Day 12

These are three Books by Barbara Cleverly who is not as well-known as she should be. She has written several series about detectives, the longest and best known about Commander Joe Sandilands’ career at Scotland Yard in the twenties and the thirties. These three books are about an archaeologist in the twenties. Her name is Letitia Talbot.

 

Bright Hair About the Bone

This is the second of Barbara Cleverly's books featuring Laetitia Talbot, but it is a prequel, set just over a year before the Tomb of Zeus.

It is the 1920s, Laetitia is an archaeologist and although she has been to university, is finding it very difficult to find anyone who takes her seriously. This is very galling for someone of Letty's temperament. Finally she finds a place on a dig run by her godfather in Burgundy. Her father will only let her go if she is chaperoned by an ex-army chaplain whose life has been wrecked by his experiences in the trenches. Letty has to agree, but it annoys her so much that she is even more pig headed, obstinate and self-righteous than usual.

Her godfather dies violently and Letty is convinced that it was not a random act of violence. As she investigates, she discovers that the local nobility's beliefs in myths and legends will lead them to act in a way that could cause political mayhem. This may sound very Gothic and far-fetched, but Cleverly handles her plots and characters very deftly, leading Letty out of the tunnel of her prejudices into some sort of self-awareness and knowledge.

Intriguingly we discover some of the events of Letty's past that were hinted at so tantalisingly in the Tomb of Zeus, but perhaps not all . . .

The Tomb of Zeus

This is the first of Barbara Cleverly's books featuring Laetitia Talbot but chronologically it comes after Bright Hair About the Bone. We meet Letty again on her way to Crete where she is going to take part in a dig. As we have seen before, Laetitia is very protective of her status and takes herself very seriously.

She is staying en famille with the head of the dig, a man of great charm and charisma, and his extended household. She soon becomes aware that things are not as they should be, and then she finds that another member of the household is someone from her past, who not only has hurt her badly, but is also morally very dubious.

Then the deaths begin and the accidents start to happen. Letty, being Letty, plunges in headfirst causing mayhem and danger on all sides.

This is an excellent book. The plot is complex and convoluted. We see events through Letty's eyes and she does not always see clearly, so what you see is not always what you get.

A Darker God

In the third of Barbara Cleverly's books featuring Laetitia Talbot the action has moved to Athens, which in May, 1928, is politically very insecure. The first couple of chapters set the scene and introduce some of the characters who hope to manipulate the situation for their own purposes. At last we meet Andrew Merriman, 'scholar and man of action', who has played such a pivotal part in Letty's past. We also meet his wife, Maud. While based in Athens Andrew is writing a life of Alexander the Great which in the current political climate could prove controversial.

The action then moves to October. In an amphitheatre in Athens, a new English translation of Aeschylus's Agamemnon is being rehearsed. Letty and Maud Merriman are watching. What happens next is only to be expected because the gods are not happy.

Once more Letty is involved in murder and intrigue. Letty has grown and matured and is less exasperating than in the two previous books. You could argue that this makes A Darker God less funny than the other two, but it is still a clever and absorbing thriller.

Food

It is the gooseberry season which is, unfortunately, rather short. However, if you prepare them correctly, they will freeze and you can have them all year round.  They are less popular than they should be so I have taken the precaution of planting a couple of bushes in my garden as I worry they will disappear altogether from the supermarket shelves. In fact, you very rarely see the beautiful plump red dessert gooseberries.

The gooseberry season starts in June. The berries are hard and green and very sour. They need to be cooked and sweetened. In late July and August, if you’re lucky, you will find the dessert gooseberries that are sweet enough to be eaten raw. They are wonderful, sliced in sweet or savoury salads.

The early green gooseberries will keep (unwashed) in the fridge for a week or two. You can also freeze them in this state in airtight freezer bags, but I think freezing is more successful if they are poached.

Softer dessert gooseberries have a very short storage life, even in the fridge, and are best eaten within a couple of days.

 

Topping and tailing

We had lots of gooseberry bushes in our garden when I was small and I spent many a summer afternoon topping and tailing them ready for my mother to bottle them so we could have gooseberry pies and crumbles throughout the winter. You need either a sharp knife or a pair of small scissors – I find the knife quicker – and you snip away the remains of the flower and any remnants of the stalk. It’s a chore, but it is worth it.

 

I poach them with a little water (to prevent initial burning before the fruit releases its juice) and a little honey or sugar. I don’t sweeten them properly at this stage because I don’t know what their final use will be – possibly a chutney or a sauce for pork or goose, when you want them to be tart. Adjust the sweetness to taste or according to the recipe you eventually use.

When cool put the gooseberries, in useful size portions. Into freezer bags with a good seal so they don’t leak.

Recipes

Gooseberry Sauce

(for pork, goose or mackerel)

    25g/1oz butter

    250g/9oz gooseberries, topped and tailed

    75ml/3oz crème fraiche

    1 tsp caster sugar

    salt and freshly ground black pepper

1.    Heat the butter in a small saucepan

2.    Place the gooseberries into the pan, cover and cook over a medium heat until tender

3.    Remove the lid and mash the gooseberries lightly.

4.    Add the crème fraiche and sugar to the pan, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and continue to cook for a few minutes.

5.    Remove from the heat, cover and set aside to keep warm.

Classic Gooseberry Fool

500g gooseberries, topped and tailed

100g caster sugar

3 tbsp elderflower cordial (optional)

300ml double cream

Method

1.    Put the gooseberries, sugar and cordial in a saucepan

2.    Cook on a high heat until the sugar has dissolved and the fruit is soft

3.    Remove from the heat and reserve a quarter of the cooked gooseberries.

4.    Blend the remaining cooked gooseberries in a blender or food processor, or if you like a slightly coarser texture, use a stick blender. (Some recipes advise you to sieve the puree to get rid of the last remnants of the skins and pips, but I think that you lose the essential gooseberryness of the fruit if you do that. If you are worried about the pips, keep a toothpick handy.)

5.    Set aside to cool.

6.    Whisk the cream in a bowl until soft peaks form when the whisk is removed from the bowl. Fold in the blended gooseberries.

7.    Serve in individual glasses or a pretty bowl and leave to thicken (usually about 2 hours).

8.    Garnish with swirls of cream, mint leaves or what you will.

You can make a lighter version of this by replacing the cream with Greek yoghourt and folding in the beaten whites of two eggs.

 

The Ultimate Cheat’s Gooseberry Fool

500g gooseberries, topped and tailed

1 pot of best chilled custard from your local supermarket

Sugar to taste

3 tbsp elderflower cordial (optional)

Method

1.    Poach the gooseberries as before, blend them and let cool to blood heat

2.    Fold the custard into the gooseberry puree

3.    Add sugar to taste

4.    Chill

5.    Garnish with cream

This can also be used as the base for gooseberry ice cream.

Gooseberry Cordial

1.    Boil gooseberries until very soft

2.    Place in jelly bag and suspend over a bowl for 24 hours

3.    Boil juice with sugar to taste until it begins to thicken (be careful here, you don’t want it to turn into jelly or – worse – gooseberry toffee.

4.    Let it cool and bottle. Keep in the fridge.

It is excellent on its own, diluted to taste with water.

It is even better with gin or vodka over ice.

Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQNymNaTr-Y

Rimsky Korsakov: Scheherazade,  Gergiev · Vienna Philharmonic · Salzburg Festival 2005

The  king, Shahryar, discovered that his wife was being unfaithful to him. He was distraught and determined that no woman would ever be able to betray and hurt him like that again. He decides to marry a new virgin each day and execute her the next day, so that she would not have the opportunity to be unfaithful to him.

Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, decides to put a stop to this. She had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and knew the works of the poets and all the legends and stories of the country by heart. Luckily she was also beautiful and charming.

Scheherazade asked if she might say a final farewell to her sister, Dunyazad. The plan was for Dunyazad to ask Scheherazade to tell her one last story before the long night was over. The king lay awake and listened with increasing pleasure as Scheherazade told her first story. As dawn approached, Scheherazade stopped speaking, without finishing the story. The king asked her to finish, but Scheherazade said she couldn’t, as dawn was breaking. So, the king spared her life for one day so she could finish the story the next night. The following night, Scheherazade finished the story but then began a second, more exciting tale, which she again left unfinished at dawn. Again, the king spared her life for one more day so she could finish her story.

This continued for 1,001 nights, and when she had finished the thousandth story, Scheherazade told the king that she had no more stories to tell him and prepared herself for death, but  the king had fallen in love with her and they lived happily ever after.

The work consists of four movements:

1.                The Sea and Sinbad's Ship

2.                The Kalandar Prince

3.                The Young Prince and The Young Princess

4.                Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman

It seems that Rimsky Korsakov was more inspired by illustrations to the stories than the narratives of the stories themselves. Having said that, we can hear clearly the enchanting voice of Scheherazade in the violin, accompanied by a harp, in dialogue with the bass that represents the king.

Artist of the Day

Joaquín Sorolla

1863 – 1923

Sorolla painted in a broadly Impressionist style. His speciality was the way he painted light – playing on water, dappled light falling onto flowers in a garden, catching the hair of children playing by the sea, highlighting fabric blowing in the wind. He was considered the equal of Monet and John Singer Sargent, but his international fame declined outside Spain until recently. In fact, Sorolla was the most famous Spanish artist in the world until 1910 when Picasso appeared on the scene and changed everything.

In 2016 The Royal Academy held an exhibition, Painting the Modern Garden, in which his paintings featured prominently and a number of books about him have been lately published about him.

I love his work. I love his use of light, his observation and the way he composes his pictures so that they are a glimpse out of time. I couldn’t choose a single picture to sum up what his work means to me. So here is a selection.