Blog Post
The Clocks go back and the early nights arrive!

Well – sitting at the computer again – same time 6pm – but oh no its 5pm (forgot to change the clock in the study !  Have I ever mentioned we have dozens of clocks ?  Tim had a phase where he bought them and repaired them but then felt attached to them and wanted to keep them !

Anyway, the nights are now truly drawing in but I have to say I do like our seasons.  I went on holiday to Barbados once and hadn’t quite realised that other than their “rainy” season – the weather is pretty much always the same.  It always gets dark at 6pm and is light around 6am.  Although we do complain about our weather it does vary and for me I love this time of the year when the nights are getting chilly and the fire is roaring  – and I usually change from chilled white wine to room temperature red !

We will be looking forward to bonfire parties, Halloween parties and of course it is half term this next week.  I mentioned on Twitter this week that I would be sharing my recipe for what I like to call “Crazy Crunchie Bites” – so simple to make and they do taste like Crunchie – but so much cheaper of course.  Here is the link  http://www.nancybirtwhistle.co.uk/recipes/crazy-crunchie-bites

I am often asked what inspires my baking and my reply usually is the seasons – and this is so true but also I am fascinated by old recipe books.  I have a number which I sit and read as other people may settle down to read a novel.  However, this week my butcher and friend (Dave Benson) offered me a number of his very old recipe books.  They are marvellous – mostly meat recipes but containing ingredients I was not familiar with.  There was reference to Pennyroyal and rubbed Sage.  I know Sage of course but rubbed sage ?

I spent an evening studying these amazing books  and decided I was going to make my own hand raised pork pies totally from scratch.  The next day I popped back to the butcher to ask about the aforesaid ingredients.  I had already ‘Googled’ Pennyroyal and we would now refer to it as Mint.  How interesting is that  ? and rubbed Sage ?  – he gave me some !  It is a sort of cross between dried sage that we would buy in a spice jar and a powder.  He gave me free pigs trotters to make my own gelatine and my necessary four parts lean pork to one part fatty pork.  Couldn’t wait to get going !

I am not disappointed !  My pies look amazing but I will have to wait until tomorrow to taste them !

I realise I may be boring the pants off my readers but such things really do excite me.

Oh, by the way I must tell you this.  I was completing a piece of work this week and was asked how many “hits” my website has per week.  I have absolutely no idea but there is a piece of kit available through Google and it breaks down visits to my website.  Where they are from, whether they have visited before, how long they stay on – etc etc.  I could not believe it when I found out in one week I have 2,600 visitors.  Blimey !  – if you have read this you are one of them so thank you so much I am truly grateful xx

Talk next week.