Season of Mists

Tags

Germany, Gleneagles Hotel, Golden Spurtle Award, Keats, Peebles, Porridge, Sassenach, Scotland, St Cross, To Autumn, Water Meadows, Winchester Cathedral

World Porridge Day.

You’d better get out there and sow some oats.

Was horrified to learn that The Golden Spurtle Award  for the best porridge in the world has been won by Benedict Horsburgh, an Englishman who now lives in Germany.  This was the 19^th Championship and it is only the second time that it has been won by a foreigner, or Sassenach. Gleneagles’ Head Pastry Chef, Neil Mugg, was one of the judges and he should know a thing or two about that important first meal of the day, as his hotel won Breakfast of the Year Award (Large Hotel), 2012.

Benedict has graciously acknowledged that he is descended from Scottish roots- so that’s all right then!

I can trace my family back to the 1390s to the Peebles area,

he assured journalists.

And you certainly needed something warming for breakfast these last few misty mornings.  The cathedral near Suttonford felt distinctly chilly on Sunday morning and the walk through the Close reminded me of Keats and his poem: Ode to Autumn, which was inspired by his constitutional through the Close and all the way down the water meadows to St Cross.

Some years ago there was a competition to write a poem inspired by Keats and his walk and I felt the Muse nudge me into this mellow entry:

IF FOR A SEASON

Autumnal infernos blaze through the Close;

crimson creepers lick lintels like tongued flames.

Mellow masonry supports one last rose.

Choristers discover old conker games.

You can’t enjoy such salamandrine shows:

except from your grim ward, through heavy panes.

So many youths ago, Keats waxed verbose

about St. Cross, these misty college lanes.

You yearn for those, but Life has reached the sere,

the burnished leaf, and I suspect you know,

so squeeze your hand and try to transmit cheer:

your shrivelled face flushes a phoenix glow.

Match Point

Tags

Andrew Fairlie, Andy Murray, Chronicles of Narnia, Church of the Holy Rude, Dunblane, Dunblane Cathedral, Dunblane Hydro, Gleneagles Hotel

St Ninian’s Day.

Ninian died on 16^th September, 432 AD.  He was the Apostle to the Southern Picts.  The cathedral in Perth is named after him, but I do not think Andy had time to leave Dunblane to light a wee tea-light in gratitude.  He had his own St Blane to attend to. Draped in a Saltire, the Muzzard was mobbed by local fans who had waited in the rain for him, perhaps hoping for a couple of years to be knocked off their personal purgatories.  He signed a few indulgences for his primary school followers.

I wonder if he went up to Dunblane Hydro, so disappointing now that it has had the Hilton chain treatment, with piped-and I don’t mean bagpiped- muzak-in its public lavatories.  The makeover style is nineties corporate, so I do not think that they will get the wedding booking.  Serves them right.

I expect that Andy’s moody black and white photograph will join the other portraits of Famous Scots in the bar. The Husband and I relaxed on some very comfy, squidgy sofas in the said area and waited, almost as long as it took Andy to win his first Grand Slam, for a coffee and hot chocolate.  The latter (no, I meant latter, not latte) arrived with marshmallows-a kind gesture-, but, believe you me, if you want mallows, haste ye back to The Gleneagles Hotel and Andrew Fairlie will convert you for life.  Anything else is a Marshwiggle (see Chronicles of Narnia).

Dunblane Cathedral would be the perfect second best option to The Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling (as mentioned in previous postings), for Andy’s Coronation. Sorry, I meant marriage.  Friends of Dunblane Cathedral could add a new misericord to the fantastic set that they already have there.  Since there is a quirkily carved bat on one, why not have a modern racquet on a commemorative seat, specially carved for Andy to sit on whenever he visits to take up his Freedom of the City?  If Kim needs to sit beside him, they could always get a local craftsman to carve a cute little Border terrier for her particular throne.  Maybe they would need three extra seats, if mummy always comes along, so she could have a raven or a dagger on hers.

But what if Kim wants to wed down south, in Wimbledon, or Surrey?  What if she judges Andy to be a bit of a skinnymalinkylonglegs for a kilt? Pity, as a sporran would be just the job for him to keep a couple of tennis balls to the ready, for throwing to his retinue after the service.  Kim might have to realise that she is marrying a legend (You’re epic, Andy, the banners read.)  Like Ruth in the Old Testament, his people might have to become her people.  Certainly his god has already had to become hers.

So, she’d better have a sprig of white heather in her bouquet and sport a Murray tartan garter.  Maybe she will be drummed through Dunblane and chained to the railings with a chamber pot placed in front of her, to pick up a nuptial collection, in the auld tradition.  Or she may simply lodge her wedding list at Jenner’s, Edinburgh:

2 gold feeding bowls with Olympic rings (engraved) – presumably for the dogs

Saltire champion-sized duvet set

Gold frame for Lendl photo

American fridge filled with Irn-Bru

Deep fat fryer for Mars Bars

Judy annexe

Kim annexe

New DVD player..

I wonder if Andrew Fairlie will be asked to do the catering?

Fairlie: and how do you like your deep fried Mars Bar?

Andy: Saignant, I think..  No, a point.

Fairlie: For you, Andy, it will be match point.  Eh, and how do you like your Border terrier?

Andy: Medium rare, I think.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

I Am What I Ate

Tags

Andrew Fairlie, Commonwealth Games, Cullen Skink, Glasgow, Gleneagles Hotel, Irn Bru, Jammie Dodgers, Loch Fyne, Rab C Nesbitt, Scotland

The Commonwealth Games are coming to Glasgow in 2014 and more than 2 million meals will have to be prepared for athletes, officials, staff and spectators.  However, Ah hae ma doots that the 100 plus tonnes of fruit and veg that are being ordered will necessarily go doon a treat.

Save the Children co-ordinator, Malcolm Clark, has been reported as saying that there should be a junk food ban.  Many will respond:  Ach, away an’ bile yer heid.

Rural Affairs Secretary, Richard Lochhead said: 

There will be unprecedented opportunities to showcase the magnificent produce Scotland has to offer.

There will be a Food and Drink AGM in Perth, so close to Andrew Fairlie’s eponymous restaurant at The Gleneagles Hotel. However, I don’t think his signature lobster dish- its shell smoked in whisky, as if you didn’t know, will be featured in the biodegradable cardboard takeaway dishes of the Games themselves.  Nor do I see Celtic Fish and Game and all things feathered and sustainable being up there in the hot desires of Rab C Nesbitt and Co.

Candia was once a student at a Scottish University, in the gloaming of time and so she can recall seeing some graffiti sprayed on the exterior of the students’ refectory and it read:

You Are What You Eat

And that is a very frightening concept.

Just over a week ago now, I was contemplating a journey north and felt compelled to express in verse my anticipation of the culinary delights of Alba.

I Am What I Ate

I’m returning to the land of shortbread-

(Petticoat Tails, the Peek Frean Custard Cream)-

where, for many years I had ingested

more Jammie Dodgers than in sweet-toothed dream;

Lorne sausage, Stovies, Co-op jam

stirred into semolina, mutton pies,

mince n’ tatties, neeps, pan peeces, flaccid Spam,

school custard, tablet- then, to appetise,

Black Bun.  If I felt a wee bit faddy;

Barr’s Irn Bru, a Paterson oatcake

with a Loch Fyne kipper; a Finnan haddie

gar’d me grue. Bottles of ginger would slake

my thirst and, if I was in a paddy,

you could shut me up wi’ a soor green ploom.

On Fridays we had something Ruskolined,

Cock-a-Leekie, Clootie Dumpling, sheep’s womb,

Tunnock’s wafers, Lees’ Snowballs, but now weaned

off those pokes of chips, black pudding slices,

I spread my Low Fat Flora very thin.

Childhood diet no longer entices,

yet I am what I ate- there’s nae denying

the place the skillet had in all our hearts.

Arteries were clogged through constant frying

by strangers to the culinary arts.

But Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled don’t shrink

fae food wae names like bannock, Cullen Skink.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012