full of light and silver

Are you enjoying the new series of Downton Abbey? Sunday evenings once more have a rhythm to them.

'I must agree with you when you speak of beautiful furniture. Who does not enjoy food upon shining tables with glass full of light and silver - Ah! ....'the sensation of the fingers of a well-polished silver-spoon!'
...
'But,' he said dramatically, 'what shall happen when the tables no longer shine, when those who clean them are taken from you and there is no time to sit and polish spoons?'... 
'Then how terrible to see the table dull, to see, perhaps scratches, to know you cannot preserve the beauty you enjoy, because there is no time in the day for so much. No, no,' he went on, 'that shall not happen, that must not. Silver and shining mahogany and bright glass must remain in memory beautiful, and not be seen in actuality smeared and unkept. I like better to have this table' - he smote the deal with vigour - 'which is so clean, and to see my good friend en casserole, rather than to have it made lordly and perhaps cold in a silver dish not well cleaned!' Jocelyn Playfair A house in the country

kitchen

I think this story line might be one hear more of this season. 

faded penciled notes

One of the books I've enjoyed having the time to read this holiday is Mrs Bridge. But oh my the ending. This passage has been me this week enjoying preparing for aunt Violet and my parents for lunch today and then friends for supper this evening.

"...she went to the cupboard where the old recipe books were stored.... Mrs Bridge began looking through them, seeing pencil notations in her own handwriting, scarcely legible anymore. Her husband liked more pepper in this, no bay leaves in that - whatever he wanted and whatever he did not like was expertly registered in the margins, and as she turned through these recipes she thought how strangely intimate the faded penciled notes remained; they brought back many scenes, many sweet and private memories; they brought back youth." Evan S. Connell Mrs Bridge

kitchen

My recipes books do have faded and splattered pencil notes in them, about who they've been cooked for, whether they were adapted, how they turned out. They do not have any comments about how Warmth likes his food though!

Pastry was made with your hands

There are lots of times in our house when I think of the women before who lived here. Often when reading books I wonder about who lived here when the character I'm reading was alive. There are a few times when I feel more connected to these women of yesterday, one when I'm scrubbing the tiles on our kitchen floor and another when I'm making pastry, by hand. These seem to be tasks that haven't changed through the ages.

'...she knew where the jam was kept and how to tie it down. She knew that bread was kept in the earthenware pan, smelling rather like a flower-pot, in the larder, cake in a tin in the cupboard. She knew that salt and eggs both made silver go a queer colour, that pastry was made with your hands and cake with a wooden spoon. She liked the hot smell of the oven, part grease, part warm metal, when the door was opened to put the pastry in. She loved the smell of rising bread, and of bread hot out of the oven, the queer, ether smell of steaming potatoes and the flat wash day smell of boiled pudding.' Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages of Fortune

kitchen

Whom do you imagine having lived in your home before?

A feast of cake

'She remembered the great decorated kitchen, with holly hung from the rafters among the salt-rimed shrouded hams and puddings, a fiddler on the back stairs, and a feast of cake and fruit and pasties, wine and whisky.' Winifred Holtby South Riding
cake, fruit
What are your Christmas memories of food?

A proper letter

Last time I saw mum she raved about this book. She lent me her copy. I loved it so much I now want my own. At the same time mum also made sure all the letters I've been storing at home are now here with us. I am currently trying to go through over 20years of letters. Wish me luck as I try to decide which to throw and which to keep. So, as well as loving this passage it also seemed relevant. Thinking about all the different papers used to write these many letters.

"Nonetheless, as she read them over and over, she forgot for a moment where she was and she could picture her mother in the kitchen taking her Basildon Bond notepad and her envelopes and setting out to write a proper letter with nothing crossed out. Rose, she thought, might have gone into the dining room to write on paper she had taken home from work, using a longer, more elegant white envelope than her mother had. " Colm Toibin Brooklyn
letters

Have you read Brooklyn? If you have what did you feel/think? If you haven't please do and then write about it so I can think about it more.

A glorious feeling of well-being

'That's what's so wonderful about living out of England,' he said, pacing round the small kitchen, ' such a glorious feeling of well-being, sitting at a table in the sun with a bottle of what-ever it happens to be - there's nothing to equal that, is there?' Barbara Pym Excellent Women
I think Rocky probably meant something of the alcoholic variety but I found this image and loved it.
Not wanting to wish my life away but this current June weather has really made me want to be away and on holiday.
Where in the world would you like to be?

That first cup of tea

Thank you to everyone who has blogged so eloquently and passionately about Dorothy Whipple. I absolutely loved High Wages. It was a perfect book to sink into just after Granny died as a travelled by train through Kentish fields.

"Oh, the comfort of that first cup of tea! The warmth and life it put into you! They held their hands round the cups to warm them and their eyes looked less heavily on the bleak kitchen.
'What do we do now?' asked Jane
'We have another cup of tea' said Maggie
Dorothy Whipple High Wages

a beautiful world

Where do you have your first cup of tea?

The Kitchen

Alot of the talking and thinking happens in the kitchen in A House in the Country.

"Cressida Chance, alone in the kitchen, slammed the oven door, filled a kettle and put it on the boiling-plate of the stove, scattered cups and saucers and plates on the big table at one side of the room and fetched bread and butter and homey from the larder."

are so happy

"The kettle began to sing on the cooker but memory would not be stopped."

"It is my experience,"... "that in the kitchen you make friends; in the drawing-room you make conversation."

it's mary ruffle

"If a kitchen is not homely it has lost its soul!"

Are so happy
Discussing women and cooking

"Hard? No!" he exclaimed brightly. 'It is a question of fashion only! When cooking shall become the fashion, of more effect than a new hat or a new shade of lipstick, then there will not be so many who hate it!'

What are your thoughts?