Summer World Sweet World

It's out! This lovely magazine has made it to Issue 4, and thus through one whole year - with ever increasing distribution figures.

As usual, WSW is full of brilliant, creative ideas - including a scheme for Carbon Action Brownie Badges

I have an article in there on using wild blackberries. Since it was mid-spring when I wrote it, I had to trial the recipes using bought, packaged, frozen ones. They were nice, but had seeds the size of pebbles! And they were 'Packed from New Zealand and/or imported ingredients' - so they were undoubtedly injected with melamine, painted with lead paint, and treated with formaldehyde.

But at least they were 'Supervised and Approved as Kosher'.

I can't wait for the true blackberry season to arrive. Shouldn't be long. The blackberry bushes near our house already have some flowers ...

Food illustrated

Sarah, from my writing group, is a renaissance woman. Seriously. Not only is she a writer, but an illustrator, a designer, a musician, a crafter, a gardener and a cook. (And I'm bound to have missed something.)

Anyhow, she has a new blog - Garden Kitchen - where she cooks delicious (and eco-friendly) dishes and then draws them. It's beautiful!

For sourdough fans

I've been rummaging through cookbooks that used to be my grandmother's, and among the treasures is Any one Can Bake - a 1929 promotional publication from 'the Educational Department of the ROYAL BAKING POWDER CO.'

You might get a laugh from their version of the origin of leavened bread - from a longer article entitled, 'The Evolution of Baking Powder'.

The Royal Baking Powder Co tells us ...

Yeast came first
Very early in written history we come upon mention of both 'leavened' and 'unleavened' bread, so the actual origin of raised bread is obscure. Some prehistoric matron, perhaps, was not too careful about washing out the vessel in which she mixed the grain and water for her baking. A stray yeast cell lodged in the scrapings and developed in the next moist mixing so that the loaf grew astonishingly. It was porous and softer than her ordinary loaves.

She tasted this unusual mass - and found it good. She added a bit of the magic dough to her fresh mixture in the hope that it would impart its characteristics to the new loaves - and of course it did.

Thus began the leavening of grain mixtures, and for generations yeast in some form or another was the only leavening agent known.


What can I say? Let's all pay homage to that prehistoric slattern whose naughty lapse in hygiene turned out to be a blessing for us all. And thank heavens that a single yeast cell just happened to come along at the right time! :P