Competition | Win a £500 garden spending spree

You could win a voucher from Garden Trading to transform your outdoor space

Summer has arrived and it’s time to make the most of your garden. A few plants are a must, as is a comfortable place to sit and soak up the sun. Once you’ve got the basics covered, the rest is up to your imagination and the constraints of your purse. Which is where this brilliant £500 voucher from Garden Trading comes in. With such generous help with the budget, you can make a garden that’s all your own, manicured or informal, urban or country.

For a summer of dining outdoors, you could spend part of your voucher on beautiful crockery and cutlery. The tactile new Ithaca Meze crockery collection is handcrafted and glazed in neutral tones and specially designed for sharing feasts. Mix and match pieces including ceramic bowls, sharing boards and stylish brass cutlery, then gather friends and family for a celebratory outdoor meal. Find the full collection at gardentrading.co.uk.

Enter below and answer the following question: What is the name of Garden Trading’s new crockery collection?

The competition closes at 11.59pm on 12 July 2019. A winner will be selected at random from all correct entries received and notified soon after. The winner cannot transfer the prize or swap it for cash. Details of our full terms are online at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules.

More from our June issue…

More garden inspiration…

Playlist | Songs about meeting up

How sweet and joyous the sound whenever we meet.

Listen at thesimplethings.com/blog/meetingupplaylist

More playlists to listen to…

More from our June issue…

How to: go it alone (briefly)

The art of enjoying your own company is one well worth acquiring

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote: “If you feel lonely when you’re alone then you’re in bad company.” Sartre was not renowned for his gregarious nature (or gentle words), so try not to take this to heart if you, like many of us, find being alone a little, well, lonely.

But there’s definitely truth in what he says and learning to love your own company is something that can enrich all our lives, whether we are alone regularly or very seldom.

In our May issue, we have a feature by Ella Foote, a keen wild swimmer who set off solo in a campervan to discover the wilder parts of Scotland. Her description of her break with herself made us all want to down tools immediately and enjoy some time alone:

“While I love the company of others, and I would describe myself as extrovert, I have learnt in recent years the joy of solitary exploring. There is a magical thing that happens over time spent alone, particularly when travelling. The first few days are a whirlwind as you begin the journey, excited, discovering and moving. Then, as you settle into routine, you make space for your fears and worries to visit. They can sit at the table while you drink wine and eat shellfish on the Amalfi Coast, or lie on the hot stone with you while you enjoy the lick of the Adriatic Sea in Croatia. I have found there isn’t much to do other than to pull out the chair and let them join you. Facing them rather than numbing them, like we do in our day-to-day lives, gives you a chance to understand and accept them. This is followed by the best bit of travelling alone: you create a huge opening for the new. You see, hear, smell, taste and dream bigger than you remember you are capable of.”

If you like the idea of some time spent in your own company, here are a few tips on how to make the most of it:

Being alone at home:

1. Enjoy the freedom of not having to put on a face for anyone. In your own home, you can sit in your underwear and eat beans out of the tin if you want to. No one will judge you because no one will see! That said, there’s also something wonderful about cooking yourself your favourite meal, choosing the best ingredients from your favourite shop, spending a relaxing afternoon cooking and then enjoying your meal on your favourite crockery. Because you’re worth it.

2. Take up a new hobby. If you’re worried about boredom in your time alone, use the opportunity to learn a new skill - it could be a craft you haven’t tried, or learning a language online. What it is matters less than the chance to do something to stretch yourself without having to worry about the pace you go at or whether anyone else is enjoying themselves.

3. Be creative. Most of us grown-ups don’t get to spend time painting a picture or writing a poem very often. When you’re alone, you have space to let your mind wander and be as creative as you wish without fear of judgement. Heck, you can make up an interpretive dance routine if you like. Just close the curtains if you’d rather not get a standing ovation from the neighbours.

Appreciating going solo out and about:

1. Be a flaneur. Take a leaf out of Walter Benjamin’s book and wander with only the purpose of strolling about, observing and experiencing life going by. If easier, pretend you are wandering the streets of Paris in the 19th century, but any town will do.

2. Get close to nature. When you’re in company it’s so easy to miss what’s all around you. Head to a park or forest, where you’ll hear the birdsong you would miss if you were chatting to a companion, notice the small changes in season that would otherwise pass you by and stop whenever you want to look more closely at the natural world, all at your own pace.

3. Eat alone. The idea of a restaurant meal without company terrifies most of us but once you’ve done it a few times there’s nothing that feels quite so serene as a meal with oneself. You can watch the world go by, smirk inwardly at the couples bickering and the groups of friends dividing a bill with difficulty, while enjoying your meal in your own marvellous company - and no one can steal your chips!

If you’re inspired to spend some time enjoying your own company, you might like this video by The School of Life on how to eat alone.

You can read more from Ella Foote in this month’s The Simple Things, which is in shops now.

More from our May issue…

More wellbeing advice to soothe your soul…

Make: An Ordnance Survey garland

Create a nostalgic reminder of a fun weekend

Poring over a map is a sure-fire way to ramp up the anticipation for a long weekend away (and with two in May, there are plenty of opportunities). There’s the road trip to navigate, the B&B to locate, the nearest stretch of beach to find, and day trips to plan. And, even better, when you get back home, that same map will remind you of where you have been: retrace your steps up contours to that spectacular viewpoint or along the dotted lines of a coastal footpath to the beach cafe.

One way to remember a journey is simply to frame a map of the area travelled. Bring it alive with pins marking memorable places visited or by adding snapshots of special meals or locations. Alternatively, scour local charity shops' book sections where there is often a bucket or basket of old maps waiting to be snapped up and recycled, and turn them into this simple but pretty paper garland to hang in your hall, above your bed or whatever spot in your home could do with an injection of bank holiday nostalgia once May is over.

What you’ll need

One or two vintage maps (depending on preferred length of garland)

A craft cutter (we used a 2-inch heart cutter but you could use a similar-size circular cutter)

Glue stick

Sewing machine and thread

A felt ball or bead (to weight the garland at the bottom)

How to make your garland

1. If your map is one-sided, cut it in half and glue the 'wrong' sides together with the glue stick. Make sure that both sides of the map are the right way up. Allow to dry for a couple of minutes.

2. Using your craft cutter, cut out the hearts. You may find it easier to cut the map into strips first.

3. Leave a good length of thread at the top, and sew your hearts together with the sewing machine. To make your garland 3-D, sew the hearts in pairs. A contrasting red thread will bring out the detail in the map. (When lining up the next heart, have the foot and the needle of your machine down so that you can use the needle as a guide to get the heart in the right place each time.)

4. Keep going until the garland is your desired length. Leave a good length of thread at the end and hand-stitch a little felt ball to add weight and help it hang straight. Tie a loop or knot at the top of the garland so that you have something to hang the garland form.

5. Open the hearts to create a 3-D effect. Hang or drape your garland.

Created by Charlie Deighton and first published here in June 2014.

See more of her work at her Etsy shop, or follow her on instagram.

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More from our May issue…

More makes for bank holiday month…

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…

More fascinating historical things…

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

Get to know hedgerows

They’re the stitches in the green and brown patchwork quilt of the English countryside; we should all get to know hedgerows a little better…

Hedgerows are among the most diverse habitats in Britain, sheltering 125 of our most threatened species. They also are a visual historical timeline, showing us where boundaries were made, lost, fought for and farmed over millennia. Yep. The humble hedge is Great British phenomenon. In homage to hedges (hom-edge, perhaps?), here are few quite interesting facts about hedges you may not know…

1. The word ‘hedge’ comes from the Anglo Saxon word ‘haeg’, meaning ‘enclosure.

2. Bats use hedges to navigate by, like natural sat-nav.

3. You’ll notice that in fields, the corners of hedges are usually a steady curve, rather than a sharp right angle; this was to allow space for a team of oxen and a plough to turn.

4. The most common hedgerow plant is hawthorn, by quite a long chalk. No one is absolutely sure why but it could be because the Celts had a tradition of planting hawthorn around their sacred places.

5. Some parishes in England and Wales still practise the Roman tradition of ‘beating the bounds’. On Ascension Day, locals would gather to march around the boundary hedgerows of the area, beating the stone walls and hedges with sticks.

6. You can work out the age of a hedge by picking a 30-metre length, counting the number of different species of trees and shrubs in it and mulitplying that number by two. So if you spot five different species, you can reckon on the hedge being around 500 years old.

In our May issue, which is in shops now, foraging guru Lia Leendertz has lots of tips for foraging in hedgerows and recipes for your hedgerow treasure, from hawthorn and basil mayonnaise to elderflower champagne. Find it on p6.

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More foraging fun…

More from our May issue…

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 from our May issue…

More simple outdoor adventures…

Why we love a secret garden

Come through the gate with us into a wonderful, walled world

Wouldn’t we all love a walled garden? Who can honestly say they’ve not wandered through the pretty paths of a walled garden in a stately home, between manicured flower beds and pleached fruit trees and pretended just for a few seconds that they are lady of the manor, taking their crinoline out for an airing on a turn round the estate?

Something about their secluded nature makes them just a little bit magical. It’s little wonder many a novel and film features a walled garden, symbolic of the fertile ground hidden inside the walls of our mind, the wonder of a secret well kept, the idea that behind any ordinary brick wall one might find something fantastical…

One of our favourite fictional walled gardens would have to be in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. “It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted together.” But the sweetest thing about it for Mary Lennox is the chance to learn to tame the garden and to grow within its walls. The garden, abandoned for a decade, (note that orphan, Mary, unwanted and then left by her own parents, is also ten years old) is an allegory for Mary’s spiritual self. Inside the brick walls of abandoned garden are bulbs waiting to shoot and then bloom. And inside cold, self-centred Mary Lennox is all sorts of good just waiting to be nurtured into growth.

The Secret Garden is considered a classic British children’s book, but the interesting thing about it is that it was written neither as a book, nor for children. The story was first published, serialised, in an adult magazine. It wasn’t until 1911 that it was published in its entirety as a book, and then it was marketed to both adults and children simultaneously, in much the same way as the Harry Potter books or Philip Pullman’s Lyra trilogy were decades later.

In its time, The Secret Garden was a bit of a damp squib among Frances Hodgson Burnett’s far more successful novels, such as A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. What probably saved it from obscurity was a sudden adult interest in the studying of children’s fiction at the time and that marketing of it as a book for adults.

It’s a strange thing that we adults, who hold all the cards really where children’s fiction is concerned, spotting authors, paying illustrators, devising budgets for the marketing of all these books, are so reticent to step forward and enjoy them. We feel, for some reason that we have to leave these books for children, wait to be invited into their secret garden. And every few decades, along comes a book that transcends the barriers between adult and children’s fiction, and the people in suits at the publishing houses feel they have to throw us a bone with an ‘adult version’ cover, or at least one we won’t be embarrassed to be seen reading on the bus. It’s a great shame, really.

We’d like to encourage you to pick up a book that’s ‘too young’ for you this month and read it proudly in public. Who knows? Behind that cover that says ‘not for you’ you might find a long-forgotten secret garden with all sorts of wonders just waiting for your imagination to carefully weed around them, tend to them and watch them grow.

Reading list

If you love a book about gardens, you might like to try (or re-read) one of these:

Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce, 1958

Tom is staying with his aunt and uncle in their flat while his brother recovers from measles. The flat has no garden and quarantined Tom has no playmates, until the clock strikes 13 and the Midnight Garden appears…

The Camomile Lawn, Mary Wesley, 1984

One that really is for the grown-ups. Wesley’s novel about youth, love and loss that begins in the summer before World War Two, has at its centre, the scented camomile lawn in Helena and Richard’s garden by the sea, which epitomises holidays, summer and carefree youth.

The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton, 2008

An abandoned child, a secret garden, a mystery… If you enjoyed The Secret Garden you’re sure to enjoy this.

If you’d like to read about the history of walled gardens don’t miss Wonder Walls in our May issue, in shops now.

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More from our May issue…

More on children’s books that have inspired us…

April: a final thought

Please enjoy our back page chalkboard message and a seasonal haiku

We’ve loved all the fun of our Treat issue and we hope you enjoyed the slightly out-of-the-ordinary cover of this issue.

Here’s an April haiku in homage to all that. Do have a go at your own and leave it in the comments below. We send a lovely book to the author of our favourite each month.

April brings showers,

But sweets, treats and flowers, too.

It’s a spring surprise.

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More from the April issue…

More wisdom from our back cover…

Make: your own clean, green oven gel

Oven looking a little tired and emotional after a big Easter gathering of friends or family? This oven cleaning gel tackles your least favourite job without the caustic fumes of conventional cleaners

Makes 1-oven’s worth

1 tsp xanthan gum

2 tsp glycerine

2 tsp washing-up liquid

300ml just-boiled water

1 tsp salt

5 tbsp soda crystals

1 Put the xanthan gum and glycerine in a large bowl and stir well to combine. Add washing-up liquid and stir again. 2 Put the just-boiled water in a jug and add the salt and soda crystals. Stir until the crystals dissolve. 3 Pour the warm solution into the bowl with the gum mixture and use a hand-held blender to pulse for 1 min, until fully combined. Use immediately.

How to use

1 Switch off your oven at the socket and remove the racks from the inside. Wearing rubber gloves, use a sponge or scrubbing brush to apply the gel liberally to the surfaces of your oven, including the door.

2 Leave the gel on overnight. In the morning, again wearing rubber gloves, use a scrubbing brush to give your oven a thorough clean. If burnt-on spots remain, sprinkle over some bicarbonate of soda to give you extra scouring power.

3 When you’re satisfied, wipe the oven down with a clean, damp cloth, rinsing the cloth in fresh water as necessary. You can use this solution on the oven racks and trays, too, but avoid use on aluminium surfaces.

Recipes taken from Fresh Clean Home by Wendy Graham (Pavilion). Photography: Rachel Whiting.

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More from our April issue…

More kind cleaning ideas…

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…

Game: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Puzzler

Match the children who visited the factory to their grisly, confectionery fates

Here’s a little brainteaser for Easter. Five children won Golden Tickets to visit Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But can you match the child to their fate in the plot? Scroll down for the solution.

1 Augustus Gloop

2. Verruca Salt

3. Mike Teavee

4. Violet Beauregarde

5. Charlie Bucket

a) Becomes a giant blueberry

b) Inherits the factory

c) Is declared to be a ‘bad nut’ by the squirrels in the nut room and thrown down a rubbish chute

d) Falls into the chocolate river and is sucked up the pipe into the fudge room’s mixing machine

e) Is shrunk by a miniaturisation machine and then stretched back in the gum stretching room, but leaves the factory 10 feet tall.

In our April issue, our Outing feature is all about chocolate. While you sadly can’t visit Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory yourself, you can visit the Cadbury factory (pictured above) that inspired Dahl. Just don’t go drinking from the chocolate river.

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Answers: 1d; 2c; 3e; 4a; 5b

More from our April issue…

Chocolatey recipes for big kids…

Cake-off: English vs American muffins

There’s certainly nuffin like a muffin. But which one would win in a duel? We investigate

They say to-may-toe and we say to-mar-toe; they aren’t too embarrassed to ask for a doggy bag for their expensive restaurant dinner and we would rather starve for a month; we have Proper Cheese and they… well, we’ll say no more. But still, that famous ‘special relationship’ endures. Muffins though. We’re never going to agree on those. Ours are a sort of dense bread roll, with flat tops and bottoms, rolled in semolina flour for a crispy edge. Theirs are veritable cakes, often served in a paper case and with toppings and flavours galore.

So, here at The Simple Things, we thought we should settle this once and for all and pit the English muffin against its American counterpart in five categories. En garde!

Texture

Well it’s no competition really. The American muffin is obviously a cake, so springy and soft it may be but there’s nothing like the bite on a toasted English muffin with its crunchy semolina floured surface. At the end of the day it’s a chewier bread-based item and in yeast we trust.

Flavour

We have to hand it to our American friends here, we love the flavour of an English muffin but you can’t chuck handfuls of chocolate, banana or blueberries in an English muffin. Well, you can, but it would be a waste.

Style

Again, the American muffin takes it. Basically it’s a giant cupcake, isn’t it? And we all know how show-offy cupcakes have become over the last two decades. This just goes one better. We sort of stand behind the plucky, salt-of-the-earth English muffin on this one, but it has to be said the English muffin is Woman’s Weekly to the American muffin’s Vogue.

Comfort factor

You’ve come in from a cold walk, you’ve put the kettle on the stove, built a fire and got a blanket and a good book. What are you having with it? It’s not a blueberry muffin is it? It’s a lovely English muffin sliced in half, toasted and slathered with butter. Especially on the black too-toasty bits.

Flexibility

Can you eat an American muffin with either lashings of butter and strawberry jam or under a couple of perky poached eggs, wilted spinach and a huge dollop of Hollandaise sauce? Can you jiggery. The English muffin wins hands down in the flexibility stakes. It makes a fancy breakfast, an easy lunch and a satisfying teatime snack. Also good with mature cheddar, melted or not, prosaic butter and marmite or a hundred other fancy toppings. The English muffin is a flavour vehicle in its infinite variety.

So there we have it. English muffins win. But to show we’re not bad sports, we’ve featured a delicious Rye, Buckwheat and Fruit breakfast muffin in our April issue’s Cake in the House. The recipe is from Nourish Cakes by Marianne Stewart (Quadrille). Photography: Catherine Frawley. The April issue is in shops now.

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More from our April issue…

More bakes to inspire…

What do memories smell like?

Why your nose is the door to nostalgia

Ever sniffed the air in a good bakery and been transported instantly back to sitting by your grandmother’s Aga? Or walked into a primary school and found the smell of utilitarian floors and Dettol made you feel six again?

It’s really more surprising if this hasn’t happened to you, as smell is the most evocative of all our senses. Because our language is not so rich in words to describe smells as it is sights or sounds, they are harder to pinpoint and describe but smells work more efficiently with our brains to evoke memories than anything we see or hear.

The US journal Cerebral Cortex found that the reason for this is that our brains log smells away in the area used for storing long-term memories. In fact, we are able to recall twice as many memories when they are associated with a smell as when they aren’t.

This will be why shops and would-be house vendors bake bread - in hopes of transporting you to a time when you felt safe and at home, hoping your purse will fall open during this reverie. Too bad if your mum only ever bought Hovis and the only time you smelled bread in the oven was at your most-disliked aunt’s house…

And it’s true, smell can evoke very negative memory responses too. The scent of an ex-boyfriend’s brand of aftershave might make you feel heartbroken (or just furious) all over again, 20 years after he dumped you for Carol with the bad perm.

Whether smells take you back to happy times or upsetting ones, we’ve been fascinated this month by what smells evoke strong nostalgic responses in you. The Simple Things staff listed everything from specific brands of shampoo, to cut grass to horse manure among theirs! We’d love you to share yours with us in the comments below, too.

If you’d like to learn more about the power of scent, in our April issue, our ‘Know a Thing or Two’ feature is all about essential oils. It’s in the shops now. Just don’t go down the bakery aisle while you’re there or who knows what you’ll come back with. Freshly baked apple puff, anyone?

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Recipe: Wild garlic soup

Ramsons, or wild garlic, makes for easy foraging. Around now, damp woodland becomes carpeted in bright green leaves, the air heavy with its savoury aroma. If you can’t find any wild garlic, you can replace it with watercress, young nettles (wear gloves when harvesting – the sting will go when cooked!), spinach, kale or chard. 

Wild garlic soup

25g butter
2 potatoes, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
2 large handfuls of wild garlic leaves, washed and roughly chopped
110ml regular or double cream
Crusty bread, to serve

1 Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat. When foaming, add the potatoes and onion, and toss in the butter until well coated, then season with salt and pepper. Turn the heat down, cover the pan and cook for 10 mins or until vegetables are soft, stirring regularly so that the vegetables don’t stick and burn.
2 Next, add stock and bring to a rolling boil, then add the wild garlic leaves and cook for 2 mins or until the leaves have wilted. Don’t overcook or it will lose its fresh green colour and flavour.
3 Immediately pour into a blender and blitz until smooth, then return to the clean pan, stir in the cream and taste for seasoning.
4 Serve hot with crusty bread.

COOK’S NOTE: Harvest garlic leaves between March and May before the plant flowers. Be mindful and pick a little here and there. Wild garlic looks similar to the poisonous lily of the valley so always crush the leaves and check for the smell of garlic before picking.

Recipe from Recipes From My Mother by Rachel Allen (Harper Collins). 

If you’ve got a lust for something green and pungent after that you won’t want to miss the start of our new foraging series, Finders Keepers, by Lia Leendertz (first part in our April issue, in shops now). Foraged crops are free, abundant and flavourful. All you need do is get yourself to a good spot at the right time, basket and secateurs in hand, and you have some of the best crops available. Through the foraging seasons of spring, summer and autumn, we’ll show you where to find these crops, how to pick them, and ways to turn them into delicious dishes. This month’s pages include a fabulous recipe for wild garlic, nettle and broad bean frittata that has already gone in our best recipes notebook.

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More wild garlic recipes:

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View the sampler here

How to: speak 'Rabbit'

Want to learn to understand these furry friends a little better? Twitch your nose twice for ‘yes’

Rabbits are creatures of few words, so, in honour of spring, we’ve put together this short guide to interpreting your pet rabbit’s innermost thoughts. The guide works for wild rabbits, too, but we’d be surprised if you got close enough to any wild rabbits to read their body language. Without further ado, here’s a guide to speaking rabbit, or ‘Leporid in Translation’, if you will…

Rabbit: Turns her back on you, or flicks her back legs towards you as she hops away.

English: I’m furious with you. What you’re seeing here is the rabbity hump. Be afraid.

Rabbit: Clicks her teeth.

English: I’m happy. What? You don’t click your teeth when you’re happy?

Rabbit: Grunts.

English: Leave me alone. I want some me-time.

Rabbit: Throws herself on her side.

English: I might look like I’ve fainted, in fact I’m just so chill I’m horizontal.

Rabbit: Pokes you with nose.

English: What does a girl have to do to get a nice stroke around here?

Rabbit: Ears flat back to head.

English: All is good in my world.  

Rabbit: Ears standing up straight.

English: I’m freaked out. Something here isn’t right. I’ve got a Mr MacGregorish feeling in my waters.

Rabbit: One ear back and one up straight.

English: I’m concerned something is amiss but I’m not sure. I’ll hedge my bets.

Rabbit: Binkies. (Does a little twisty jump in the air).

English: I’m so ecstatic, it’s like all my Carrotmases have come at once.

So now you know. If you want to read more about rabbits and why we think they are magical creatures, buy our April issue, in shops now.

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Make: an upcycled hanging tomato planter

Repurpose a plastic bottle and have tomatoes hanging around all summer

This simple project can be done in an hour and you’ll have cherry tomatoes dangling temptingly by the back door ready for salads all summer long. We recommend you make lots and hang them together in bunches. Green plastic bottles look most attractive if you have them but any will do.

You will need:

Used plastic bottles, between two and four litres

Cherry tomato plant seedlings

Masking tape

Hole punch

Knife

Strong twine

Soil

1 Clean your plastic bottles, removing any labels. Carefully cut away the bottom of the bottle.

2 Seal over the jagged edge with masking tape; then, using the hole punch, make four holes in the tape, one on each side of the bottle.

3 With the mouth of the bottle facing down, insert your tomato seedling and carefully work the plant into the mouth. Then spread the root ball out inside the bottle.

4 Fill the bottle three-quarters full with compost.

5 Thread your twine through the holes and tie securely together.

6 Hang somewhere sunny and water really regularly.

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