Kitchen Garden
GARDENING DAVID WHEELER FAREWELL, MY LOVELY GARDEN
In early April, I spent many hours selecting and then digging and potting up dozens of our finest-coloured hellebores.
I lifted a few rare hydrangeas from my collection of more than 250 different varieties, and these too were gently transferred to containers filled with ericaceous compost. One or two of our darker-blue pulmonarias (‘Blue Ensign’ and ‘Mawson’s Blue’ especially) were similarly uprooted and rehoused, as were a few young Japanese maples, planted less than 12 months ago and thus able to withstand careful disturbance.
From cracks between herringbone bricks on the sunny south terrace I have teased seedling stocks – the grey-leafed Matthiola incana, with its summer-long succession of fabulously scented white flowers. I’ve popped a few of its seedheads into a brown paper bag, too; belt-and-braces for a happy continuation of this hardy indispensable.
Our orchard full of pale blue Iris sibirica ‘Papillon’ – thousands of them – came into my life in the late 1980s, when I bought a few to mingle with an unknown, darker variety given to me in the early ’70s when I was gardening on the Hampshire-surrey border.
They bulked up quickly and while the clumps should ideally be dug and divided every few years, I’ve been too lazy.
Neglect has not troubled them. But some have now been lifted and transferred to deep plastic pots, where the moisture in which they thrive is best retained. These procedures would best have been carried out last autumn when the plants had the optimum chance to settle into new – albeit temporary – housing while the soil remained damp and relatively warm.
Recovering from major back surgery two years ago, I went on a buying spree at several private nurseries. We have three within an hour’s drive, each worth a much longer journey.
All plants from these unique enterprises – the Walled Garden at Treberfyd in the Brecon Beacons National Park, Wildegoose Nursery and Mynd Hardy Plants in south Shropshire – have thrived, allowing me to chop off chunks and assign them to pots.
You may well ask why I’m doing this now, at quite the wrong time of year. We’re moving. Well, at the time of writing, we have put our house up for sale. Two bachelors no longer require ten bedrooms, and the maintenance of an eight-acre garden (set in 30 acres of pasture and arable) is taking its toll. We’ve had almost 30 years at Bryan’s Ground, arriving those decades ago on the Herefordshire-radnorshire border with amounts of energy and ambition that today seem unbelievable.
We first tackled the three acres of unkempt formal gardens laid out when this Arts & Crafts house was built in 1913. Within two months, we had planted an orchard, divided up the old tennis court into four separate garden rooms with yew hedges, built umpteen ponds, and planted, planted, planted.
On 1st January 2000, I put in the first tree in a four-acre former donkey paddock, which now cradles some 2,000 ornamental trees and shrubs.
Our decision to move was taken jointly and amicably. The upkeep of a property such as this is expensive and demanding. We are no longer young. We don’t want to see all our hard work degraded. Nor, heaven forefend, do we want to stop gardening.
An acre would be manageable and if/ when disabilities encroach, we could probably scrape together enough dosh to employ the kind of fitness and drive we once had ourselves.
Who knows? By the time you read this, we may have relocated – with all those special plants potted up in March tasting the delights of a new home.
David’s Instagram account is @hortusjournal
KITCHEN GARDEN SIMON COURTAULD TARRAGON
The distinguished gardening writer Christopher Lloyd wrote of the herb tarragon that it was ‘a mousy sort of plant, devoid of personality’.
He may not have liked the look of it, but the personality of tarragon is in its aroma and its status as one of the classic culinary herbs.
The simplest way to grow tarragon is by first buying a plant, making sure that it is the French, not Russian, variety.
Russian tarragon can be grown from seed, is hardier than French and will grow taller; but its aroma and flavour are inferior. French tarragon does not set seed, but the leaves have the fragrance and subtlety lacking in the Russian version, which is best left to the country beyond the Urals.
Tarragon needs well-drained soil in a dry position, and will not take
kindly to being waterlogged. If possible, plant the herb on slightly sloping ground, which should not be enriched with compost. Tarragon is inclined to spread by means of underground runners, in the same way as mint. So it is suitable for growing in a large pot, where wandering roots can be confined.
My own plant, which is at least five years old, probably needs to be moved and its roots divided. The flavour of the leaves tends to deteriorate with age; rather than cut and replant a few of the rhizomes,
I have just bought a young plant to grow a few feet away from the old one and will perhaps replace it next year.
Fresh tarragon can be harvested fairly continually from June to October, and if it is to be dried, the stems should be cut in midsummer when the flower buds appear. Be careful not to bruise the leaves, as they will turn brown and lose some of their essential oils.
Constance Spry, in a book about her kitchen garden published during the Second World War, advised blanching the leaves of tarragon briefly to preserve their flavour and aroma, and then storing them in jars with lightly salted water.
This must have brightened up a few meals during those dark days.
COOKERY ELISABETH LUARD STRAWBERRY SEASON
Strawberries, I think – don’t you? Preferably home-grown, juicy, chubbycheeked berries fresh from the field.
Anticipate the joy by stocking up with the traditional accompaniments: shortbread (plain or almond), whitesugar meringues and vanilla ice cream.
In baking, proportions are key. Take shortbread: proportions of flour to butter to sugar are 6:4:2 (replace no more than a quarter of the flour with ground almonds). Meringues: weigh the whites; allow twice their weight of sugar; whisk the whites well before whisking in the sugar (slowly).
To thicken a custard for a vanilla cream-ice, allow four egg yolks to a half-pint (300ml) milk or cream and freeze, beating regularly to soften the ice crystals.
While sun-ripened, homegrown berries need no embellishment (maybe a dollop of cream), the Italians like theirs with a shake of balsamic vinegar; in Spain, it’s a squeeze of orange-juice; and our friends across La Manche dip them in a glass of Bordeaux. And a pinch of chilli (flaked rather than powdered) or a turn of the peppermill enhances the flavour.
Swedish strawberry soup When herbalist Hilda Leyel published this elegant recipe in The Gentle Art of Cookery in 1925, summers were endless and the sky was always blue. I imagine she must have had a grand Swedish friend with a well-stocked cellar. Hilda’s version is quite sweet – good at the end of a meal with a dollop of vanilla ice. For a refreshing starter on a hot day, cut down the sugar and serve as a chilled soup with soured cream, as they do in Hungary. Serves 4
500g ripe strawberries, wiped and hulled About 175g sugar (depending on ripeness of fruit) 300ml wine (a light claret or a Sauternes) 1 tbsp lemon juice
Set aside a few of the best fruits for decoration and purée the rest. Mrs Leyel instructs that the berries should be mashed – so leave the purée a little lumpy if you use a liquidiser.
Let the mixture stand for a couple of hours. Whizz in the wine, lemon juice and a couple of glasses of water. Set it in the fridge for three hours. Add the whole strawberries (quartered if large) and serve in pretty glasses, with almond biscuits or little squares of marzipan.
Easy strawberry jam Don’t overcook this delicate, freshflavoured jam: better runny than caramelised. The set will be firmer if you use preserving sugar (I like a runny strawberry jam). Lemon juice sharpens the flavour but won’t help the set. Makes 5-6 jars
1.5kg small, perfectly ripe strawberries, hulled 1.4kg preserving sugar (or plain granulated) Juice of ½ lemon
Cut the berries in half and mix with the sugar in a non-metal bowl. Leave overnight to make juice. Next day, tip the mixture into a roomy pan and stir gently over a low heat until all the sugar granules have dissolved. Turn up the heat, and cook at a rolling boil for about 15 minutes, until setting point is reached.
To test for this, drop a little syrup on to a cold saucer, and draw your finger across it. If it wrinkles, it’s ready. Stir in the lemon juice. Pot up in sterilised jamjars, top with a round of greasepaper and tie down or lid when cold.
RESTAURANTS JAMES PEMBROKE The Wolseley, Piccadilly, London W1
Rathfinny Wine Estate, Alfriston, East Sussex
Craig Brown once suggested an alternative to The Oldie’s long-lasting column ‘I Once Met…’, which was thought up by the late, great poet-luncher James Michie, in 1992.
Its appeal is that the ordinary reader remembers a chance encounter with someone absurdly famous but a little secretive. Craig’s idea was for a new column: ‘I’ve Never Met…’ in which sociable people write about ubiquitous celebrities whom they’ve never met, but who appear at every opening (first nights, private views etc).
The obvious venue for the launch of this new column is The Wolseley, London’s ultimate restaurant.
In this former car showroom, beautifully designed by William Curtis Green in 1921, such wholly non-secretive legends as Michael and Jack Whitehall squabble over the exact size of Whitehall junior’s Facebook following; Nicholas Coleridge woos another donor to the V&A, and Loyd Grossman and his lead singer wonder how they’ll perform at Glastonbury this year.
And, readers, they are in plain sight for all of us who have never met them, slap-bang in the original atrium. Not so far away, but in the restricted-vision seats, you can still spy former matinée idols such as The Oldie’s Roger Lewis.
And on 17th May, you’ll see me, up there in the gods, staring down, out of sight but not yet out of my mind. For there is no other place I would rather be for the Grand Reopening of Life when we can dine indoors.
In 2003, Jeremy King and Chris Corbin acquired the building from Barclays Bank, who took it over in 1927, six years after the eponymous car business went bust. These geniuses deserve statues: how do they supply so much glamour and élan while charging so little? For just £19.95, you can have a two-course lunch of French onion soup and seared pollock, with house wine at £27.50.
Last October, our new Sussex friends Kev and Lou took us for lunch at the neighbouring Rathfinny winery. I’m always suspicious of wine-producers who see a restaurant as an obvious sideline. It has all the hallmarks of a late-night vinous brainstorm: ‘I know! What goes best with wine?’
Put it the other way round: how many (sane) restaurateurs start a vineyard?
Yet autumn was kind to the South Downs that day: it was all brown vine leaves wilting under dappled sunlight. Mark Driver, the owner, now has 400 acres of perfect slopes with the capacity to produce over 100,000 cases of sparkling wines a year, in addition to his Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Mark is not just the acceptable face of capitalism but obsessed, as only hedge funders can afford to be, with making English wine. For our purposes, his food and his flint-built restaurant are the stars. It’s the perfect place for a bargain post-walk lunch. He has rooms, too.
I’ve still got my menu to remind me: Normandy fish soup with salt-cod toasts followed by plaice cooked over last year’s vines. ‘Nyum! Nyum!’ as the late Oldie editor Alexander Chancellor used to say.
If I were Prime Minister, I would ennoble both Mark Driver and Jeremy King, granting them a special badge for use in the chamber: ‘Does not have to sit next to Lord Botham.’
The Wolseley, 160 Piccadilly, London W1J 9EB; tel: 0207 499 6996; www. thewolseley.com; three courses £24
Rathfinny Wine Estate, Alfriston, East Sussex BN26 5TU; tel: 01323 874030; www.rathfinnyestate.com; three courses £22; bedrooms available
DRINK BILL KNOTT THIRST RESPONDERS
The French, as ever, have a phrase for it.
A vin de soif is a thirst-quenching wine, invariably red, that can be enjoyed without a great deal of fuss or ceremony.
Its fruit will be more prominent than its tannin, it has probably seen very little oak and it certainly shouldn’t need decanting. It is the sort of wine that vignerons drink amongst themselves, and its various English translations – ‘easy quaffer’ is my particular bête noire – seem somewhat gauche by comparison.
Vins de soif often benefit from a slight chill that would leave chunkier, more serious reds tasting like cold, stewed tea.
In early April, all I would have had to do to chill a bottle would be to leave it outside the back door for five minutes but warmer months are ahead, I trust, and vins de soif are just the ticket for summer drinking.
I remember when simple village burgundy hit the spot – light, strawberryscented pinot noir, served at cellar temperature – but, alas, prices have risen and my summer soif is too profound to afford it any more.
Gamay is a better choice. I am not sure how Tesco manage to sell their basic Beaujolais for £5, but the 2020 vintage has bags of ripe fruit and slips down a treat, either on its own or with charcuterie and cheese. Ribena for grown-ups.
More serious but no less approachable gamays can be found in the BeaujolaisVillages appellation – try Waitrose’s ownlabel version (£7.99) which has a whiff of spice amongst the fruit – and in the ten Beaujolais crus (Fleurie, Chiroubles, Moulin-à-vent et al). Try the velvety Brouilly from Domaine des Côteaux de Font Curé (Wine Society, £9.95), which just cries out for a plate of saucisson sec and some crusty bread.
The favoured vins de soif in the bistros of Paris are from the Loire: SaumurChampigny in particular. Cabernet franc is the grape. Depending on the winemaker and the vintage, it can smell like a greenhouse full of tomatoes or a bowl of ripe cherries.
Lighter types cope well with half an hour in the fridge, and even weightier examples – the Wine Society’s Le Temps des Cerises 2019 from Domaine de la Noblaie, for instance (£11.95) – taste fresher with a slight chill.
Making a vin de soif, however, seems not to be simply about the grape variety, or the climate. It is more about the philosophy of the winemaker.
I have drunk them all over France, even – especially – in the sunny south, where, in the height of summer, a table in the shade and a chilled bottle of light red are de rigueur. It might even be made from Grenache or Syrah, but lightly extracted to favour fruit over tannin, like rosé with more oomph.
At the annual Fête des Vins organised in the Minervois village of La Livinière, at the winery owned by Trevor Gulliver and Fergus Henderson (of St John fame), dozens of winemakers from all over France sit down to a particularly splendid feast, and pass bottles of their own vins de soif freely amongst their confrères.
I complimented one of them on his Carignan, noting how well it partnered Fergus’s sublimely smoky quail grilled over vine wood. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but it goes especially well with friends.’
SPORT JIM WHITE OLYMPIC SHAME
During the London Olympics, an unlikely star emerged.
Spotting an exuberant spectator at the swimming pool, running up and down the aisles waving a South African flag, the BBC’S Clare Balding thought it might be worth talking to the man. And it sure was. Burt Le Clos is the extrovert father of Chad, the South African swimmer who had just beaten the champion Michael Phelps in the butterfly race to win gold.
To say Burt was excited by his son’s victory was an understatement. ‘Look at my boy, my beautiful boy,’ he blubbed.
It was an interview that struck a chord around the world. In that moment, he spoke for every parent of a sporty offspring; everyone who has ferried their children to events and watched from the sidelines; everyone whose life has been centred around polishing their child’s athletic potential. Here was vindication and reward for all that emotional investment.
There will be none of that this summer in Tokyo. With the banning of all foreign spectators, the mums and dads only of the Japanese can be there to unleash their inner Burt. And even that – at the time of writing – is not certain.
For so many of those who have been on the touchline, poolside or at the cycle track or gym throughout their child’s development, the news that they cannot attend the Games is a hammer blow. I have friends whose son is in the GB rowing team, going for gold in Tokyo. For the past ten years, their lives have been a heady mix of taxi service and cheerleader, standing on the towpath at countless regattas, willing their boy on. Now, just as he is addressing the summit, they will be 6,000 miles away.
Before any of us had heard the term COVID, their plans to watch their boy in action were extensive. This was going to be special – the trip of a lifetime. Then came the pandemic and first the postponement, and then ultimately the realisation that they will be obliged to watch on television from their living room.
Should he win, the shrieks of joy when he crosses the finish line, the tears as the National Anthem plays, and the flurry of congratulatory messages from everyone they have ever met will still happen. But the intimacy of being there, hugging their child in victory or defeat and seizing the opportunity to communicate their pride in achievement through that immediate embrace has been taken from them.
For the athlete, too, not having their folks in attendance will diminish things. Here is the chance to give them tangible payback for their sacrifice. Sure, they will still know the family is behind them. But at a distance it is not the same.
Gail Emms, the badminton player, remembers walking out into the arena for the final of her competition in the Athens Games in 2004. The place was packed; the noise was like nothing she had ever encountered. But above the deafening cacophony, she heard a familiar voice yelling repeatedly the one line: ‘Go, Gail.’
She spotted her mother, up in the stands, waving a Union Flag, delighted to tell everyone around her that this was her girl. Seventeen years on, that memory still plays on a loop in Emms’s mental cinema. But for her successors in Olympic competition, there won’t be that unique moment of shared pride and familial love.
In so many ways, the pandemic is diluting our sporting lives.
MOTORING ALAN JUDD SCREEN TIME IS BAD FOR YOU
‘When you’re driving, you should only be driving.’
So said Derek Bell, five times Le Mans winner – a man who has forgotten more about fast driving than I shall ever know. He said it long ago while trying patiently to teach me how to handle a 2.5-ton Bentley on a skid pan.
In those days, cabin distractions from the road ahead included fiddling with the radio or heating controls, looking for the cigar/ cigarette lighter, reading a map, adjusting mirrors or, in my case, filling and lighting a pipe while steering with my forearms.
I no longer do that and, anyway, dashboards have changed greatly. Most new cars now have multi-function touch screens. And that, I think, is a problem.
Dashboard controls multiplied as cars became more sophisticated. My first, a 1955 Ford Popular, had just three knobs or switches, plus an ignition switch, one big dial and two small. My current 2010 Volvo V70 has two dials plus a cluster of steering-wheel buttons for cruise control, satnav etc and around 50 dashboard and door switches of which I regularly use fewer than a dozen.
Once you’ve mastered these, muscle memory kicks in and you can switch everything on and off with single movements, without taking your eyes off the road.
Contemporary dashes, however, are less cluttered because most functions are accessed via the touch screen.
More elegant, maybe – but simpler? Not to me. Instead of being able to switch something on and off by pressing a button you can feel for in the dark, you have to look at your screen, find the vehicle settings menu, swipe through to the correct page, confirm that you’ve read any backcovering warnings about what you’re about to do (eg switch off electronic stability or lane-keeping assistance) and only then can you switch off. Or on.
Obviously, you can’t do this safely while driving. So before setting off, you have to run though the whole menu of pre-flight checks, anticipating whatever you might want off or on for the whole journey. Except that if you stop for a snack, the system resets itself and you have to do it all again.
Of course, some more expensive cars offer head-up displays on the windscreens, as used by jet pilots, as well as voice-recognition controls.
These may help, but they don’t do away with the central problem, which is that you can’t operate a touch screen without looking at it.
Nor do touch screens and muscle memory go well together. It may be age – and doubtless the young do it better – but either I touch too tentatively and nothing happens or I press too hard and lots of things happen, none of which I wanted.
Although not a touch screen, the most notorious example of computer-focused rather than driver-focused controls was the idrive system, first installed in the BMW 7 series about 20 years ago. With that, you had to move a single knob in eight different directions to access and control all ancillary operations. The instructions seemed longer than War and Peace and you needed a degree in computer science to understand them.
It doesn’t have to be like that – even now. Major functions in the Mazda MX5 are all operated by big, easy-to-feel switches, with minor operations accessed on screen by a simple control. Our late-lamented VW Up was a model of simplicity. No doubt there are others.
If my next car has a touch screen, it will have to be one where all major functions displayed are accessible off it.
Then when I’m driving, I shall only be driving.