Photograph: Cathy Pyle
How to host a salon
A salon supper, dotted with informal talks, brings the promise of knowledge to the table, and good food, too
We all know a bit about something – whether from work or study, travel or a hobby. These pearls of wisdom, however, are unlikely to come up in conversation. Yet, with the right setting, good food and willing friends, you can create a memorable evening, peppered with stories shared (see how on page 29). A modern salon calls for dishes that impress without stealing the show – a menu that needs only the lightest of last-minute prep. The result? Appetites sated and minds broadened.
How to host your own salon
Think about space
How much room have you got for people to sit comfortably? A nice full room creates a buzz, but too many people makes the space seem squashed. Where will you position food and drink? It needs to be accessible without disrupting speakers.
Check, one, two
If you’re not meeting in a house or flat, but in a pub or another borrowed venue, it’s worth checking your speakers can be heard without a microphone.
Be the curator
What do you want your salon to look like and who speaks? It could be that you’re
a group of friends and you all share, or that each of you brings an interesting person to speak.
Choose a theme
This will help an evening hang together. Keep it broad to allow for interpretation and creativity. You can either go abstract – new or lost, for example – or concrete – topics such as holidays or school.
Play the host
Beyond serving food and drink, you’ll need to introduce the event (or ask someone else to): thank people for coming, set out the theme of talks, and describe the shape of the evening – how many speakers there are, when breaks will be – so that guests know what to expect. Then just see where the night takes you.
Turn to page 22 of the April issue for more from our salon Gathering, including Beetroot & horseradish dip, Mixed olives with lemon zest, Asparagus spears with parma ham & toasted almonds, Spring lemon & cardamom chicken, Rainbow roasted carrots with cumin and Jewelled couscous with watercress, peppers & pomegranate.
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Photography: Peter Cassidy
Recipe | Brown butter and toffee cookies
The addition of browned butter gives these cookies a rich, nutty edge, making them all the more moreish. The recipe also works well with white chocolate
BROWN BUTTER & TOFFEE COOKIES
Makes 16
150g unsalted butter
1⁄2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1⁄2 tsp mixed spice
300g plain flour
1⁄2 tsp salt
150g light brown soft sugar
100g caster sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp whole milk
150g chocolate-covered toffees, such as Fazer’s Dumle*, or white chocolate, chopped
Sea salt flakes (optional)
1 Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat until it starts to bubble noisily. Eventually the bubbles will become smaller and stop. Swirl the pan – you will see and smell the change from yellow butter to brown. Immediately remove from the heat. Transfer to a bowl and leave to cool a little.
2 In another bowl sift together the bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice, flour and salt.
3 Mix both sugars into the browned butter until well incorporated. Add the egg and egg yolk, syrup, vanilla extract and milk. Add the dry ingredients, then the toffees or white chocolate and stir to combine. Cover the bowl or wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for a few hours.
4 Preheat oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas 4. Line two baking sheets with baking parchment. Form egg-sized rounds of cookie dough using your hands and place on the lined baking sheets. These cookies spread a lot during baking, so leave a minimum of 8cm between each round.
5 Sprinkle with sea salt flakes, if using. Bake for around 8 mins until slightly brown at the sides but not entirely puffed up. Remove from the oven and let cool (if using Dumle, let cool for a bit longer before eating).
Recipe from ScandiKitchen Summer by Brontë Aurell (Ryland, Peters & Small).
Cake in the House is our monthly recipe feature - get a cake recipe every month in The Simple Things!
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How to grow cut flowers
Here's an idea: turn a tired area of your garden into a cutting-flower patch and you'll be picking blooms all summer
If you don’t have green fingers, start with long-lasting perennials and shrubs from your local nursery or garden centre. A trio of scented ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ roses underplanted with pincushions of astrantia, daisy-like echinacea, and the foliage of bronze fennel all make good picking and will supply dozens of fragrant bunches. While autumn is the time for planting daffs and tulips, spring is good for getting gladioli and allium bulbs in the ground, as well as dahlias, with their stunning cactus and anemone shapes.
For everyday bunches of loveliness, sow sweet peas. They’re easy to grow, and so benevolent with their blooms, you can pick every day of summer. There’s a wide range of colour, too. Build a hazel or bamboo wigwam for them to twine around and plant at the base of each strut. As seedlings appear, encourage them to clamber onto the frame with twine. Tender seedlings are a gift to molluscs, so sprinkle some wildlife-friendly slug pellets, too.
Turn to page 118 for more cutting patch advice, including how to do the groundwork, growing from seed and how to arrange your blooms.
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Things to note and notice in April
From lifting your head up to making time for tea, there are lots of little ways to brighten up April
If still too chilly to pitch the tent, check out Canopy & Stars’ latest spring-friendly additions (think hot showers, duck-down duvets and four-poster beds).
canopyandstars.co.uk
‘The best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain’
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet
Dust off your trainers – 6 April is Walk to Work Day. Why not aim to walk every Friday this month (to the shops/ school/pub)?
Create a meal using food that could have been binned, take a photo and post the recipe on social media, #RecipeforDisaster, with a donation of £5 to combat food waste.
insight.wfp.org
Note the time the sun rises and sets on the same day each week and watch the days lengthening.
More on pages 16-17 of April's The Simple Things.
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Photography: Clare Winfield
Homemade nut butters
All you need is a blender and a bag of nuts and you can make your own homemade nut butter in no time. Delicious spread on hot toast or oatcakes, stirred into porridge or sneakily licked off a finger.
Hazelnut butter
Makes about 150g
130g hazelnuts, skins removed
1 tbsp neutral-tasting oil, such as grapeseed or sunflower
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Pinch of sea salt
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa or cacao powder (optional)
1 Blitz the hazelnuts in a food processor for 8–12 mins, depending on your machine. First you’ll get a fine powder, but continue blending until you get a denser, softened nut butter.
2 Add the oil, vanilla, salt and cocoa or cacao powder (if using) and blitz to combine for 2–4 mins until smooth. Store in the fridge in an airtight jar for up to a month.
Cashew butter
Makes about 250g
240g raw cashews
Pinch of sea salt
1 tbsp neutral-tasting oil, such as grapeseed or sunflower
1 Preheat oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas 4. Place the cashews on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake in the preheated oven for 6–9 mins until lightly toasted.
2 Allow the cashews to cool completely before transferring to a food processor. Add the salt and blitz. Once you have a rough paste (after 6–7 mins), slowly add the oil with the motor running. Blend for 8–12 mins in total. Be patient: you will get a nut butter eventually!
Cook’s notes: You’ll have to scrape down the sides a few times between blitzes. Store in the fridge in a jar for up to a month.
Recipes from The New Porridge by Leah Vanderveldt (Ryland, Peters & Small).
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Nest | Pilea
Once a rare sighting, the round, glossy leaves of pilea are now seen increasingly in our homes. This is largely because they are so easy to propagate.
Plantlets that spring up around their base can be snipped off and potted on in a twinkling, with the resulting plants dispersed among friends.
“They’ll lean towards the light,” says Alice Howard of Botanique Workshop, artisan store and flower shop, “so keep them out of direct sunlight. Otherwise, they are as easy to care for as they are to propagate.”
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A could-do list for April
Things you might want to do this month (no pressure!)
- Open the window and breathe deeply
- Express gratitude, don’t just feel it
- Read a book of poetry and copy out your favourite poem(s)
- Start a new collection of things you love
- Keep a dream journal
- Walk with a little more pace and purpose today
- Write down five things you’re proud of
What would you add? Come over and tell us on Facebook or Twitter.
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Photography: Alamy
Grand days out
Think stately homes - think splendid architecture, immaculate gardens, tempting tea rooms and the chance for a good nose around
Easter is traditionally the date in the calendar when stately homes, dormant over winter, come back to life and open their doors for us to visit.
Recognise any of these great houses of literature?
Manderley
‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.’ The evocative first line of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca sets the tone for this atmospheric story. And while the house was based on Milton Hall near Peterborough, the longing was taken from du Maurier’s own desire for Menabilly near Fowey in Cornwall.
Thornfield Hall
Who hasn’t been haunted by the idea of the mad woman, hiding the attic at Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre? Many believe Charlotte Brontë based her fictional house on Norton Conyers, near Ripon.
Satis House
The faded grandeur of Miss Havisham’s house in Great Expectations is chilling, with its grand gates and dark, dusty rooms. Restoration House in Rochester, Kent – a beautiful Tudor building – lays claim to being Dickens’ inspiration.
Glamis Castle
Most of the action in Shakespeare’s Macbeth takes place at Glamis Castle. The castle isn’t fictional, and neither is the story of the killing of Duncan by Macbeth, but the bard did take some poetic licence in placing the murder at the castle.
Turn to page 64 of April's The Simple Things for more of our Grand Days Out feature.
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Think | April cover reveal
There’s no better time than spring for fresh thinking. But often good ideas arrive when you least expect them – usually when you stop trying so hard. Being absorbed in doing a jigsaw or going for a run makes space for clearer thoughts. And who knows what a chance encounter could spark when you’re taking a wander in the woods. Whether you’re trying to make the pieces fit together or to plant a clever thought, there’s inspiration out there if you take time to note and notice. Then feel those new shoots flourish.
Get hold of your copy of this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe.
View the sampler here, buy back issues or try our sister mag, Oh Comely
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Photograph: Cathy Pyle
Lemon posset pots with ginger crunch
Easy to make ahead, and refreshing with orange and mint
Serves 8
600ml double cream
150g caster sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
150g stem ginger biscuits
1 orange
1 small bunch fresh mint
1 Place the cream, sugar and lemon juice into a large saucepan and bring to the boil, simmer for 4 mins, stirring constantly to avoid it catching on the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
2 Once cooled, tip the mixture into a jug and pour into small vintage glasses (you could also use pretty china tea cups, ramekins or wine glasses). Chill for at least 4 hours in the fridge to firm up.
3 Roughly crush the stem ginger biscuits using a pestle or heavy-duty rolling pin and scatter on
top of the possets.
4 Finely slice the skin of the orange so you get a flat piece of orange peel. Cut it into thin strips with a sharp knife and arrange the strips of zest on top of the biscuits. Top each glass with a couple of small, fresh mint leaves and serve.
Turn to page 22 of the April issue for more from our salon Gathering, including Beetroot & horseradish dip, Mixed olives with lemon zest, Asparagus spears with parma ham & toasted almonds, Spring lemon & cardamom chicken, Rainbow roasted carrots with cumin and Jewelled couscous with watercress, peppers & pomegranate.
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Competition | Writing microfiction
Fancy having a go at writing a story in 100 words? The theme is summer, the closing date, 30 April
We’re full of admiration for a good microfiction: the format may be short, but there’s a wonderful sense of economy, every word polished and shaped with care. In just a few sentences, authors capture fleeting moments – the look of a flower in sunlight, say; the emotional weather in a relationship, or a tale of intrigue, filled with plot and peril.
If you fancy having a go, let our competition be your cue to action. It’s really just for fun, although the winner will receive a parcel of books to say well done. We’re looking for stories on the subject of SUMMER, with a feelgood vibe. The word count is 100 maximum (not including the title) and the work should be all your own and not previously published.
Email your microfiction to: thesimplethings@icebergpress.co.uk. Include your name and phone number and use the subject heading: MICROFICTION.
We’ll print our favourites in the June issue of The Simple Things, just in time for National Flash Fiction Day (nationalflashfictionday.co.uk). The closing date for submitting stories is 30 April 2018. Good luck!
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My hand-written recipe book by Jacqui Hitt
What I treasure | My hand-written recipe book
Among my collection of recipe books is a special one with a plain, blue cover. It’s filled as much with unforgettable moments as it is with edible delights. Whenever I flick through its pages, I find myself back in 1986. I’m 17 and living with a family in Belgrade in what is now Serbia. At that time, it was the capital of the ‘non-aligned socialist republic’ of Yugoslavia: neither Western nor fully behind the ‘Iron Curtain’.
My strongest memory is of sitting at the table in the hallway that doubled as a dining room in my host family’s flat, noting down recipes in my notebook. Most were ones my host mother, Marija, taught me to cook. We had little shared language and cookery was an activity we could do together without words. Weighing, chopping, stirring, and rolling could all be done by watching or gesturing to each other.
I wrote down some of the recipes in English, others in Serbo-Croatian, occasionally a mix of the two. Many only detail rough quantities: three cups of flour, two cups of sugar, one of oil and large amounts of eggs (10 or 12 is not unusual). There are smudges and stains showing where ingredients strayed onto the page.
Marija’s cooking was different from what I knew from home, restricted by shortages imposed by a communist state. Food was strictly seasonal and local. Special dishes stood out because they were a rare treat.
On birthdays and important holidays, Marija would spend hours making cakes or savoury bakes from scratch. Filo-pastry filled with spicy ground meat or salty cheese; a strawberry cake with whipped cream that will forever be the best I’ve tasted; and plum dumplings so juicy that they burst in my mouth at first bite.
I still make these dishes, and just looking at the list of ingredients sends me back to a specific moment in time. The little chocolate, cream-filled išleri biscuits Marija made for my 18th birthday. The cinnamon-scented apple cake she baked to celebrate her son’s return from military service. The simple delight of a pile of pancakes filled with rosehip jam on a cold winter’s night.
I treasure my recipe book for many reasons – for the memories it contains and the fact that, woven into every page, are recipes for a good life as well as fabulous food.
We’d like to know what you treasure - whether it’s a sentimental artefact, a person, a place or something else. Tell us in 500 words what means a lot to you - email thesimplethings@icebergpress.co.uk
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Getty Images
History of the t-shirt
The t-shirt evolved from 19th-century underwear. Light, well fitted and easily washed, it became popular as a bottom layer of clothing for workers and those in the armed forces, and made its first written appearance in 1920, in F Scott Fitzgerald’s debut novel, This Side of Paradise. The first printed t-shirt ever worn publicly is believed to be an Air Corps Gunnery School t-shirt, which appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine in 1942. While in 1938, an American marketing campaign argued that “you don’t need to be a soldier to have your own personal t-shirt”, the style really took off thanks to film appearances on Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and James Dean in 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause. They’ve been worn by everyone, from heartthrobs to more normal types since.
Turn to page 80 of the March issue for more on the T-shirt and how much it says about who we are, what we believe and where we belong.
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Nest | Succulents
We’ve all bought succulents expecting them to be a breeze to look after, only to find they bolt or simply perish.
“Most succulents are killed from over-watering,” says Alice Howard of Botanique Workshop, artisan store and flower shop. “Wait until the soil is completely dry, then water. They need constant light to prevent straggliness.”
Hang them in a pretty planter, like these, to keep them in your eyeline for daily pleasure and monitoring.
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Competition | Win tea for a year
TEA INDIA IS OFFERING ONE LUCKY READER A BUMPER PRIZE OF THEIR SPICED BLENDS TO KEEP YOU IN CHAI ALL YEAR!
Steeped in boiling water or simmered in milk to make a latte, chai has been served in India for centuries and is said to ‘warm the heart and heal the soul’. Tea India’s master blenders, Chirayu Booroah and Jimmy Jal Medhora, have created a range of authentic chai tea blends inspired by their motherland, India, for you to enjoy.
These blends capture some of Chirayu and Jimmy’s favourite flavours using fine assam black tea and spices in a teabag. The Tea India range includes four chai blends – Masala, Cardamom, Ginger
and Coconut – all delicious, warming and invigorating; this is chai made easy, for a ‘soul-healing’ moment every day.
Tea India’s chai blends can be enjoyed made with freshly boiled water and milk or dairy-free alternatives added to taste, or as a latte, by simmering the teabag in milk or a dairy-free alternative. They’ve even included some serving suggestions online, to inspire you.
COMPETITION TIME!
Tea India is giving away a brilliant prize to tempt tea lovers everywhere. Enter our competition for your chance to win a bumper set of all four Tea India chai blends, including seven packets each of Masala, Cardamom, Coconut and Ginger. You may never run out of chai again!
Tea India is available in Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Co-op and Morrisons; you can find your nearest stockist online at teaindia.co.uk.
How to enter
For a chance to win, enter below before the closing date of 9 May 2018.
Terms & conditions: Our competition prize is 28 packets of Tea India chai (7 packets of each blend), sent to the address of your choosing in a single delivery. You can’t transfer the prize or swap it for cash. The winner will be selected at random from all correct received entries after the closing date of 11.59pm on 9 May 2018.
Full competition terms and conditions are on page 129 and at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules.
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Competition | Win a year of flowers
ONLINE FLORIST BUNCHES IS GIVING ONE LUCKY WINNER A BEAUTIFUL BOUQUET A MONTH, PLUS 20% OFF FOR EVERY READER
Every day, all over the UK, Bunches prompts moments of happiness with its hand-tied bouquets and gifts.
What started as a stall in a shopping centre has turned into an online business, still family-owned, delivering long-lasting fresh flowers with as much care for customers as the company has for its blooms.
FAIR TRADERS
Care is at the heart of Bunches’ business model, too. Each year, 10% of its profits go to charitable projects. Flowers are chosen to minimise environmental and ethical toll, sourcing blooms from suppliers who support the Fair Flowers, Fair Plants initiative, and using wholly recyclable packaging. Bunches doesn’t believe in hidden costs either – all bouquets include free delivery.
How to enter
For a chance to win a beautiful, hand-tied bouquet every month for a year, worth £400, enter below before the closing date of 9 May 2018.
Reader offer: Bunches is also offering readers 20% off all orders until 30 April, using offer code SIMPLE20 - visit bunches.co.uk. The only things you can’t use it with are monthly flower gifts and Flowers for a Year.
Terms & conditions: You can redeem our reader discount at Bunches until 30 April 2018. The offer excludes monthly flower gifts and Flowers for a Year. Our competition prize is a hand-tied bouquet of Bunches’ choosing, delivered to you each month for a year. You can’t transfer the prize or swap it for cash. The winner will be selected at random from all correct received entries after the closing date of 11.59pm on 9 May 2018. Full competition terms and conditions are on page 129 and at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules.
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Listen | Songs from the movies
Our favourite songs from the movies.
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Photography: Amanda Heywood
Guide to eco cleaning
Green alternatives to environmental and health damaging chemical-based cleaners
For doing the dishes:
Method’s Pomegranate washing-up liquid is free from chlorine and phospates and smells delicious; £2.25 for 523ml, biggreensmile.com
For floor mopping:
Dr Bronner’s Organic Liquid Castile soap is free from synthetic dyes, fragrances and preservatives and is as good for floors as it is for bodies; £10.50 for 473ml, ethicalsuperstore.com
For kitchen cleaning:
Kinn Living’s Eco Friendly Kitchen Cleaner’s essential oils disinfect naturally; £4.25 for 500ml, kinn-living.com
For scrubbing dirty plates:
LoofCo washing-up pad is made from natural loofah and coconut fibres and is biodegradable; £2.75, greenbrands.co.uk
For cleaning glass:
Good for Glass, harnesses the cleaning power of lemon oil to bring the sparkle back to glass and mirrors; £5.60 for 500ml, mangleandwringer.co.uk
For cleaning the toilet:
US company Seventh Generation’s Natural Toilet Bowl Cleaner smells sweetly of cypress and fir;
£3.83 for 946ml, evitamins.com
Turn to page 115 of the March issue to read more on our love for a clean and pleasant house.
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Build and fly a kite
For first-time kite makers, the diamond is a classic design and the simplest to build
1 Find a thick plastic bag at least 50cm wide and 1 metre tall. Lay it out, open end at the bottom. Starting just below the bag’s top-left corner, mark three dots for the top, bottom, and right- hand corners of your kite.
2 Connect the dots using a ruler and pen. Cut along these two lines on the bag; set aside off- cuts. Open bag out to reveal your sail’s outline.
3 Place a length of 5mm diameter hardwood dowel down the sail’s centre line, lining it up with the top sail corner. Saw off at bottom and fix to the bag with installation tape. Do the same for the other dowel, horizontally.
4 Pierce a hole where the dowels cross. Thread with flying line (ideally nylon) through this hole and secure around the cross of the dowels.
5 Using plastic off-cuts, make the tail, roughly 5cm wide and five times as long as the kite. Tie one end around the base of the vertical spar.
Adapted from The Wild Book: Outdoor Activities to Unleash Your Inner Child by David Scarfe (Trapeze)
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