report I write on this series, but I am completely in awe of Crombie's great ability to combine a good mystery story with an incredible sense of place, history, and character.

Mint Juleps

You may go visit Beth Fish Reads to see what others are sharing for Weekend Cooking.

Since childhood, I've dreamed of owning a farm in Kentucky, with those blue-green fields and white fences, where I would raise racehorses. I love horses and wish I'd been one of those kids who had grown up in a horsey family. But I didn't. And though I did own a horse, Bandit, for too few years, I'm not a real rider; and needless to say, I don't have a stable of racehorses. So, I make do by watching 'the greatest two minutes in sports' every year that I can. On this 137th Kentucky Derby Day, I thought I'd make mint juleps in celebration. I'm not a Scotch or bourbon drinker, but Tom is. And we have mint coming up, so I said, why not.

There are a few ways to make them, but I chose the recipe on this site.

4 fresh mint sprigs
2 1/2 ounces bourbon
1 teaspoon powdered sugar
2 teaspoons water


Muddle mint leaves, powdered sugar, and water in a collins glass. Fill glass with shaved or crushed ice. Add bourbon. Top with more ice and garnish with mint sprig.
Drink with a straw.

My mint hasn't grown to sprigs yet, so I used little leaves.
I didn't have a muddler so Tom used the handle end of a wooden spoon which worked great.


I crushed the ice in the blender.


Didn't have any straws but Tom managed just fine.


Addendum: The winner, Animal Kingdom. Good, good boy!

The Afternoon Tea Book by Michael Smith, pound cake recipe, and a giveaway!

37. The Afternoon Tea Book
by Michael Smith
nonfiction, 1986
fifth book for the Foodie's Reading Challenge
finished, 4/30/11






I have owned this book for many years, though I'm not a tea drinker. What I do like is the food that goes with tea - breads and cakes and cookies, and that is what I've used this book for. In fact, there is a pound cake recipe which won me a second place ribbon at the 1989 fair. It is out of this world delicious, so I can only imagine how good the first prize cake was!


The author's notes precede the recipe.

Pound Cake

This is one of the earliest cakes - in the way we think of cake today - and is unchanged from its original form in the rather extended appendix of the fifth edition of Hannah Glasse's book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, published in 1763. I have translated it into American culinary measures, and to please you, I suggest you use a tube pan (unheard of for cakes in England!).


In those days a cake pan or tin was called a hoop.

2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups butter, softened
5 eggs
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind

The perfect tool with which to grate the rind. It is called a rasp, and I got mine from Lee Valley.


Brandy or sherry, to make a spoonable dough

Makes 8 servings

Preheat oven to 325º F.
This cake can be made by the all-in-one method: Cream the butter and sugar in a food processor or with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in eggs and lemon rind. Add the flour


and enough liquor to make a spoonable batter. Allow it to be beaten well for 10 minutes or so.


Bake for one hour, or until the cake is firm to the touch and shrinks from the sides of the pan. Let cool briefly in the pan before turning it out onto a wire rack.

My notes:
1. I never, ever use liquor in a dessert recipe. I like liquor. I like desserts. But not together. So in this case, I would just use some water. I didn't need to add it today.
2. Grease tube pan with cooking spray.


The Afternoon Tea Book is divided into two parts: History and Lore, and Recipes, the latter being the greater part of the book. The author died only three years after this book was published. There is now a Michael Smith Award for Work on British food which was given in 2010 to Tom Parker Bowles (the son of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall!) for Full English: A Journey Through the British and Their Food.

The author was a founder of The Guild of Food Writers.

On 12 April 1984, a group of the great and good in the British food world gathered for lunch at London’s Intercontinental Hotel to enjoy a rather superb lunch devised by the hotel’s celebrated chef Peter Kromberg.

Among others, Lady Arabella Boxer, Miss Elizabeth David, Mr. Christopher Driver, Mrs. Jane Grigson, Miss Claudia Roden, Mr. Michael Smith and Mrs. Katie Stewart enjoyed a Petit Nage de Sole et Homard aux Asperges, followed by Magret de Canard au Foie Gras en Cage, with a Soufflé au Fromage preceding an Assiette de nos Desserts. The purpose of this grand and memorable event was to discuss the formation of an ‘association of food writers’. In the way of such things, a debate arose about whether or not it would be an élite Académie in the French style or something along the lines of the already existing Circle of Wine Writers. The latter won the day, but in so doing lost the group the support of the person who had been seen as its first president, Elizabeth David.

A note about the author explains that he is:

Hailed by the New York Times as the "doyen of English Cookery," his writing, broadcasting, and lecturing on all aspects of food preparation, presentation, and enjoyment reach an enormous audience, including viewers of B.B.C. T.V.'s "Pebble-Mill-at-One" and readers of Homes and Gardens and recently the Daily Telegraph.

Sadly I wasn't part of that 'enormous audience,' though I did watch two television series for which he was a consultant: (the original) Upstairs, Downstairs and The Duchess of Duke Street. How I wish I had seen him on television or read his work in publications, for his enthusiasm and love of life jump right off the pages of this book. He knows whereof he writes, but more than that, he loves his subject matter. He introduces the reader to Afternoon Tea, tells us about the actual tea bush and the ideal growing conditions, writes of China tea, India and Ceylon tea, and blended teas. Then he goes on to describe the various 'impedimenta,' the cups and tables and kettles, all accompanied by the delightful illustrations of Michael R.P. Bartlett.

It has been ages since I've offered a giveaway, and I thought I would do so. This book will be most appealing to anyone who loves the ceremony of tea drinking, and to those like me who love to bake the delicacies which are a part of 'taking tea.' This is, as they say, a 'well-used book.' Because that pound cake is what I've chiefly made, the book falls open there and has a small stain on the page. If you don't mind that, then I would be happy to give this book to you.

Please leave a comment saying you'd like the book on ANY POST from today, Friday,May 6 through Tuesday,May 10. On Wednesday,May 11, I shall do a drawing. I'll send it anywhere in the world.Please do visit the Foodie's Reading Challenge page and click on the various categories to read some wonderful food-related book reviews!

Water Like a Stone by Deborah Crombie

36. Water Like a Stone - eleventh in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series
by Deborah Crombie
mystery, 2007
Kindle book - 20
finished, 4/30/11







It is now another Christmas in the lives of Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James. It is a year after the events in And Justice There is None. They decide to spend the holiday at Duncan's childhood home in Cheshire. It is a beautiful, rural area but, as we mystery readers know, many a heinous crime may occur in the most lovely setting. In this case the remains of a baby are found walled up in an old barn. It just so happens that Duncan's sister, Juliet is the contractor working on turning this barn into a home. If the work hadn't been done, this body would never have been found. It is wrapped in a blanket that Juliet recognizes as the same vintage as when her own children, who are 14 and 10, were babies. The Detective Chief Inspector Babcock happens to be a childhood friend of Duncan's so he doesn't mind sharing information with him.

Duncan's family home is truly an idyllic and welcoming place.

The small entrance hall was a jumble of noise and movement, filled to bursting with adults, children, and dogs. One part of Gemma's brain registered the smell of baking mingled with fresh evergreens, while another took in the pale green walls hung with framed illustrations from children's books, an umbrella stand crammed full of brollies and walking sticks, and pegs draped with coats. Holly intertwined with gold ribbons and the deep red berries of yew wound up the stair rail.

Gemma feels very much at home, though this born-and-bred Londoner is not at all comfortable in the country with its darkness and strange night sounds. Juliet's son Sam is a delightful boy, while the daughter Lally is a troubled early teenager. We think her forays into drugs and drinking and smoking are due to the problems her parents are experiencing. Juliet used to be the bookkeeper for the investment firm owned by her husband and his partner. The partner has confessed that he and Juliet had an affair, and the furious husband has become enraged and violent in his words. But there is another side to this story which, when it comes out, changes everything.

Lally is also haunted by the drowning death of a young friend. This is the land of canals and canal boats, and the culture is a large focus of the book. We meet a woman and a family who live on their canal boats. She is fifty years old, separated from her husband, retired from her job as a social worker, and spends her life travelling the canals of Britain. The family has lived on the boats for generations, picking up jobs as they found them. She is rich, they are quite poor.

There are wonderful descriptions of these boats, the interior decoration, the lifestyle, and the canals themselves. There was a mention of:

... laceware china plates that the boaters had traditionally collected.

I found more about these plates online:

... called lace plates, because of the cut away effect of the edge looking a little like lace, or ribbon plates because of the ribbons that were usually threaded through the spaces for decorative effect. They were sold as fairly cheap souvenirs from the start of this century and were collected by boat people to cover the boatman's cabin walls.

There is a very complete website which tells about all aspects of canal boats with many photos. It is a most appealing way of life. And it is also a vacation possibility. There's a wonderful newspaper article about doing this very thing. I have wanted rent one for a good many years, but I fear it shall not happen. But I may travel vicariously by reading some blogs. There is Narrowboat Journal. There is a blog entry called A Week on a Narrowboat. And there is Scraggs End. I'll tell you, they all set me dreaming.


There are many stories going on in this book, and we wonder if they are connected at all with the death of this baby. Then suddenly and shockingly, there is a murder of someone Duncan has just gotten to know. Gemma gets involved in the case, as well as Duncan and begins working alongside the police. She can't help but feel that this person's death, on a canal path not far from the barn, may just be related to the long ago burial of the baby.

And as if all these stories aren't enough, the reader is also privy to the upsetting secret lives of the book's teenagers. Their parents don't have any idea of what they are doing, and we see that even the best of children may become involved in terrible situations.

This is an extraordinary book. Each of Crombie's books is far above simply a 'mystery' story. In addition to the geographical description, each one tells so much about human nature and motivation, and the world of its characters. For example, in Water Like a Stone we see how the underprivileged may be under-served by the very institutions that are supposed to help and support them, sometimes with dire consequences. We also see how fragile are the ties that bind. And as always we watch Duncan and Gemma grow and change as human beings trying to balance police work with their personal family life. Water Like a Stone is an excellent, excellent book, as is every single one in this series.

Farm and Garden Report - May 4

Heard peepers - April 24, Easter night
Redwing blackbirds at the feeders - April 25
Heard white throated sparrow - 'old sam peabody, peabody, peabody - and the song sparrow.
Tom and Matt went to a lecture on vernal pools. In Matt and Margaret's pool there are wood frogs galore and many eggs.
First flowers on April 25 - bloodworts


The daffodils have brought sunshine to Windy Poplars on the gray days. I took this photo yesterday out the east kitchen window. The world is greening up so beautifully.



My daffs are a mixture of bright yellow, and the lovely, soft white with yellow at the center.


On April 27, Katie, our sheep shearer came. It was the first really warm day, and the sheep were so happy to get rid of their woolly coats. I wrote about last year's shearing here, if you'd like to learn more about it. I've offered the fleece to a local yarn shop for any spinners who might want it.


Here is a view of all the animals in their spring, summer, and fall pasture. They stay there during the day and go back to the other pasture, where the barn is, each evening.


On May 3, I planted 40 leek plants we started from seed. I put them in the chive bed. There were four big chive plants in there and we moved two of them to other areas. If you click on the picture of the view out the kitchen window, that bed is the closest to the bench. The garlic is coming along great in the bed next to the chive bed.

This morning I found the first tick of the season crawling on my arm. I had picked up the hamper to bring the laundry downstairs and I bet there was a tick on a piece of clothing from the day before. Yuck!

Also this morning, the sixteen new baby chicks arrived. It is a little miracle that they hatched two days before and were packed into their little box and mailed to us. They are down cellar in a big box with shavings, a feeder, a waterer, and a heat lamp, and I can hear them peeping all over the house. I wrote a long piece four years ago, the last time we got chicks. If you are interested in the whole process, you may read it here.


I looked out the window and saw a rose-breasted grosbeak at the feeders. First one this year. They are a rare, and most welcome visitor. This is not my picture!


I took down the suet feeders, but have continued longer than usual with sunflower seeds and cracked corn because of the cold April, but ... it is just about time to remove them because last evening Tom was walking down the hill and 20 feet away from him a big black bear crossed the road. He stayed very still till it walked away.

We are high on a hill and never have to worry about high water, but a couple towns over there was flooding. That's the Connecticut River on the left, and a field on the right.

Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill

35. Howards End is on the Landing
A year of reading from home
by Susan Hill
nonfiction, 2009
library book
finished, 4/23/11





I've recently changed things around a bit in our rather newly painted study. I took out the La-Z-Boy and put it in the living room where it is so perfect for watching television, and I brought my favorite sitting chair into the study. Next to it is a reading lamp I bought at LL Bean. It is a great lamp because it swivels, and it moves up and down.


One evening, after I'd borrowed Howards End is on the Landing from the library, I sat down and read almost 90 pages. It was pure bliss. Reading about books, by a great writer and lover of reading, in a room full of books. Occasionally, I would look up at my own books and I felt such contentment. The next day and evening I finished the book.

Many people have written about this book. I wasn't sure I would like it, since I generally don't care for books about books. So often they are full of books I've never read, and don't want to read. Oh, but this one is sublime. I felt as if the author was in my own head and heart. There were passages that made me feel as if I were reading my own literature diary.

There are some in every room, on every shelf and bedside table, though the two main collections are kept together, the best in the alcoves beside the drawing-room fireplace, the rest next to Thomas Hardy in the Small Dark Den. That is 113 assorted books by or about Virginia Woolf, and a few on Bloomsbury in general, with a run of the sadly short-lived Charleston Magazine thrown in. Easy to remember where it all began but harder to explain why a youthful interest which accorded with my aspirations at the time should not only never have faded but have greatly increased over so many years. Where are such passions formed, not only for an author and their work but for everything surrounding them, their lives, family, friends, the places in which they lived, their psyches?

As anyone who reads these letters knows, I love Virginia Woolf beyond words. This love began when I was in my early twenties at Boston University. At that time, she was just beginning to get popular again. In a 1972 book called Recollections of Virginia Woolf, Joan Russell Noble says that not much has been written about Virginia Woolf. Doesn't that just seem unbelievable? Anyhow, I fell in love with her writing, her life and times. One day John Lehmann came to the college to talk about Virginia and Leonard, and his own work at the Hogarth Press. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. And Susan Hill describes my feelings that day just perfectly.

I used to look at him [George Rylands, a 'sales rep' for the Hogarth Press], as I also looked at William Plomer, another friend of the Woolfs, in bemusement that here they were, chatting to me, and there they had once been, chatting to Virginia.

The chapter titles are all wonderful, and in one called Laughter in the Next Room she says,

Humour in books is a very personal thing and not a subject about which to be superior. I am always overjoyed when my recommendation of P.G. Wodehouse is successful. Only recently, when I recommended a friend start with The Mating Season, the next e-mail I got from him was headed 'What ho!' But it ain't always so. Another friend said he couldn't see the point of spending time with such silly asses. You can't convert someone like that, you just have to let it be.

Along with loving my two favorites, Woolf and Wodehouse, she also enjoys other writers who mean a lot to me, such as Gerald Durrell and Roald Dahl. In an excellent, and heartfelt review of this book, Eva noted that:

Quite early, I realised that Hill is a different type of reader than me; while I love to read diversely, she's quite insular. The vast majority of books she talks about are British and 'non-genre' at that; it goes without saying they are by white authors.

And I guess when I think seriously about my own reading, I'd have to say that is pretty much me. I was amazed to realize at quite a young age that my heart and soul lay over the ocean. I recently told another blogger that when Tom and I were in our twenties, we gathered information on moving to England, but ultimately could not put our animals through the six-month quarantine which was then required. I love my country, and its authors, but the Brits are the lifeblood of my reading life, from those already mentioned to Miss Read and E.M. Delafield and John Mortimer and E.M. Forster. You may have noticed that the photo of Howards End is on the Landing is placed next to my two copies of Howards End. And I have a Kindle version as well. It is one of my top favorite books of all time.

In another instance of recognition, Susan Hill expressed what I'm always going on and on about - the rise of issue books for young people.

Since our children's books were first bought, fiction for young readers has become more and more issue-led. Divorce, step-parents, drugs, alcohol, early sex, knife-crime, foster-care, child abuse, unemployment, gang warfare, AIDS, terminal illness ... you name it, there is a novel for children about it. But all children are anxious, adult life contains much that is ugly and unhappy, unpleasant or downright bad. Why introduce them to that too early, through books, which can be such a force for enjoyment, imaginative enrichment, fun, excitement, adventure, magic? Realism comes home soon enough and many children have too much anguish to cope with in their everyday lives as it is. Their books can be one corner of life that remains untainted by the troubles brought upon their heads by unthinking, unloving adults. I am glad mine remained ignorant of much that is polluted, cruel, ugly, hurtful, wrong as long as possible (which is not, after all, very long, in the scheme of things) and that their books were wholesome, enriching, enlivening, enjoyable, lovable and, for the most part, were about worlds into which they could happily, innocently escape.

And to that I say, 'amen,' as I do to the whole book. Susan Hill puts into words, over and over again my thoughts, my feelings, my love of certain books and authors. Of course, I'm not a fan of every single author she writes about, like Dickens, for example.

The cover is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. It reminds me of the notecards and bookmarks I've seen of the shelves at the Bodleian Library. And, as you may guess, I've already ordered my own copy of Howards End is on the Landing.

Today's poem by Edgar Guest

Plant a Garden

If your purse no longer bulges
and you've lost your golden treasure,
If times you think you're lonely
and have hungry grown for pleasure,
Don't sit by your hearth and grumble,
don't let mind and spirit harden.
If it's thrills of joy you wish for
get to work and plant a garden!

If it's drama that you sigh for,
plant a garden and you'll get it
You will know the thrill of battle
fighting foes that will beset it
If you long for entertainment and
for pageantry most glowing,
Plant a garden and this summer spend
your time with green things growing.

Edgar Guest (1881-1959)

Off to a wedding!

I won't be around much tomorrow since I'm going to a wedding via my satellite dish. I could be there in person if William and Kate had come up with the same idea as I did. I thought it would be cool to invite everyone to their wedding who had gotten married in London on April 29, which means us! But since they didn't I'll be happily watching in my own living room. I'm not getting up early but am setting the DVR to record it.
PS Kate is the same age I was on that day. And William is a month older than Margaret. Isn't time a funny, funny thing?

In a Dark House by Deborah Crombie

34. In a Dark House - tenth in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series
by Deborah Crombie
mystery, 2004
Kindle book - 19
finished, 4/21/11







This book was the most disturbing so far in the series. Though not the focus of In a Dark House, we learn that Gemma is haunted by an unsolved case in which a six year old girl simply disappeared. And now there is an unrelated case of a young girl who is kidnapped and locked in a room. The reader sees her situation from her point of view which makes it all the more upsetting. We also view fires from the point of view of an arsonist. I never enjoy being inside the head of a crazy criminal. A woman's shelter features in the book, which proves to be not as sheltering as it should be. On a nicer note, the reader's old friend, Winifred from A Finer End is working in London for a short time, and becomes involved in the life of a house-bound parishioner whose roommate has disappeared; just one of several disappearances, any of whom could be the body found in a burnt-out building. So you see, there is a lot going on in this book. And as always, the author connects everyone and does it in a most believable way. All in all, not such a cheery, easy read for me, but still an excellent book.

In addition to the crimes, there is an upcoming event in the lives of Duncan and Gemma which could turn their world upside down.

There are chapter heading quotes from Charles Dickens since this book takes place in 'his' part of London - Southwark. If you are lucky enough to live in, or visit London, and if you love Dickens there are walking tours through this area.

The book contains a great map. You may click for greater detail. The maps in Deborah Crombie's books are all drawn by Laura Hartman Maestro.

From the author's website:

Deborah Crombie and Laura Hartman Maestro began collaborating on illustrated maps for the series novels in 1999. Laura’s illustrations have graced five inside covers of Deborah’s books: Water Like a Stone, In A Dark House, Now May You Weep, A Finer End and Kissed A Sad Goodbye.

Before the first drop of ink touches the paper, Deborah sends Laura an advance copy of the manuscript tagged with suggestions for emphasis, maps of the area, and photographs of recognizable landmarks that are featured prominently in the book.

After conferring with Deborah, Laura submits a preliminary pencil drawing. Because Laura draws the maps by hand, rather than digitally, she takes great care in the preparation of the illustration. Once Deborah reviews the penciled illustration and they discuss the final details, Laura begins the ink version. The creation of these charming maps takes about three weeks.

With the help of Laura’s maps, readers have retraced Duncan and Gemma’s footsteps throughout the environs of east and south London, Glastonbury, the Scottish Highlands, and Cheshire, visiting the scenes of the crimes and the landmarks that figure prominently in the books.

I was asked if the Kindle offers the maps, and it does, but they are small. I prefer to visit the website and enlarge them to see the fine details. I love these maps. And, as you know, I love these books.

Pineapple Pie

This is a refreshing, delicious pie for our first really warm spring day. I used the same pie crust as for the Cranberry Pie. I baked it for 25 minutes and then let it cool.

Pineapple Pie

Mix together 8 oz. softened cream cheese, and half a can of sweetened condensed milk.
Add 1 tsp. vanilla and 1/4 cup lemon juice.
Add 8 oz. can of crushed pineapple, and mix well.
Pour into pie shell, and refrigerate.

Now May You Weep by Deborah Crombie

Now May You Weep - ninth in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series
by Deborah Crombie
mystery, 2003
Kindle book - 18
finished, 4/17/11

Right from the start this book felt darker, more ominous than the others I've read. I couldn't put my finger on why that was. And then I began to think that the reader is meant to feel this way because we are identifying in a way with Gemma James. She is disoriented. Part of her world as she knew it, is not as Gemma believed it to be. An old friend is not as she seemed. A life that Gemma viewed as 'perfect' is anything but. And here again, we are made aware of Deborah Crombie's genius as a writer. Don't each of us sometimes look at another's life as so much better, easier, happier than our own? And we do so because we do not know all the details of that life. For the most part we see what a person chooses to show us. And I think, too that when we are upset in our own lives, we don't always look at others with a clear eye. Gemma thought she knew her friend well. They had endless talks in the evenings after their children had gone to bed. But as the events of this book unfold, Gemma realizes that in this relationship she has done most of the talking. Her friend has helped Gemma through her problems, without sharing her own. It is only when they go on a weekend trip to the Scottish Highlands for a cooking class that she finds out the truth.

And while she is gone, Duncan Kincaid has a deep personal trouble of his own. A disagreeable, cruel, perhaps unhinged woman from his past could irrevocably change his present and future happiness.

The book switches back from the present to older days - this time Scotland in the years just before 1900 - connecting people and places. Memories are long here.

To a Highlander, a hundred years is nothing at all.

I very much enjoyed the parts of the book which talked about whisky. It's a funny thing. I don't like the taste of whisky and don't drink it, but I am fascinated by the process.

... the water that went into the whisky came from the spring that bubbled up fromthe gently rolling grounds. In the making of whisky, the quality of the water was all-important, a Highland distillery's greatest asset.

Speyside is famous for its single malt whiskies. Some say it provides the perfect combination of water, peat, and barley.

The weather plays a big part in all of Deborah Crombie's books, and nowhere is it as strong a force as in this area of Scotland. In one of the flashback passages we learn that:

... in this weather, Grantown-on-Spey, only fourteen miles away was an impossible journey. ... The Braes of Glenlivet in a snowstorm were as isolated and godforsaken as the moon. There would be no help until the storm broke - even then it might take days to clear the roads.

A character's father and sister were killed in a climbing accident because of 'an early snowstorm. It was four days before Mountain Rescue found their bodies.' And at a critical point of the book, Gemma must travel through snow.

The snow grew heavier as she crawled along the track that led into the Braes, her sense of urgency mounting. By the time she reached Chapeltown, she could see only a few feet in front of her car, but she kept going along the farm track...

I found this book riveting, from the diary entries in the past to the story in the present, and from the solving of a murder to the more personal situations Gemma and Duncan are going through. Another excellent book in this series.

An Easter to Remember

Charlie

This first Easter in their new house, Matthew and Margaret had both families over for brunch: crepes, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, all kinds of fruit, and chocolate mousse. And lots of dogs! Their two, Matt's sister's Pug, Taz, and Michael's Charlie. You may recall that he was featured in the latest Farm and Garden Report, chasing the farm animals. Another day he had an encounter with a porcupine, and he lost. He had to be anesthetized while the quills were removed. But today's misadventure takes the cake, or should I say, the fudge. I had gotten everybody 1/2 pound of fudge which was filled with those little Cadbury eggs. Before going home, Michael came into our house for a few minutes, and in that time Charlie ate Michael's whole box of fudge. Because of course it is a holiday Sunday, I had to call an emergency vet. I'll tell you his advice in case your dog ever does such a thing. We put 8 teaspoons (based on his weight of 40 pounds) of hydrogen peroxide in some leftover bread pudding. He ate it down. Then a brisk walk and a tummy rub were supposed to induce vomiting. It didn't. The next step was to give him another dose, this time 4 teaspoons. Still no vomiting. Called back, and the vet said bring him down. They had to give him a shot to induce vomiting, and then some activated charcoal for something or other. He can eat only chicken and rice for a few days. Michael just sent us a text photo and the dear little fellow is now sound asleep.

Farm and Garden Report - April 23

Just after I wrote the last report, I heard all kinds of commotion out in the pasture. Michael had come up to visit, and was down at Matt and Margaret's when his dog Charlie, a Corgi/Yellow Lab mix scrambled under the electric fence and ran lickity-split up the hill, chasing various sheep and goats as he went along. Actually, it was more of a herding than a chasing, kind of nipping at their heels. I looked up Corgis and they are indeed herding dogs. Tom managed to get the farm animals into the barn and the doors shut, with no harm done. I was reminded of a little over a year ago when Lexi did the same thing. The charge isn't very strong this time of year because the fence needs repair.

The garlic and chives are coming up in the garden, and the chives are ready to eat.

Indoors under the lights, the leeks are thriving, and we just this week planted eight pots of tomatoes.

The woodcock has returned. I think it waited to come back until the snow patches were gone.

Daffodils are up maybe five inches with a hint of yellow buds.

The daylilies are up all over the garden.


One afternoon last week I sat out on the patio reading, and the air was filled with birdsong. There were four wild turkeys eating cracked corn under the feeders on my left, while on my right a little chipmunk had just traveled under our terrace and popped up in last year's leaves in the flower garden. I sat very, very still and watched it run over to the feeders after the turkeys had departed, joining another chipmunk, red squirrels, mourning doves, juncos, and chickadees.

On April 17, the pasture water came back. More about that source here.

Tom saw one bluebird.

For the most part, this has been a pretty usual April. Wind - steady and gusty; snow flurries - a little accumulation that melted the next day; rain - often mixed with sleet; and a little sun. Not much warmth this year but I'll take it. Last April was way too hot for me, and the ticks were out early in the month. Haven't seen one this year, so far.

In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.

Mark Twain

And Justice There is None by Deborah Crombie

32. And Justice There Is None - eighth in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series
by Deborah Crombie
mystery, 2002
Kindle book - 17
finished, 4/13/11






In this book, Deborah Crombie returns to London and sets her mystery in the Notting Hill area. Many of us have seen the 1999 movie of the same name, and I would guess more than a few of us think it would be a lovely place to live: beautiful, hip, artistic. It wasn't always thus. The author includes chapter heading quotes from two books - one called Portobello and the other, Notting Hill in the Sixties. From the latter:

If you saw Notting Hill at the beginning of the sixties, it would be hard to recognize it as the same place you see today. Nowadays Notting Hill is wealthy and gentrified. Go back thirty years and the area is a massive slum, full of multi-occupied houses, crawling with rats and rubbish.

Unbelievable, isn't it? The book bridges both time periods. People who grew up in the earlier time, are adults today. Events in the past influence the present.

On her website, Deborah Crombie is asked:

How much time do you spend researching each novel before you begin writing it? And how much time do you spend in Britain doing background research for each book?

I usually go to Britain two to three times during the course of a book. I’ve chosen the setting when I make the first trip, so I use that time to survey the area, take photos and notes, acquire research materials (I usually buy so many books I have to ship them home) and generally get the feel for the book. Once home, I spend several months researching, plotting and outlining. Then, when I’ve actually made a good start on writing, I need to make at least one more visit to check details I know I will need in the now-outlined plot and absorbing a bit more atmosphere. And these days I try to block out writing time in the UK as well.

Along with her great writing, and excellent story lines and characters, the author's sense of place is one of the strongest facets in her books. In each one, she takes the reader to a new location, and tells us historical background. I have learned so much about England and Scotland from reading this series, but especially London. I love how she focuses on a different section of the city each time. I think it is a brilliant device and wonder if anyone else has ever done this. I know there are writers who offer a vivid setting, but I don't think I know any who take a particular city, and set a mystery in a different area each time. This brings London alive to those of us who do not live there. We may have visited in person, or have seen it through books and movies, but she really teaches us what an area was, and is now.

And Justice There is None, in addition to giving the reader a view of the Notting Hill area, also talks a lot about the antiques trade in Portobello Road; and the Portobello Market, 'one of the most popular street markets in the world.' One of my favorite songs makes mention of it:

... in your parachute suit that you bought in Portobello

from Spring Collection, The Vapors. Though I couldn't find a video, you may listen to the song here.


When Dawn Arrowood is found murdered, Kincaid is reminded of another unsolved murder which happened in the same manner. Is there a connection between the two? Are they rooted in the past? And then a possible murderer is found dead himself. The police are mystified. This is a very complex story, though not difficult for the reader to follow. We read on almost breathless, wondering what on earth is going on, and what is the link between these people from different time periods.

Again, I'm not talking too much about Gemma and Duncan because it wouldn't be fair to those readers who haven't met them yet and followed their development as characters. They are not like Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin whose lives and whose relationship rarely varies from book to book. Deborah Crombie's characters are like real people. The reader approaches each new book in the series with great interest and anticipation, wondering what's up with the two main characters. I like how each book takes place not too long after the one preceding it. And I like the way she will bring up something in the past to remind a long-time reader, or bring a new reader up to date. You really don't have to read them in order, but it is such a treat to do so.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

31. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
nonfiction, 2004
fourth book for the Dewey Decimal Challenge
finished, 4/9/11

I first heard of this book when Sarah posted a video on her blog. At the end of it, there was a list of all the books. When I saw this title, I was intrigued. I searched it out, and immediately ordered it online.

Would it be hyperbole for me to say that I've never read anything quite so enjoyable? Would I be gushing if I said I love this book beyond words? Well, both are true.

In my nonfiction literary life I have three women friends, each of whom has been mentioned on the blog.
One is the late Laurie Colwin:
Family Happiness
Happy All The Time
Home Cooking
More Home Cooking

The others are Nora Ephron:
I Feel Bad About My Neck
and Sarah Vowell:
The Partly Cloudy Patriot

And now there is a fourth, Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

Rather than try and describe this wonderful, unique book, I'm going to simply quote a number of passages, and let Amy's words speak for themselves. The book is arranged in alphabetical order, and contains a myriad of interesting ways to tell about a person, in this case, Amy. There are entries nostalgic and sad; commonplace and extraordinary.

ESCALATOR
One would think that by this point in my life, I would have outgrown the fear of getting my shoe caught in the escalator.

HAPPINESS
I'm turning left. Look, everyone, my blinker is on, and I'm turning left. I am so happy to be alive, driving along, making a left turn. I'm serious. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing at this moment: existing on a Tuesday, going about my business, on my way somewhere, turning left. There is nothing disconcerting or unpleasant or unfortunate about this moment. It is exceptionally nice, plain, and perfect.

MOVIES
I always want to see what happens after the movie is technically over. I want an update on the couple that fell in love in Dolby Surround Sound, to see how they're doing post-euphoria. Have they begun fighting over small increments of time? (You said you'd be home at seven-fifteen. It's seven-twenty.) Or in Ransom, for example, after they get their son back in the end, I want to see what their family life is like. When they're sitting around the breakfast table, do they reminisce, can you believe you were chained up to a bed for a week?

PHOTOS, OLD
It's a powerful thing, coming across an old photo of someone close to you. It makes you pause -
You have to closely examine it. Like a portrait of my grandmother from forty years ago - so vibrant, poised, that nice tweed skirt. Without the mask of old age, her features are more pronounced; she's herself, but crisper. I have a snapshot of my parents from their courtship period, swinging at a park, all smiles and good skin. There they exist as a young man and a teenage woman who love each other, nothing more yet; they are not parents, they have no affiliation to an unborn me. I know how the story unfolds from there - quite happily actually - but in that photo, they are ripe, on the verge, unencumbered, and so very beautiful. I know my own children will one day come across an old photo of me and Jason. Look at Mom and Dad. They were so young. Look at Mom's hair. And how handsome Dad was.

Online you can find Amy in a few places (and there may be others):
Who is Amy
The book site
A video site

I have now technically completed the Dewey Decimal Challenge, but I expect I'll be reading more nonfiction this year.

A Finer End by Deborah Crombie

30. A Finer End - seventh in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series
by Deborah Crombie
mystery, 2001
Kindle book - 16
finished, 4/7/11






One of the many reasons I like Deborah Crombie's work so much is that I get to visit new-to-me places.This time it is Glastonbury. All I knew about it was the festival. And when I saw this year's lineup, how I wished I could go.

I found a site that tells about the historical and mythological aspects of the town. One may choose to believe what he or she wishes, but there is a mystical feeling about the place. Deborah Crombie shows the reader that not everyone experiences it, but certain people do.

In A Finer End, we get to know Kincaid's cousin Jack. It was his time-share where Duncan stayed in the very first book of this series, A Share in Death. Jack Montfort, an architect grew up in Glastonbury, and has returned to the family home after the death of his wife and infant child.

At forty, he was back in Glastonbury. It was a move he'd have found inconceivable twenty years earlier, but here he was, alone in his parents' old house on Ashwell Lane, besieged by memories.

Jack is a down-to-earth kind of fellow, but recently something has been happening which really shakes him.

He held a pen in his right hand, although he didn't remember picking it up. And the page, which had been blank a moment ago, was covered in an unfamiliar script. Frowning, he checked for another sheet beneath the paper. But there was only the one page, and as he examined it more closely, he saw that the small, precise script seemed to be in Latin. ...
Was this some kind of joke, invisible ink that appeared when exposed to the light? But his secretary didn't strike him as a prankster, and he'd taken the paper from a ream he'd just unwrapped himself. That left only the explanation that he had penned these words - alien in both script and language. But that was absurd. How could he have done so, unaware?

Can you imagine? How would you feel if this happened to you? Frankly, I'd be pretty freaked out, as is he. But, because he knows Glastonbury history, a name comes into his mind. Frederick Bligh Bond.

The architect who, just before the First World War, had undertaken the first excavations at Glastonbury Abbey, then revealed that he had been directed by messages from the Abbey monks.

I was amazed to find out that he was a real person (and the cousin of Sabine Baring-Gould who is featured in a Laurie R. King book called The Moor, and even makes an appearance on the blog), and that this kind of writing which he did, and the character Jack does, has a name - automatic writing. Though there are skeptics, it does seem to have happened. And this is only the beginning of the unusual occurrences in this book. A group of people begin gathering to discuss what is being written, people who trust Jack. One is an older 'new age' sort of person, another is a scholar, another is an Anglican priest with whom Jack has begun a tentative relationship. There is also a young pregnant girl who has run away from parental disapproval, and a young man who arrived in Glastonbury and felt he must stay. This gathering of such seemingly disparate types results in incredible happenings. Literally incredible.

And at the same time, Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James are going through their own personal ups and downs. As always, I don't want to go into the details because their developing relationship is as important to each of the books in the series as is the mystery. This was a particularly excellent installment. I was fascinated by all the Glastonbury history and the inexplicable happenings.

And the map! How I love the maps in her books. Here is the one for A Finer End. (You may click to see closer detail)


In conclusion, I want to say that not only does Deborah Crombie have a fantastic website, but she has also joined a blog called Jungle Red Writers. And for more book reports about this series, you may click on the 'authors' tab under the blog header photo.

Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie

29. Lord Edgware Dies (also known as Thirteen at Dinner) - thirteenth in the Hercule Poirot series
by Agatha Christie
mystery, 1933
Kindle book - 15
finished, 4/4/11







This book was published in America under the title Thirteen At Dinner, which comes from the superstition that it is unlucky to have thirteen diners at a table. It is also said that in the case of thirteen, the one who gets up first will have bad luck.

The murder victim in this case, Lord Edgware was a more creepily modern character than I usually encounter in Christie's work. We learn of his predilections from the books in his library:

There were the memoirs of Casanova, also a volume on the Comte de Sade, another on mediaeval tortures.

And the man tells Poirot that he enjoys 'the macabre.'

It is understandable that such a man's wife would like to get out of this marriage, and so it happens that Jane Wilkinson, a famous actress approaches Hercule Poirot at a dinner party (not the thirteen setting one):

'I've heard you're just the most marvellous man that ever existed. Somebody's got to get me out of the tangle I'm in and I feel you're just the man to do it. ... Mr. Poirot, somehow or other I've just got to get rid of my husband!'

I've not read of many characters like Jane. She is utterly self-absorbed, thinking only of others as how they relate to her. A man says of her:

'Amoral is the word, I believe. Just sees one thing only in life - what Jane wants. I believe she'd kill somebody quite cheerfully - and feel injured if they caught her and wanted to hang her for it. The trouble is that she would be caught. She hasn't any brains. Her idea of a murder would be to drive up in a taxi, sail in under her own name and shoot.'

What an extraordinary thing to say about someone!

Lord Edgware is 'stabbed in the back of the neck just at the roots of the hair' and is killed instantly. And who is the most likely suspect, his wife, of course! Hastings and Japp make some interesting observations about Poirot in this story. Japp says:

He's always been what I call peculiar. Got his own particular angle of looking at things... He's a kind of genius, I admit that. But they always say that geniuses are very near the border line and liable to slip over any minute.

And Hastings notes:

I am afraid that I have got into the habit of averting my attention whenever Poirot mentions his little grey cells. I have heard it all so often before.

This is one of my favorite Poirot mysteries so far. The twists and turns are amazingly constructed, and I, as usual, had not a clue as to whodunnit. All I know is that Hercule Poirot will solve the mystery.

My Reader's Companion which I've mentioned before notes that Lord Edgware Dies was written in Iraq, while Agatha Christie was accompanying her husband on an archeological expedition.

I haven't seen the PBS production, or the 1985 film of the book. In the latter, David Suchet who the world knows as Hercule Poirot played the part of Inspector Japp!