Book Review / The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History by Kassia St Clair

Ms St Clair presents a historical account of humanity not through the lenses which are often used such as war, exploration, and communicable diseases, but through the perspective of thread and cloth, of which the making has been done in a large part by women, so much so, that the word spinster, one who spins, once was laudatory, meaning a financially independent woman. Since the nature of fabric is ephemeral and historians often write from a masculine perspective, the key, pervasive, interlocking influence of spindle, needle, and loom has been overlooked.

This fascinating book is divided into mostly chronological chapters starting with the prehistoric era right up to the present. Linen, silk (worm, spider, and mollusc), wool, cotton, silver/gold threads, and synthetics are all discussed and not just the processes by which they are made, but also how the fruits of this labour-intensive work have manifested in every strata and activity of society, be it domestic, cultural, artistic, technological, commercial, scientific, and martial.

Blue-flowering flax which is used in the making of linen (stock photo)

Her writing has a buoyant, friendly touch as it delivers the goods of information delineating her theme, and at times shines with brilliance as when she describes Vermeer's painting, The Lacemaker : 

A girl looks down at the work between her hands, utterly absorbed. She's seated in a spare, pale room - so bereft of detail that it's difficult to say whether it is a room at all or a void, hollowed out by her singular focus. Her dress is a glowing lemon shade; her hair is gathered away from her face in a coif of plaits and large ringlets. Our eyes follow hers: down between her fingers to the 'V' formed by a pair of bobbins she is using to create a piece of lace . . . Vermeer's luminous canvases, previously so sought after, furred with dust in his studio as the wealth of his erstwhile patrons evaporated like puddles on a hot day.

The significant drawbacks of synthetic fabric manufacturing are unsparingly presented in terms of pronounced damage done to workers' health and nature, all so we can have disposable clothing. Made for fickle fashion and rapid turnover beneficial for corporate profits and their shareholders, these clothes may make the wearer feel good for a short time, but in the long run, it's a net negative for everybody.

The Golden Thread is packed with intriguing quotes, accounts, and informational background that it is near to impossible to pick just one area upon which to elaborate. For me it was a tug of war between space voyage garments, especially regarding moon exploration and spider silk. Well, those spiders yanked that rope so hard, they won. Not surprisingly as they have been inspiring humans since early times. The Greek philosopher Democritus noted that seeing spiders spin their egg sacs and weave webs most likely spurred us in the direction of doing something similar. Spiders also probably influenced the making of nets, lures, and traps.  If that wasn't enough, dressings made from spider silk have demonstrated antiseptic qualities.

Harvesting spider silk goes back quite a ways especially across Africa. However, to this day, the silkworm reigns supreme commercially. Problems include spiders eating each other, their requiring huge amounts of insects for nourishment (all those mulberry leaves that need to be gathered for silkworms comparatively appear less daunting), and extracting enough spider silk.

Botswanian spider silk hat with ostrich feather, late 19C

There are two kinds of spider silk, one for insect-catching webs and the other for threads which they use to travel through the air. The latter has extreme strength and is the focus of researchers. The trend at present is more to leave the spider alone and instead try to duplicate spider silk through chemical means.

Ms St Clair has written that kind of book which earns its place on your shelf because at any point you may feel bored, with your life, with yourself, with others, just pick a page, any page, and you will be transported into a world that is way more interesting and entertaining.

À la prochaine!

OTHER BOOK REVIEWS

Book review / Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Warner Townsend

Book Review / Against Empathy by Paul Bloom

Book Review / The Tulip by Anna Pavord

Book Review / The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt by Robert I. Sutton

Book Review / Florike Egmond's An Eye For Detail: Images of Plants and Animals in Art and Science, 1500-1630

Book Review / Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook: Artisanal

Baking From Around The World by Jessamyn Waldman

Rodriguez with Julia Turshen

Book Review/The Confidence Game: The Psychology Of The Con And Why We Fall For It Every Time By Maria Konnikova

Book Review / The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art by Joyce Carol Oates

RELATED LINKS

The Golden Thread at Amazon

Kassia St Clair at Twitter

British Museum Botswanian spider silk hat with ostrich feather

Blueberry Cake Muffins

The fable of the blueberry cake muffin is thusly told. Eons ago, when they lived in another place, one of oversized meals, twelve-lane highways, and a sun that hardly quit, they found a blueberry muffin they both adored. It was not like all the others as it was really butter cake studded with blueberries stuck in a muffin tin. As it was their wont, they moved, moved again, and yet again until they were so far away from their beloved bakery they began to think perhaps that perfect blueberry muffin was the stuff of dreams. They shopped around, tried recipes, all in vain, and they continued being bereft. Until now. As a promising recipe worked out. Finally!

Now there are easier muffins because cake muffins require creaming butter and sugar, but if you have a stand mixer, it will be less difficult. I managed without one. (Question. Why aren't these called blueberry cupcakes instead of blueberry cake muffins? Is there an invisible muffin monster in everybody's oven that's going to pop out and scream, MUFFIN, NOT CUPCAKE?) Obstacles other than lack of an appropriate recipe were my aversion to muffin tin liners and our potted blueberry bushes not yielding enough fruit until this season. The variety is Patriot, and it is an early cropper hence blueberries in June. It takes several years to become productive, but when it does, wow!

And the liners are homemade from parchment paper so just the needed number was made from material already in the house. All problems solved. Well, there was a pesky one remaining of how to prevent berries from migrating en mass to the bottom. Placing first a layer of batter without blueberries worked fairly well. The well known technique of flouring berries does lessen bleeding, but not their settling to the bottom. I love the bursting of their skins, but not so much their simulating yogurt with all the fruit way down below. Yogurt can be stirred, but not muffins, anyway not in the universe I happen to inhabit. If you do not share my love of burst berries marbling the muffin purple, then flour them using some from the amount already measured for the recipe.

Ingredients
makes 12 muffins 3.8cm (1.5in) deep by 7.6cm (3in) wide
adapted from Better Baking Bible

1. Butter, sweet, softened, 8 T
2. Sugar, white, 8 T
3. Eggs, large, 2
4. Vanilla extract, 1 tsp
5. Baking powder, 2 tsp
6. Salt, 1/2 tsp
7. Flour, white, all-purpose, plain, 475 ml (two 8 fluid oz cups)
8. Milk, whole, 8 T
9. Blueberries, fresh or frozen, 355 ml (2 1/2 fluid oz cups)

If there are no muffin liners chez vous but there's parchment paper handy, then this is how to make them.* Find a small bottle or round container with a bottom that fits easily into a muffin tin. Cut  parchment paper into the necessary number of 12.7cm (5in) squares. Centre the paper square over the bottom of the upturned bottle and using both hands squish down the paper over the bottle, roughly pleating the paper and creasing around the round contours. Put a dot of oil or a smear of butter in each muffin tin and position the liner. If there are no liners or parchment paper nearby, then butter the tins well, especially where the sides meet the bottom and flour lightly.

The night before leave out measured milk, butter (cover both), and yet-to-be-cracked eggs so they all will be at room temperature next morning OR depending on ambient temperature, only a couple of hours may be called for as during the summer or in an overly heated room. Be sure that the muffin tin is prepared, with store-bought/homemade (see above for instructions) liners or buttered and floured. 

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C (375 degrees F). Put the softened butter into a large mixing bowl or a stand mixer's container. If a stand mixer is not available, using the back of a large wooden spoon, smash/rub/work the sugar into the butter. Don't stir at first, but as the sugar-butter mixture gets fluffy, increases in volume, and becomes lighter in colour, a judicious stir here and there is fine. When necessary, scrape the mixture off the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Creaming should take around ten minutes. Add the eggs one by one, whisking after each addition. Stir in the vanilla, baking powder, and salt. Alternating between milk and flour, add a half of each. Mix until blended. Repeat with the remaining milk and flour. After putting a layer of batter in each tin, use the back of a teaspoon dipped in cold water to even it out.

Now fold the blueberries into the remaining batter.

Fill as close to the brim as possible.

Bake for twenty minutes or until golden and when a skewer is inserted, it comes out clean. The top of the muffin should also bounce back a bit if tapped. The homemade liners act like handles so the muffins can be lifted out while still hot. When they cooled a bit, they were separated from the liners and put on a wire rack until they were at room temperature.

The story turns out to be happily ever after. That perfect muffin in California inspired me through the decades of never giving up so we eventually could gobble up a similar muffin in France! I love the sparse fluting around the sides left by the liners. Since they freeze well, some were popped into the freezer. As good as these are, they actually get better once frozen and thawed to room temperature as the texture becomes even more lusciously moist. Thawed, but still cold muffins, can be split, lightly buttered, and toasted under the broiler.

Most of the berries stayed put and did not sink except for a rebel or two determined to be bottom dwellers.

The Calm One announced them to be fine. Translation from one who mostly moves in neutral gear, to my language, who is usually running at top emotional speed: they are stupendous.

À la prochaine!

RELATED LINKS

Full instructions for making cupcake/muffin liners

Late Spring Garden 2019, Part Two

It's lovely to have home-grown goodies in the freezer. Here's an ample portion of rhubarb crumble (my recipe) with strawberries fresh from the patch drenched in cream; all which goes well with coffee.

The two beds of peas have been harvested/shelled with most of them parboiled and frozen. The spent plants have been ripped up, put on the compost, and soon the beds will be prepared for carrot and beet sowings. Yup, you are seeing right, that's two peas in a pod!

Despite the weather being more stormy than not, I took the shelling project outside under the pergola.

Partly curious, partly seeking shelter, Eli the Cat jumped up on the table to sniff and inspect more closely.

The pink flowers on the left are penstemon while those feathery, tall plants on the right are asparagus. Many young shoots were harvested back in March, but some were left to develop into what I consider to be a summer hedge. A hedge until . . .

. . . the storm. Their height has been reduced sharply and a good number have snapped at the base of the plant. I am trying to rehabilitate the ones remaining by freeing those trapped under the dead stalks and mounding the soil around them so they have a chance of resuming an upright position. Most importantly, regardless of trying to reclaim a hedge effect, the focus is to keep them alive because without fading autumnal foliage, the roots will not receive required nourishment, threatening the next season's crop.

However, the penstemon so far has weathered the storm perfectly.

The lavender in the front garden is blooming. Bees love it and there are a few in the photo below!

I love to catch a glimpse of lavender haze through other bushes, in this case, through the graceful, mahogany-branched, airy-leaved abelia also beloved by bees.

I have been trying to order this deep-mauve osteospermum for a couple of seasons from my online nursery but they sell-out this item before I can order. Not this time! They will bloom all the way through October/November.

À la prochaine!

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Early crops of rhubarb, asparagus, and peas are harvested; there lots of rhubarb crumble (recipe for my crumble) in the freezer with a ton of peas to follow. No asparagus I am afraid, all that soup (recipe for Asparagus And Green Onion Soup) I froze is gone! Since I am under the weather and the weather itself is stormy, I will be inside shelling those peas in preparation for freezing them. Our strawberry patch has peaked with the major amount in the freezer but it is still putting out beauties which are sugared, let be for a short while so a syrup can form, and then covered with Crème Chantilly (sweetened and flavoured with a dash of vanilla extract).

À la prochaine!

Late Spring Garden 2019

The potager is humming along, revving up its growth rate to take on the summer push which will lead into late summer/autumnal harvesting: peas, potatoes, green beans, peaches, figs, and blackberries to name a few.

The old pear tree festooned with golden trumpet vine which borders the ivy-covered pergola marks the boundary between the back and west gardens. That soft-pink cloud off in the distance is the front garden's deutzia.

On the right of the back garden's main path is the pergola and a potted bougainvillea on an upturned planter. Before its lofty positioning, it was on the open patio across the path, basking in the sun and getting drenched in the rain. The sun part was fine, but being soaked frequently wasn't, at least not for abundant blooming. Last summer, after decorating the beginning of the path with two flanking potted plants, one being the bougainvillea, I noticed it put out many more flowers than usual even though it received less sun. After a little research I found out why. It needs drought stress in order to bloom. Being under the pergola protected it from rains. Presently, it is watered only when the top four inches of potting mix is dry.

 i

Its companion this season will be potted Thunbergia alata (Black-eyed Susan vine) which will as it grows be trained upon tuteurs. There were some dusty dried seedpod decorated sticks stuck in the wood cabinet under the indoors barbecue since moving here about ten years ago, and I finally found an use for them! The anticipated effect will be both height and draping over its pedestal. The pot in front which also contains the vine, but has a purple flowering ivy geranium to provide contrasting colour to the yellow-blooming black-eyed Susan, will go out to the front steps. The pot in front of that, yup, you guessed it, also filled with Thungbergia will be put on the balcony overlooking the front garden. The many Thunbergia along with trailing blue lobelia seedlings were started indoors late winter. The lobelia will graced the four, small casement window sills on the west side of the house, a basket under the pergola, and a huge pot on the shady part of the balcony. Here's hoping my grand plan works (historically they tend not to)! Since a path that goes nowhere, in this case, smack right against an unattractive back wall, begs for something to catch your eye, I plonked a garden chair at the path's end. In the future, a potted camellia and a mirror instead? At present, I love sitting in the chair, from which a very different perspective of the garden is to be had.

It is my wont to buy plants from online nurseries which often have much younger and less expensive plants than at the local garden centres. Greater choice, also. So where do these baby plants go when they first arrive as usually they are too small to make visual impact? In nursery beds of course. This year-and-half-old bed has penstenmon, moss pink, teucrium, a mum, three Mikado daylilies, and six laurels that were taken as cuttings from the existing hedge. They will be put in their permanent locations either this early autumn or next spring depending on their growth this season and the state of my muscle strength.

The front garden (looking towards a neighbour) is a pleasing jumble of drooping red weigela, overflowing pink deutzia, and exuberant lavender.

Bloom cuddle!

Peonies look good near bearded iris foliage and lavender.

If using for culinary and cosmetic purposes, it is best to harvest lavender when still in bud form.

Right by the driveway gate are pots of shade-loving plants as the terracotta roofing tile framed bed filled with our own wood chips luxuriates under cherry plum and box elder trees: three heucheras (tiramisu, Georgia peach, paprika), polystichum sword fern, tuberous begonia, hellebore, and the latest but not least, the centrepiece gardenia.

Gardenias and I go a ways back, first in California where it hardly bloomed because the soil was too alkaline but still made me fall in love with its beauty, then another specimen on our Grenoble tenth floor balcony, where it flourished for a decade while keeping me company and regaled me with its heady fragrance during long hours of day trading in a tiny room, and finally when arriving here, it was put in the ground and soon after perished in the cold. If ever a plant could be called a friend, that gardenia would have fit the bill. This one's container was filled with acid potting mix and will spend the winter in the sous-sol, thank you very much.

À la prochaine!

Book Review / Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Warner Townsend

Meet Lolly. She's an useful, acquiescent, and stifled member of the early 20th century, British middle-class. Before her widowed father died and her subsequent, unceremonious shuffling off to a married brother's London household replete with children, she, known as Laura back then, wasn't as abjectly compliant as the proximity to rural life allowed her to be grounded in her own identity.

Ms Townsend's novel is a feminist classic; it is also a gorgeously written story.  Domestic duties are expected to be done by this twenty-seven-year-old unmarried woman without complaint or resistance, transforming her into just a placid servant, and an unpaid one at that. It was through this gradual servitude achieved by considerate interaction, as they only had her best interests at heart, her comfort, her safety, her respectability, Laura became separated from her real self and becomes Lolly. Paraphrasing Kate Manne, misogyny is not hatred of women, but the control of them. Constraining the woman comes slowly but unrelentingly, like a lobster being boiled alive. The lobster's increasing difficulty is unnoticed as the tenders of the pot righteously keep the lobster where it belongs as it is of course the correct action to take.

The author

Despite being lulled for twenty years into being Lolly and before her identity could be completely subsumed into familial machinery, she announces over dinner that she's off to live in Great Mop, a village situated in the Chilterns and a place she has never seen. The day of the dinner while she was out walking about, a shop's jumbled, countrified display of flowers, vegetables, and bottled fruits/jams catches her eye. She buys not only one Football Chrysanthemum which would have been an extravagant purchase on its own, but all that is displayed. The shop keeper adds as a bonus some beech leaves and tells her they came from his sister's place in the Chilterns. She then purchases a guide map for that area. Upon return to her small bedroom and once the mums are put to vase: She unfolded the map. The woods were colored green and the main roads red. There was a great deal of green. She looked at the beech leaves. As she looked a leaf detached itself and fell slowly. She remembered squirrels.

Her brother tries to stop her from relocating, and his vehemence comes not only from righteousness but also from his covert use of her trust fund for speculation. She incisively tells him to take what remains and put it in a dividend-earning stock while accepting her reduced circumstances means she can afford just lodgings instead of her own house.

Settling down in her new home, she gets to know various villagers. She hears unexpected activity at night and is given suitable explanations. Then a stray kitten, soon to be named Vinegar, starving, but still able to bite the hand that feeds, draws blood, and she identifies it as a demonic familiar. She has been transformed into a witch, a witch who discovers that the village has a substantial representation of her kind. Since Christianity binds The Patriarchy's cloak tightly arounds its members, it is unsurprising that her liberator would be Satan. Liberation does come with a state of liminality, where one's footing is unsure, as during a night of revelry with witches, warlocks, and the Prince of Darkness himself, Laura feels disoriented, out of synch and place.

The author & cat

A beloved nephew comes to stay with her. Despite being likeable—everyone in the village warms up to him—he irritates Laura. As a man all he needed was his own presence to feel at home in the world. She notes:

It almost estranged her from Great Mop that he should be able to love it so well, and express his love so easily. He loved the countryside as though it were a body. She had not loved it so. For days at a time she had been unconscious of its outward aspect, for long before she saw it she had loved it and blessed it. With no earnest but a name, a few lines and letters on a map, and a spray of beech-leaves, she had trusted the place and staked everything on her trust. She had struggled to come, but there had been no such struggle for Titus. It was as easy for him to quit Bloomsbury for the Chilterns as for a cat to jump from a hard chair to a soft. Now after a little scrabbling and exploration he was curled up in the green lap and purring over the landscape. The green lap was comfortable. He meant to stay in it, for he knew where he was well off. It was so comfortable that he could afford to wax loving, praise its kindly slopes, stretch out a discriminating paw and pat it. But Great Mop was no more to him than any other likeable country lap. He liked it because he was in possession. His comfort apart, it was a place like any other place.

Such psychological entanglement with her past life results in Lolly departing and Laura staying for good. Of course, the devil plays a most charming and creative role involving wasps: It had pleased Satan to come to her aid. Considering carefully, she did not see who else would have done so. Custom, public opinion, law, church, and state--all would have shaken their massive heads against her pleas, and sent her back to bondage.

Ms Townsend's style covers much ground, from richly eloquent, Pandora's smooth cheeks and smooth lappets of black hair seemed to shed calm like an unwavering beam of moonlight, to stingingly sparse, Titus talked incessantly, and Pandora ate with the stealthy persistence of a bitch that gives suck.

Nature offers a way to become reacquainted with ourselves. It is not uncommon that middle-aged women experiencing an empty nest turn to gardening. It has been suggested such activity is a substitute means to nurture.  I say it is more likely they embrace pottering about flowers, fruits, and vegetables to reclaim their selves. It's hard not to recognise yourself when you smell the earth.

À la prochaine!

OTHER BOOK REVIEWS

Book Review / Against Empathy by Paul Bloom

Book Review / The Tulip by Anna Pavord

Book Review / The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt by Robert I. Sutton

Book Review / Florike Egmond's An Eye For Detail: Images of Plants and Animals in Art and Science, 1500-1630

Book Review / Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook: Artisanal

Baking From Around The World by Jessamyn Waldman

Rodriguez with Julia Turshen

Book Review/The Confidence Game: The Psychology Of The Con And Why We Fall For It Every Time By Maria Konnikova

Book Review / The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art by Joyce Carol Oates

RELATED LINKS

Sylvia Townsend Warner's Wikipedia page
Lolly Willowes at Amazon

À la prochaine!

Iron Cookware Series: Roasted Salmon & Spiced Rhubarb With Fresh Pea shoots

Rhubarb is more than just pie or preserves or crumble. It pairs wonderfully with salmon.  Yes, it must be sweetened in this savoury instance, but not as much as in a dessert. The saltiness and sweetness makes a perfect match.

Harvested fresh from our potager, rhubarb and pea shoots are a delight. The rhubarb will be sweetened with maple syrup and flavoured with allspice (a mix of ground cinnamon, cloves & nutmeg can be substituted), ginger, and vanilla.

For each serving, you will need a portion of salmon, a large rhubarb stalk sans leaves, a small bunch of pea shoots or other greens like arugula, vanilla extract, ground ginger, and allspice (or a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg & cloves, all ground).

Preheat oven to 23o degrees C (450 degrees F). Slice the rhubarb into small pieces. Put a tablespoon or two of maple syrup (depending on the amount of rhubarb, such as with exceptionally large stalks its better to err on the sweet side as rhubarb can be extremely sour on its own), tiny dash of vanilla, pinch of ginger and allspice (or a mix of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg) in a small bowl. Toss well. Pat the salmon dry with a paper towel. Preheat a slightly oiled iron skillet for about five minutes. Get it good and hot. Meanwhile season the salmon on both sides with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Sear it on both sides. Let a nugget of butter melt and add the rhubarb. Coat the rhubarb with butter and put in the oven. Depending on size and thickness of the salmon, cook from 6 to 10 minutes (mine took six). Longer cooking times will either require bigger rhubarb pieces or for smaller pieces to be removed while the salmon finishes roasting. When the centre can be flaked with a fork, it's ready. While it's cooking, thinly slice the pea shoots.

Spread the rhubarb on a plate. Place the salmon and top with pea shoots.

If desired, some fleur de sel can be sprinkled partout (everywhere).

Refreshing salmon with its subtle flavour, pea shoots with their grassy scent and natural sugars, and a-little-bit-gooey, pleasingly tart rhubarb made a very attractive trio indeed.

RELATED POSTS

Iron Cookware Series: Mashed Potato Cantal Onion Pancakes
Tuna Cakes with Gooseberry Sage Sauce
Rhubarb Crumble

À la prochaine!