Dark Rye and Honey Cake

January, named after the Roman god Janus who had two heads: one for looking forward, one for looking back. It’s a good time for reflection and planning and I habitually use this slow, dark month for taking stock and making plans for the year ahead.

I would love to say these plans are profound but usually it’s far more prosaic, less ‘let’s travel around Mexico for a year!’ and more ‘what variety of kale to attempt on the allotment?’. With the weather cold and wet, there are worse things than taking refuge in my notebooks and catalogues and putting in orders for seeds, seedlings and tubers. As usual I have over-extended myself (do I really need 8 more 1.2m tall dahlia plants, given that the slugs usually eat them anyway?) and I will have to recruit parental support to get all these seeds going…memories of last spring’s seedling-apocalypse linger. In just a few weeks I’ll get the snapdragons going, and then the new season will definitely be up and running.

Putting together plans and seeds for 2024

Given the quiet outside, one of the great luxuries of this time of year is finding the time and space for reading, thinking and learning. I bought myself Regula Ysewijn’s Dark Rye and Honey Cake as a late Christmas present; it was released several months ago but I don’t tend to buy so many books these days, particularly cookery books, which tend so often to be style over substance. Curiosity eventually won me over and thank goodness that it did. The beauty of this extraordinary, brilliant work is that it has substance in spades – but delivers that substance with the greatest style.

The exquisite Dark Rye and Honey Cake by Regula Ysewijn

I’ve written and cooked from Regula’s books before; an anglophile (Regula is Belgian), she has published extensively about British baking and food culture and history. This new work takes her back to her roots in the Low Countries, and takes us on a tour of festival baking culture from the last four hundred years or so. There are recipes, of course, but most interesting are the essays explaining how sweet treats work their symbolic meaning into the high points of the year, from St Nicholas to Christmas to Lent, and the legacy that lives on into the everyday lives of today.

Regula’s extraordinary photography takes inspiration from the Dutch masters

As well as a baker and food historian, Regula is a photographer (I’d describe her as an artist really) and the book is dense with considered, thoughtful photography. It would be easy to dismiss this with the brush of ‘style-above-substance’ mentioned earlier but look closer: the images are lit as if by a 16th century Dutch master; the styling references that of the Dutch still life tradition; the ceramics are Belgian or Dutch…every tiny detail is executed with care, precision and intelligence. Paintings from the 1500s sit alongside these new images, centring pies, fruits and breads as part of the visual culture of the age.

16th Century Dutch still life centred around imagery of feasting and food, including this work by Clara Peters (1594-c.1657)

I came to this book knowing very little about the food culture of the Low Countries, save that they like a waffle or two. Well, Regula has made me a convert. From the tradition of frying dough at the kermis (fair), to the multi-day method of preserving pears by slow cooking and transforming them into vlaai (pie), to the influence of the Dutch and Belgian immigrants to the food culture of Minnesota, there is revelation after revelation. As is usual with Regula she bears witness to the truth that so much of contemporary Western wealth arose from the shoulders of enslaved people, via the trades in sugar and spice. And from that I learn about how the sugar processing industry led to the rise and fall of cities within what is now Belgium and Holland, and how the switch to domestically-grown beet sugar (rather than imported cane) changed the nature of the cakes, pies and breads that we cook today.

If that all sounds a little niche then the recipes also look enticing. There are 13 (13!) different ways of making waffles, all of them rooted in places across Belgian and intended for different occasions. I love that there is an entire page dedicated to discussing which waffle iron is best for which type of waffle; food geekery at its best. There is, of course, much discussion of spekulaas (spiced biscuits) and peperkoek (gingerbread), including the wonderful but sadly increasingly rare art of printing the dough with handmade wooden moulds, literally stamping biscuits with festive symbolism.

One of Regula’s 13 (13!) waffle recipes

Occasionally a book that comes along that, when you finally reach the end of it, you feel sad, as if it’s a bereavement. That’s exactly how I feel of reaching the end of Dark Rye and Honey Cake (apart from the bit at the end where Regula introduces tenets of the Dutch language through the medium of pies, which made me laugh. If only all language lessons used baked goods as a reference point in explaining singular vs plural).

It’s a wonderful book and if you have any interest in food, art, baking, festivity, history, photography, there’s something here for you. I in awe, and in slight envy, of Regula’s brilliance.

Also this month:

Harvesting: Chard, rosemary
In the garden and allotment: Replaced the ancient redcurrant. Matt has attacked the wilderness area with his rough neck mattock (seriously), many further weeks of work lie ahead in shoring up the bank by the stream, clearing roots and bagging up rubbish. Ordered seeds and tubers for 2024.
Cooking: Panettone bread pudding, roast beef and yorkshires, turkey chilli, pear and chocolate pudding, gingerbread, waffles, coconut porridge, massaman curry. Making full use of the summer’s soft fruit harvest with compotes stirred into porridge, cakes and yoghurt.
Also: Winter colds, easing back to school/life, hot baths, big jumpers, TV, Wonka.

Inspiration and perspiration

Having spent the first third of the year complaining about feeling locked down in some kind of post-Covid hangover, from mid-April onwards I’ve been keenly aware of the sap rising. Energy levels are up, both physically and intellectually. There has been a fair bit of perspiration and propagation, but also – more importantly – a focus on inspiration.

The last few years have been so difficult on that front, with galleries closed and movement difficult. So in the last month, as the weather has warmed, I’ve been soaking in visits to the Eden Project and Trelissick in Cornwall, Hestercombe in Devon, Chelsea Physic Garden, the Garden Museum and Snowshill Manor in the Cotswolds, plus have knocked back books about Joseph Paxton, Gertrude Jekyll and the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement in garden design. Later this week it’s Chelsea Flower Show, and meanwhile there is endless joy in country lanes filled with cow parsley. I don’t know as yet where any of this will lead…as my old English teacher used to say, it’s all grist to the mill.

Let’s start with the perspiration…

Perspiration

Propagation and preparing the soil is such a part of life now that I barely register I am doing it. Since I last blogged in April, the sun room has become full of nascent seedlings, all becoming leggy for want of light (I am used to this). Sunflowers, scabious, chard, tomatoes, squash, it’s all there. Meanwhile the outside space is full of trays hardening off; I’ve moved the more slug-vulnerable ones to the top of the wheelie bins. There’s been hours and hours of weeding, as I attempt to get the grass and buttercups into some kind of control.

Sweet rocket is now flowering, with the Sweet William due to bloom next. The brassica cage is ready for planting, and last year’s chrysanthemums have been put in next door.
The dahlias bed was rife with buttercup, which I’ve now removed. The gladioli are doing well (far better than in my back garden).
The long view, which looks very little, but represents hours of weeding. The alliums are now cropping, in the foreground.
Harry helps to hoe the potatoes

After last year’s pitiful efforts with the sweet beans and peas, I’m attempting a new approach this year. The sweet peas are in deep pots, trained up twine and bamboo sticks, and are catching the afternoon sun by the back door. I’ve also put in a few rows of peas in the veg trug, working on the assumption that they’re more likely to get watered if by the house than on the allotment, which I only get to once a week, if that.

As for cropping, I took few photos, but the pale Purissima tulips were a triumph – even bigger than the earth (!). As they faded, the alliums, lupins and sweet rocket are giving vases of pink, purple and white, and the Sweet Williams are waiting in the wings. My plan was to extend the harvest so that there was something to pick from March through to November – so far, so good.

Purissima tulips
It’s taken three years but the lupins are finally flowering
A vase of lupin, sweet rocket and allium

Inspiration

No comment here, just images of a few weeks of spiritual and intellectual nourishment, starting in Cornwall.

April evening on the beach in Mawgan Porth, Cornwall

At Hestercome Garden in Devon, we explored the amalgam of 18th century landscape park, full of follies and vistas; grand Victorian terracing, and an arts and crafts masterpiece by Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens.

Gertrude Jekyll’s famous steps at Hestercombe, filled with eryngium daisies
Lutyens’ terracing often carried deep recesses of still water
A folly fit for a witch
Witching folly
Charcoal burning deep in the woodland

The Garden Museum and Chelsea Physic Garden are rife with generations of history, heritage and knowledge.

Central courtyard at the Garden Museum
Example of off-the-peg designs, 1930s
Dried flower installation
The Garden Corner
Lead water butt, 1670
Using hazel brushwood for training, Chelsea Physic Garden

In the Cotswolds, the arts and crafts garden at Snowshill Manor is framed by the perfection of English hedgerows in Maytime.

Nothing is more glorious than a lane lined with cow parsley
Orchard during no-mow May
Yet another lead water butt, age unknown. Harry’s there to show scale.
One of many garden rooms, using materials echoing the local vernacular
A path through a hidden garden
Single specimens on an old table, in a barn that looks ancient but is probably only 100-or-so years old.

May is surely the most wonderful time of the year – and there’s still the glories of June and Midsummer to come.

Also this week/month:
Harvesting: Sweet rocket, allium, lupin, lilac, soft herbs. Had a steady crop of narcissi and tulips from the allotment during March and April. I would be harvesting lettuces but they’re taking ages to grow.
Sowing/propagating: EVERYTHING. I started most things off later than usual, end of March and into April, and as yet there seems to be no harm done.
Planted out: Last year’s chrysanthemums, broad beans, peas, potatoes, lettuce. Direct sowed carrots and parsnips. Everything else will wait to be planted out until warm weather is guaranteed. In the garden, planted out salvias, hardy geraniums and achillea. Waiting on the tulips to die back before putting in the dahlias.
Reading: Biography and works of Gertrude Jekyll, biography of Joseph Paxton, history of arts and crafts gardens. Incidentally, working on two projects that have bamboo as a sustainable resource and the social justice/healing power of gardens at their core.
Visiting: Eden Project, Trelissick, Hestercombe, Garden Museum, Chelsea Physic Garden, Snowshill Manor, plus don’t forget the glory of an English hedgerow in May.
Cooking and eating: Asparagus, strawberries, rose wine. I still feel too busy to cook, which is sad, and I should sort it out.

Keukenhof, Amsterdam

After a week of chic Amsterdam loft-living, we’re having to get used to living in a Victorian terrace again. We were in town to visit the world-famous Keukenhof garden (about an hour out of the city), but the trip really turned into six days of mainlining carbs, reading, not-being-emailed-constantly and quality time with my man (a novelty as he works all the time).  I booked the flights back in January, when the desire for spring flowers had reached obsessive levels, only to find that by the time the trip rolled around, Britain’s spring had already been in full flow for at least a month…this rather took the edge off the urge for tulip-spotting.

No matter, for I quickly replaced one obsession with another: namely, the art of how to make a perfect Dutch appeltaart.

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Appeltaart at the Rijks Museum

Appeltaart is the dessert of choice for Amsterdammers, and I spent the entire week studying different versions to work out how it’s made. The pastry is cake-like, deeply filled with cinnamon-spiked chunky apple and raisins, and topped with latticework. The apples seem to break down around their edges into a brown-sugary-mass that holds the chunks in place, so there’s a contrast of textures. It’s not particularly sweet, is always served cold in enormously generous wedges and (hilariously) comes with a side of slagroom (whipped cream). If I ever succeed in making a decent version at home I will blog the results.

One other thing to note about Amsterdam is that everyone is dressed like a contemporary art curator. They’re all on bikes, wrapped up in smart tailored wool coats, trainers and thick-rim glasses, off to some glamorous arts job or perhaps simply to a cafe to scoff appeltaart whilst working on their Apple laptops. And I mean everyone – even the kids look cool. The place is spotlessly clean and ordered, except on King’s Day, when the city dresses up in orange, gets leathered on Heineken by 11am and congregates on party boats trailing around the canals with euro-pop and Wham! at full blast. But by 8pm, it is all over and everyone goes home for their tea. In Holland, it seems they like to lose  control in a very controlled fashion.

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Party boats for King’s Day in Amsterdam

Our loft apartment was painted entirely white, overlooked a canal (naturally) and was a short walk from a super-trendy street of independent trendy boutiques and classy food shops. I am sure that not everyone in Amsterdam lives this way, but for the few days we were there, it felt the height of civilisation.

But we were there for the tulips and it is the tulips that I must report back on. The Dutch LOVE tulips and they express their love at the Keukenhof, which is apparently the largest flower garden in the world. It’s only open for two months of the year, from March to May, and is essentially a massive trade show for Holland’s enormous flower industry. The formal beds of spring flowers and indoor pavilions are designed to show off the latest and favourite varieties of tulip, hyacinth and daffodil from individual bulb producers, and they do it with pristine attention to detail; we spotted a gardener placing metal rods into individual hyacinth stems to keep them upright. Imagine repeating that several million times, for that’s what it takes to keep this place looking great for spring flower season.

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At the Keukenhof, strips of ornate planting jut up against blocks of colour

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Clever geometric design

The geometric ‘designed’ beds are a useful way to highlight individual colours of tulip and I soon picked out a few favourites. The deep, inky-purple shades are dramatic, especially when planted against candy-pinks, but I’m increasingly enamoured by pale yellows, creams and greens.

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Darkest purple contrasts with candy pink

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Enjoy the soft green merging into pink

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These are firecrackers!

The received wisdom for tulips is that you plant a single colour together in blocks, so I was surprised to find a few beds that were a riot of contrasting colours and shapes. And actually, after all the formality in the rest of the gardens, these tutti-frutti beds were a joy.

Matt rather dryly observed that there’s an element of the cruise ship about the Keukenhof and I know what he means – it’s fun, but quite an unreal, artificial creation. Plus it was full of coach parties. Take a peep outside of the fairyland creation and the Dutch landscape gives an insight into what these gardens are all about – marketing the acres-upon-acres of flowers and bulbs that keep the Dutch economy afloat.

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Outside, the Dutch landscape is as flat as their ubiquitous pancakes

So I was surprised at how little merchandising there was at Keukenhof…it was difficult to find the name of a variety of tulip and the bulb-shops were tiny. Perhaps maximising visitor-spending is an area of commerce that doesn’t appeal to the Dutch – equally, the cut-flower displays were all a bit ‘plonk them in a vase’, so it seems that floral design is not high on the agenda. (Compare this to, say, Chelsea Flower Show where designs are expected to be cutting-edge and they want to part you from every penny you’ve ever earned). The Dutch are horticulturalists first-and-foremost, and the Keukenhof is a shrine to their preferred artform.

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This is about as artful as the cut flower display got, alas

On a different note, this will be the trip that I’ll remember for when I felt the little monster in my tummy starting to wriggle around for the first time. It is the weirdest thing, like when you drive over a humpback bridge and your stomach takes a few minutes to catch up. I’m 20 weeks, have got an undeniable paunch and remain shocked at how out-of-breath I get from normal physical activity. Four-and-a-half months to go.

The Keukenhof is open from March to May. www.keukenhof.nl/en/

I read: Living Danishly by Helen Russell, Playing to the Gallery by Grayson Perry
We ate: Pasta, pizza, cookies from Stauch, appeltaart, cheese, more pasta, pastries. The Dutch like Italian food and carbs. Matt drank alot of beer.
We watched: National Geographic channel, mostly programmes about plane crashes, Einstein and an American vet

Kent part 2: Sissinghurst and Great Dixter

Perch Hill shares a link with Sissinghurst castle, the home of Vita Sackville West, now managed by the National Trust. The link is familial (Sarah Raven’s husband is the grandson of Sackville West), but also  conceptual: in the Arts and Crafts tradition, Sissinghurst is split into several garden rooms, each planted with painterly swathes of colour.

Sissinghurst was meant to be a place of retreat for Sackville West, somewhere to write and be alone. I wonder what she’d made of the hundreds of thousands of people who today visit this Kent garden, inspired by its romantic heritage and beautiful planting. I also wonder, if Sissinghurst had not been created by an aristocrat known for affairs with women, including Virginia Woolf, would it get the same level of sustained attention? Perhaps not. But this is churlish; Sissinghurst is a wonderful place.

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Sissinghurst, home to Vita Sackville West

The NT go to great efforts to keep the gardens vibrant and in good order. As with so many Arts and Crafts gardens, Sissinghurst suffers from seasonal flowering (a rose will never look good in November), but the planting is so clever that as soon as one thing finishes, another springs into life. Easy to say, difficult to execute.

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Notes from the gardener

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A selection of flowers from the estate

The best view is from the top of the Elizabethan tower. From here, the garden rooms can be seen and understood as a whole: the strictly formal structure is softened by colour-led planting. The structure without the plants would look staid; the plants without the structure would look scruffy. This is the essence of Arts and Crafts gardening, famously championed by Gertrude Jekyll (although she was not involved with the creation of Sissinghurst).

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View from the tower down to the garden rooms

The marriage of two minds made this garden possible. I like the very modern feel of Vita and her husband, the diplomat Sir Harold Nicolson – the artistic sensibilities of Vita were tempered by the technical nous of Harold.

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The marriage of formal and free design

It’s easy to forget now that this generation of artist-gardeners were revolutionary. If Jekyll, Sackville West and their like were operating today, their work would be the subject of exhibitions in white-cube galleries and the Daily Mail would huff and puff about the new-fangled way of doing things.

Over at Great Dixter we see the work of a more contemporary revolutionary. Christopher Lloyd met Gertrude Jekyll as a child; she blessed him to continue as a gardener. He turned Great Dixter into a garden of world-wide renown and lived in the Edward Lutyens-designed house his entire life.

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Great Dixter

Don’t expect pretty-pretty gardening here though. Lloyd ripped out the Lutyens rose garden in the 1990s and was reported as saying: “We do not all want to float endlessly among silvers, greys and tender pinks in the gentle nicotiana-laden ambient of a summer’s gloaming. Some prefer a bright, brash midday glare with plenty of stuffing”. His garden rooms are crammed full of plants, colours loud and clashing.

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A great forest of these loomed six foot high

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Close-knit and exuberant

If Sissinghurst is a garden for artists, Dixter is a garden for plants-people. It’s dedicated now to teaching and there’s also a workshop for green woodwork. Incidentally, Kent is full of locally-produced green wood products, from fences to gateposts. Much of it is made from hazel, which is coppiced and fast-growing.

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Hazel grove at Sissinghurst

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Green wood hurdles at Great Dixter

The combination of the artistic eye, structured design, technical ability and working with the landscape: this is the essence of the great Kent gardens.

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle-garden

www.greatdixter.co.uk

Kent part 1: Perch Hill

Confession: I have a girl crush. I’ve been ruthlessly marketed to and have fallen like a sucker. In short, I’ve been got by Sarah Raven.

If you’re not aware of Sarah Raven, she’s a writer, broadcaster and gardener who also has a very successful business selling seeds, plants, cookery and gardening classes and a certain kind of lifestyle.

My family do not understand this crush. It’s because they don’t tick the demographic boxes: my Mum’s too good at gardening to fall for all the pretty pictures in the seed catalogue, and the men are, well, men. As someone who works in marketing, I am woefully aware that I’m falling for a clever branding exercise…but nonetheless I’m willing to be seduced.

So we went to Kent to poke around Perch Hill, the public face of Sarah Raven, and whilst there also took a look at those classic gardens, Sissinghurst and Great Dixter.

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Perch Hill, the public-facing garden of Sarah Raven. There’s spaces devoted to veg, herbs, flowers for cutting, plus many opportunities to spend hard-earned cash.

The concept behind Perch Hill makes a huge amount of sense to me. The point is this: grow flowers for cutting (TICK!). Grow veg for eating (TICK!). Grow the two together so that your garden is pretty (TICK!). Cook what you grow (TICK! TICK! TICK!). Grow stuff all year round so there’s always something to eat (I’m still working on that bit).

Perch Hill is made up of lots of smaller garden rooms, devoted to flowers, veg, herbs and so on. I’ve come away with several ideas for next year’s allotmenting.

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The cutting garden is framed by rusted arches

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A classic view of Kent with oast house, tiling and wood

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Grasses break up the flowers in the cutting garden

First idea to pinch: bright sweet peas were grown against firm meshing. On the allotments a lot of people use flimsy net reclaimed from building sites, but this looks smarter and more able to survive a few years of Brummie weather.

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Idea to steal: sweet peas grow in abundance up semi-permanent willow structures fitted with wire mesh

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This planting style looks familiar… bishop’s finger with white cosmos

The flimsy mesh though would be useful in holding up floppy flowers:

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Idea to steal: The cosmos and other tall flowers are grown through mesh to stop them flopping over

In the cutting garden, flowers are grown in blocks through supportive string frameworks. This dahlia caught my eye, a vivid lurid orange.

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Dahlias are out in Kent. This one is called Happy Halloween.

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Idea to steal: Dahlias are grown in blocks through string support. I think this is easier to do than a lot of individual staking.

I have a lot of white flowers this year, which frame the purple lavender, nigella and sweet peas well. Next year I’d like more bright colours, possibly including this extravagant cosmos.

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I am PINK and PROUD

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Agapanthus give shots of blue colour

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Drifts of lavender line the paths

Over to the veg. There were still baby courgette plants pushing through the soil, and masses of kale and brassicas. Plus a few surprises including quinoa, which I’ve never seen in plant-form before.

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To the veg: we’re growing this variety of onion, but there’s still a way to go before ours get this big

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Cavalo nero envy. Mine are still seedlings, the first sowing have been scoffed by the slug

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This is quinoa! It’s a long flower spike. Who knew?

There’s also a massive greenhouse and converted barn, home to the cookery school and shop. The antiqued vases gave me a mental note to take a look in charity shops for old glass at a fraction of the price.

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Matt cannot stay away from wood; these massive doors frame the barn.

The crush continues…

www.sarahraven.com

7 artists x 7 plates at Grand Union

In my professional life I do a lot with art. In my personal life I do a lot with food. So an event that brings the two together? Hello!

On Friday we wiled away a few hours at Grand Union, the exhibition space and artists’ studios in Digbeth. If you don’t know, Digbeth is where Birmingham’s trendies hang out and it’s also home to the most exciting visual artists in the city. Despite being most definitely NOT a trendy I am lucky enough to work with some of these folks every so often. Friday was a new adventure for Grand Union, an evening of food inspired by the artists who call it home.

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Grand Union, Digbeth

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Birmingham The Magic City…as modelled by Kim, GU’s Associate Curator

GU’s current exhibition by Fay Nicolson does a lot with colour and structure. It inspired the first dish of the evening, a plate called Texture & Colour, with beetroot meringue, needles of spruce and labneh, which is a kind of strained Greek yoghurt.

Beetroot meringue, spruce and labneh

Then is was down to the artists’ studios starting with BAZ. Artist Matt Westbrook makes work inspired by Birmingham, and not just Brum but all the Birminghams around the world. Birmingham Alabama is dubbed The Magic City (the bag so ably modelled by Kim above is his design). So in a plate called The Many Birminghams of the World, we ate food inspired by America’s deep south – crab, succotash, sweetcorn.

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Inside the BAZ studio

Smoked sweetcorn puree, Brixham crab, succotash, black mustard flowers

Elizabeth Rowe creates exquisite collage works from everyday items – in essence, she takes something apart and rebuilds it into something new. In her studio we were presented with Texture, Deconstruction and Reconstruction, a kind of deconstructed fish and chips with vinegar powder.

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Haddock, vinegar powder, seashore herbs, potato & lemon

David Rowan is a landscape photographer, the difference being that all his work takes place underground. Sewers, tunnels, caves…these are the places that David likes to hang out. Into the darkness was served in the dark (there being no light in the sewers), the lack of light only serving to make the taco of venison, sorrel and apple doubly delicious.

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Taco, venison, sorrel, apple, egg yolk

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Work by David Rowan

Onto Juneau Projects, an artist duo with a habit of making playful art. Recently they’ve been working on robotics – we were welcomed to their studio by a chatty robot. Come the Apocalypse looked at what we might the eating once the robots have taken over, with haddock, cauliflower and *ugh* wood ants. I know that they taste of lemon, that a shrimp is just a big insect, but I admit failure and could not bring myself to eat them.

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Cauliflower, milk, smoked haddock, wood ants (yes really), wild pea shoots

Tom and Simon Bloor pay attention to things that other people might miss: the beauty of a discarded drinks can, the form of abandoned bits of architecture. Here we enjoyed The Wasteland, a plate formed of the bits that we might normally chuck out: crispy chicken skin, weeds (which were green and fresh and amazing) and a chicken boudin, traditionally made with the offally pieces of the carcus.

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Chicken boudin, chicken skin, cured yolk, weeds and wastrels with Simon Bloor

Finally we collapsed into Stuart Whipps studio. Stuart is an artist particularly known for his photography. His studio is furnished with reclaimed chairs and tables from Birmingham Central Library (the one that’s about to be knocked down) and given his interest and ongoing championing of Birmingham’s brutalist architecture, dessert was entitled Our deeply flawed past & other celebrations. We went retro with a 99 flake and a plum and custard tart.

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Inside Stuart Whipps’ studio

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Pickled plum and custard tart

Congratulations to Grand Union for pulling it off, and to Nomad and Kitchen School for curating and (more importantly) cooking amazing food in a tiny little space. More please!

More information about Grand Union and the artists based there at www.grand-union.org.uk

An arts and crafts masterpiece: All Saints Church, Brockhampton

Easter Monday took us to the tiny village of Brockhampton, close to the River Wye. We were in search of arts and crafts (the William Morris type) and one place in particular, the extraordinary church of All Saints.

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All Saints’ Church, Brockhampton, Herefordshire

This church is nestled so easily into its landscape that it looks hundreds of years old. In reality, it was completed in 1902 and is one of the most dramatic surviving examples of arts and crafts architecture. It’s possible that my great-grandfather, a baker who lived a few miles down the lane, saw it being built. I like this idea very much.

All Saints’ Church was the work of architect and clerk-of-works William Lethaby, disciple of William Morris and a lifelong socialist. He was also deeply involved in the creation of the Central School of Arts and Crafts (later to be known as Central St Martins) as well as Professor of Design as the Royal College of Art and Surveyor to Westminster Abbey.

The church was built according to the principles of the arts and crafts movement, with free expressions of craftsmanship encouraged. There appears to have been an element of letting the building find its own form as it was being built, which for the artist-craftsman is a hugely gratifying way of working. On the other hand, it is easy to understand why Alice Foster, the commissioner, got a little, shall we say, ‘frustrated’ with the approach. Accounts from the time indicate that it was not a happy build and indeed it was to be Lethaby’s last active role as an architect.

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Easter flowers

Despite the challenging build, it’s an extraordinary place. Nikolaus Pevsner, the architectural historian, named it “one of the most convincing and impressive churches of its date in any country”. In other words, the church takes its visual cues from medieval forms, techniques and craftsmanship, but also takes full advantage of materials available at the turn of the twentieth century. It looks old…but it isn’t. The interior is formed of a concrete vaulted roof, lime washed to give a serene light-filled space.

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View down the nave

As it was Easter, the font and nave were brimming with green, gold and yellow flowers; daffodil, gorse and pussy-willow. Brockhampton has a tiny population yet it cares enough about its church to put on a stunning floral display, gratifying to witness.

On the wall is a hand-embroidered altar cloth, donated to the church by an anonymous stitcher in the 1950s, depicting flowers and plants found in the fields and hedgerows of the parish. The same woman (and I am presuming that she was a woman) also wrote a book filled with folk-knowledge of these plants. She did not wish her identity to be known and I suspect never considered herself to be an artist. But to me, this level of skill is as great as that of the male craftsmen who built the church in the first place.

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The hand-embroidered altar cloth. Artist unknown.

The churchyard is immaculate and on Easter Monday was filled with insects, blossom and the inconsiderate squawking of nearby pheasants.

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April blossom

Places like this are so easy to overlook. We see church architecture all over the place, in every village, in every town, and perhaps don’t appreciate the extraordinary cultural heritage on our doorsteps. Other people do – there is an exact replica of All Saints’ Church in Osaka, Japan, popular for weddings. If you get the chance to visit Brockhampton, do.

https://www.brockhampton.com/church.htm