How to | make a kite

We’re all about the gusty adventures this month. Let’s go fly a kite!

We hope you like the kite illustration on our Blossom front cover for March. Inside the issue Jo Mattock has written a piece to inspire you to take your kite on an outing. If you don’t have time to dig yours out of the shed, here’s how to make one in moments.

You will need

• 2 straight sticks or pieces of cane (raid last year’s runner beans patch), one around 50cm and one around 60cm but you can make them bigger or smaller as you wish

• String

• Washi tape (you knew you’d find a practical use for it one day, didn’t you?)

• A piece of light fabric or strong paper to fit your kite frame (a bin liner will do in a kite-building emergency)

• Suitable glue

• Masking tape

• A long piece of fabric for your kite tail, plus fabric remnants
  
  
  

How to make your kite

1. Arrange your two sticks in a T-shape, with the shorter stick crossing the longer stick about a third of the way down. 

2. Wind string around and around at the point where the sticks join and tie it securely. Cover over the join with washi tape until you are certain the structure is secure. You can use a blob of superglue if you prefer, to anchor the string.

3. Use a pair of scissors to saw a small notch at either end of both sticks (4 notches), each about 3cm from the end. 

4. Tie a piece of string around the edge of your shape, forming a diamond, using the notches to secure the string with a knot at each corner.

5. Place your diamond shape on top of your fabric, paper or bin liner and draw around the outside of the shape, approx 5cm bigger all the way round, then cut out your shape.

6. Place the diamond frame back on your fabric. Squirt a line of glue all the way around the edge of the fabric diamond and then fold the edges over the string frame to stick down.

7. Use masking tape to secure the fabric to the frame all around the edge and across the stick frame.

8. Cut a length of string a bit longer than your spar (the shorter stick). We used 65cm of string for the 50cm cane. Tie to each end of the smaller stick so the string has plenty of slack.

9. For your flying line, tie a long piece of string to the middle of the slack string. Make it as long as you dare.

10. Create a tail for your kite with a long piece of string from the bottom and decorate it with pieces of fabric tied on. Decorate the front and back of the kite as you wish. 

11. Go fly a kite and send it soaring!

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More from our March issue…

May: a final thought

We hope you enjoyed our May ‘Relish’ issue, and our back cover cartoon

This month we have loved celebrating the outdoors, relishing long weekends and making the most of the late spring sunshine. In homage to all that, here’s our May haiku. We’ve chosen the theme of casting not a ‘clout’ until May be out. But do have a go at writing your own (on anything May-related) and leave it in the comments below. We’ll send a lovely book to the author of our favourite.

Discard vests in May!

When they said ‘cast ne’er a clout’

They meant the hawthorn.

More thoughts from our back cover…

More from our May issue…

Etymology: jukebox

Photography: Jonathan Cherry

Because words are important (and rather fun, too)

Jolly jukeboxes - they conjure up images of 1950s American teens, jiving around milk bars, or perhaps a memory of pubs in the late 1980s where you could spend 20p selecting a careful playlist of Bros’s Drop The Boy, back to back with Rod Stewart’s Maggie May.

But, interestingly, the roots of the word ‘jukebox’ go much further back and much further afield. Specifically, to the Sea Islands, just off the Carolinas where a tongue known as ‘Gullah’, a creole of several West African languages and English, which grew up around slaves, was brought to the region in the 18th century.

In Gullah, the word ‘jook’ meant disorderly or living wickedly. A jook house was a sort of dance hall, gaming room and brothel, rolled into one. Wicked indeed! And not a spot for a quiet evening out with religious folk, but much fun if you wanted a dance, a cup of moonshine and perhaps something even more ‘jook’. The term was first written down in the 1930s but probably goes back much further.

The first jukeboxes, back in the 1890s, were known by many names, but mostly ‘nickel-in-the-slot machines’ and the term ‘jukebox’ was first recorded in Time magazine, referencing the jook houses of the period: “Glenn Miller attributes his crescendo to the juke-box’, which retails recorded music at 5c a shot in bars, restaurants and small roadside dance joints.”

So there we have jukeboxes: making the journey from wicked (as in evil) to wicked (as in wonderful). Don’t even get us started on the etymology of that one.

We do love a jukebox. If you do, too, don’t miss our ‘analogue’ feature, which takes a look back at the inventiveness and craftsmanship of life before the digital age and this month features a company manufacturing jukeboxes.

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More from our May issue…

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Cake facts: the best banana loaf

Because if a cake’s worth doing it’s worth doing properly

We’ve got a delicious banana walnut loaf in our May issue (pictured above, from Nourish Cakes by Marianne Stewart, Quadrille). Everyone has their own tips for creating the ‘best banana loaf cake in the world’, usually handed down from capable grandparents and great-grandparents. But the one we all know is that black bananas are best. But why?

Black (or slightly over-ripe bananas) are often recommended as being easier to digest, but what makes them the best choice for a banana loaf cake is their flavour and texture.

Firstly, as they ripen and the yellow skin gets steadily blacker, chemical reactions inside the banana flesh turn the starch into sugars, making them taste sweeter and that bit more banana-y in the cake.

Secondly, the flesh becomes softer and easier to mash, and it also breaks down more easily during the baking process, so you don’t get lumps of banana in the cake once it’s cooked. You might like lumps of banana in your cake, in which case, don’t allow us to lead you down a black banana path - feel free to go your own way - but a riper banana gives a smoother cake, nonetheless.

Catching your bananas at the perfect level of cake-readiness is tricky. Ideally, you want a banana that is pretty dark but still has some yellow on it and lots of big, black spots and patches, but you can definitely still bake with completely black bananas. And here’s a pro-banana tip for you: if you’ve got to Tuesday and your bananas look perfect for a loaf cake but you know you won’t be baking until Saturday, pop them in the freezer. The skins will turn completely black in there but the flesh inside will remain at the same level of ripeness, waiting for you to release it from the freezer drawer (take them out a couple of hours before you want them), mash the banana and help it on its way to its higher state of being, transformed from slightly disappointing fruit bowl fellow to much welcomed fluffy banana loaf.

You’ll find the recipe for the banana walnut cake on p29 of our May issue.

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More from our May issue…

More cakes to bake…

Get hold of your copy of this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

5 things | you probably should do on an island adventure

Take a leaf out of the Famous Five’s book and do it properly

Britain has 82 large islands around it, and more than 6,000 smaller ones. And each is special and worthy of an adventure in its own way.

In our May issue, we’ve an extract from Islandeering: Adventures Around the Edge of Britain’s Hidden Islands by Lisa Drewe (Wild Things Publishing) which has lots of great ideas for walks, swims and things to see on 50 islands in our archipelago. But to make life simple, if you’re off on your own island adventure this week, we’ve got five things you really should do to up the Blytonesque fun factor.

1. Eat something you foraged yourself. From cockles to dandelion leaves, it always tastes better when you found it rather than bought it. Pretend you’re stranded and it will taste even better!

2. Explore some rocks or ruins. Paddle in rock pools hunting for crabs or scramble up the banks of a ruined castle. Every discovery is exciting on your own island.

3. Ride out in a little boat if you can (take care to tie up your oars so no gold thieves can row your boat back out leaving you stranded a la Anne and George on Kirrin Island).

4. Plan a big walk - walking the perimeter of an island all around the coastline will give you a smug glow but if that’s not manageable walk the shortest path across it or perhaps up a significant hill. Be sure to take a map - or draw your own.

5. Take a picnic. Eat it on the sand, a rocky outcrop or find a more sedate picnic bench, wherever you like, but it must contain a fancy sandwich, some good cake and, obviously, lashings of ginger beer.

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More simple outdoor adventures…

Sponsored post | La Vialla

Organic Italian food has never been so delicious thanks to pioneering biodynamic farm La Vialla

How often do you sit down with a great bowl of pasta and a fine glass of wine and know precisely what you’re eating? Knowing where your food comes from and exactly what’s in it is a luxury that’s largely been wiped out by mass production. Fattoria La Vialla offers a (wonderful) way back to products and ingredients that are big on taste, small on waste and come from an ethical, family-run company.

This farm and wine estate in the Chianti area of Tuscany is run by three brothers, Antonio, Bandino and Gianni Lo Franco. Fattoria La Vialla is a role model for biodynamic farming on a large scale: its 1,600 hectares are home to vineyards, olive groves, vegetable gardens and pastures, as well as crop fields. Around half of the site is preserved as forest that helps to offset the farm’s already low CO2 output, making La Vialla carbon neutral. As a pioneering enterprise that marries sustainability with preserving cultural heritage, the farm is a focus for various university research projects.

Ethical credentials, however, do not a nice bowl of pasta make. Luckily, the proof of La Vialla’s methods is in the tasting. You can buy La Vialla’s wines, sauces, pasta, extra virgin olive oil, pecorino cheese and honey online direct from the farm. Wines are low in sulphites; sauces have few ingredients and no added preservatives, and its oils, vinegars and pastas are reassuringly – and deliciously – rustic.

To find out more, visit lavialla.it/uk.

WIN A HAMPER

Now, La Vialla is offering readers of The Simple Things the chance to win one of their hampers, chock full of delicious organic Tuscan food and drink. The competition is online at thesimplethings.com/blog/lavialla.

More from our May issue…

Playlist: Songs About Cats

Listen at thesimplethings.com/blog/catplaylist

All join in

In the interests of fairness, next month’s playlist is Songs About Dogs. Do you have a favourite? Tell us on Facebook, @thesimplethingsmag, and it might be included next time.

More from our May issue…

More of our playlists…

Competition | Win an Italian Hamper from Fattoria La Vialla

The Simple Things has teamed up with La Vialla Farm to give five readers a food hamper worth £83

We discovered Fattoria La Vialla a few years ago completely by chance and completely fell in love

with their booklet full of delicious fare that took us straight to the hills of Tuscany.

Fattoria La Vialla is a family run agricultural Farm and Wine estate comprising 30 or so hill top

farmhouses and is situated in the Chianti Tuscan countryside near Arezzo.

Since 1978 the Lo Franco family has looked after its terrain and reared animals, employing biodynamic methods of cultivation throughout its production.

Wine, extra virgin olive oil, pecorino cheese, pasta, sauces, jams and biscuits and typical desserts,

are made in its artisan workshops and the guests can assist in its daily production.

La Vialla and its flavours are what some would call ‘forgotten’ flavours. The care and

conservation of the land and its produce is in the hands of the Lo Franco family and its workers –

who for affection, dedication or for mere pleasure are known as the ‘Viallini’. Research into recipes

from the past, avant garde development projects, environmentally friendly technology and energy

saving are all an integral part of the production process.

All the products are available in the UK exclusively online at www.lavialla.it or at their Farm shop in Tuscany.

WIN!

Now, La Vialla is offering readers of The Simple Things the chance to win one of five hampers, chock full of delicious, organic Tuscan food and drink, and each worth £83. Simply click on the button below and answer the following question:

Q: Since which year have the Lo Franco family looked after the La Vialla farm?

Terms and conditions

The competition closes at 11.59pm on 20th May 2019. A winner will be selected at random from all correct entries received and notified soon afterwards. The prize cannot be swapped for cash or exchanged. Details of our full terms are online at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules.

More from our May issue…