Red Herrings

Today is May 1st. I have generally learned to forget about it in the UK, since our streets aren’t filled with marching people. (For all I know, neither are Swedish streets these days.)

Something else that you lose touch with in exile is who is alive and who has died. I need someone who will tell me the relevant news, and so far the list of dead ones kept by the Retired Children’s Librarian works OK, ish.

I’m glad C-H Hermansson is still around, at the grand old age of 95. He was leader of the communist party in Sweden 40 to 50 years ago, and most notably the one who was leader when I became aware of politics. (It’s easy to forget those who came after.)

He was famous for a couple of things, aside for the usual. He swore on television (according to Wikipedia; at a time when you just didn’t), as he got annoyed with all the in-fighting in the party (the most rightwing of several communist parties, and the only one in parliament). You need to keep your house in order, so to speak.

And he’s famous for the herring recipe. He took part in a cookery programme on television in the 1960s, where he ‘buried herring.’ Gravad strömming, is what it’s called, and that might tell you it’s the herring version of gravad lax, which now seems to be an English word as well.

Gravad means buried, which is what you did back in the really olden days. Then you dug up the food a bit later and ate it.

C-H still gets requests for ‘that communist herring.’ A whole life in politics, and it’s a fish recipe that he will be remembered for. He was crafty back then, realising the power of television. Apart from the swearing, we don’t really recall much of what he said.

Here’s to Red Herring!

Sweet and refreshing

After reading Terry Pratchett’s Dodger, I know so much more. Having ‘met’ that Peel chap in Terry’s book, I now understand what and who he was, and also why his men were peelers. Before, I only knew they were the police, just like the Bow Street Runners.

But still.

The Resident IT Consultant brought home some peelers the other day. They are (or at least were decribed as) seedless and easy. Also refreshing and sweet. Lovely policemen, in other words, and not in the slightest seedy – unlike their customers – and easy (perhaps like some of their clientele).

They came from Waitrose. Can you tell what was on my shopping list yet? Because it doesn’t actually say on the numerous labels of these peelers what they are. They are described, but they are sweet and easy whatsits?

Nadorcott, to be precise. Size 64 to 69 mm, class 1. And they taste fine.

My shopping list had the word clementines on it. I needed to google to see whether that’s what the Resident IT Consultant brought home.

According to one, he did: ‘A high quality, mid to late-maturing Clementine. Easy- peeling with great depth of flavour and sweetness, with a good acidity balance.’ The next entry offers a slight difference of opinion: ‘A new variety of Mandarin Tangerine, … the fruit is easy peeling with a superior rind and juice color.’

So, a clementine. Or possibly a mandarin. Or tangerine. One of those orangey things.

Why not say so on the label? It feels weird to tell myself I’m eating a peeler, however sweet and seedless. The label even mentions love life. Whose?

(As for the small print, ‘all care is taken but on rare occasions fruit may contain seeds.’ Meaning someone was meant to de-seed and might have missed a few? Also ‘wash before use.’ I’m generally clean. And I peel the peelers. So what wants washing?)

Bookwitch bites #98

In my hand is the label off a recent dinner chez Bookwitch. (I don’t mean that we had a convenience meal; I cooked it all myself.) In fact, I feel as if I cooked myself. The label bears the words ‘British Swede’ and ‘Reduced.’ The things I’ve been reduced to…

The Resident IT Consultant bought a (veggie) Haggis during a bout of patriotism, and brought it home. I could tell he was hoping for the real deal for his meal, even if it was after Burns’ night. I thought sprouts. No, wrong country. Neeps, is what it has to be, with the tatties. So, Swede. Or maybe just swede. Which had been reduced (because swede goes off so fantastically quickly!). Cheap swede.

It was surprisingly good.

I’m now trying to work out how to get from Haggises to Melvin Burgess. Oh dear.

One of my most favourite of Melvin’s books – An Angel For May – was reissued this week. If you haven’t read it, now is your opportunity to remedy this oversight. I’m fairly sure you won’t regret it.

Today we will finish with a photo, which explains everything. Swedes, bags, angels. You know.

The A-Z of Träslövsläge

Now that Daughter has informed the world – via fb – that I spent most of Friday eating all over the place, I suppose I needn’t hide this ugly fact from the rest of you.

We ate. Lots. Often. And it was good. You need to get your annual requirement of certain foods and eating places dealt with in a limited time, so slacking is to be avoided at all costs.

We got more lost than even I thought was possible, considering it was just one day, and we were in familiar territory. Must have been a curse. I firmly believe some road signs had been altered with me in mind.

The book we could have done with was the A-Z of the various places we went to, and through. Or tried to. Except I don’t expect there is an A-Z of Träslövsläge. It is a small fishing village south of Varberg. Which is itself not enormous. Nor is the smaller town of Falkenberg.

So, Träslövsläge looked beguiling enough when we stopped on our way north, that we decided to call in for ice cream at the place I sort of recalled in ‘downtown Träslövsläge’ on our way home in the evening. The same thought had occurred to a hundred other people, so we didn’t even bother joining the queues.

Instead we drove on. We could have retraced our steps. That way we wouldn’t have got lost in a mere fishing village. With the backseat passenger complaining, we finally found the main road again, at a spot much further south than I had imagined to be possible.

Earlier in the day we had found an unusual way into the centre of Falkenberg. So had a number of other motorists. The way wasn’t ideal, but the company even less so. We visited the museum for its summer exhibition of ceramics icon Stig Lindberg. Very good, and so was the teabread which was cheap on account of it being yesterday’s. (Yesterday’s yesterday.) We could choose our own mugs to drink from. The Resident IT Consultant then helped himself to a free map of Falkenberg.

This was to aid us in the leaving of Falkenberg. I mean, it was intended to do this. It didn’t. We just knew where we were as we lost ourselves deeper and deeper into the northern suburbs (if there is such a thing in a small town) of Falkenberg. Again, we found the main road eventually.

We spent the intervening journey discussing how to find a car park not yet full in Varberg, and where, and how not to get lost while doing this. The only map I had was the minute one on the permanent car parking ticket one has to carry to park in this lovely town. It is where I spent my childhood summers.

Didn’t help – much – as we ended up driving a very interesting way into Varberg. But whereas we didn’t find the place we wanted, we found a better place to park (next to the cemetery), and all was well. We even knew how to find the Pizzeria we were after. (It’s a holiday tradition. It’s where the gulls eat half pizzas in one fell swoop.)

We walked after this, which is fine, because no one got lost. We watched as a Norwegian car tried and failed to drive up a steep road. The same road the Resident IT Consultant then had us go up. I closed my eyes. I can understand why that road has a curfew on cars and motorbikes between 10pm and 6 am. The gunning of engines would drive anyone demented.

Having failed with the Träslövsläge ice cream, we went on to the Salmon restaurant where we had very large ones (ice creams, not salmons), half freezing by sitting outside, next to the motorway. Nice train on the other side.

This was going to be a short Saturday post. But at least you now know why we ate a lot and lost ourselves a lot. And that lovely red car is not our car.

A glut of Bank Holidays

What I really intended to mention yesterday, but was too distraught by the lack of Rolf Harris in my life to remember, was this glut of Bank Holidays. The left-behind UK has two and then Sweden has one, so three days in a row. My mind can adapt to the fact that normal business will not be in business on certain days, but which and where and when?

We will be enjoying close contact with the dentist while many of you are doing the bunting and other Royal stuff (it will rain!). By the time you are back in the office, I am going to swallow my slight irritation over GP Cousin stealing my birthday. (Who needs an older brother, when you have a birthday stealer cousin?) So, it’ll either be two cakes, or none, because if I decide to wait for his, it will turn out he’s not doing cake. Actually, I doubt the silly boy can manage 60 candles. (Especially on the wrong day!!)

Dodo and Son have joined us (sensibly not travelling by any ferry routes), and we all behaved in a most British manner and went for afternoon tea out on Saturday. That’s out as in out-of-doors, and also very cold. I tried to cheer Daughter up by saying this place usually has customer blankets. They did. She was not cheered. We sat determinedly in the cold sunshine for a suitable length of time before walking back home.

The others then went for a swim in the sea, because they suspected they’d be able to feel even colder if they tried.

First Chinley BookFest

The Resident IT Consultant put his walking gear and waterproofs in the car. Unfortunately, the First Chinley BookFest turned out to be far too much fun for any walking to take place. That’s apart from our scurrying between Venue One and Venue Two, up and down the main street in the village, between the Women’s Institute were the author events were, and the community centre were people ate cake, bought books and ate more cake.

Confession; we did not climb out of bed for the ten o’clock event with Edwina Currie. Somehow we didn’t feel the urge. However, Philip Caveney and Stephen Booth must be considered big draws for a Bookwitch, and to get the pair of them in one local BookFest on one Sunday afternoon was a real bonus.

Speaking of urges. We merely came from Stockport, all of 30 minutes away. One Stephen Booth fan came from Australia. Slight difference, there. But that’s books for you. Sometimes you go a bit crazy. It’s nice, though. If you can. (And one of these days I will learn how to take photos with smartphones. It’s not done by holding it the wrong way round, apparently.)

What a wonderful little BookFest! Just the kind you can enjoy with not too much fuss. Chinley is a hard-to-get-to sort of village on the western end of Derbyshire not looking like, but feeling pretty much like Midsomer. Minus the murders. Although, Stephen Booth did call his talk ‘Where the bodies are buried,’ but I’m sure he only intended that in a fictional way. His books are fiction.

We lunched with Philip and his Lady Caveney, and by that I mean we ate our sandwiches at the Women’s Institute before Philip’s talk, while they tucked into their salads. Very cosy. And his shoes were quite cool.

Philip’s photo of himself as a young man rather cancelled out those shoes, however. Long hair! Hairy face! Those were the days. He talked about his early days as a writer, inspired by Ray Bradbury, and then how his daughter Grace had caused him to become a children’s author simply in order to prevent her from reading his adult novels, which were so not suitable at her age.

He tried to cheat, of course, but Grace made him write a whole book, and after that more books happened, and they keep happening. It seems a last Sebastian Darke will be published later this year, and because you can never write too many books at any one time, Philip has recently published his first ebook, The Talent, which is a crossover type of story. (More about that at a later date.)

Coming soon is the second cinema book, Spy Another Day, from which Philip read to us. A short bit only. The bit that makes you want more. I can’t wait! And should this writing career not support him, he could take up singing. Philip sang very passably from his book. Well, from the film in the book, I suppose. He is inexplicably fond of old-fashioned cinemas with sticky carpets.

Not surprisingly, when reading for pleasure, he picks what’s recent and good, to keep up with what’s doing well, alternating between adult and children’s. I’m not sure Philip answered the question on whether he’ll write for adults again, but he did point out there’s little difference. Except children’s books have to be better.

Quite.

We spent the interval at the community centre, where the Resident IT Consultant splashed out rather, buying four second hand books. I walked round looking at everything from the Charles Dickens table to the book patterned fabric. Also saw Stephen Booth unpacking his box of books, and Philip and Lady C enjoying well deserved mugs of something, before returning home to lovely Stockport.

Entering into the spirit of things, we had mugs of tea and homemade cake. What mugs! Reminiscent of Cath Kidston, no less. And what cake! The Resident IT Consultant took the sensible executive decision to get two kinds for us to share. Someone walked round handing out programmes for the next literary event, which will be the Derbyshire Literature Festival in May.

To make sure of bagging seats to my liking, we went over to the WI again on the heels of Stephen Booth. I’m afraid I stalked him when he went outside again, grabbing a little chat outside the ironmongers (I think). For some reason we talked about Ms Currie, before seamlessly switching to Stephen’s brilliant Swedish success, and via the Bristol Crimefest to Reginald Hill.

After a while we realised that Stephen might need to go back in to talk to the rest of the roomful of people. The organiser introduced him by telling us how she read her first Fry and Cooper before moving to the Peak District. Maybe she was looking for somewhere to stash her dead bodies.

Stephen explained how he prefers to write about a place where he doesn’t live, in order to keep it fresh and at a distance. He’s with Sherlock Holmes in seeing more evil in the country than in the city. Apparently it is well known that the Peak District is good for getting rid of bodies, and especially so in reservoirs, but not to worry about our tap water.

He likes the contrast between the White Peak and the Dark Peak, and the edgy contrast between country and city. Fans have been known to read his books with an Ordnance Survey map to hand, but that didn’t prevent him from getting his east and his west mixed up when a character travelled ‘east’ from Snake Pass to Glossop. It was when he found that Boots in Edendale had accidentally moved between books that he started making his own map of his fictional town. (No matter what Stephen says, to me Edendale will always be Buxton.)

To avoid being sued too often Stephen uses real places, changing them ever so slightly. Not that that helps. Someone reported having heard the peacock he wrote about, and even saw the same people camping… (It’s fiction!!) But it must be wonderful to inspire such keen fans, that they will even go out and test whether a particular place has a mobile signal.

Listening to this cross between Stephen King and the Brontës is always fun and entertaining. It’s fascinating the way coincidences happen, and the way Stephen can make use of the weirdest stuff in writing his books. He even caused his agent to see decomposing bodies where there were none. (Poor woman.) Why frighten us, when we can do it ourselves?

I was all ready to return home and continue reading my Booth book number six, except I can’t, because it’s the book I allowed Son to take with him to India. (And that will be the only mention of India for today. Thank you for your patience.)

I made up for this by getting the Resident IT Consultant an early birthday present in the shape of a genuine Stephen Booth paperback (number seven), signed and discounted. (I mean, it was very expensive, dear. Erm, no, I just remembered, you’re from Scotland. It was a bargain. Should have bought two.)

They sold the remaining cakes for half price. Because we hadn’t ‘eaten a thing’ all day, I bought some to have when we got home. There were divine scones and extremely drizzley lemon cake slices. But I’m afraid we ate it all before I thought of taking a photo.

Here’s to the next Chinley BookFest!

Bookwitch bites #77

Vegetable pakora, perhaps. One of my very favourites. Along with those newly discovered chilli parathas we like.

I mentioned the other day how I could see myself wearing a beautiful sari. It’s funny how your mind changes, from one decade to another, thirty years on. The Resident IT Consultant came with Indian relatives, which was very thoughtful of him. It’s pretty exotic to a Swedish peasant like myself.

So, as the happy day drew near, all those years ago, The Indian Aunt suggested we might want something Indian as a wedding present. Perhaps a sari. I felt I would look odd wearing one of those round Brighton, so replied that almost anything else Indian would be absolutely lovely. It was. But you can’t wear an antique embroidered wall hanging, even in Stockport, if you change your mind.

And to be realistic about this, at my age I suspect the draughtiness of the ‘gaps’ in a sari might be a little on the chilli side.

There are books with bits of India in them. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, for instance. And more recently, Jane Eagland’s Whisper My Name. Both are about formerly ‘Indian’ girls who come to England for their education. And I can’t help but feel that whereas we do like the books for what happens once the girls get here, we would quite like some more of India.

Mr Ram Dass makes me think of Art Malik as Mr Amanjit Singh in Upstairs Downstairs. Silly of me, I know. He’s probably past climbing around on roofs.

(And it’s odd how things happen. As I was blogging merrily away on my Indian theme, I ‘got mail.’ It was from Raja Fashions, telling me when they are next in my neck of the woods. What would we wear without them?)

Small world

‘It’s a shame Adèle Geras moved away from Manchester,’ sighed Mrs Moomin. We had lunch together yesterday, despite it being Friday the 13th. I’m always a bit startled when conversations go in unexpected directions, and I forget that Mrs Moomin knew Adèle for ages, living near her. Considering my limited social life, I’m surprised I have managed to know two people who separately know Adèle.

Mrs Moomin and I were at a Swedish lunch, doing our best to avoid being 13 at the table, and managed something like 14 1/2. Borås Girl hosted, and we all brought some food. (To tell the truth, I didn’t do well. I ran out of time, so offered the bare minimum pilfered from my freezer.) These ladies are seriously good at cooking and baking. There was even Swede salad.

OK, if I can just tear my thoughts away from the cheesecake, I’ll get to Borås Girl’s Swedish speaking Estonian friend, Mrs Linguist, whom she met at her German class. I’ve been passing Swedish DVDs for BG to lend her friend, and felt I ‘knew’ her slightly, so it was good to chat when we met. As civilised people we swapped business cards, and that’s when she worked out we had already been in contact with each other.

I am very forgetful, but recalled sending a perfect stranger some pages from an Astrid Lindgren book a few years ago. (No, I didn’t tear them out. I copied.) Mrs Linguist was the perfect stranger, introduced by Professor Linguistics who reckoned I was the likeliest person she knew who would own a copy of the Bullerby book. Very astute.

So that was nice. More coincidences.

Mrs Linguist was accompanied by Baby Linguist (who, quite frankly, was not too keen on all those cackling women), and her visiting Estonian Mother. None of us could muster up any Estonian, but Mrs Moomin spoke to her in Finnish. And that’s something I didn’t know. That many Estonians understand Finnish, because for years that was their escape from ‘Russian only’ television.

The rest of the ladies concentrated on passing round a couple of battered Swedish crime paperbacks by Mari Jungstedt, and a Swedish DVD, before going gaga over Brian Cox, because he’s so cute… (He wasn’t there, btw. We happened to slip onto the subject of Astrophysics, after which there was no stopping them.)

We were temporarily saved by the aforementioned cheesecake. I’m going to need the recipe.

Kale and the outsider

First I spent years in the belief that kale soup is a traditional Christmas meal in the part of the world where Mother-of-witch grew up. We would have it on Christmas Day, followed by rice porridge. (No need to feel sorry for me. It’s delicious.)

Then I learned it’s not a widespread habit at all. I suppose it was my Grandmother who felt it made for a lighter and cheaper meal to have on the day after the big Christmas meal, and her daughters continued this lack of tradition.

So did her granddaughter, and my first Christmas in England saw me trawling The Lanes in Brighton for kale. ‘No dear, but we have some nice broccoli,’ was generally the reply to my question.

Once we arrived in the north it’s been easier to obtain kale. But then you have the casual conversations when people inquire what we eat for Christmas. They always feel sorry for me. Especially if they know what kale is. And then they tease me.

In the place where I grew up, people eat kale in a different way, but plenty of it, and always as part of the Christmas Eve ‘table.’ Basically, you boil it and then you fry it and then you smother it with butter and cream…

They want a lot of it, so drag home sackfuls of kale from the market in December.

Witnessing this, one newcomer to our area was totally taken aback. Where she came from they put a small sprig of kale on the table for decoration. She was impressed by the amount of table decorating her new neighbours must be getting involved in.

The one change I’ve made to the menu is that we skip the whole Christmas smörgåsbord and I now serve up the non-traditional kale soup on Christmas Eve, closely followed by the rice porridge. One Offspring likes it and the other hates it, so has tinned tomato soup instead. That’s also a tradition.

Go on. Pity me! Or them.

Granted

We’re having the weekend ‘off’. Sort of. So you will not get a real blog post out of me, because I’ve not behaved in a terribly bookwitchy way.

Once I staggered out of bed after Friday’s graduation excesses I did, however, have a very good literary Saturday. As I mentioned a few weeks ago Helen Grant moved to Scotland in June, and I’m afraid I took advantage of her weakened state by suggesting we might meet up now that I was temporarily in the same country.

Helen was sufficiently taken aback by this and didn’t even claim a prior appointment with her hairdresser to get out of it. So she and her lovely children Blackwolf and Shardspirit along with the energetic Mr G obeyed my witchy summons and made it to Corrieri’s for pizza, pasta and proper Italian ice cream.

It was very nice. I brought Daughter along and even the Resident IT Consultant got an airing, seeing as it was his hometown. The place was quietening down as we arrived, but we soon put a stop to that, and soon we could barely hear ourselves chat. So I’m unable to report too many indiscretions, I’m afraid.

The Grant pets (no, they didn’t come) have taken well to their new home, and once Helen has finished murdering her way around Flanders, she will consider killing off some of Perthshire. I’m looking forward to that.

Both Shardspirit and Blackwolf brought books to read (I suspect they sensed I might be boring, and how right they were) which I thoroughly approve of. Daughter had nothing better to do than fiddle with her mobile. The lovely Helen gave me a devil rubber duck, which I will treasure always. Unless that cheeky Daughter steals it off me.

After a nice meal the Grants dropped us off so dangerously close to Oxfam that the Resident IT Consultant went there and ‘had an accident’. Bookaholics! Honestly!