Category Archives: Margot’s Country Snippets

Margot’s 12 Faves of Christmas

With Poppy’s 4th birthday out of the way and a week of cards and cake dutifully observed, Christmas has finally entered the cottage. A huge succession of large parcels have descended (thank goodness for next day delivery) and in true last minute Margot form, all food bar the main event arrived by the back door in time too. The postman and I are on first name terms and he brings Monty biscuits. Keep it between us, dear Reader…..I have panic bought pretty much everything for Christmas. Every year I promise myself that I will have everything ready by the beginning of December so that I can actually enjoy the lead up to the big festive day and apart from the year that Poppy was born, I haven’t managed to be even vaguely organised! However, I’ve decided that the best way to combat all the Christmas rush and stress is to take a leaf out of the Danes’ book and embrace ‘hygge’. Everything else can wait.

candles

From what I can gather, Hygge (pronounced hooga) is all about the art of cosiness – enjoying good things with good people, creating a magical glow with candelight, making time to stop and think, appreciating what we have, rather than wanting more…… The perfect winter antidote. So this Christmas, I shall making like a Dane, feasting with the people I love, taking a moment to stop and stare at the roaring fire in the grate (whilst sipping sloe gin obviously, dear Reader), remembering that cooking Christmas lunch is only like cooking a Sunday roast and switching off from the world outside to make Lego farms with Poppy and Primrose, sip hot tea, eat crumpets, savour long muddy walks in the woods, scoff Quality Street, finally watch the end of Mad Men and dive into my latest haul of Raffaela Barker novels.

Before I sign off until the New Year though, dear Reader, I thought I’d share my 2015 Christmas favourites with you – my 12 ‘faves’ of Christmas….

Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a pheasant wreath so here is this year’s homemade effort. Thanks so much to Phil the pheasant who was trapped in the dog proof fencing and as I went to rescue him, decided to fly off, leaving me with all his tail feathers in my hand! Phil, I do hope you haven’t been the butt of numerous jokes – pop back and I’ll find you a jumper.

Christmas wreath

2. Despite the ridiculously unseasonal weather, I will STILL be snuggling down on the sofa with my favourite people by the fire, even if it means we will be wearing t-shirts and drinking pina coladas in the sitting room. Letters written to the Big Man have already been laid on the fire and we watched as the smoke curled up the chimney, hoping they reach him in time.

Fire

3. Hot steaming mugs of tea and good books with my beautiful cashmere bed socks before everyone else gets up – Yawn London you have made my Christmas this year so a huge thank you to you.

Yawn

4. Finding out who’s been naughty or nice with Primrose and Poppy at the Long Barn in Alresford – really magical and so much fun. FC Long Barn

5. Our very own handmade pigs in blankets from our first pig, Cumberland.

Pigs in blankets 6. How could I forget the Christmas tree? Ours doesn’t go up until after Poppy’s birthday but I adore it when it is finally in situ – you can’t beat the smell of fir in the house. I even managed to embrace the tree decoration free for all…….

Christmas tree

7. We always have a new book for Christmas and Christmas week, we read our favourite Chistmas bedtime stories including an Oxford Annual of Christmas I’ve had since I was 6! Poppy and Primrose love the stories of Victorian Christmases and Mummers. However, the book that is asked for time and time again has to be The Jolly Christmas Postman.

Jolly Postman

8. Christmas Monty – I promise he hasn’t eaten Father Christmas but he IS terribly suspicious of men in red suits falling down the chimney….

Christmas Monty

9. We’ve been so busy with one and thing another, that I forgot to tell you about a new four legged friend of ours. Introducing Willow, the 28 year old Welsh Mountain pony. A very sweet farmer’s daughter who lives nearby asked us if we could fuss over her old pony, groom her and take her out for hacks. As you can imagine, it was like all Poppy and Primrose’s Christmases had come at once and now it’s Willow this and Willow that. Christmas Eve will see us taking carrots to her and her horsey companion. A complete wish come true for 2 pony mad girls and 1 pony mad Mummy, dear Reader. Jerry has taken to frowning at the number of riding hats and paraphernalia in the hallway……

Willow

10. Cheese. Need I say more. I have a fridge full and it makes me rather happy, dear Reader. Oh that and the Christmas Double Issue of Country Life! I shall be sneaking down the stairs in the dark, Nigella style, to midnight feast on Stilton and Tunworth cheese whilst reading a page or two of this country Christmas treat.

Christmas CL

11. Winter walks – in between all the feasting and present giving, there’s nothing like trudging up to the woods and blowing away the cobwebs. Can’t wait for a crisp frost to coat our little corner of countryside.

winter leave

12. Perhaps the best thing under the Christmas tree this year will be our newest addition…. Meet Isadora, dear Reader. Dora for short. All black velvet and gorgeous puppyness. Arriving on an early Christmas delivery, we’ve already been enjoying plenty of cuddles. Jerry certainly knows how to get a Christmas present right! However, Monty is still not too sure if it is love at first sight. He will be taking a view on the whole puppy pulling his ears and sleeping on his bed situation, post Christmas.

Dora

SO that takes us to 2 cats, 2 dogs, 5 hens, 1 pony and a pig in the freeezer……wonder what else we can find a home for in 2016?!! I would say that we were mad but if you’ve been reading this since the very beginning, then you already know that, dear Reader! Wishing a very Happy Christmas to you and yours – may your Christmas be filled with feasting, plenty of cosiness and most importantly, love, peace and a little gin. See you on the other side x

A real roasting

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With the days getting shorter and the mornings pitch black, I turn increasingly towards my little morning pick me up, dear Reader. A drop of hot, dark happiness to help ease me into the day. When the school run frazzles me from top to toe, I am dripping wet from my dawn-chorused dog walk and I am buried under a mountain of work, it is my solace. Coffee. I can’t live without it. Perhaps it’s because my dear Mamma hails from Brazil or the fact that I simply can’t function before 10am unless I’ve had my first cup of the dark stuff….whatever the reason, my mornings just wouldn’t be the same without it.

When we first moved from the Big Smoke where coffee houses were ten a penny, it was one of the things that I knew that I would miss the most. I think that one of Primrose’s first outings was to meet NCT ladies and their babes over a mug of coffee, dear Reader! Walking down the tow path and along to my favourite café, usually pushing a buggy or trying not to fall over a trike, it was part of my weekend/maternity leave/cheering myself up ritual. That was until we moved to the wilds of rural Hampshire where the nearest café is a good 20 minutes away in the car. Worried about my impending caffeine/coffee house withdrawal, Jerry gifted me a now much treasured possession……my little coffee machine. None of the pod rubbish (sorry sorry sorry I really should apologise for my coffee machine fascism). A proper grind your own beans, coffee damper, schwaaaaaah sounding number. It remains the BEST present that Jerry has ever given me for Christmas and other than the Everhot is the most used gadget in the kitchen. So when Moonroast Coffee offered me a chance to learn more about what goes into my cup, I jumped straight into the car! Coffee….on the doorstep….what could be better?!!

Moonroast Coffee may have humble digs (for now…) but it comes with a seriously impressive list of coffee credentials. Working in the heart of the Candover valley in Hampshire, Francis and Judy Bradshaw are the 4th generation of the Bradshaw family to be involved in the tea and coffee industry with Francis’ father, Haydon Bradshaw, one of Britain’s top coffee tasters, offering a consultant’s overview of Moonroast’s coffee journey. Setting up in the back garden, Fran and Judy saw an opportunity to create an artisan roastery making small batch, slow roasted coffee with beans sourced from the best smallholders in the world.

Juggling day jobs, Fran and Judy began roasting coffee beans at night with a roaster that was brought over neighbouring fields on a loader, installed in their large shed and Moonroast Coffee was born. Very much a handcrafted business, Fran takes great care to create his own blends as well as crafting single origin coffees with their own roasting and flavour profile for retail as well as wholesale. Believe me, dear Reader, this is so much more than your average cup of morning coffee!

The process is fascinating. From green beans, a lighter shade of Puy lentil, to carefully monitored roasting in the roaster, all the way through to a ristretto or flat white! The smell wafting through the shed was incredible as the beans were cooled to prevent any further roasting. You could even hear the crackles coming from the roaster as the beans begin to take on their characteristic colour.

Ethiopian, Guatemalan, Sumatran…..I fear that my mornings may well now involve a good deal of indecision. That and I am destined to become a coffee bore to anyone who will listen. Fran gave me some fab tips too – always buy beans and grind them yourself. Coffee beans stay fresher for marginally longer BUT check out the roasting date on the coffee label if there is one. Coffee starts to lose its aromas and flavours the longer it is open to the elements. Not a problem in this house as Jerry and I practically inhale the stuff daily. Try different beans, single origins or blends. Like vineyards and vines in the case of wine, beans grown on different soils (or as the winos like to say ‘terroir’) have a distinct and different flavour profile. Blends, well they bring together different flavour characteristics of combined beans to bring together a distinctive taste too. Citrus notes, floral ones, body, acidity – all these give the cup of coffee you like it’s own ‘je ne sais quoi’. Diana Henry, award-winning food writer and all round fabulous foodie, explains the whole coffee code of conduct here, far more beautifully than I ever could.

There’s an art to the perfect cup of coffee that is more than the foamy fern, heart or swan on the top. Weighing out the right amount of beans, even the amount of pressure applied with the coffee damper is key. Too compact and the water struggles to pass through the coffee, too loose and too much flavour is washed away. Extracting the flavours is what the whole process is all about.

With all this in mind, I shall make sure that I take FAR more time over that first cup of coffee. After all, it’s the deliciously aromatic, wonderfully energising rocket fuel that powers my day. Somehow it makes me much more able to deal with Primrose’s daily requests for a pony at 6am, Poppy covering herself head to toe in mud on her way from front door to car BEFORE drop off at nursery, chasing Monty across the fields yelling “IDIOT” after him and the awful realisation that I shall never manage to look anything but the essence of being dragged through a hedge backwards as I emergency exit the children, ‘drive-by shooting style’ from the moving car and into the arms of their teachers at the school gates. Coffee. I dread to think what I would be WITHOUT YOU.

A huge thanks to Fran, Judy and Rachel from Moonroast Coffee for taking pity on me in my hour of caffeine, creating some of the most delicious flat whites I’ve ever tasted and for letting me in on your wonderful roasting secrets. Anyone who doesn’t try your coffee is seriously missing out.

Autumn’s arrival

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Autumn makes me unspeakably happy. Cable knit cardigans, getting the fires going in the house, TIGHTS, boots, capes and ponchos, russet coloured leaves, sinking into an armchair with a good book and large cup of tea on a Sunday afternoon, stopping with Primrose and Poppy to pick delicious bounty from the hedgerows, TIGHTS, my brown brogues, windfall apples, scarves, long walks in breezy sunshine where the light filters through the trees in the woodland just so, Jerry in warm woolly jumpers, jams and jellies and did I mention TIGHTS, dear Reader?! Lovely thick opaque tights. All those wonderful autumnal things and more, seem to make my heart sing. Even my hair behaves better in the autumn and suddenly rosy cheeks and ~~constantly messy~~ windswept red hair blend into a landscape tinged with the colours of the liquor in the jam pan, rather than stick out like a sore thumb.

Autumn is almost the best time in the world to get into seasonal cookery. Who needs more of an excuse to pop a stew into the bottom of the oven to slow cook or pick blackberries on a long walk? Comfort food at its best. With that in mind, I popped off to watch a new friend in action. Everything about the lovely Cherie Denham from Flavour Passion screams foodie! The first time I met her she rendered me speechless with scones lighter than air topped with lashings of her Blackberry jelly. Winning me over with food is always a dead cert. for cementing a friendship. She’s pretty good ‘craic’, as they say in her Irish homeland, too!

Trained at Leith’s School of Food and Wine, Cherie then became a teacher there, earning yet more culinary stripes with her own catering business and as a home economist consultant for none other than River Cottage’s Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall when River Cottage’s first cookbook hit the scene. Now running a whole host of seasonal cookery demonstrations from her stunning countryside cottage, Cherie shows her guests how to create an array of dishes from original recipes that can be scaled up or down depending on the occasion and most importantly, shares her culinary hacks. Easy canapés, crowd pleasing dishes, cosy autumn kitchen suppers, something a little more refined – this is cookery for those with busy lives who need tried and tested recipes that are a bit hit with everyone from the children to Saturday evening dinner party guests. Jerry was in seventh heaven with the Slow Braised Spicy Chipotle Beef Cherie sent me home with………the whole plateful was snaffled in seconds.

Butternut Squash Soup with Truffle oil and Parmesan

Crispy Oregano Chicken

Spinach, Ricotta and Thyme Tart

Divine Damson jam with Cherie’s Irish Wheaten Bread

Demonstrations seem to be THE thing when it comes to cooking these days and I can see the appeal. This is the countryside’s Tupperware party for the 21st century, dear Reader but OH SO MUCH more glamourous and useful! Rather like your best friend sharing all the secrets you’ve been dying for her to divulge for years. All cooking abilities are welcome. In fact, the guest list for Cherie’s demo was rather like a modern who’s who of Cluedo – was it the anaesthetist, the students off to university for their first year, the farmer’s wife, interior designer or godfather’s wife that nicked the last slice of Warm Lemony Treacle Tart….? I wonder, dear Reader. Can’t blame them, it was seriously scrummy and I shall certainly be returning for more culinary inspiration when Cherie demos Christmas in November!

Inspired by my amazing morning and immensely delicious dishes, my kitchen now looks more like a production line than farmhouse haven! Elderberries, crab apples, quinces, herbs from the garden for drying – we’ve got it all going on in Margot’s Kitchen at the moment, dear Reader! The cottage is groaning under the weight of all the apples that seem to arrive by the carrier bag full and are left on the doorstep by lovely villagers. With jams and jellies a go go, I’ve taken to trying a few new numbers with the apples too as I can’t bear to see them go to waste. Crab apple vodka, windfall apple butter, hedgerow compote, fruit leathers for the girls and my favourite so far, apple crisps. I haven’t even got round to picking the sloes yet but I must, before they are snapped up by the birds. First frost is just far too long away to leave a batch of sloe gin to chance!

If like me, your house is turning into an orchard quicker than you can say cider, then this will help turn a few of those appley beauties into something everyone can enjoy. Here, just for you my dear Reader, is my recipe for Apple Crisps.

Apple Crisps

1 or 2 apples, not cookers

sprinkling of cinnamon

greaseproof paper

Peel and core your apples, cutting out any maggoty bits if like me you’ve used a few windfalls. Using a mandolin (the culinary version rather than musical), finely slice the apple so that you have rings or half rings depending on how many maggoty bits you’ve had to cut out. You could do this with a knife but remember it does have to be paper thin slices.

Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and place apple slices on the paper. You may have to line a couple of baking sheets depending on how many apples you have decided to use. Sprinkle over the cinnamon. NO SUGAR NEEDED.

Place in bottom of the Aga (in my case the ever faithful Everhot) or in a very low oven from anywhere from 2 hours or until you have achieved the level of crispness you would like. Best to do this when you need to do some slow cooking as the oven will need to be on low (no more than 120 degrees Centigrade) for a while. Keep checking the slices every now and again to make sure they are not burning. You can choose to leave them until they are really crisp or simple dried out and still a bit chewy. Lovely as an after school snack, crushed over yoghurt, stirred into vanilla ice cream – the choice is yours!

Happy autumn, dear Reader! I’m off to buy some more tights……

Au revoir Summer

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A long summer break has passed between us, dear Reader. My first summer off in 3 years and I returned completely and utterly refreshed. So much so that it has taken me a little while to settle back at the writing desk! I hope you can forgive me for being distracted – France in mid 30 degree heat was just too lovely not to enjoy to the full. Well, that and Jerry and I had to live without WIFI for a few weeks…we’re lucky we are still married!

First there were the views…

Then there was the house that Primrose wanted to buy and was rather miffed when Jerry told her that unless she asked the owners if they needed to hire her as a housekeeper, there was zero chance of her moving in and calling it home.

Followed by a great deal of cheese, several hundred trips to the market for ‘ooohing’ and ‘aaaahing’ and much buying of French comestibles.

Oh and of course, dinner in an altogether pre-sous chef form should one feel brave enough….

…all washed down with ~~industrial quantities of~~ a little bit of wine.

Jerry and I even managed to glean some local wisdom. Apparently, the best way to learn French proficiently is to take up a lover. An interesting notion……but not sure we’d find two souls brave enough to take us on to test it out. Especially after mutual meltdowns over the NO WIFI zone, rows over a hideously expensive phone bill for going over the data allowance AND the fact that I had yet again packed an entire suitcase full of books and nothing else. In my defence dear Reader, I read them ALL.

Still the sun set on our blissful holiday (apologies for the smugness) and we all agreed that there is nothing better than French food, French wine and spending time just the four of us.

That was before I returned to name tapes with a few helpings of two small beings bashing each other over the head with Lego, a cottage which had suddenly morphed into a hobbit’s home and to crown the chaos, a broken boiler and no hot water. Bonjour September…… Maybe I might just pop back to France and find myself a French lover after all, dear Reader?!

Meeting Lauren Child

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So, dear Reader, this is a rather special post – Primrose and I got to meet one of our heroines of the bedtime story world this week and were rendered utterly starstruck. For as long as Primrose has been able to hold a pencil, she has been desperate to write her own stories. Amongst a mix of Enid Blyton, Frog and Toad and all the old fairy tales including an ancient Ladybird book of mine of The Goose Girl, Primrose’s love of quirky characters and twists on traditional tales has definitely been inspired by the author and illustrator, Lauren Child. So imagine when I told Primrose that we were going to meet her “IN REAL LIFE”, to coin a Primrose phrase.

The National Trust’s Mottisfont in Hampshire are hosting a retrospective of Lauren’s work – The Art of Lauren Child: Adventures with Charlie and Lola and Friends running from 18 July – 6 September to mark the 15 year anniversary of the first Charlie and Lola book to be published, I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato. Author and illustrator, Lauren Child MBE, has such an amazing back catalogue of children’s books which has been loved and devoured across the world and is probably best known for her delightful brother and sister creation, doting brother Charlie and his picklish little sister (small and very funny), Lola. Lauren seems to have that uncanny knack for being able to slip into the shoes of children we’ve met, grown up with or perhaps even given birth to. Perhaps it’s her talent for telling it like it is from a child’s perspective that has seen her works adored by children and adults alike.

With a selection of never before seen items including some of Lauren’s sketchbooks, the exhibition hosts 50 original art works from Lauren’s own personal collection and gives a wonderful insight into the process from sketchbook to published work. This is a chance to get up close and personal with some of the objects that have served to inspire Lauren’s fabulous and well known stories, such as Lola’s pink milk glass, childhood pyjamas and the truly amazing and wonderfully detailed original sets which were created for Lauren’s retelling of The Princess and the Pea on which she collaborated with Polly Borland.

“I think with Clarice (Bean) I wrote and then I drew and it was almost like creating a graphic novel. Now I tend to write and then draw. Often people think that everything is done on computer but it really isn’t,” Lauren shared. “You find things in the photo album which you think might work – so I know exactly where these photos are from as I put together the collages. They become more than just drawings.”

The exhibition also offers a chance for Charlie and Lola fans to catch a sneak preview of illustrations from Lauren’s latest book, entitled One Thing, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Charlie and Lola, which will be published this autumn.

Lauren on One Thing: “I wanted to show sums in a really beautiful way – there’s something about the visual beauty of numbers. It’s a story about Charlie and Lola’s mum telling them that they can have one thing and that bargaining thing that happens with children. As soon as you say one thing, they immediately start negotiating. It’s a game I play most days with my daughter. I wanted to write about the fun of counting and that home truth.’

Alongside the exhibition, Lauren has helped the team at Mottisfont to create a fantastic creative play trail around the house and grounds – perfect for all ages and a chance to go on a real adventure with Charlie and Lola and their friends. A great day out for the summer hols! For details of the exhibition and adventure trail, take a look here.

Meeting the lady herself, Primrose got to ask all her questions. What inspired you to write Charlie and Lola? How do you create the stories and illustrations? We had a fab chat about Lola’s invisible friend Soren Lorensen, Lauren’s favourite character Clarice Bean and creating alter egos that you’d like to be and our huge amount of love for That Pesky Rat. Perhaps the best bit of all was Primrose showing Lauren her own story which she had written and illustrated – A Bad Spell for the Little Fairy. I shall be eternally grateful to Lauren for making Primrose’s YEAR and for taking the time to talk to her and read her story. I honestly couldn’t think of a better literary role model and source of creative inspiration for my little writer – a memory that will be treasured forever.

This exhibition is a MUST SEE for anyone who has cherished and enjoyed reading Lauren Child’s books and there’s something for all the family to enjoy as well as going on your own adventures with Charlie and Lola and Friends at Mottisfont during the summer holidays.

So on that note, dear Reader, to mark the opening of The Art of Lauren Child: Adventures with Charlie and Lola and Friends at the National Trust’s Mottisfont this summer, the lovely people at National Trust London and South East have given me 5 FAMILY DAY PASSES to give away to lucky entrants. All you have to do is to ‘like’ @MottisfontNT on Twitter (or their Facebook page if you’re not on Twitter) and then write a comment here on this post, telling me which Lauren Child book is your favourite and why. Entries will close at 5pm on THURSDAY 23RD JULY. The National Trust LSE lot will help pick the winning answers so don’t forget to leave me an email address or Twitter handle in the comment box too so that I can contact you if you’ve won.

Margot Tries the Good Life

A chronicle of the transformation from self-confessed townie to country bumpkin