Weather and propagating blackcurrants

What weather we’re having!

Saturday was very warm and sunny. I had decided, on Thursday, to go to the Saturday class of tai chi and I was giving myself a hard time because I wasn’t out at the allotment. Nevertheless, the class was great and I inadvertantly did 90 minutes more tai chi that I had anticipated. Have recapped the fourth section of the square form.

Sunday: what can I say? Torrential rain. The daughter came back from her grandparents, and they all got soaked just getting from the car to our door.

Today: cool and sunny. A friend came over to help out on the plot, and we dug over a bed and propagated some blackcurrants. Quite simple, really, and this means we’ll have 12 blackcurrant bushes in a couple of years if they all take. Last year I propagated 4 and only 1 survived. Let’s see how it goes this year.

Shandon Food Group Winter events have started

On Wednesday there was the first of Shandon Food Group’s Winter series of events. There were a couple of nice presentations from Rob Ford of the Bridgend Allotment Community Health Project and from Tonya Brash of the Edinburgh Garden Share Scheme. Then we wrapped up with excerpts from The Power of Community.

A full write-up will appear on the Shandon Food site

Next event is on Monday 14 December. More details to follow…

Garibaldi biscuits

Apropos not much, here’s a recipe for Garibaldi Biscuits

Woooooh!

scary neeps

The daughter asked why I was making a scary face, and why didn’t I make a happy one instead.

How food shapes cities

Interesting new video on TED: Carolyn Steel on How food shapes cities gives a historical view of the forces that have shaped cities.

The talk compares the ordinary urban landscape, where more and more of us are living, with the extraordinary landscapes of industrial farming. We then jump back to C17th, where a city’s food was obvious to the inhabitants from the bustling outdoor markets, and because of limited refridgeration and limited mobility of produce. With the advent of trains in the mid C19th, cities started to become decoupled from geography and this process continued with the car in C20th.

Food has gone from the core to the periphery, from the social to the private, and from the personal to the anonymous.

She refers to Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s fresco The allegory of good government (1338-1339) but illustrates this with a picture of his Effects of good government on city and country. Looks like they’re both in a series of frescoes in Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, so they’re connected.

Looks like the council library has a copy of her book The Hungry City.

Mushrooms

In other news, my homepage seems to have got stuck at Paul Stamets’ TED talk on 6 ways mushrooms can save the world. I thoroughly recommend it if you have 18 minutes to spare and like watching super geeky presentations.

A new bell for the bike!

Several months ago I cycled to a Transition Edinburgh Pentlands meeting in Oxgangs. Whilst I was in the meeting, the bell from my bike was nicked. In fact it was the top half of the bell that was nicked, but that’s functionally the same as losing the whole bell. Since then, my daughter has been asking incessantly why I don’t get another bell and why it was taken.

At the Painting Edinburgh Green festival this weekend, I stopped by the Greener Leith table and was given a bike bell. Very gratefully recieved!

I’m just off to pick the daughter up from nursery. No doubt I’ll have to explain how I got the bell back…

First russet apple of the season

Coming back from holiday, we travelled through St. Pancras International Station which has a range of upmarket shops including Sourced — a posh nosh shop. They had a good selection of apple varieties and I bought some Discovery for the train back to Edinburgh. At the till, a platter of russets sat there inviting me to take one away, so why not?

It’s not long since the last Egremont Russet of the previous season, a bit wrinkly and tough, got eaten. This new one was nice and firm but a touch under-ripe so that the nutty flavour hadn’t fully developed. Perhaps it wasn’t an Egremont but it’s quite close if not. It’s so different from the Discovery which, although partly green, tastes like a red apple.

How to find out about apples?

The Orange Pippin site has a comprehensive list of apple varieties, and good information on their taste, appearance etc. I haven’t found a similar site with cultivation information for each variety.

The weekend of 17-18 October looks like the time to be finding apples in Edinburgh. On 17-18 October 2009 the RBGE has an apple weekend, and on Saturday 17 October 2009 Bridgend allotments have their apple day.

I knew the national collection is at Brogdale, but their website is quite uniformative, and so this article in the Guardian, which outlines some of the woes of Brogdale, sheds a little light.

Other stuff

Cornell University have made great contributions to apple breeding

Fruitnet seems to have a lot of interesting articles on the fruit industry

Abundance Edinbugh OTOH hass much more information on the local scene

off on hols…

The usual mad rush before holiday, trying to get everything sorted. Add to the mix that she who knits and the daughter have been ill in the last week, and I am looking forward to sitting on that train at 10:30 when there’s nothing else to do but travel. (And there are no expected engineering works, either :)

This holiday is to Strasbourg by train. Here’s how I explained the outward journey to the daughter:

outward journey to Strasbourg

She who knits thinks that’s a great picture, but I’m skeptical. In my day job I’ve the priviledge to have come across the Edinburgh Development Group and David Sibbert at TED.

Here’s an interesting article on Diavid Sibbert’s blog, linking to a 1971 piece from Alan Watts. I’m amazed at how pertinent it is today.

Rhubarb and ginger jam FTW

An unexpected first prize in the other jam category with my rhubarb and ginger jam! I am very chuffed with that.

The 'other jam' category - looks like two other entries had already been removed

A colleague gave me a 1970’s recipe and I modified it to include real ginger rather than powdered stuff, which added a nice warmth to the jam. I also used an unrefined sugar and dropped the amount in the recipe, which gave a more rounded sweetness and not too prominent. And I simmered the jam until the rhubarb stalks disintegrated into their fibres. (You need to do quite a lot of simmering ‘cos rhubarb has very little pectin in as it’s a stalk not a fruit.)

We got to the hall quite late and so didn’t have much time to wander round to see the other exhibits and chat to friends. Caught a glimpse of David Somervell, who’s recently been featured in an article in the Guardian newspaper, and am very happy to see someone who’s working professionally to reduce CO2 emissions and also living the life.

She who knits and the daughter entered the tombola and won a huge book on Italian Cooking — Italia in Cucina published by McRae books. A quick skim shows it’s got a wide range of dishes made with simple ingredients, the instructions are clear and the photos are good. The organisation of the book makes no mention of the rhythm of antipasti, primi piatti, secondi piatti e contorne. Nevertheless, it’s got several recipes for gnocchi and for minestrone so I’m happy.

what we came away with

my rather weedy garlic is at the front; the winner looked so good