Finding The Poetry

Can you see it - just there in the light illuminating that fern frond? That beauty, the poetry of the everyday as I call it, brought a catch to my throat and tears to my eyes. It can be a fleeting moment in nature, it can be my daughter telling me for the 5th time today that I am 'the best cooker' (she knows I love cooking and love cooking for my family). Or just a kind word or a memory of being loved and cherished. The thriving stoic little leaves of an apple mint plant I smuggled from an ornate garden and am nurturing in a silver pot in my garden. All of these things the touchstones of my life. It's the observing and the recording that make you value them and use them to shore yourself up for the hard days. 

Sometimes if you look, you see.

Maybe for a season, this summer season I will record and hold close the poetry of my life. 

Sunday Pottering

It was a busy weekend with my oldest's theatre school show on Friday night and attending a wedding with the family on Saturday. Good times.

Sundays, well Sundays are for pottering. We started the day with big fluffy pancakes- I've been making pancakes for the kiddos for breakfast for years but just recently found the perfect recipe. It's by the Reith sisters from their 'Three Sister's Bake' cookbook. I've posted about them before and I cannot recomend the book enough. This pancake recipe is foolproof. You know when you watch the bubbles forming on the pancake surface and then flip them and they just begin to puff and rise, such basic, beautiful kitchen alchemy - well these pancakes do that every time.

Later on I tried the Earl Grey Tea Bread from this months The Simple Things magazine. Again this recipe worked a treat and is a lovely tea loaf, dense, moist and not too sweet. I just could not resist a recipe that involved grinding a spoonful of Earl Grey tea leaves with sugar- just a little more kitchen magic. 

Lastly inspired by Jen over at Little Birdie blog I got snipping at my chive flowers and made some chive vinegar. Already the blush pink of the liquid looks enticing. I doubt it will be laid by for a few weeks, rather used for salad dressing through the week.........