• Recipe List
  • Sophie

Stories from the Stove

Stories from the Stove

Monthly Archives: January 2017

Aftermath

07 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe, Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Childhood, Christmas, Recipes, Stories, Vegetables, Winter

img_1952

There was a man I recently talked to who said he always steamed his vegetables; this made me feel sad. I have a steamer and it is currently doing time on the top of my fridge, covered in a suspicion of ancient cobwebs. I come from a long line of Midlands folk who would not know what to do with a vegetable steamer, who rarely drank water (‘water is for washing’) and who needed proper animal fat for a day to pass without incident.

My grandpa had red hands, almost purple in hue, small and puffy and strangely delicate with ridged fingernails. He would wash my own small hands in the sink finger by finger as if whittling wood. He began many of his sentences with the word ‘why…’, which was in his lexicon the beginnings of an answer he was formulating. He was a timber merchant and had brylcreamed hair and resented the amount of trifle I ate and was constantly wiping my fingerprints off the glass doors. But of course I loved him and was in awe of the way he polished my shoes.

I remember the pristine plastic bag he would give me at Christmas, long like a sleeve. Inside was a Bunty comic – he was obviously ‘advised’ – and something to do with stationary and pencils. The smell of newness. I have always loved the smell of Christmas, the colours, the citrus, the nuts, the dome of disgraced pudding. However much you feel the bubbling up of resentment somewhere in your being (inevitable) it is hard to quash the feelings of excitement, of occasion, it’s always hard to sleep on Christmas eve. Presents, gold wrapping, a basted bird, the morning walk in frost, the sudden intimacies with strangers.

I have little recollection of what I ate with my grandparents at Christmas, except there was always trifle at some point and I remember the pudding on the day, hot and cascading with complicated fruit and brandy butter which I ate by the spoonful followed later by a spell of biliousness in the back of granny’s car. Breakfast would contain dry Alpen mixed to a rough cement with single cream (top of the milk).

Now the trees are on their lopsided uppers, kicked to the kerb, empty of trinkets. The only red thing left is a poinsettia, the oranges the only thing orange. It is over! It is not even the beginning of the end. It’s a whole new year. There is nothing tenuous about it. We must begin anew. My granny eventually turned her back on butter, switching to Flora margarine – something to do with Terry Wogan’s influence. But I can’t – butter is balm, particularly now in January, when darkness falls at four and the cold works its way pincer-like through all my layers. Fat makes you feel better. Well, me.

Here is a recipe for buttered carrots to which you can add the following: more butter. And a knife point of paprika, thyme, garlic or bay leaves. Adding some sweet potato can also be lovely; it will disintegrate within minutes though. I should say that I always add garlic to this. It is delicious alongside hummus or mixed with a bit of yoghurt or feta. It becomes a soup with ease, simply add water or stock. Meat stock can give it an intensity you should be prepared for.

005

Buttered carrots

A bag of carrots, preferably organic (my bag says 650g)

Generous knob of good quality butter, min 25g (I use President)

Garlic, 3-4 cloves or more, bashed and chopped

Thyme sprigs (optional)

Melt the butter in the saucepan with the garlic and the (diagonally if you like) sliced carrots and coat well, add thyme or another herb here if using and a pinch of salt, then add sufficient water to cover the lot and bubble away until this has reduced to a stickiness. The moment it is ready is entirely a personal preference – I like my carrots almost burnt as it seems to bring out a corresponding sweetness, but Jane Grigson says the point of readiness is when the liquid is ‘reduced to a shiny, colourless glaze’. If you would like to make this into a soup then I would add more water and/or stock at this stage, bring it up to a boil and then blitz.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,369 other subscribers

Top Posts & Pages

Chocolate marmalade slump
Walnut bread
A Word About Dates
Small Crumbs of Comfort
Nasturtium-leaf sandwiches
A mess of meringue
Apple and sultana cake
Soft-boiled egg and soldiers
His favourite butter
A word about cherimoyas

Recent Posts

  • Mulberries
  • We are nature
  • Leaving home
  • A treacherous herb
  • Just stop it
  • Why I swim
  • Semi-derelict
  • Onward

Great books I’ve read

Blogs/Websites I read

  • Letitia Clark
  • Nigel Slater
  • Otter Farm
  • Penelope Lively
  • Room to heal
  • Samantha Harvey
  • Stewart Lee
  • The Idler
  • The Marginalian
  • Tom Cox
Follow Stories from the Stove on WordPress.com

Archives

  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • May 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • August 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • January 2021
  • June 2020
  • November 2018
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • May 2016
  • October 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
"A WOW piece!" Claudia Roden on Walnut Bread

Walnut bread

Lucas’s chocolate marmalade slump

Tags

Afternoon tea Allotment Almonds Art Autumn Baking Bread Breakfast Cafes Cake Childhood Chocolate Christmas Citrus Claudia Roden Cookbook Cooking Dessert Devon Dinner Elizabeth David England Exmoor Fish Food France Fruit Gardening Gelato Gluten-free Herbs Home Homesickness Honey Ice cream Ices Ingredients Italy Jam Jane Grigson Lemons London Los Angeles Lucas Hollweg Marmalade Meat Mediterranean Meyer lemons Nature Nigel Slater Nonfiction Nuts Onions Patience Gray Poetry Pudding Reading Recipe Recipes Salad Sea Seasons Soup Spain Spices Spring Stone fruit Stories Summer Sussex Travel Vegetables Winter Writing Yoghurt

A WordPress.com Website.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Stories from the Stove
    • Join 2,080 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Stories from the Stove
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: