Blog
Taking Time to Live Well
“Something’s gotten hold of my heart, Keeping my soul and my senses apart”
Listen here.
Photography: Alamy
When there’s little else to forage, seaweed is still plentiful. But as well as being good to eat, did you know it can also act as your very own Wincey Willis?
Hang some seaweed outside and if it feels dry to the touch the weather should be fine, whereas if it feels damp rain be on its way. It’s not a completely failsafe forecast, being based only on the fact that if there’s moisture in the air it may indicate rain soon to come. If it’s VERY wet, it may simply be that it’s actually raining already. But it’s a bit of fun.
Here are a few more ways you can tell the weather without switching on the radio or TV.
Have a look at the dandelions. If they’re closed it will be clouding over.
See if you can spot any bees. They don’t tend to leave the hive when rain is on the way.
Notice what leaves are doing. Those with soft stems will go a little limp when there’s stormy or blustery weather on the way to allow wind to blow them about without snapping them.
Arrange a very elaborate picnic. Around 20 seconds after you’ve spread the blanket on the ground, it will almost certainly begin to rain.
Discover more about seaweed, how to forage it and eat it in our January issue with our feature A Winter’s Tale. It starts on page 36.
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Make DIY days a thing to relish by spring-cleaning your tool box into submission
We do like a Very Useful Thing, and what we like even more is a Thing that is Very Useful as well as Very Lovely. Toolboxes are an excellent example of something that should be truly useful but are infinitely improved by containing items that are lovely to hold, pretty to look at and give you a smug sense of satisfaction every time you lift the lid. Here are a few items that we think deserve a place in every toolbox.
Hammer
A ball hammer and a claw hammer are both useful, but if you’re only going for one, get the claw hammer so that you can pull old bits of wood apart as well as knock things into walls. A nice wooden handle that sits neatly in the palm of your hand is what you’re after, with a pleasingly cool, metal head that will sink nails into anything you like with ease.
Tape measure
A good metal measuring tape that locks solidly and then retracts smoothly with a satisfying thunk is a must for any toolbox, and especially handy for scoping out rooms for new items of furniture.
Jar of screws
Like a good button box, a screw jar really ought to be a little bit of history. Ideally, it should once have belonged to your Dad or Grandad and contain mostly screws that you have absolutely no idea of the heritage of but will one day be precisely the thing you need.
Socket set and wrench
By Golly, there’s little quite so satisfying as being able to shift an unshiftable bolt whenever you want to. And having a gleaming set of sockets so you always have exactly the size you need is really very pleasing indeed. A set of Allen keys is handy for the same reason.
A set of screwdrivers
Or at least a Phillips and a flathead and some of those teeny tiny screwdrivers you get in Christmas crackers that are good for essential spectacle maintenance.
Torch
A nice slim metal one, with a flash function, because that’s always fun, but mainly for finding things that have rolled under furniture.
Sandpaper selection
A few different grades are useful from 5 o’clock shadow through to pebble dash, to allow you to sand finely or roughly shave a few centimetres off fast.
Pliers (and long-nose pliers)
Useful for a hundred domestic difficulties for things that are stuck in, up and on things, things that are shut fast, wrenched open or just difficult to reach. A nice, heavy pair of pliers is a joy to have in your hand.
Putty knife
Look for one with a good bend on the metal so that you can get your putty neatly into any nook and cranny that needs filling.
Hack saw
A small hack saw is very handy for making adjustments to dowel, curtain poles and anything else that’s in desperate need of shortening (apart from your in-laws’ visits).
Stanley knife
Excellent for crafting as well as DIY. Look for a knife that fits snugly into your palm and has a pleasing weight to it.
Spirit level
It’s not a simple meeting of alcohol and physics. It’s an magic straightening bubble, worked by elves. We won’t have it any other way. Surely the most attractive item in any tool box. Get a nice wooden one with a lovely green bubble to help with hanging shelves and the like.
Stud detector
Great for helping you put up pictures, mirrors etc and very exciting too because they give you that feeling of metal detecting in your own home.
Duct tape
For temporarily sorting everything from leaks to slow punctures. We recommend Gorilla tape, or Duck tape. Because who’d want a tape without a gorilla or a duck on them when you could have one with?
Pencil
All pencils are not born equal. Don’t just stick an HB in there from the kitchen drawer. You’ll only end up borrowing it back next time you need to write the milkman a note. Get yourself a proper square-shaped carpenter’s pencil that won’t roll off surfaces and will make you feel very well-equipped indeed.
In our January issue, we are talking Cups of Tea with Louise Hames of Tinker and Fix, which sells very lovely things for your tool box, garden and more. Turn to page 30 to find out more about them.
Photography: Joe McIntyre
Light your way to bed with this easy-to-make, no-kiln-required clay candle holder
This elegant candle holder is really easy to make with just a couple of inexpensive craft purchases. It’s one of three candle holder makes created by our talented Simple Things duo, Karen Dunn and Joe McIntyre. You can find the instructions for the other two in our January issue to add a bit of glow to dark January evenings.
You will need:
Air-drying clay
Rolling pin
Craft knife
Ruler, paper, pencil and scissors
Water
White acrylic paint
Clear matte varnish, optional (we used Mod Podge)
How to make:
1 Roll out your air-drying clay so it’s around 5mm thick. Next, draw a circle on your paper (9cm diameter – you can use a mug or tin to draw around if you don’t have a compass). Then draw a 12 x 1.5cm and a 30 x 1.5cm strip and cut out.Place your templates on top of your clay and cut around them with your craft knife. Cut two of the 12cm strips. If your clay is quite wet, leave it to dry out for around 30 mins.
2 Next, score the outside edge of your circle of clay with a craft knife and add a fingertip of water. Wrap the longest of your clay strips around the outside edge and press firmly against the sides. Next, score across the join and smooth together with your fingertips
3 Take one of your smaller strips and in the middle of the clay base create a smaller circle with the strip (make sure this is bigger than the base of your candle as the clay will shrink as it dries). Once you have made a ring with the strip of clay, score the bottom, add a fingertip of water and press the edge of the strip down gently to attach in the middle of the base.
4 Take your final strip of clay and lay it across the base of the circle – from the central ring to the inside edge of the outer strip of clay. Loop the strip over your finger and, using the same method as before, secure it to the outside edge. Allow the clay to dry for around 24-48 hours.
5 Once dry, paint your holder with acrylic paint. Then, when completely dry, cover with a layer of matte varnish for a protective finish.
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Illustration: Jessica Hayman
If you’ve ever thought about tracing your family tree, you might like to research the history of your home
Whether you live in a mediaeval pile or are the first owners of your new build, there’s plenty of detective work to be done finding out about previous owners or the history of the land your home is built on. In our January issue, house historian Melanie Backe-Hansen has written about the joy of getting to know your home’s heritage and how to get started.
If you’re inspired but unable to get out much at the moment, here are a few things you can do online to make a start on your research. You can read the whole feature on page 100 of the January issue, in shops and available from our online store now.
Maps
Start with the historic Ordnance Survey maps online, which were produced from the 1860s and then periodically through to the late 20th century. A wide selection for England, Scotland, and Wales can be viewed at the National Library of Scotland (maps.nls.uk).
Local history
Find out about the development of the area over time or even provide clues as to why and when your house was built. Start with British History Online (british-history.ac.uk).
1939 Register
A census taken in the first month of the Second World War providing valuable details of residents. Available on subscription sites ancestry.co.uk and findmypast.co.uk.
Census (1841-1911)
Taken every ten years, they record all those resident in the house on census night, with details of family relationships, occupations, and ages. Also found on findmypast. co.uk and ancestry.co.uk.
Newspapers
Search for your house, former occupants, plus events, through historic newspapers. An increasing amount of information can be unearthed by searching britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk.
Land Registry
This department is responsible for registering the ownership of property in England and Wales. A title register can provide details of recent ownership and, in some cases, historic details going back decades. Go to the official website at gov.uk/government/ organisations/land-registry.
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Photography: Ed Anderson
Take a journey around the world in chicken soup. There can’t be many nicer ways to travel...
When you’re nursing a cold, or just feeling in need of some succour and comfort, a bowl of chicken soup is the answer. We’re not sure there’s much it can’t solve, to be honest.
Chicken soup has been soothing humans since the times of the ancient Greeks and Chinese, but it’s as a Jewish dish that it’s most well known, earning it the title ‘Jewish Penicillin’ . A 12th century Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, even claimed it could cure not only the common cold but also leprosy and asthma.
Wherever you go in the world there’s a version of chicken soup to sustain you. Here are a few you might be less familiar with for some inspiration next time you’re wielding a ladle in the face of a cold.
In France, try a Chicken Pot Au Feu.
Head to Vietnam for Pho Ga.
You can sample Bahian Chicken and Shrimp Stew in Brazil.
Warm your very bones with Ajiaco in Columbia.
In Greece, order a bowl of Chicken Orzo Soup.
Go Italian with this Chicken and Escarole Soup with Fennel.
Try a Japanese take on chicken noodle soup with this Chicken Udon.
And finally, fight off cold with some spice with a hearty Mulligatawny from India
We were inspired to go on our Chicken Soup Tour by the recipe in our January issue for Chorba Bayda taken from The Chicken Soup Manifesto by Jenn Louis (Hardie Grant) Photography: Ed Anderson. The January issue is on sale now, in shops or you can buy it in our online shop and have it delivered straight to your doormat.
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We hope you might find some inspiration in our January ‘snug’ could-do list.
Here at The Simple Things we don’t believe in ‘to-do lists’ and all their associated pressures. But we are very much in favour of could-do lists… ideas for things we might see, do, experience or make. Much of the joy of them is simply in the anticipation. It doesn’t matter if you do them or not. The act of creating a list and mulling it over is pleasurable in itself.
And there’s never a better time thatn January to make your own could-do list, with a new month, a new year and a metaphorical blank page in front of you. Borrow some ideas from ours, make your own, or just read and enjoy. And share yours with us below if you’d like. What could you do this January ?
Wishing you a very snug and hopeful 2021, from all of us at The Simple Things.
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Words: LAURA ROWE Illustrations: VICKI TURNER
Only at this time of year would champagne qualify as a staple - but it is a time to eat, drink and be merry
Native to Northern France, only 60 miles east of Paris, champagne is a sparkling wine from the region of the same name, which is home to 319 wine-making villages and more than 15,000 wine growers.
Traditionally, it is made of a blend of white and red grapes – pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonnay. While still wine is the result of fermentation, champagne’s bubbles, like most sparkling wines, are the product of a second fermentation through the addition of yeast and sugar. Since 1936 it’s been awarded an AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) thanks to its unique terroir, with its northerly latitude, cool climate and chalky soils.
Other sparkling wines are available round the world, from Spain’s cava and Italy’s prosecco to Germany’s Deutscher sekt. And you can find increasingly good sparkling wines from England, Brazil, Australia and South Africa. But a bottle of champagne is popped around the world every two seconds.
This feature was originally published in our December 2017 issue, but there’s always time for champagne. We hope whatever you’re drinking this evening, it brings a little sparkle with it. A very happy and hopeful 2021 from all of us at The Simple Things.
Photography: Karoline Jönsson
Making an event of sandwiches since the 1920s, the toastie maker is a lunch game-changer. Here’s how to make more of yours
There’s nothing wrong with a cheese sarnie. In fact, there’s plenty that’s right about it, but a crispy, golden, oozing cheese toastie? Now that’s a lunch to look forward to. But if you’ve never considered much more as a toastie filling than cheese (or cheese and ham if you’re feeling adventurous) you’re definitely missing out. Here are a few toastie fillings we have tried and loved. Drag out your toastie maker from the back of the cupboard, or simply fry on both sides in a frying pan. However you toast your toasties, there’s a whole new world of hot lunches waiting for you…
Beans in Toast
Yep. IN toast. An inside out twist on beans on toast, simply fill your slices of bread with beans and perhaps a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Comfort on a plate.
Chilli and cheese
An excellent use for a small amount of leftover chilli con carne, this works equally well with veggie chilli, too. Make it vegan by simply leaving out the cheese. Excellent dipped in sour cream.
Butternut squash, bacon and gorgonzola
Roast the butternut squash and fry the bacon then assemble and sprinkle gorgonzola on top before toasting.
Pizza toastie
This works like a folded pizza, with the bread working as a dough ‘case’ you can hold easily. Just spread tomato sauce or passata on the bread slices, top one with whatever toppings you like on a pizza, close and toast.
Festive toastie
Stilton and cranberry sauce is simple but delicious. If you like, you can add turkey and stuffing, sliced sprouts, and any other Christmas fare you like.
Tapas toastie
A bit of Spanish sunshine in sarnie form. Manchego, chorizo slices and, if you like, a couple of anchovies, one or two roasted red peppers from a jar and perhaps an olive or two on the side.
Mushroom and gruyere
Lots of sliced mushrooms, fried in a little garlic and butter, go beautifully with gruyere cheese.
Ploughman’s toastie
Cheese paired with thinly sliced apple or pear. Such a good combo, we’re amazed it doesn’t happen more. Works well with a good strong cheddar and a bit of chutney on the side.
Spag Bol toastie
Yes, we are double carbing. Nothing wrong with that. Another excellent way to see off leftovers too. Snip the cooked spaghetti up a bit, top with some of the Bolognese sauce and a few cubes of mozzarella. If you want to be posh, sprinkle some grated parmesan on the outside of the buttered bread once it’s toasting.
Don’t forget dessert
Nutella, sliced banana and mini marshmallows. Utterly childish. Utterly delicious.
The waffle toastie with creamed mushrooms pictured above is from Happy Vegan Comfort Food by Karoline Jönsson (Pavilion Books). Photography: Karoline Jönsson. It’s just one of the recipes in our feature, Comfort Lunches, which you can find in our January issue, on sale now.
Photograph courtesy of @finepreserversbooks
Looking through someone’s books can tell you so much about them, but the way in which you organise those books may say as much about you as the books themselves. Which of these bookshelf styles is yours and what does it tell passing visitors about you?
Colour co-ordinated bookshelves speak of someone who regards their books as part of their decor. Colour Co-ordinators have occasionally been derided by bookshelf psychologists and accused of caring more about the look of their books than what’s inside them. But often it’s more about making books part of your home and displaying them almost as art, rather than simply something to be shelved.
If it’s good enough for bookshops, it’s good enough for us. The big question is: do you go full alphabeticisation or do you organise alphabetically, within genre? And do you alphabetise your genres, too, from Adventure down to Young Adult, or is that overkill? Either way, Alphabetical Arrangers tend to be neat and tidy types who like a simple system that enables them to lay their hands on what they want immediately.
Organising your books by type is probably the purist’s way, being closest to the Dewey Decimal system. It makes sense, after all, to have all your crime novels together, biographies nestling side by side and nature writing cosying up in the same corner. Those who organise by genre tend to be wide readers (those of us who only read chick lit clearly have no need of such methods) and they tend to be really thoughtful and scientifically minded. If you’re the sort of person who sees the inherent evil in having Jeffrey Archer cuddling up to Aristophanes you might well be a Genre Grouper. If you can’t see the inherent evil in that, you might want to take a good hard look at yourself.
There are two methods of organising your books chronologically. One is to shelve by date of publication, so Greek myths at one end, the latest Val McDermid at the other. The other is to shelve by date you bought them. Now, bear with us, because this isn’t as mad as it sounds. If you’re someone who easily forgets author names or book titles, you might find you can more easily remember that you read a book on a certain holiday back in 2011, or that someone bought you a particular book for Christmas last year. It makes a kind of logical sense in a way. Either way, Chronological Curators are usually mathematical, ordered types. They think in a linear way but aren’t without romance where books are concerned, after all, there’s something lovely about seeing the whole of your book collection laid out like a timeline - of either literary history or your own personal reading history.
Eschewing organisation in favour or a more ‘organic’ way of storing books, these types stack their books both vertically and horizontally, creating a higgeldy piggeldy but joyous library. You might assume a Slapdash Stacker is not a lover of books but often this method of book storage is used by real reading fanatics, who find that other methods are simply too restrictive. If a tall hardback doesn’t fit where it should on its genre shelf, where does one put it? And if your ‘H’ shelves are packed but you’ve bought a new Joanne Harris, you’ll have to get rid of a Mark Haddon, which might be very upsetting. Whereas if you’re a Slapdash Stacker, there’s always room for one more book… somewhere…
If you’ve not come across this phenomenon, you might want to sit down for this one. Suddenly fashionable is storing your books with the spines turned in so that only pages face outwards, giving a uniform look… but meaning you can’t actually see any of the titles. Defendants of this method claim that actually in centuries gone by, titles were often printed on the side of the cut pages rather than on the spine, so it makes a kind of sense. We don’t like to be prescriptive but this is patently nonsense. We are not in the 16th century and people who stack their books this way are perverse. <gavel>
If you love looking at other people’s bookshelves as much as we do, don’t miss our My Place feature in our January issue, in which we feature some of the most beautiful bookshelves we’ve seen, such as this one, pictured above by Maureen of @finepreserversbooks.
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Grab a sherry, a snack and a quiet half and hour and take part in our fun, festive quiz to discover who
your fictional Christmas persona is…
1. When do you usually start planning for Christmas?
A Usually just in the nick of time.
B I’ve been ticking off the sleeps since summer ended.
C When the first frost arrives.
D It’s Christmas? Oops. When do the shops shut?
E Plans? Well, for planning I care not a jot
The plans that I plan you’d call more of a plot!
2. When does your tree go up?
A Not until all the family are home to do it together.
B On Christmas Eve, as is traditional and correct, of course!
C I prefer to put some outdoor lights around a few of the firs in the garden. All those trinkets indoors make me feel a bit giddy.
D I’ve usually got quite a lot on my plate. Hopefully my other half will get it sorted.
E I steal all the tinsel as soon as I durst,
And I stuff up the tree on December the first.
3. Favourite Christmas food or tipple?
A A flaming rum punch, no, wait!… A mulled wine, extra heavy on the cinnamon.
B Sugar plums dusted with icing sugar and bowls of golden nuts.
C A simple candlelit supper does it for me, or a winter picnic outdoors.
D A whisky Mac.
E I never try anything far too ambitious,
But a simple roast beast is always delicious.
4. What would your ideal Christmas gift be?
A I’d always go for an ‘experience’ type of gift, something that would allow me to spend time with those that I love.
B Something beautiful and magical – a snow globe or a music box? Something that’s well-crafted, which I can treasure.
C A really simple but lovely hat and scarf to keep me toasty outside.
D A pair of socks. Or some slippers. Actually, anything wardrobe-based really, I seem to be running low on everything. And a German phrasebook.
E I don’t get many gifts, which I find quite upsetting.
Christmas for me is all about GETTING!
5. What’s your favourite part of the festivities?
A Listening to the bells ring after Midnight Mass and remembering what it’s all really about.
B The anticipation of Christmas Eve as family arrive and the tree sparkles, packed with presents.
C A walk out in the cold first thing on Christmas morning while everyone else sleeps on.
D Finally getting home from work and putting my feet up. But I like to keep moving over the holiday, too, with some blustery walks out at the coast and a bit of hill walking.
E Not a lot about Christmas impresses me truly
But I do like the chance to be wild and unruly.
6. What’s your Christmas tradition?
A Putting the angel at the top of the tree with my loved ones.
B A trip to the ballet. Always beautiful at this time of year!
C I much prefer to celebrate Midwinter. Usually an outdoor gathering with friends and plenty of fresh air.
D A quiet whisky by myself in my favourite chair before dealing with the hordes of uninvited guests.
E On Christmas Eve night in homage to St Nick
I sneak out of my house and I trick a few tricks.
7. What do you find most tricky about this time of year?
A Wanting to be able to make everyone else happy.
B Getting to sleep on Christmas Eve. It’s just all too exciting!
C Accepting that this special time is all over in the blink of an eye. Nothing lasts forever.
D The public displays of affection and keeping track of the names of everyone you meet at parties.
E The singing, the squealing of girls and of boys,
It’s not the children I loathe, it’s the noise, noise, noise, NOISE!
8. How do you feel once it’s all over?
A Tired but happy, and looking forward to a new year.
B A little melancholy that all the magic is over for another year.
C Christmas is only part of the celebrations. I love the hygge aspect of it and enjoy the dark evenings until spring arrives.
D Exhausted, relieved and in need of a long lie down.
E Having carped about Christmas I will often admit
I find I rather like it, at least a small little bit
The Guardian's Music Editor has found a tuneful way to send seasonal greetings
'Weekends in November become a hell in our house. Our family, you see, does not send out Christmas cards. We distribute CDs of Christmas music, researched, compiled, burned and then packaged by me, over the course of two or three weekends. So I spend November poring over MP3 blogs and sorting through my CDs to find the perfect 30 or so songs. Our tradition began at the end of my first year editing the Guardian’s music coverage, in 2006. Deluged in festive albums, I thought I’d turn them into something more fun than a Christmas card. The recipients seem to think so, too – as years have passed, I’ve started getting requests, and now I have to make around 200 of them. That’s where November goes. There’s a policy: the music must be either good or interesting. And preferably little known. No Slade, no Wham!, no Top of the Pops staples – soul, funk and folk provide rich pickings. The harder you look, the better the snippets – I’m proud of the year I topped and tailed the CD with Christmas messages from Mae West and the long-forgotten metal band Quiet Riot. As I write, I’m just starting to think about this year’s compilation. And wondering where I might find the perfect song no one has ever heard before.'
Michael Hann tweets at @MichaelAHann
This was originally published in our December 2015 issue but we think it’s always worth listening to Michael Hann’s festive suggestions so we’re sharing it again. We hope you enjoy it.
Listen to Michael's Christmas playlist now.
Photography: James Lampard
It’s that most wonderful time of the year again…
Tradition dictates that you shouldn’t bring your Christmas tree home and decorate it until Christmas Eve itself. But we’ve always believed in making your own traditions. Particularly this year.
Whether you’re bringing your tree home today or have had it up since Halloween, however, there’s something really magical about that moment when everything ‘just stops’ for Christmas.
As you pull your tree into the house and shut the front door on the cold; or finally close the laptop and pour yourself a sherry; or trudge in from the garden, plonk the bags of sprout stalks and parsnips down on the table, take off your coat and put Carols from Kings on the radio, take a slow breath or two and whisper to yourself: “it’s nearly here!”
Merry Christmas from us all at The Simple Things.
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Photograph: Cathy Pyle
Making Swedish cardamom buns is a very happy way to spend an afternoon. Schedule in some time with a book while the dough and buns prove, and throw yourself into the slowness of the whole process in the knowledge that the finished buns will be worth every minute of the proving time.
100g butter, softened
½ tsp plain flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp vanilla extract
50g caster sugar
50g soft brown sugar
250mlfull fat milk
13g active dried yeast granules
75g butter
450g strong white bread flour
1½ tbsp ground cardamom
½ tsp salt
40g caster sugar
1 egg
Plus 1 egg, beaten (for brushing the rolls before they go into the oven)
For the glaze:
100ml agave or golden syrup
50g almonds, finely chopped
1 Begin by creaming all of the filling ingredients together and then set to one side.
2 Next, make the dough by heating the milk in a saucepan over a medium heat until it starts to gently bubble, but don’t let it come to the boil.
3 Pour the warm milk into a mixing bowl, add the yeast and mix together. Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm room for about 20 mins to activate the yeast. While the yeast is activating, gently melt the butter in a small saucepan over a medium heat, then set aside.
4 Once the yeast and milk have started to bubble (activated), add the cooled, melted butter and mix them together thoroughly. You can either do this by hand or with a dough hook attachment on a food processor.
5 Next, take a clean mixing bowl and pour in the flour, cardamom, salt and sugar, then blend together. Slowly add this mix to your bowl of wet dough ingredients. Add one beaten egg and combine. Either using your hands or in a machine with a dough hook, knead the combined dough ingredients for at least 5 mins. If necessary, add a little flour if you’re finding that the dough is sticking to your fingers too much, although it does need to be quite sticky.
6 Leave your kneaded dough to prove in either the bowl or mixer, covered, in a warm room for 30-45 mins to allow it to rise.
7 Cover a flat surface with flour and place your dough on top. Knead it by hand (adding a little extra flour if it’s still too sticky to work with) for 5 mins. Once it’s a manageable consistency, roll the dough out into a rectangular shape and cover with the filling, stopping about 5cm from one end – if your table isn’t very big then you may find it easier to do this in two parts, making two smaller rectangles.
8 Roll the rectangle into a sausage, leaving the bare end until last so that your filling doesn’t start spilling out. Cut your sausage shaped dough (with the filling inside) into 6cm-thick slices. Place the slices onto a lined baking tray and leave to rise for another 30 mins.
9 Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200C/180 Fan/Gas 6. When the oven has reached temperature and the swirl-shaped dough slices have sat for 30 mins for a second rising, brush the with a beaten egg and then bake for 8-10 mins, or until golden brown.
10 While the cardamom buns bake, make the glaze by heating the syrup in a small saucepan over a medium heat until warmed through. As soon as the buns come out of the oven, drizzle with the warmed syrup, then sprinkle the chopped almonds over the top of them.
11 While they cool, take a clean tea towel and run it under a tap until it is soaked through, then wring it out and place the damp cloth over the baking tray for 5 mins to stop the cardamom rolls from going hard.
These Swedish buns are part of our Merry Midwinter menu from our January issue, a hygge style meal with added log-cabin-cosiness, that includes Smorrebrod, Scandi Fish Stew and more. Recipes by Kay Prestney.
A thought to mark the winter solstice. We first published this chalkboard in our October 2018 issue and somehow it feels even more pertinent today. Yule is traditionally a time to both embrace darkness and celebrate the return of the light, so we’re hunkering down with a candle tonight, enjoying the dark and the quiet and looking forward to spring, too.
Merry Yule! May the light burn brightly for you.
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With a little forethought and planning you can puzzle to perfection without going to pieces
Just because Christmas is a time for fun a frivolity, doesn’t mean we can’t do the fun and frivolity properly. We like to start jigsaw puzzles with the same enthusiasm and commitment with which we would undertake any Very Important Way of Passing An Otherwise Deliciously Empty Afternoon. Here’s how.
Do your jigsaw prep
Clear an area so that you can spread out all your pieces and will have enough room to do the puzzle, too. The dimensions are usually on the box. A proper jigsaw roll is a real boon if you can’t dedicate the space to a puzzle for a whole day (or week). But otherwise, a large, hard surface like a dining table or even a big board you can push under the sofa between jigsaw sessions will do the job just as well. A smooth surface that you can sift the pieces across easily is best.
Ensure no crawling babies, pets or other potential hazards are nearby.
Get yourself a big mug of tea and make sure you have plenty more in the house to fuel you through your puzzling. Get a couple of biscuits, too.
Actually, scratch that, get the whole tin. You don’t want to be wasting precious time going back and forth to the kitchen. Also very much acceptable is a large tin of Quality Street or the like.
Spend time sorting the pieces
Yes, it’s the most boring bit and it’s tempting to just dive right in, but time spent ‘zoning’ the pieces now will make putting it together much easier. Tip out the pieces and then turn the all face up, ‘zoning’ them into areas of the picture as you go. If your picture contains two similar areas, like two separate parts of sky, zone all those pieces together for now and you might be able to separate them by tone later. With very large puzzles, of more than 250 pieces, it’s best to get little pots (kitchen Tupperware is good) and have separate pots for all the different zones. While zoning, separate out any edge pieces. If you’re doing a rectangular or square puzzle, put the four corners somewhere safe.
Do the edges first
Some people will tell you that starting with a zone of the puzzle you find easy to do somewhere in the middle is just as good. Those people are wrong. And we all know that the middle is the most fun to do and should therefore be saved until last. Complete your whole edge first. Your future self (in about an hour) will thank you.
Take a tea break
You need to stretch your eyes a bit and what better excuse than a wander out to the garden while the kettle is boiling? Semi-pro puzzlers will do a few lunges too, to get the blood circulating and plenty of oxygen to the brain. The rest of us use the time to ensure the biscuit tin doesn’t need restocking.
Get in the zone
Once you have your frame edges, choose a zone you fancy working on. A zone that borders a large expanse, such as sky or water, is a good place to start as it gives you a jumping off point for that. Once you’ve completed that ‘zone’, pick another, preferably one next to it, so you’ve got somewhere to start from.
Fill in the gaps
Once you’ve done all the main zones, you should be able to join them up and fill in any bits you couldn’t find a home for between them and around the edges.
Exhibit your finished puzzle and accept accolades from family and friends
Some jigsaw puzzles today are so genuinely lovely they need framing. You can even buy ‘no frame frames' where you simply stick the jigsaw to a backing before hanging it on the wall.
You may like to have a grand unveiling over a tipple or two in the room where your puzzle is on display. We don’t think this would be de trop at all though your family might. And if you’re having a small Christmas and therefore have a small audience, we’d say you’re completely justified in sharing your puzzle heavily on social media. If you have to put up with photos of people’s pets, kids and lunches all year, your friends owe you.
Turn to page 42 of our December issue to read more about the joy of jigsaw puzzles. and some of the best in the shops now. And while you’re waiting for yours to arrive, we’ve made a few online puzzles you can do right now here.
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Who wouldn’t want that jumper and bobble hat, eh? Here’s where you can find similar
When we put our January cover reveal on social media we were immediately inundated with requests for details of where to buy the jumper and bobble hat in the photo. And sadly, we don’t know where they were from. But never ones to let Scandi knitwear lovers down, we set Simple Things shopping guru, and fellow lover of Scandi knitwear, Louise Gorrod (@louise_gorrod) to the task of finding similar. Here’s what she came up with…
Scandi Fair Isle Yoke Jumper in green, Hambro & Miller, £345
Chunky Knit Jaquard Jumper with Crew Neck, La Redoute, £44
Donegal Jumper in Sage, Plumo, £145
Sea’s Edge Jumper, Seasalt, £79.95
Colourblock Merino Bobble Hat, Sweaty Betty, £35
Cable Knit and Pom Green Beanie Hat, Oliver Bonas, £20
Nemi Stripe Ribbed Knit Bobble Hat, Weird Fish, £18
Colourblock Hat, Brakeburn, £17.99
More from our January issue…
Photography: Catherine Frawley
Veggie peelings are given a new lease of life, transformed into these crispy, crunchy snacks
Serves 2
2 large sweet potatoes
3 large beetroots
2 parsnips
1 garlic clove, grated
30ml truffle oil
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary (optional)
1 Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan160C/ Gas 4 and line a large baking sheet with baking parchment. Use a vegetable peeler to peel thin slivers of the veg and place in a bowl. Add the grated garlic, a few sprigs of rosemary, seasoning and the truffle oil. Mix with your hands and then transfer to the baking sheet, spreading it out as much as possible.
2 Cook for 25 mins, turning the peel over half way through. When the peel is crispy (but not burnt), remove from the oven, allow to cool, then transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish with a few sprigs of rosemary and extra salt and pepper, if needed.
We recommend serving these root veg peel crisps alongside a mulled gin. Both recipes are from our feature It’s Crispmas! by Catherine Frawley, which you can find in the December issue, along with several more crisps and drinks recipes.
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A bit of history behind the three knaves of the nursery rhyme
If you already have your copy of our December issue, we hope you’ve enjoyed our front cover by Flora Waycott, featuring folk style illustrations of a very festive butcher, baker and candlestick maker; just some of the people who make Christmas happen.
But where do the three men in a tub (of Rub a Dub Dub fame) come from? Well, back in the 14th century, the rhyme referred to maids in a tub, rather than men, in what was a decidedly dodgy fairground attraction apparently, along the lines of a modern peep show! We think we’ll stick to the dodgems!
The rhyme went:
Hey! rub-a-dub, ho! rub-a-dub, three maids in a tub,
And who do you think were there?
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker,
And all of them gone to the fair
It was an admonishment to respectable men of the town behaving in a dishonourable way. Plus ca change, eh? The phrase ‘rub a dub dub’ stood in for a piece of gossip or innuendo, like a 14th century ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink’.
But by the early 19th century the rhyme was appearing in books of nursery rhymes under a new and cleaner guise, though a reference to the butcher, baker and candlestick maker still being rather rakish is there:
Rub a dub dub,
Three fools in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick maker.
Turn them out, knaves all three
If you’d like to read more about the knaves, our December issue is out now and in it you can meet a real-life (and much more wholesome) butcher, baker and candlestick maker.
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Book your seat on the Trans-Europe Express for an audio trip around our neighbours.
Listen here.
We celebrate slowing down, enjoying what you have, making the most of where you live, enjoying the company of of friends and family, and feeding them well. We like to grow some of our own vegetables, visit local markets, rummage for vintage finds, and decorate our home with the plunder. We love being outdoors and enjoy the satisfaction that comes with a job well done.
