Frost Fair: Collin’s memoirs part 2…
Thankyou, friends, for joining me this morning on board the Harlequin Ladybird, do pull up a cat.. er, sorry, I mean a cushion… and make yourselves comfortable as I, Collin The Octopus, read to you all from my marvellous journal of extremely exciting adventures… a-hem…
February, 1823…
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Max and Collin’s splendiferously sparkling and frostabulously frozen parlour located in the splendidly scenic city of Lancaster!
True, some have called it a frigid place of cold hearts and frosty welcomes but we consider that uch people are merely embittered that they have not yet received an invitation.
You find us this morning, warming our tentacles beside an imaginary fire after an enterprising and entertaining morning at the fabulous frost fair which is being held on our beloved river Lune.
Our psychotic scarecrow landlord, Montmorency, woke us before dawn with the business end of his walking cane and demanded that we head out into the frozen darkness and not return until we had enough money to pay for this month’s rent. The fact that we only just paid for the last month seems to have escaped the rogue and so I perched upon Max’s shoulder and we set off towards the river.
There were already traders setting up stalls on the ice but none of them took favourably to our offers of assistance (it seems that Queen Vic’s recent amendments to equality in employment law do not extend to an Octopus and a Tea Fiend) So we settled ourselves on the bank instead and watched the sun rise over the frosted spires of the sail barges which had collapsed crazily into the ice sheets and lay mired liked the skeletons of stranded beasts from some fantastical caffeine-fuelled nightmare.
Things picked up once the punters arrived. After some initial competition from a woman hawking root beer (For a Very Quite Gentleman, Max can be terribly clumsy when glass bottles are around) we managed to sell twenty bottles of lemonade (and drink many more) without being lynched by the barge folk for selling without paying the trading fees.
We decided that that was quite enough hard shirking for one morning and spent the rest of the time mooching around the stalls, watching the jugglers and fire eaters and, most impressively to me, the ice skaters. Having lived under the sea all my life, I never imagined this curious form entertainment and I am determined, soon, to beg, borrow or steal enough pairs of ice skates to attempt the thing myself.
Now here we are back in the parlour, our landlord briefly appeased, our cats greedily devouring the last of the skimmed milk ration, and all desperately in need of a reviving spot of elevenses and some soothing music to tap our tentacles to. Unfortunately our absconding butler has not seen fit to deliver the goods this morning (perhaps she thinks it’s a holiday? ‘Though what a werewolf would find to do at a frost fair we have no idea…) but not to worry because we managed to run into our lovely Mrs Baker on the way back and she has set us up with a packet of genuine Frost Fair Souvenir Gingerbread which, knowing Mrs B, will be crammed full of illegal sugar…mmm…
And, by happy chance, Max’s constant pocket companion ‘The Whole Duty Of A Woman (or an infalliable guide to the fair sex) – 1737’ (A birthday gift from a devoted family member I think) has an excellent recipe for … OWCH! …Well, really! You know, for a Very Quiet Gentleman, Max, you can be excessively violent devoid of a sense of humour… do learn to take a joke, please!
I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted by a flying teapot, that this is a recipe for ginger bread biscuits, rather than the cake which we are enjoying now but it is nonetheless share-worthy, I think…
“To Make Gingerbread…
Take a pound and a half of London Treacle, two eggs beaten, half a pound of sugar, one ounce of ginger, beaten and sifted, of cloves, mace and nutmeg, all together, half an ounce beaten very fine, coriander seeds and caraway seeds of each half an ounce, Two punds of butter melted; mix all these together, with as much flour a will knead it into a pretty stiff paste, then roll it out and cut it into what Form you please; bake it in a Quick Oven on Tin-plates; A little time will bake it.”
Oh I do miss our dear Mrs Baker very much indeed! And yes, I’m sorry to say that Max is no less violent and humourless when it comes to ‘taking a joke’ these days as he was then… fortunately he has decided not to join us for these little readings, although I can’t think why he would deny himself such a pleasure, hedonism notoriously being his chief virtue…
If you are out on the ice today, do tread with care won’t you? Unless you have ice skates in which case throw yourself gracelessly with wild abandon! And until we meet again please, remain always
Utterly Yourself
Elevenses: Showing The (green) Love
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen I hope you are all feeling the love this morning? The time is of course eleven o clock and we are ravenously eleven o clockish and remorselessly revved up with romance so let us see at once what our gorgeous werewolf butler has cooked up for us this morning…
Absinthe ‘Show The Love’ hearts… but these devilish delights are more than just a romantic gesture from a woman with the brains and demeanour of a rabid dog; we are offering them here today to show our support for the Show The Love Campaign …
“Hand made hearts can move worlds. Make, wear and share your green heart. It’s a beautiful way to begin a conversation about the things we love that climate change threatens, and the clean energy choices we must make to protect our world. Hand-crafting a heart is a moment to share with a loved one, with family, with friends, with your community – and beyond via #showthelove. See the amazing hearts others are already creating. “
Sustainable energy is just as important to us here in The New World as it is to you in your dimension – from cream-powered landships to GORGON energy generators, we are doing our bit to help the environment.
If you’d like to get involved in this festive environmental endeavour there are several ways you can find out more…
Check out some of the fantastic blog posts from ‘Queen Of Green Hearts’ Nimue Brown who has her finger on the pulse where all things green and hearty are concerned:
https://druidlife.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/climate-change-show-the-love/
Visit the official website and get some hearty inspiration for making your own beautiful green heart talking pieces:
And if you’d like to make Klapka’s lovely absinthe green heart fondants, here’s the recipe:
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500g icing sugar, 1 beaten egg white, 1 tsp green food colour, 1 tsp absinthe (or any flavouring you like)
Mix it all together then knead it into a soft dough and roll it out, cut out your hearts and sprinkle or drizzle them with your choice of toppings. Leave for a short while in a cool place to firm up then serve.
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We wish you a very splendid afternoon and do feel free to leave a link to your own #sharethelove green heart projects in the comments section…
Elevenses: Frosty Fayre
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Max and Collin’s splendiferously sparkling and frostabulously frozen parlour located in the splendidly scenic city of Lancaster!
True, some have called it a frigid place of cold hearts and frosty welcomes but we consider that uch people are merely embittered that they have not yet received an invitation.
You find us this morning, warming our tentacles beside an imaginary fire after an enterprising and entertaining morning at the fabulous frost fair which is being held on our beloved river Lune.
Our psychotic scarecrow landlord, Montmorency, woke us before dawn with the business end of his walking cane and demanded that we head out into the frozen darkness and not return until we had enough money to pay for this month’s rent. The fact that we only just paid for the last month seems to have escaped the rogue and so I perched upon Max’s shoulder and we set off towards the river.
There were already traders setting up stalls on the ice but none of them took favourably to our offers of assistance (it seems that Queen Vic’s recent amendments to equality in employment law do not extend to an Octopus and a Tea Fiend) So we settled ourselves on the bank instead and watched the sun rise over the frosted spires of the sail barges which had collapsed crazily into the ice sheets and lay mired liked the skeletons of stranded beasts from some fantastical caffeine-fuelled nightmare.
Things picked up once the punters arrived. After some initial competition from a woman hawking root beer (For a Very Quite Gentleman, Max can be terribly clumsy when glass bottles are around) we managed to sell twenty bottles of lemonade (and drink many more) without being lynched by the barge folk for selling without paying the trading fees.
We decided that that was quite enough hard shirking for one morning and spent the rest of the time mooching around the stalls, watching the jugglers and fire eaters and, most impressively to me, the ice skaters. Having lived under the sea all my life, I never imagined this curious form entertainment and I am determined, soon, to beg, borrow or steal enough pairs of ice skates to attempt the thing myself.
Now here we are back in the parlour, our landlord briefly appeased, our cats greedily devouring the last of the skimmed milk ration, and all desperately in need of a reviving spot of elevenses and some soothing music to tap our tentacles to. Unfortunately our absconding butler has not seen fit to deliver the goods this morning (perhaps she thinks it’s a holiday? ‘Though what a werewolf would find to do at a frost fair we have no idea…) but not to worry because we managed to run into our lovely Mrs Baker on the way back and she has set us up with a packet of genuine Frost Fair Souvenir Gingerbread which, knowing Mrs B, will be crammed full of illegal sugar…mmm…
And, by happy chance, Max’s constant pocket companion ‘The Whole Duty Of A Woman (or an infalliable guide to the fair sex) – 1737’ (A birthday gift from a devoted family member I think) has an excellent recipe for … OWCH! …Well, really! You know, for a Very Quiet Gentleman, Max, you can be excessively violent devoid of a sense of humour…
I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted by a flying teapot, that this is a recipe for ginger bread biscuits, rather than the cake which we are enjoying now but it is nonetheless share-worthy, I think…
“To Make Gingerbread…
Take a pound and a half of London Treacle, two eggs beaten, half a pound of sugar, one ounce of ginger, beaten and sifted, of cloves, mace and nutmeg, all together, half an ounce beaten very fine, coriander seeds and caraway seeds of each half an ounce, Two punds of butter melted; mix all these together, with as much flour a will knead it into a pretty stiff paste, then roll it out and cut it into what Form you please; bake it in a Quick Oven on Tin-plates; A little time will bake it.”
And now we’d better tune in our Tesla radio and have some soothing sounds to placate my beastly savage companion… drink your tea Max and calm yourself down, it is not becoming for a Very Quiet Gentleman to sulk like that…
Ah, much better, that was Smith and Burrows if you were not aware of the before they are rather marvellous. We wish you a very pleasant afternoon, filled with with warmest and spiciest of delights, and we will see you back on Monday for some more splendid steampunk fiction and excellent tea. So, until then, please be always,
Utterly Yourself
Morning Cuppa: Spoon Duelling for beginners
Good morning Ladie and Gentlemen and welcome to Max and Collin’s splendiferously spoontastic parlour located within the splendidly scenic city of Lancaster, Mor Ire.
True some have called it an unfulfilling place of half baked fancies, bad eggs and drastic measures, but we consider that such people are merely embittered that they have not yet received an invitation.
This morning you find us about to engage in the noble art of the festive spoon duel. We understand that in your dimension you settle your disputes by duelling with tea but, frankly, we find it hard to understand the mechanics of such a thing – do you hurl the tea at eachother? Or are the cups somehow used as foils?
Here in the New World we settle our disputes with a series of Parlour Affairs, one of which is spoon duelling (or Spuelling if you are feeling lazy). Spoon duel challenges are usually reserved for the Wizmas period.
In case you are not familiar with the art and history of the spoon duel let us enlighten you:
Spoon duelling began during the Ancient Egyptian era and was reserved for religious ceremonies in honour of The Goddess. Ornate spoons made of wood, flint and ivory were carved with hieroglyphs pertaining to tea, cake and magic.
Archaeological evidence suggests that it was in Ancient Greece that spoon duelling moved from being a religious ritual to an event used by the upper classes to settle disputes in a sophisticated fashion. Silver and bronze spoons were used during this period and spoons in the British Museum can still be seen which bear the scars of spoon duelling.
By 1259 CE (Cakeless Era), spoons had become a symbol of power. Royal monarchs were anointed with a special spoon to mark their coronations. The wealthy displayed the many battle-mangled weapons of their defeated opponents while the peasants were left spoonless to slurp soup with their bare hands and stir their tea with their burnt and blistered fingers.
Discontent began to stir the soul of the general populous and The Great Spoon Uprising of the Renaissance period lead to greater equality in cutlery which in turn lead to a greater diversity in spoon design. In joyous celebration of the noble spoon, artisans sprang up in every town, flooding the market with an array of spoons for every occasion.
Soon there were Caviar spoons (made of mother of pearl), Dessert spoons, Tea spoons, Fruit spoons, Runcibles (Max’s favoured weapon), Iced tea spoons, Jolly Long Spoons, Demitasse spoons, Chinese spoons, Bouillon spoons, Parfait spoons, Rattail spoons, Salt spoons, Seal-top spoons, Bar spoons, Caddy spoons, Slotted spoon, Mote spoons, Mustard spoons, Cheese scoop spoons… not to mention the cochlear ritual and anointing spoons, ear spoons, nose spoons and new born spoons (for ladling out babies)…
By the time Queen Vic came to the throne The Good Folk were screaming for regulation and one of the first papers to pass through parliament was the Standardisation Of Kitchen Utensils Act which introduced the standard issue spoons, tea cups and other tableware permitted for use today.
Obviously underground artisans linked to the Arts and Crafts Movement have sprung up across the scattered isles to produce illegal cutlery of the most impractical and extravagant artistic merit …
Hm? Sorry? Oh yes, Max says I should stop the history lesson and get on with the thing… you know for a Very Quiet Gentleman Max does interrupt an awful lot…
So, the noble art of spoon duelling :
Each competitor sits opposite the other at a tea table. (Historically, spoon duelling was a standing affair and opponents would attempt to crack eachother over the top of the head with a battle cry of ‘bad egg!’. After hats became fashionable the aim then became to knock the opponents’ headwear to the ground. This type of spoon duelling was outlawed by King George in 1721 CE. Of course there are those who claim to have revived it in some sort of secret- society- boys- club- thing… but we’re not sure we believe them…)
A point (or hit) is scored when one competitor taps the centre knuckle of their opponents’ spoon-hand with the back of their spoon. Three hits are needed to win the duel.
A hit is established thus; each spoon is moistened (traditionally with cold water but some vulgar persons lick their spoon and spiteful ones have been known to stir their scalding tea) and then dipped into coloured chalk. The chalk mark left on the back of the hand makes it easier for adjudicators to judge whether or not a hit is legitimate.
The spoon hand or wrist must remain in contact with the table at all times and the other hand may be placed behind the back, on the hip or above the head as preferred but never upon the table, knee or chair.
The winner takes the spoon of the defeated competitor as a trophy and many people choose to display their hard won spoons upon their hats, waistcoats, parasols, bed posts and parlour walls.
So we will soon be packing our runcibles into their leather holsters and heading into town to witness, and hopefully take part in, some festive sport. But before we do that we must tighten the belts on our dressing gowns, pour ourselves a morning cuppa and see what our little dust sucking friends have been up to in the night…
Hm, Gnii fishing eh? I’m not terribly fond of fishing now, having done so very much of it in the sunken city of Hull. Fish – delicious, but the getting of them? I would much rather visit the local monger rather than run the dispiriting odds of catching other ocean debris., the things you humans throw into the ocean sets my tentacles shuddering. Anyway… let us forget all that and dip our tentacles into our seasonally spicy tea which should give us plenty of zest for the morning is this superb ginger rooibos from craftteacompany…
Splendid, and now we must button up tight and head out into the cold dark alley ways of Lancaster and find ourselves a shady little tavern where we can lay a few bets on a spoon wrestling match (it’s similar to the duelling but for Ladies only and so there are less rules, more name calling, eye gouging, spork scratching, hair tangling etc and it all gets a little rougher and therefore more interesting, especially when the wigs come off…)
We wish you an utterly ineffable morning chockablock with spoonfulls of fun and we invite you back to join us for elevenses tomorrow so, until then
please be always
Utterly yourself
Soup Of The Day: Loli Phabay!
Hello! Mrs Albert Baker here, otherwise known as The Last Witch Of Pendle. Obviously there is no Pendle any more, since The Chronic Agronauts utterly destroyed it with treacle and sprats, but I’ve set myself up quite nicely here in Lancaster, running this little soup kitchen for the street urchins. There certainly are a lot of them and I’m always looking for helping hands to cook up and serve something delicious!
Now then, my dears, you may have heard of our new government health scheme here in Ire, whereby the Wizards are dumping barrels full of ‘perfectly imperfect’ fruit on the street corners of areas of social and economic deprivation, such as ours, and indicating that consuming these rat-and-fly-magnets would be beneficial to the poor street urchins’ health.
Subsiding on purple seaweed and government-issued tinned tomato soup is the best our poor Lancastrian urchins can hope for in life, so I thought I would pep up these maggot-ridden and sadly rather rancid ‘gifts’ by turning them into the traditional Rromani autumnal treat ‘Loli Phabay’ – or as most of you may know it ‘Toffee Apples.’
“Loli Phabay” translates to English as ‘Red Apple’ and during the early 1900s, (and perhaps even before) Rromani street sellers could be found throughout the autumn and winter with baskets and barrows full of these sticky toffee covered apples on sticks. The cry of “Loli Phabay!” (which is pronounced ‘Lol – ee – pab – eye’ ) soon turned to ‘Loli Pub’ and is where we get the term ‘Lolly Pop’ for the round red candy treats on sticks which look so similar.
Back in those days cinnamon was used to colour the candy mixture red. History doesn’t tell us for certain who invented the toffee apple, or precisely when – I suspect it was some ‘historically insignificant’ mother or baker in her kitchen, or by her cooking fire and we will never know her name – but William W. Kolb, a New York candy maker, was certainly selling red candy apples in 1908.
I am going to use red food colouring to colour my apple candy and, if you’d like to join me, here is Penny’s family recipe which I will be using…
- Pour half a large bag of sugar into a medium saucepan with enough water to cover it.
- Stir over a gentle heat until the sugar is dissolved.
- Add a little bottle of glycerine and bring to a rapid boil. Put a glass of water in the fridge or freezer.
- Continue to boil rapidly until a tsp of the mixture dropped into the cold water forms brittle strands that crack easily. (This will take a very long while and you must be extremely careful as burns from the boiling sugar can be extremely serious.)
- When the toffee has reached this ‘hard crack’ stage, turn off the heat and allow it to cool for a moment before stirring in 1-4 tsp of liquid red food colour.
- Insert wooden skewers (or inverted dessert spoons if you have no skewers to hand) into each apple and dip them into the toffee, being very careful not to burn yourself on the hot toffee. Transfer the apples to a cold plate or tray and pour more toffee over the top to coat them.
- Allow the Loli Phabay to cool completely and harden before you serve them!
- Be sure to instruct your little urchins NOT to use the apples as missiles to terrorise innocent Octopi and their Very Quiet Gentlemen Friends once they have nibbled all the candy off.
And if you’d like to add a more modern twist to your apples you can try dipping them in chopped nuts or sugar strands before they harden, using green or black food colouring or even edible glitter, or coating them in melted chocolate instead… (yes, that is a spoon, they are much safer than skewers if your urchins are very little!)
Enjoy your autumnal celebrations,whatever shape or form they take,
Blessings on your brew my dears!
Andro verdan drukos nane
Man pirani shukar nane
Loli phabay precinava
Hop, hop, hop
Jekvash tuke, jekvash mange
Hop, hop, hop.
Elevenses: More lemonade than you can shake your top hat at
Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen I hope you are all feeling extremely eleven o clockish because the time is, of course, eleven o clock and we are brim full of fizz here in the parlour! So please, pull up a crate and a cushion, kick your tentacles up on the table and let us lavish you with an extravagant list of extraordinary lemonade-based liquid refreshments.
But first, a little ‘heads up’ because our schedule is about to change somewhat, as summer creeps in and our evil, machinating landlord cracks the whip over our heads and Max and I are forced out onto the streets to sell this illegal lemonade and make enough money to pay the rent. This means that for the next few weeks, the parlour doors will be closed… hm? What’s that? Well yes I know it is only made of sack cloth but it is still technically a door… anyway, fear not! Because although the parlour will only be hosting a few disgruntled cats over the summer, we will still be around and you will still be kept up to date on our adventures (more of that tomorrow when I visit Mrs Baker in her soup kitchen). For now I hope it will suffice to say that we will be posting once weekly over the summer instead of thrice weekly until September when the lemonade season comes to a close.
But today the sun is shining and here we all are so, allow me to pour you something delicious…
We wish you all an utterly refreshing afternoon and I will see you tomorrow because I will be helping Mrs Baker in her lovely soup kitchen so until then please, be always
Utterly yourself
Morning Cuppa: Lightning Wolves and Lemonade
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome…pant…back…pant…to… oh I give up! This parched heat is not conducive to the comfort of us aquatic aboriginals, my tentacles are so dry they are beginning to crack and Max is being un-necessarily Machiavellian with the lemonade.
Still, at least we now have an enormous stash of bottles to sell and today and tomorrow we will therefore be sharing some amazing lemonade recipes for you to try yourselves, but first, let us find something splendid to read… like this…
Lightning Wolves is the second book in the Clockwork Legion series and you can read our review of the first book here. The second book follows the same key characters that we fell in love with from the first book , former sheriff Ramon and Persian healer / animal-empath Fatemeh, as they strive against the invading powers both of their own world, and others.
The Russians are still invading America and although some ground has been won with the help of the mechanical owls, parts of America are still under threat. Meanwhile, the influence of the mysterious alien entity Legion, continues to loom…
The plot is as gripping, complex and intense as the first book and we meet some new characters – mysterious samurai, wise old women and ex-bounty hunters – who carry on the welcome diversity and depth established in the first novel, this is a welcome refreshment from the ‘white-washing’ or stereotyped ‘tokenism’ of some novels in the genre.
Overall, this was another fantastic steampunk read for serious fans of the genre, filled with all the re-worked history, science-fiction, magic and fast-paced adventure you could wish for, we heartily recommend Clockwork Legion and can’t wait to find out what is going to happen in the next book.
But until then, you were promised lemonade and here it is… (just click on each picture to take you to the recipe)
ELECTRIC LEMONADE
MANGO LEMONADE
ELDERFLOWER AND FROZEN BERRY LEMONADE
MIDDLE EASTERN MINT LEMONADE
There now, hopefully that has quenched your thirst on this sweltering summer’s day… pity me that my tight ar…er… fisted gentleman friend will not allow this poor octopus so much as a drip to wet his whistle. Pff.
We wish you a very moist and refreshing morning filled with zest and without any pitch in sight, and we will be back tomorrow with some news, some forward planning and lashings more luscious lemonade so, until then, please be always
Utterly Yourself.
Soup of the day: With Jennings and Jennings Paranormal Investigators
Hello! Mrs Albert Baker here, otherwise known as The Last Witch Of Pendle. Obviously there is no Pendle any more, since The Chronic Agronauts utterly destroyed it with treacle and sprats, but I’ve set myself up quite nicely here in Lancaster, running this little soup kitchen for the street urchins. There certainly are a lot of them and I’m always looking for helping hands to cook up and serve something delicious!
I am extremely happy this morning to welcome my dear friends, the paranormal investigators Sir John and Marie Jennings… Good morning to you both, thank you so much for coming to help me in my soup kitc… Sir John? Over here… Marie, my dear, are you sure he can see with those goggles on? Whatever are they for?
Sir John: These are my ectoscopic goggles that allow me to see any spectral energy so as I look around the room…GOOD GOD WHAT IS THAT!
Marie: I think you are looking at the cat, mon cher…if you take the googles off…
Sir John: Ah yes, ahem, yes I’ve seen this before where feline energy can be mistaken for, er, ghostly energy. Perfectly normal.
Mrs Baker: Oh dear yes, I’m so sorry about the cats, they are after my illicit cream stores, you know. Well, why don’t you both have a seat here by the window. How was your journey here from your own dimension? I hope you were not delayed by any spectral presences en route?
Sir John: It was relatively uneventful. We made use of my brother Saul’s cabinet to travel here through time from 1901. He was, I’m afraid to say, a bit of a crank, believing in some pseudo scientific hogwash he called Quantum Physick. Most bizarre, with strange parallel worlds and waves behaving like particles. He built this device to travel to these parallel worlds, and it seems to work as it’s brought us here. Hopefully we can return, it’s the first time we’ve used it.
The only real trouble we had was when we were stuck in some hellish box, travelling in random directions with strange, dishevelled muttering creatures. What was that thing called Marie.
Marie: I think it was Southern Rail.
Mrs Baker: Oh dear me yes, I have heard your trains are as bad as our Skyway Rails, for future visits might I recommend the number nine bus, some have found the driver both adventurous and persuadable if bribed with sufficient tiffin. Now then, I shall put the kettle on, have you brought some soup with you today to share with the orphans?
Marie: I brought a recipe that our maid Miss Henderson suggested for Courgette and Milk Soup. She said it is from the “Mysterious and Exotic East”.
Sir John: I think she means Walthamstow.
Mrs Baker: Oh!
Marie: Here is her note…
Mrs Baker: Thankyou my dear, let me see now, she writes… “Dear Mrs Baker, please find below my recipe for Corset and Milk Soup. Take a pound of corsets…” CORSETS?!
Sir John: we think she means courgettes
Mrs Baker: Oh! I see!…...and cook in a bit of water until soft but not too long or the taste will cook out. Mix them up – I use a device Sir John has made for me called a Vegetofruit Blending Device. It’s quite quick and only moderately dangerous. Put aside and then heat a tablespoon of butter and when that’s melted take off the heat and add tablespoon of flour. When that is like a paste, add half a pint of milk and stir until it thickens a little. Then add the corsets and some ground Kew men…
Marie: “cumin”
Mrs Baker: Oh yes of course! …and season with salt and pepper. Finally serve in bowls with some Sumac powder sprinkled on top. The soup is mild in flavour and the dark purple colour of the Sumac is a lovely complement to the pale green of the corsets.”
Sir John: Funnily enough she got the name for Sumac powder right. It’s a fascinating spice, rumoured to give anyone that prepares it correctly a five octave singing voice. I’m not sure that’s true but our previous maid, Mrs Flitwick, did once mistake it for cocoa and she made a very high pitched noise.
Mrs Baker: Well it certainly sounds delicious, I wouldn’t worry about the Sumac, the orphans are quite hardy round here you know. So, I will just pop the cauldron onto the fire, there. Now while that is simmering away why don’t you tell us all a little more about the work you do, paranormal investigation sounds most fascinating!
Sir John: Well it all started in Paris, where we met. I was working away at various theories of how to detect paranormal activity. Marie was my willing companion, assisting where she could. Eventually we married and moved to London and set ourselves up as Paranormal Investigators. It was a little easier as my French isn’t terribly good and I was concerned it may be difficult to communicate with francophone fiends.
Mrs Baker: What a wonderful story, I do like a good romantic tale! And I have heard that you employ some very specialist inventions to help with this work, have you brought some along to show the orphans?
Sir John: This is my Thanatograph. It’s allows us to hear the spectral voices of any phantasm. It’s quite subtle, if there are any such entities present we may hear a faint human-like voice when the machine starts. Now I’ve set it up, let’s all be very quiet and see what happens.
Mrs Baker: Is it supposed to do that?
Sir John: Actually no. It’s quite unusual for it to fly around the room like that.
Mrs Baker: Oh, silly me! I’m afraid we are directly above the underground library and so our resident ghost, Perilous Wight, may be setting it off?
Sir John: Ah I see! Let me see if I can catch it. Oooof!
Marie: Mon cher, are you alright!
Sir John: Yes I think so. I don’t chew much on that side of my face anyway. Let me put it away before it causes any real damage.
Mrs Baker: I’m so sorry about that, I hope it will be alright. Well, these machines are all very technical and exciting, but Marie, my dear, (and while Sir John is occupied putting that device away) I cannot help but sense something of the mystical about your aura, I have a feeling that perhaps you do not need such devices to see these ghostly goings on?
Marie: Well, why I sometimes ‘ave some, shall we say, intuition into what may be going on… I’m not sure what you mean or where you have ‘eard this…
Mrs Baker: Oh my dear, I’m so sorry, I did not mean to alarm you or to be rude! Magic is forbidden in this dimension of course, but there are those of us who still practise it in secret where we can and I cannot help but sense that you have, shall we say, the ‘gift of intuition’ when it comes to the paranormal?
Marie: Ah, I see. Well, yes, it is true that I can sometimes offer … more help than is obvious. I like to keep that to myself. Oh look, Sir John is back.
Mrs Baker: Oh marvellous, and that is the kettle singing, can I offer you both some tea? How do you like it?
Sir John: Plenty of milk, three sugars, not too strong.
Mrs Baker: Oh dear, I’m afraid that is almost the last of the sugar, I shall have to visit the smugglers again.
Marie: Black, please. No sugar.
Mrs Baker: There you are. Now I know you have had many adventures but would you like to tell the orphans a little about your most recent or exciting one?
Sir John: Yes we have recently been relating our vacation in Sunnyport in our journal. It started out as a holiday and quickly became a terrifying nightmare. And that was before anything supernatural happened.
Mrs Baker: It all sounds so very exciting! And I hear that Paul Michael and Josephine Pichette have compiled some of your adventures into a book?
Sir John: Yes, indeed. It’s a collection of our first four investigations: a haunting, a strange case of a mesmerised young heiress, a fiendish killer in London, and a theft of some magical artefacts. It’s called, rather appropriately Jennings and Jennings Paranormal Investigators Casebook One. It’s apparently available in South America?
Marie: Amazon, mon cher.
Sir John: Ah, yes.
Mrs Baker: Splendid! And where else can we read about your adventures?
Sir John: Well our journal regularly publishes details of our adventures and other interesting tidbits. Mr Michael and Mme Pichette are kind enough to update it twice weekly. They are also on, is it Twitbook, Marie?
Marie: That’s Twitter and Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/thebenthictimes
https://twitter.com/thebenthictimes
Mrs Baker: Splendid! And will there be more books in the future?
Sir John: Yes indeed, Mr Michael and Mme Pichette are, I believe, chronicling our recent trip to Paris in a book they are calling The Paris Awakening. You may have read about the aftermath of that trip in the papers. It made the front page.
Marie: I don’t think Mrs Baker gets Le Monde here, and not from 1900, especially.
Mrs Baker: No indeed, the year here is 1840… and besides which, the only paper I get the is Tiffindependent…
Sir John: Well I believe it was in The Times as well…page 27. Underneath an advert for a mechanical carpet cleaner.
Mrs Baker Well perhaps I can use my soup-scrying techniques to locate a copy. Ah but that soup certainly smells the ticket doesn’t it? Thank you so much for coming to help out in the kitchen today, my dears, it’s been wonderful to chat with you but now those little urchins must be ravenous so shall we start dishing it up?
Sir John: Yes, let’s! Thank you so much for having us to visit. I’m terribly sorry about the scorch marks from the Cryptozoetropometer. I can pay to have that cleaned.
Marie: Yes thank you Mrs Baker, it’s been nice to meet a fellow…cook.
Mrs Baker: Indeed! Thankyou all of you for joining us in the soup kitchen today, I hope you will come back again next week and until then
Blessings on your brew my dears!
Elevenses: A brief history of lemonade
Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen! I hope you are all feeling extremely eleven o clockish because the time is, of course, eleven o clock and we are armed to the tentacles with refreshments so, step right in, carefully avoiding the empty glass bottles, mountains of yellow fruit, scatterings of sugar crystals, and the slightly sticky gentleman jibbering to himself in the corner, and take a seat on an upturned lemonade crate while I regale you with the results of my diligent research on the fascinating history of Lemonade ….
Lemons originated in India and it wasn’t until the twelfth century that they got bored and migrated (astutely procuring a ride in the baskets and barrels of hot-footing humans) to Egypt and the Mediterranean. The Persian poet and traveller Nasir-I-Khushraw provides us with the first written evidence that a heady and addictive mixture of sugar, lemon juice and water (known as qatarzimat) was being guzzled apace by the locals of these regions but it is safe to assume that this convivial combination had been enjoyed for many years in Asia before his observations were made.
By the thirteenth century qatarzimat was well established and market records from Cairo show the crowds just couldn’t get enough of it and in Mongolia the lushes were swigging it laced with plenty moonshine (well, it must have beaten the alternative drink of the day… horse milk…)
But why is lemonade so addictive?
Well, the scientists tell us that the secret is not so much in the sugar as in the lemons themselves! The sourness of this innocent little yellow fruit grenade stimulates saliva production – an effect which lasts for long after the lemonade has been consumed. The brain then comes to associate the lemonade with the quenching of thirst and so craves it, particularly when the we are a little dehydrated (which for us tea fiends is of course most of the time).
But I digress… by the 1600s limonadiers were selling the stuff on the streets of France with huge dispensers strapped to their backs and of course it wasn’t then long before the Brits caught on to the lucrativity of the lemon.
When thousands of Europeans flocked over to America in the 1800s, the lemons saw their chance to make world-domination complete and lemonade swiftly became the choice drink of the gold miners due to its astounding ability to combat scurvy (did you know the humble lemon has more vitamin c than your average orange? Yep, you thought pirates were guzzling rum during their Golden Age? Wrong, they were glugging lemonade…. with rum in it ….)
But alas Lemonade Lucy (First Lady Lucy Hayes) and her Lemonade Brigade prohibitionists’ persistent pontificating on the virtues of lemonade vs the evils of alcohol lead to some bad press for our beloved beverage and today it is widely considered a drink for infants, invalids and the faint of heart.
So there you have it, a brief history of the rise and fall of the Lemonade Empire as it occurred in your dimension. Next week I shall be holding forth on how Lemonade came to be an addictive and highly illegal substance here in out beloved Isles Of Ire and furnishing you with some fabulous recipes for making your own. Would you like to see some photographs of antiquated lemonade vendors before you go? Please excuse the stickiness at the edges…
Lemonade vendor in Selanik, Ottoman empire, pre-1890
German lemonade vendor 1931
Charles W. Hamill Silver-Plated Lemonade Pitcher, Baltimore, Maryland.
Now then, perhaps I can tempt you with a bottle of the good stuff as we kick our tentacles up and tune in the spirit radio to something splendid…
Not one for the prohibitionists then! We wish you a delightful afternoon and invite you back to join us in the parlour again soon. Until then, please be always
Utterly Yourself.
Elevenses: Flowery Fayre
“AND THAT, COLLIN, IS WHY I NEVER SHOULD, NEVER DO, AND NEVER SHALL AGAIN WEAR DRESSES IN PUBLIC! … oh, I think that’s the door, would you get it? I need to wash the seaweed out of my hair…”
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen, is it really that time already? Well do please come in and pull up a crate of lemonade to sit on. Please excuse my irate friend, and the superfluous amounts of cake… what’s that? No amount of cake can ever be considered superfluous? Well you could well be right! Our lovely werewolf butler Klapka has utterly outdone herself using up the last of the bounty from our deflowering exploits last week and I have to say that cake is perhaps a safer use for them than magical-cure-alls ; although Max does seem to have made enough cash to meet the rent this month he certainly doesn’t appear happy about this method of monetary acquisition.
But where are my manners? Please, help yourself to some fabulously floral fayre (click each picture to visit the recipe) …
And of course we mustn’t forget some music to accompany us as we tuck in to these delightful treats…
We wish you all a delinquently delicious afternoon where all your deflowering endeavours pay off and no amount of social or financial pressure forces you into or out of a dress. Mrs Baker will be in her soup kitchen tomorrow but I’m afraid we will not be at home next week as we are visiting your dimension for the delights of the London Comic Con, but we will be back again the week after so, until then, please be always
Utterly Yourself.
