After ‘panicking’ because someone was poaching all the brambles, the season got into full swing this week and there are actually so many now that twenty people could go at them without making a serious dent. It is really a shame because I have now made 18 small jars of jelly, have processed and frozen […]
There are a lot of brambles (blackberries to southerners) around this area, and every year I make jelly from them, plus freeze several boxes for use over the year in assorted pies, crumbles etc. In previous years no one else seemed to have come after them much, with the exception of one elderly gentleman who […]
We’ll be sorted against any witchcraft activity here this year – I have never seen anything like the rowan trees around the village. They are dripping with berries, to the extent that some of the branches are dragging down to the ground with the weight. I’ve never made any use of them in cooking myself, […]
In the rather turgid “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu” by Proust, the narrator dips a madeleine into a cup of tea and the smell and taste bring back a vivid memory of his childhood. I had a similar experience with a pie the other day (luckily it only has inspired me to write a […]
When I was a child, my family and I would go bramble picking several times around the start of autumn. Between the four of us we would gather a serious amount (I’m talking 40lb or so), but at the cost of our hands being scratched to bits. Then my dad would make bramble jelly, and […]
