Spring 26 Newsletter
Hello! Welcome to Outwith’s spring newsletter. You are very welcome.
You will find conversational and seasonal chat here from Aberdeenshire, to keep you company as spring turns towards summer. We will bring you recipes, ideas for days out and walks, crafts and art projects, plus a deeper dive seasonal essay, if you’re in the mood for something more thought provoking.
There may even be a walrus.
Link to BDMLR story
A young male walrus, named Magnus, was spotted in Orkney before he undertook a tour of the north east coast of Scotland. He appeared to have some fairly minor injuries, which he was resting and recovering from. But after several weeks of popping up and entertaining crowds in Lossiemouth, Findochty, Hopeman, Macduff, a pod of Orca were spotted at the point when Magnus seemed to disappear.
Was Magnus safe?
He was spotted in Norway a short while later, to everyone’s collective relief. Magnus seemed to be teasing us, popping up just after I’d visited friends in Lossiemouth, briefly appearing in Macduff, close to where I live, vacating Findochty just as we popped over to see him, hence I have no image of my own to share with you but I can share the link to the BDMLR story.
This week, as though a pod of orca close to the shore wasn’t enough, a humpback whale was spotted close to the shore at Crovie. It has been a great season for those interested in marine wildlife.
Recipe
Focaccia
Ingredients: 500g plain flour, 7g yeast, 1 tablespoon of runny honey 350ml warm water, 2 teaspoons of salt, 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
Topping: extra sea salt flakes, olive oil, garden herbs like wild garlic, very young sweet cicely leaves, primrose or honesty flowers, or fresh herbs like rosemary. Semolina flour for the tin or extra flour.
Method: mix the flour with the honey, water, yeast and add the salt after a quick stir, mixing it in thoroughly. You can mix it in a food mixer with dough hook attached or in a bread maker with the ‘dough’ setting or simply by hand.
Leave it to rise in a bowl on a tabletop, covered with a tea towel for about an hour or in the fridge, covered with clingfilm, overnight.
I use some semolina to dust my baking tray to stop it sticking but a little more flour will do.
Pour the loose dough into a baking tray with sides, as the dough is quite soft. Press your fingers in to the dough to make indents throughout, with bubbling up dough in between,
Decorate with herbs, salt and a drizzle of olive oil. You might want to get creative with olives or tomatoes.
Bake at around 200 c for around 25 minutes.
The dough is quite forgiving. I’ve seen recipes for 500g flour with 5g yeast and 20g yeast, it can be left to rise for a longer time if you forget and ovens vary so you can just check it after about 20 minutes. It doesn’t need kneading like a loaf, so there isn’t much to go wrong. Have fun! Leftovers make epic sandwiches, sliced across horizontally to split a square into two.
Many theme parks and venues for days out are closed over the winter and reopen around Easter. We enjoyed a family day out at Hollycombe steam fairground, in Hampshire, on one of the first days of the season. The smells and colours and steam organ musical sounds and whooshes of steam releasing feels like a rare time machine to Edwardian era fun. The hall of mirrors had my grandchildren dancing around, laughing at their seemingly ballooning and shrinking bodies, at incredibly tall parents and Nana splitting in two, entirely. Although the spooky house was a little too much like reality for me, not because my home/renovation project is spooky but the wonky floorboards, absent ceilings and creaky doors felt a bit too close to home. More renovation news later.
En route ‘south’, we made a pit stop at Esh Winning, near Durham, in order to visit Field’s traditional fish & chip shop, established in 1915. Their coal fired fish fryer, filled with beef dripping, is a thing of beauty, operated skilfully and jovially by the fifth generation of the family. The art deco era decor is so beautifully maintained and squeaky clean, it’s as much a living museum as a community gathering place. There’s warmth in the greeting ‘alright love, what you having?’ and it comes with a free side of banter ‘you have to have vinegar first… all reet all reet I’m not gunna argue with ya (eye roll)’. I felt as though I’d been welcomed into the community. The prices are very much in line with other take away offerings, so you aren’t paying more for tradition and authenticity. Very well worth a visit but probably not too often if you value your arteries.
On our first dog walk at Banff, since moving locally, Cooper disappeared half way along a wall. He had discovered a beach. It was his beach. He was a great explorer and he was very proud of his beach. His favourite thing is to run as fast as he can in huge loops around us, trying to get us to run with him, until we run along the water line, towards small flocks of gulls, which are long gone before we arrive. The rock pools by the wall are so interesting, most are submerged unless the tide is very low. Sometimes we pick a clump of seaweed off the floor to rinse back at home and chop up to make a cold brewed tea to nourish the plants. it takes a couple of weeks to brew but it’s a free fertiliser, so why not? Nettles and comfrey work well too, apparently, but so far I’m enjoying the seaweed.
The garden has been bountiful since arriving here, just as Spring was springing. Wild garlic, ground elder, sweet cicely. The garden has been more of a wild food larder than floral decoration. The people who lived here before me clearly loved this place and nurtured it to live off the land. The front garden has traces of floral cottage garden in bluebells, Christmas roses and snowdrops but the back - I’m not keeping pace with the abundance! I’ve been using wild garlic everywhere - in breads, pesto, mayonnaise, to decorate focaccia, in soups. I’ve had the opportunity to experiment with sweet cicely in pies and tarts, and ground elder as a steamed vegetable. It does shift weeding into a slightly more positive perspective of harvesting, if these freely gifted foods are eaten. Maybe I’m shifting away from supermarket shopping and towards shopping my garden first.
The idea of a new business has been in planning over the spring, while we have been renovating the kitchen. Seasonal, small batch pottery, preserves and prints from the garden produce. There is such an abundance of rhubarb, apples, blackcurrants, gooseberries, herbs and raspberries that it would be unbearable to waste them. We are starting a ‘free shop’ for excess and experiments, before we get going. A cute way of sharing with the village neighbours, who are probably already tired of so many buns, breads and pies. I will use the plant fibres to make paper for labels and printing. Everything will be very much of this place. Fresh. Home grown. Hand made.
Thank you for your company while reading this newsletter. I hope that you can feel the warm welcome extended to you. We are glad that you’re here. See you again late in the summer for the next seasonal newsletter. In the meantime, you are invited to browse our seasonal essay, images and introductory pages. There will be occasional posts about specific subjects, too.
Links to:
Link to Notes From the Edges - an essay introduction to Outwith
