Monday, October 3, 2022

Celebrating October and soup and crumble and women's talents

The immediate Good Thing TM,  is the chicken pasta soup, which was great. That broth made it taste really old fashioned, like your grandma might have made it.


Seen with a sprig of Thai basil, now growing in the kitchen, slice of wholewheat and oat bread, Vermont butter.

And yesterday's apple cranberry crumble. I combined again Martha Stewart and Rose Birnbaum. Martha's recipe for oatmeal crumble is gluten free, a big deal for some, not an issue here, I just like it. And I learned to macerate fruit from Rose.

Since you're doing a lot of steps making crumble anyway, may as well make it even better by macerating the fruit.

Just prepare the fruit as usual, then add the brown sugar, cinnamon, cornstarch, lemon zest, ginger and salt, mix up with the fruit and leave for an hour. 




Then drain off the liquid it's made, reduce it by half and add it back to the fruit now in the buttered glass pan. Add the crumble bit, bake.

You get to a flourishoftrumpets good crumble with your afternoon cup of tea.

Handsome Son will get some of this. Gary is still away so he's missing it.

It's the taste of October. And here's some more October from Edith Holden's diary.



And seasonal drawings, look who drew these horse chestnuts, conkers, beloved of kids 


Never assume that the thing you know a person for is all they do. I have a real life example: a visitor invited into my recorder group while she was on a project at the Institute for Advanced Study, just along the street, was chatting with us, introducing herself.  

I said, oh, then you know my voice coach, the opera singer. I named her and the visiting prof said, no, can't be her, she's our department admin. I explained that by day she was the admin and by night taught singers her operatic techniques. 

She didn't tour in opera since her son was born, but still did occasional recitals. First the visitor had heard that people do more than one thing at a professional level. Around here that's not at all unusual.

Then there's the Nobel. It's Nobel season, so let's honor


Happy day everyone, enjoy whatever crumble equivalent is in your plans for the day.

Ukraine has taken back an "annexed" city and cut off vital transportation from the invaders, yay.



16 comments:

  1. Thanks for your comment today and you are right! Your crumble sounds lovely, great with tea. I really hope Ukraine succeeds.

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  2. You’re a singer too in addition to all of your other talents?

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  3. AC, yes, I sang solo at music events as a kid and in various choirs and madrigal groups later. We sang plain song a lot at school, too. In recent years it's been to entertain friends more than a recital. Great fun to sing to a friend's piano or recorder accompaniment.

    I wish I could ship crumble to share. This one's so good.

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  4. What an amazing life you've led/do lead.

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  5. That crumble does look good. If this cool weather stays around I'll have to look into making some soup.

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  6. Just when I think there can't possibly be more to know about you...opera. My lord, woman!

    I should bake something.

    I sent you an email.

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  7. To be clear, my teacher had sung in opera. I sang recitals and choir music. She enabled me to strengthen my sound, learning the squillo, the power that enables opera singers to float above a full orchestra. To the point where she said this studio is too small for that volume, dial it down a bit!

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  8. I like the idea of macerating the fruit like you did! I bet it really intensifies the fruity flavor to reduce the liquid.

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  9. It also makes you feel like a terrific expert!

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  10. You taught me maceration last year, and it has improved all my subsequent fruit desserts. Thank you!

    Ditto on singing - a talent that I lack. How wonderful it would be to share a song with others. (I do sing with great enthusiasm, and thoroughly off-key, to my own ears). Squillo - new word for the day!

    Maggi Hambling's portrait of Dorothy Hodgkin is terrific!

    Chris from Boise

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  11. The people of Ukraine are so tough, but will it ever end, this war? I love opera and I love to discover all your talents. Are you hiding any? Let us know.

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  12. I think I need to make a crumble. Or Grumble as my grandmother used to call it. I think I have a recipe in my very old Good Housekeeping Children's Cookbook c.1960 I shall have to ask an adult to cut the apples as the book doesn't advocate the use of sharp implements.

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  13. Resident Chef hasn't made a crumble for awhile but my friend did serve me some made from wild apples when I was there for coffee last week. Wild apples tend to have much more flavour than the boughten ones. Yours looks pretty tasty!

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  14. I might try macerating the fruit next time, especially rhubarb.

    I never knew Tove Jansson was an artist as well as a writer until I saw her painting. In fact I didn't even know she was a woman.

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  15. We adore rolled oats crumble - particularly on rhubarb.

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Thanks so much for commenting. I really appreciate your taking the time, and taking part. Please read the comments and see if your question is already answered!