Sunday 21 September 2014

Notes from the weekend


A Physalis, or Chinese Lantern, bought from a little greengrocer's shop in Hebden Bridge. I love these plants - they always remind me of Halloween. The stems look great dried out too, displayed in a vase. I suspect I'll have to wait for my plant to grow for a year or two first as it's only little. So it's currently residing outside on the windowsill where it can be admired both from without and within.


Speaking of drying flowers: the hydrangea heads are well on their way, along with some Eucalyptus. The faded mauve blossoms go nicely with the silvery blue-green of the foliage stems.


A very small pomegranate. I'm looking forward to buying some bigger ones to eat. Preferably with juicy, ruby-red insides. Stained fingernails here we come.


Cute little gourds seem to be on display everywhere at the moment. One day I'll have a go at growing my own.


There are plenty of damsons, greengages and English apples about as well. This really is a wonderful time of year for food.


Whilst on the subject: a little trip to Katsouris, the delicatessen where I used to go with my mum and grandma. You know, before it was fashionable to enjoy the food eaten by European immigrants (a subject I'm planning to cover in a future Food Memories post). Sadly they no longer stock the little chocolate-covered katarzynki I ate as a child. But I did bag plenty of other goodies: Polish kabanos sausage, German smoked cheese, bagels, rye bread, sweet gherkins, stuffed vine leaves and pickled green chillies. Which were very hot indeed.

I snaffled some Polish cheesecake too, with a thick layer of poppyseeds inside. And - I promise this completes the haul - a bag of Brazil nut toffee from the sweet stall on the market. I used to love chewing on it and it turns out nothing's changed on that score.

In other news, we picked up a nice old pine chest of drawers for the 'family room'. It has castors on the feet, brass handles and a few knocks and scratches a bit of character. I wanted to photograph it but at this time of day the sun's moved around to the front of the house and I didn't want fuzzy pictures.

We're going for an autumnal stroll later. Hopefully we'll find plenty of conkers and some elderberries too.

I hope you're enjoying the weekend and savouring these last few precious hours of it...

10 comments:

  1. We've had a mellow weekend, enjoying this beautiful Indian summer. I love your Chinese Lantern plant and the hydrangeas. I am definitely going to try drying a few from my dad's garden. Will you be making jam with your damsons? My husband found a tree laden with them while working last week. We'll make a visit to pick some I'm sure! Your Polish treats sound lovely especially that cheesecake. We have a few Polish supermarkets in our nearest 'big' town. I wonder would they have some. Hope you had a lovely walk. Bee xx

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  2. Beautiful photos, I like those ornamental gourds too. The deli sounds wonderful, I shall look forward to hearing more about it. CJ xx

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  3. It sounds as though you had a great weekend Sarah and some lovely notes and touches of the coming of autumn too. I look forward to your future food memories post and hearing all about this deli, it sounds like a wonderful place. xx

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  4. It sounds like you have had a wonderful weekend. There is so much wonderful food about at the moment it is always a treat after the summer to change the food with the seasons. I know that come the Spring I will be willing it to change again, but for now I am enjoying it :) I remember buying a squash like that from a veg stall once, I think it was called a turban squash, can't remember what it tasted like tho'. Have a lovely week.

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  5. I love the colour of your dried hydrangeas. It sounds like you had a lovely weekend full of simple pleasures.

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  6. Lovely Autumn weekend photos. I love your chinese lantern! And the sausage looks delicious too :)

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  7. Love the photo of the Chinese lanterns I nearly bought so e of these whilst we were on holiday - I wish I had now. I tried growing the Turks turban squash one year - complete failure . Sounds like you really enjoyed the weekend..

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  8. Beautiful photos! I love the colours of the dried Hydrangea and Eucalyptus together. Such a cute gourd too, we often pick out few different ones from our local farm shop for display. xx

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  9. Polish cheesecake, yum! My Polish mother-in-law makes a brilliant version. And kabanos is one of the mister's favourite things. This post is making me hungry!

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