Summer 26 Newsletter
Hello! Thank you for coming along, have a seat and a drink and enjoy some comforting chat from Aberdeenshire.
The free shop is open at the weekends, Friday to Sunday and filled with the abundance of the garden. Our neighbours and passers-by have helped us to rescue gooseberries, kale, rhubarb, blackcurrants, raspberries and lettuce galore. I’ve added a few extra treats of seeds and fresh cut flowers from time to time. There has even been the odd delivery service to Turriff, Banff and Macduff as we were going there anyway.
I have a thing about bridges. Not quite an obsession but definitely enthusiasm. We went to Inverness in June. Our lovely late Aunt Ruthie lived near Fort Augustus, where The White Bridge is one of my favourites. I also enjoy ‘the wobbly bridge’ in Inverness town, a mini suspension bridge for pedestrians walking across the river. If there are a couple of people stomping around on it at the same time, it’s hilariously bouncy. One of life’s joyful amusements. Have a look for it if you find yourself there.
For our anniversary this year, we went for a ride on the Strathspey Railway from Aviemore. It’s really worth the trip, especially for fans of the TV series the Traitors, as parts of it were filmed here.
Most of the staff are volunteers and you can really feel the joy of enthusiasts gifting their time. Even Cooper was given a biscuit. Everyone made a little joke or shared a little knowledge. The Perspex covered maps on the table gave plenty of information for what to look out for.
But the best part was the atmosphere, the sounds of the whistle and the chuff of steam power, the clickety-clack of the tracks and wheels. Great fun and Aviemore and the vicinity is so beautiful to gaze at through the windows.
Alien Aquatic at Tarlair
We almost missed this performance, which would have been a terrible shame, as it was just wonderful. Just about everything I read about the performance was incorrect or a tad misleading. 0430, tonight, yesterday, already over. In the end, it was just down the road and looked so intriguing that we just had to go and see. I’m so glad we did because we were treated to a totally free performance with evocative singing and mesmerising dance. The costumes were stunning against the backdrop of the old Tarlair pool. It hasn’t been restored yet but the main building has been restored and is a lovely fragrant, bustling, friendly, warm cafe. We donated to the Friends of Tarlair, of course, and Dave gave a post performance interview to help the group. The performance was to raise awareness of marine waste and featured beautiful alien creatures dancing to the sound of La Mer. It felt very special to have such an international talented cast come right here, to our quiet little north east corner of Scotland. Right here at our most local cafe. Amazing. If you catch sight of Dudendance Theatre near you, I’d absolutely advise you to drop everything and hurry along.
Icelandic happy marriage cake Hjónabandssaela
This recipe is known as Happy Marriage Cake, in Iceland. More of a happy marriage of ingredients, from what I can gather, than creating marital harmony, but surely some lovely cake can’t hurt?
This is basically a crumbly butter, sugar, flour and oats mix, 3/4 of it pressed into a tin and topped with roasted or stewed or tinned rhubarb or rhubarb jam, then the last 1/4 of the oat mixture is crumbled on top and it is baked at 180 c for about half an hour. If you want neat slices, you have to let it go cold. Good luck with that because it’s amazing warm.
You can cut this down by half etc but I cook for my neighbours too and I used:
350g butter and 300g soft light brown sugar, creamed together.
Then I added 400g plain flour and a teaspoon of baking powder and crumbled it all in.
The filling was just chunks of fresh rhubarb, roasted for about 10-15 minutes with a handful of sugar. You can use rhubarb jam or rhubarb stewed on the stovetop until tender (drained), or a drained tin of rhubarb.
Recipe - gooseberry fool
Ingredients:
Fresh gooseberries, stewed in a little sugar until soft and sweet enough for your taste. I added elderflower cordial to mine, because I had made some. Custard or whipped cream or a combination of both.
Method:
Make sure the gooseberry and sugar purée is fully cold. Make your custard, if this is what you’re using, and allow to cool fully. It helps if it’s quite thick. Whip your cream if you’re using it, again, the thicker the better. Extra thick double cream works too. Then just gently swirl your gooseberries through the custard or cream (or both!). I served mine in a glass. Decorate as you wish. I used a little gooseberry purée and elderflower. Chill well in the fridge.
Craft - paper making from plant fibres
It’s possible to make paper with many plant fibres, if you have a paper making frame, a blender, a sponge and a tea towel or j cloth.
This was simply the ends of rhubarb, blended with water, poured into a bowl of water and then pushing the frame under the pulp and jiggling it around until there’s a thin, even layer of pulp in the frame. Lift up and flip on to a tea towel or j cloth, spongeing down from the back of the frame, to release the pulp on to the cloth. Dry flat for a day and then you can peg it up like washing on a line to finish drying. When it’s dry, you will be able to peel the paper away from the cloth.
The resulting paper is great for making lamps, maybe with willow stalks. The colours do dull down when dry but you can still achieve some lovely greens, yellows, browns etc, depending on which plants you use.
You can buy paper making screens in various sizes from craft shops or online.
It takes a village…
Locally grown grains are stored at a vast grain store just up the road. The owners will sell any amount to anybody, so it’s easy to get hold of fresh local wheat, barley, oats and oilseed.
My lovely neighbour restored this fantastic grain mill that was originally from this land and handed it over to us. We had a go at grinding the grain this weekend. I baked some bread rolls and bannocks to share with the neighbours, along with an Italian grain pie. I really enjoyed the collaborative nature of growing and making very local food together.
That’s it for our summer newsletter. I hope that you felt warmly welcomed to our little corner of Aberdeenshire. Join us again towards the end of autumn for more conversation and inspiration. I will leave you with a smile in the form of a picture of Cooper, our little cocker spaniel, who turned nine earlier this month. It’s never easy to get a picture of him as he is always on the move. He refused to wear a birthday hat but he appreciated his banana cake and dragon teddy gift.
