Pursuits
GARDENING DAVID WHEELER MONET TALKS
It could be as simple as turning a barrowload of damp, earthy, woodsy, worm-filled compost.
Or the growth of a small cutting in its cradle of moist soil, telling you ‘I’ve made roots!’ More likely, it’s the smell of a rose triggering fragments of vivid memories that have lain idle for decades in the brain’s deep retreats. Perhaps it’s the enduring existence of a beloved plant given many years ago by a dear friend or a total stranger.
Whatever, the pure joy and, more potently, the rewards of gardening are impossible to calculate, but guaranteed to surprise, stimulate, inspire and adore. As the Chinese proverb has it, ‘Life begins the day you start a garden.’ All this was confirmed in a new scientific study in Landscape and Urban Planning magazine, confirming that gardening is good for your mental and physical health.
Claude Monet considered his garden at Giverny his ‘most beautiful masterpiece’, and that’s saying something – although he might shudder at its present incarnation where, when I last saw it, a supposed need to satisfy a seemingly endless trudge of (mostly) foreign visitors had draped its few hallowed acres in inappropriate garb.
That last visit of mine to Monet’s garden was in September 2013, on a warm evening after the gates had been locked and most people were heading back to Paris in a fleet of air-conditioned charabancs. Earlier that day, I ate lunch at the very table in Giverny’s Hôtel Baudy restaurant, where the Impressionists were known to gather.
I was a guest of Claire Joyes, who lives in the village and, more importantly, is the widow of Jean-marie Toulgouat, Monet’s first wife’s great-grandson, who died as recently as 2006, establishing Claire as the comet’s tail, so to speak, of that hugely influential artistic movement.
After lunch, we sat in Claire’s orchard garden, sipping deeply from glasses of single malt whisky, waiting for the Monet pilgrims to dissipate, clutching their souvenirs and phrase books, just a few streets away. Claire held her own key to this Eden and, as the sun began to dip behind the poplars along the Ru (a tributary of the Seine which Monet dammed for his much-painted water lilies), we made our way slowly along the paths and around the pond, benign ghosts paying our own private homage.
I also hold dear memories of an earlier visit made years before, in the mid1970s, when I trod the same paths on a bought ticket for a few francs. There were no crowds then, and Monet’s favourite nasturtiums lay untroubled over the gravel as if one of his canvases had sprung into life – or one of the many early-1900s black-and-white photographs of the garden had magically filled with colour.
Gardening is not the boring slog non-gardeners insist it is. It’s about the wondrous enjoyment of plants – their structure, flowers, fruits and foliage.
Above all, it’s about people and places and filling our mental store cupboards with glorious incidents when time comes to harvest the past.
My day with Claire Joyes in Giverny was a privilege enabled by a shared love of gardens and gardening. So too were the several hours I spent one summer’s evening 30 years ago, interviewing Prince Charles at Highgrove, listening to a man whose passion for gardening was, and remains, matched only by his delight in the whole natural world.
But gardening’s high points are not about hobnobbing with the great and the good: like music, galleries, museums, the wide outdoors and the boundless night sky, gardens are for us all – and if you don’t have one of your own, you’ll know people who do. Enjoy theirs for, as some wise, unknown sage has made clear, ‘gardening adds years to your life and life to your years’.
KITCHEN GARDEN SIMON COURTAULD TOMATOES
Having written almost 60 articles on the kitchen garden, I find it hard to believe that I have yet to mention tomatoes, especially as they are one of my favourite vegetables/fruit to grow and eat. In this country the tomato was no one’s favourite until at least the 18th century. As a solanaceous plant, related to deadly nightshade, it was considered poisonous when brought back from Peru by the conquistadors. It was left to the Spaniards and Italians; and because the first tomatoes seen in Europe were yellow, in Italy it was called pomodoro (golden apple).
Tomatoes nowadays come in various colours and sizes. For the past three years I have grown a so-called black variety, though the ripe fruit’s colour may be half-red, half-black or a dark brownish green. Black Krim produces large
fruit but, in my experience, not many, while Indigo Beauty, which I am growing again this year, is more prolific and deliciously sweet.
As red vine tomatoes are so readily available to buy, I also grow two yellow varieties – Moonglow and that wonderful cherry tomato Sungold – which are said to be kinder than red to arthritissufferers. A home-grown tomato’s taste is undoubtedly far superior to that of a bought one, and some insist that the best flavour can be achieved only if the tomatoes are grown outdoors.
Large varieties generally ripen better in a greenhouse, in grow bags or large pots. Whether in or out, the plants will need to be grown up supporting canes or strings; pinch out the side shoots immediately above a leaf. When you have four or five trusses to a plant, the top of the main stem should be taken out to concentrate the plant’s energies on fruiting.
Tomatoes grown outside can be planted out now (early June) in a sunny, sheltered spot, but if we have a wet summer beware of blight. Those fruit that have not ripened by mid-september can be picked and placed in a drawer with a banana skin to help them change colour. Or they can be made into green tomato chutney.
COOKERY ELISABETH LUARD DINE ON YOUR FLOWER-BED
If you thought herbaceous border plants were purely decorative, think again. So says Mat Coward in Eat Your Front Garden, a sturdy little pocketbook from Prospect Books (£12.99).
The author has done the spadework, so the rest of us don’t have to. Fuchsia berries, he explains, can be eaten raw when ripe but are best prepared as jam. Dahlia tubers are all edible, ‘though not all are pleasant’. Daylily buds are much used by cooks in China, who know them as ‘golden needles’. Oca, Oxalis tuberosa, a member of the Bermuda buttercup family, is grown as a root crop in New Zealand and is increasing in allotments in the UK: it looks and cooks like a red-skinned potato and has a deliciously nutty, buttery flavour.
In early summer, edible wild greenery is a little over the hill for salads but good for cooking. Traditional foragers – Provençaux, Italians, Greeks – cook their wild gatherings. Among the more unusual suggestions are the slender leaves of Silene vulgaris, bladder campion, which taste of tarragon, sweetish and a little bitter. As are the leaves of several members of the bellflower family – also known as rampion, rapunzel, harebell or bats-in-the-belfry (really); and those of the red-stalked orach, Atriplex hortensis, a tall, decorative, easy-going member of the spinach family, often found in municipal plantings.
Of the daisy family, Chrysanthemum coronaria – recently renamed Glebionis but commonly called the crown daisy – is also known as chop-suey greens. No prizes for guessing they’re good in a stir- fry. Wild greens, particularly when mature, taste bitter. The exception is mallow, Malva sylvestris, whose leaves have a gentle, spinach-like flavour and, when cooked, lose their characteristic furriness and develop that curious gluey texture common to all members of the family, including okra.
The author, gardening correspondent on the Daily Star and scriptwriter on QI, is something of a renaissance man. Tasting notes rather than recipes are offered; the horticultural information is revelatory.
Appalachian kil’t greens with
bacon jam This is poor-folks cooking, as is appropriate to foraged foodstuffs. The leaves soften and collapse – are kil’t – when they meet the hot, salty, liquorlaced dressing. Wouldn’t you? Serves 2-3
1kg mixed wild greens and shot lettuce, picked over and de-stalked 2-3 generous tbsp bacon jam (see below) Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat a large frying pan, add the bacon jam and wait till it melts. Add the greens, turn up the heat and toss until the leaves are wilted – a few minutes. Possible accompaniments are sliced raw onion and hard-boiled eggs.
Appalachian bacon jam A good amount of fat is required. Speck or pancetta works best, or you could add a spoonful of goose fat. The preparation is of German-settler origin. Moonshine comes with the territory. Makes about 500g 500g good-quality fatty bacon, diced 2 medium onions, diced 3-4 tbsp bourbon or whisky 250ml cider vinegar 250g soft brown sugar 4 tbsp whole-grain mustard
Cook the diced bacon in a heavy frying pan over medium heat, stirring, until the fat runs and crisps a little. Add the diced onion, reduce the heat and cook until the onion softens. Add the liquor and bubble up. Add the vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, bubble up, reduce the heat and then simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Pot up and refrigerate till needed. Good as a warm relish with cold meat or a baked potato.
THE RESTAURANT CRISIS JAMES PEMBROKE
The Oldie Editor is the UK’S most fervent COVID warrior.
Half-man, half-bike, he still cycles into the office every morning, oblivious of the fact that he’s the only one there. Worried that he might go the way of Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese Second World War soldier who refused to surrender until 1974, I now pay him a weekly visit to keep him in the loop about the Outside World.
Other than our shared cravings for even the dullest book launch, we also suffer from a profound anxiety about the absence and future of restaurants. This is especially acute for him (recently honoured in the Pot Noodle Hall of Fame) but also for me, given that I have undergone lockdown with a broken dishwasher and two children who have perfected the art of smearing even more grease onto dirty plates. They now rejoice in the knowledge they will be for ever stood down from all sink duties.
The Government will inevitably have us believe that the plight of London’s restaurant scene, the most vibrant and eclectic in Europe, is down to COVID. It isn’t. Its biggest problem was already rent.
Polpo, a Soho restaurant of 60 covers, pays £20,000 a month in rent and rates before it turns the lights on. We punters tend to think, on the basis of menu prices, that restaurateurs must be making a killing, but at Polpo they need to turn over their tables two or three times, at both the lunch and the dinner sittings, to be viable. In common with almost every restaurant, pub and bar in central London, the premises have a rateable value in excess of the £51,000 level that would entitle them to a tax holiday, so they are at the mercy of their landlord.
Whereas some landlords such as Fuller’s have cancelled the rent for its 215 pubs, 90 per cent of landlords are
expecting full rent throughout the lockdown. Jonathan Downey, the owner of Milk & Honey in Poland Street, Soho, is just such a victim, despite having paid £3.9 million in rent over the last 19 years.
The Job Retention Scheme effectively ends in August, and doesn’t take into account tips (the tronc). So staff are really getting only 60 per cent of their earnings, with which to pay their own rent. Little wonder that many have headed back to their countries of origin, where the restaurants are reopening. Jeremy King, the colossus of the Wolseley and Zédel, believes that 30 per cent of restaurants will close, and that half of the hospitality industry’s two-million-strong workforce will lose their jobs in September.
‘Casual dining was already dying because millennials like to order food in, but with the two-metre distancing rule – the WHO suggests only one metre – it will die out,’ Richard Beatty, the owner of Polpo, told me. Like other restaurateurs, he and his talented wife, the chef Florence Knight, are already putting all their energies into a new delivery service. The idea of fritto misto delivered to your door is very appealing, but the peoplewatching in our kitchen is limited; the buzz is care of the washing machine.
During the 1973 oil crisis, the Government bailed out the leading property developers, saving them from liquidation. Apparently, British Land just scraped onto the bottom of the list. Given that so much commercial property is owned by foreign investors, why can’t Rishi Sunak now do the same for tenants?
Not that any such rent freeze would benefit The Oldie, owing to the Editor’s insistence on reporting for duty every day and opening the office windows, indicating that the place is working as normal.
DRINK BILL KNOTT A BLOODY GREAT BLOODY MARY
Various earnest surveys have appeared over the last few months concerning our national drinking habits during lockdown: are we drinking more, starting earlier in the day and hitting the spirits more?
I will admit to one indulgence which, I suppose, ticks all three of those boxes: an occasional Bloody Mary with a late breakfast. It both hits the spot and takes the edge off, if you know what I mean.
Pinning down the origins of cocktails is a ticklish business, but the most convincing candidate for creator of the Bloody Mary is Fernand Petiot, a French bartender at Paris’s New York Bar in 1921.
Petiot moved to New York a few years later: by 1934, he had become the head bartender at the King Cole Room in the St Regis Hotel, where he laid claim to inventing the first ‘modern’ Bloody Mary: he tricked out his original cocktail – just vodka and tomato juice – with Worcestershire sauce, salt, cayenne, black pepper and lemon juice. Shaken with ice, strained and served.
This recipe, I think, still makes a perfect Bloody Mary. I have attended dozens of Bloody Mary contests over the years, at which wannabe mixologists whisk up countless outré twists on the classic, invariably throwing the whole balance of the drink out of kilter: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, as our American cousins say.
Use fresh tomato juice from the supermarket fridge and put a bottle of vodka in the freezer. For two people, pour a generous slug of vodka (75ml) into a cocktail shaker; add 300ml of tomato juice, a grind of black pepper, a large pinch of salt, the juice of half a lemon and about twice as much Lea & Perrins and Tabasco as you think sensible. Fill the shaker with ice, shake, and strain into chilled glasses.
No garnish is necessary, and certainly not celery sticks, which always seem to poke me malevolently in the nostrils. You can, however, make your own celery salt very easily: dry out the leaves from a bunch of celery in a slow oven or on a sunny windowsill, and then blitz them with a handful of rock salt. Use instead of plain salt in the drink, or – if you’re feeling fancy – encrust the rims of your glasses with it, after dipping the rims in beaten egg white.
I permit myself a couple of variations: a splash of sherry (dry or medium dry) conjures up a certain Spanish frisson, like slurping gazpacho in the sun with a chilled manzanilla and some salted almonds for company, while a dash of the liquor from a jar of sliced jalapeños lends a sour, spicy Mexican edge. Bloody Marias they should probably be called.
You can, of course, leave out the vodka altogether – the result is a much better drink than a G&T without the gin, or a whisky and ginger without the Scotch – in which case it is called a Virgin Mary. Not in Australia, though, where – in typically pithy Aussie fashion – the alcohol-free Bloody Mary is known as a Bloody Shame.
SPORT JIM WHITE FOOTBALL’S GREAT COMEBACK
By the time you read this, I will be in the midst of an all-consuming binge.
My eyes will be goggled, my liver atrophied and my sofa-bound backside swollen to the size of an Amazon delivery truck. All the benefits of exercise accrued in lockdown will have dissipated as I sit statically staring at my television screen for hours on end. Yes, football is back.
And, given the structure its processes have assumed because of the pandemic, there will be little opportunity to escape its return. Football is going to be everywhere.
Because it will all be staged ‘behind closed doors’, without a live audience in attendance, each and every game will be televised, to allow the fans to keep pace. On Saturday and Sunday, from midday to the late-evening news, it will be possible to watch ten hours a day of live Premier League matches, mostly free to air without any need for costly subscription.
And that is without even mentioning the Premier League matches that will be staged every weeknight, the remaining FA Cup ties and the left-over European fixtures crammed into whatever moments of the schedules remain unfilled.
Talk about overkill. This is not so much a return to normality; more the fulfilment of a football obsessive’s darkest fantasy.
It makes you wonder what is going to happen to family life in the footballcrammed days until 1st August. Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served at the sofa. Intravenous connection to the alcohol supplies in the fridge will be required. Shares in pizza-delivery operations will experience a vertiginous uplift. People who don’t like football are going to see all the benefits they enjoyed during its lockdown hiatus disappear in one extended action replay. There is nothing subtle or half-hearted about the scale of its comeback. Football will be everywhere.
And what will be the consequences for the game of the bizarre new manner of its delivery? Will this massive collective overdose change the way we engage with our national sport? If less is more, what happens when we are pinned to our sofas by a gathering wave of the stuff pounding us into submission?
For a start, it will not be the same. In the absence of the live game, television schedules have been furred up with reruns of former matches. Endless replays of erstwhile glory (or, in the case of England internationals, glorious failure) have brought us countless images of celebrating fans. There will be none of that.
It will doubtless take the players time to respond to the new circumstances, their urgency reduced without the noisy insistence of their supporters. Caginess will be the order of the day. Excitement and attack will be at a premium.
Chances are, much of the new normal will be doused in ennui; for many, this will provide an unexpected cure for insomnia. The noise emanating from many a sitting room won’t be the roar of expectation; it will be the steady rhythm of the snore. Will even we hopelessly addicted fanatics finally decide that actually it is true – there is a bit too much footie around?
Probably not. Most of us will forget the dull bits and simply relish the fact that being hit round the head with a footballing sledgehammer is still way better than the nothing we have endured these past few months. As the return of horse-racing to our screens demonstrated, how we need the glorious injection of the unexpected into our lives.
Now we can forget the minor incursions of pandemic, Trump and Brexit into our consciousness and concentrate once again on what really matters.
MOTORING ALAN JUDD BY ROYAL APPOINTMENT
If 50 is not a qualifying age for an oldie, we should award honorary oldie status to deserving cases who reach their halfcenturies. I propose the Range Rover, born in 1970.
With 1.19 million produced, it’s part of our cultural landscape, regularly seen on housing estates, on great estates or in Downing Street. I once glimpsed the Queen driving herself in one near Balmoral, headscarf and all. Yet, in 1967, when the ‘100-inch Station Wagon’ project was signed off, it was a unique concept. Although not the first fourwheel-drive SUV – the Americans had Jeep, Ford and International Harvester versions – it was the first to offer in pretty well equal measures luxury-saloon comfort, performance-car road-holding, estate-car capacity and serious off-road capability. And it looked so good that the Louvre exhibited one.
It was brought from concept to production in under three years by a small team headed by engineer Spen (Spencer) King, creator of (among much else) the P6 Rover, otherwise known as the Rover 2000. While thrashing one of those over fields near Solihull, he was struck that fitting the new project with the P6’s long-travel coil springs, instead of the traditional Land Rover leaf springs, would transform the off-road ride while greatly improving on-road handling.
When they needed a body to test prototypes, the engineers knocked one up, spending, said King, ‘about 0.1%’ of their time on it. When Rover stylist David Bache came to draw the production version, all he did was tweak what the engineers had done. The natural engine for it was the re-engineered 3.5 V8, recently bought from Buick. Although the Range Rover rapidly achieved social status, it was designed as a working vehicle: early ones had interiors you could clean with a hose.
Development was slow under failing Leyland, Rover’s new owners. It took 11 years to produce a four-door version, 12 to introduce an automatic gearbox, 15 to get round to fuel injection and 16 to offer a diesel. The original shape, now called the Classic, was succeeded in 1994 by the bigger and fatter P38A, under BMW ownership. It was next bought by Ford, who in 2002 introduced the even bigger L322, itself succeeded in 2012 under Tata ownership by the current – bigger still – L405.
The Range Rover has with age gained not only weight, but also electronic complexity. Early ones will do everything the later will, but the later do it more powerfully, in greater comfort and with less driver effort. Which means, of course, there’s more to go wrong, and when it does it’s more expensive. If you’re looking for one, forget the very early Classics – too collectable; prices stratospheric. You can get a reasonable post-1985 Classic for £6,000-£10,000 (avoiding air suspension), while the cheapest is the 1994-2002 P38A – provided previous owners sorted out the notorious electronic gremlins. A good buy would be a 2002-2012 Fordproduced diesel V8 – the first more-thanmerely-adequate diesel the Range Rover was blessed with – for about £10,000. If you want a current model and don’t mind high miles, think £20,000-£25,000.
My own history with Range Rovers is that of a thrice-jilted lover. One was stolen, one was driven over a mine in Angola (not by me) and the other developed a porous engine block, probably because I converted it to gas. But still I yearn. Nothing else drives quite like them. From earliest to latest, they make you feel King of the Road.
Spen King and his men got it right first time.