Prepare to be Charmed!

I want to introduce you to 2 extraordinary people, Ruth Mott and Harry Dodson. By some happy accident I have been able to spend some lovely hours in their company learning from them about long lost kitchen and gardening arts while being charmed by their gentle humor and competent manner. That is the best word to use, they are charming and the TV show that features them is charming. This post will take you back in time to the grand country houses of the Victorian era in "The Victorian Kitchen Garden" and "The Victorian Kitchen".

These were made back in the late 80s for the BBC. The host was a horticultural lecturer named Peter Thoday and his love of the subject is clear in every episode. He, Ruth, and Harry love every minute of what they were doing. The Victorian Kitchen Garden was the first show and it featured Harry who wasn't Victorian but trained under those who were and we follow him as he brings a long neglected walled garden back to glorious life. The show is slow paced much like life was during those times and the work was hard and the days were long. I kept wanting to taste all the delicious produce that the garden brought forth in such abundance. No dangerous pesticides or GMO's here just wonderful foods the way nature intended. Below is the introductory episode.

In the Victorian Kitchen, a long abandoned kitchen of a manor house was allowed again to function the way it was intended and the heart of it was Ruth. She had worked in many a country manor house from the time she was 14.  At 70, she was brought in to be the head cook with one lowly scullery named Alison. I fell in love with Ruth. Her gentle manner and sharp wit make her easy to adore. She was the last of a dying breed and much irreplaceable knowledge passes with her. Ruth introduces us to the way foods were prepared for the gentry in kitchens before we had all of our fancy time saving devices. I can imagine a little better now how time-consuming this was. Breakfast, luncheon, tea, supper, dinners, and picnics, it barely seemed one meal was finished before the next meal was being worked on. The one thing I think this show lacked was a full kitchen assembly, so that we don't quite get the hustle and bustle these great kitchens invariably had at this time. Many times I found my mouth agape at what went into certain dishes, it seems incredible to modern eyes. 

Both of these shows are part gardening/cookery show and part history lesson and all enjoyment. Every time the opening music would play and the camera panned over the lovely table I feel peaceful. I don't know why but it is a bit like meditation, it allows you to slow down too and just enjoy. Unfortunately, both Harry and Ruth have passed on. Ruth just this year in July at the age of 95. She enjoyed a second career from this show including another series that branched from this called the Wartime Kitchen, a cookbook and many television appearances over the years. I was also sad to hear that the beautiful garden that Harry revived has fallen into disuse and been allowed to decay. I think that they lost a golden opportunity. Many people both amateur and professional would probably of jumped at the chance to learn under Harry's tutelage and work in this living bit of the past. It would probably also of been a tourist attraction for the whole family and during the growing season provided a thriving farmers market. The thought of it sitting and moldering alone and neglected seems just such a waste and a loss. At least we have these wonderful programs as well as "The Victorian Flower Garden" to help us recapture in some small way what has been lost. All of the episodes are available in full on youtube.

Happy Christmas!

I sure hope everyone has a wonderful day and are blessed enough to be with the ones they want to be with. Please take a moment to send thoughts to those who cannot.

It hurts so bad...

I was not sure if I wanted to talk about this but I felt I needed to. I have lived through many mass shootings. I'm ashamed to say that I have become immune to them, thus is life in modern America. These incidents always disgusted me but I went on with my life with minimal interruption. But this is different. I have been crying since Friday. I can't sleep, I feel haunted. I imagined their faces in my mind and then they released the photos and I was gutted again. Those angels were even more beautiful than in my imagination. I keep thinking that I am done with tears then I am hit with something else. The bravery of the teachers, President Obama's speech, stories of survivors, the blow by blow of these little ones deaths. It never seems to end, I can't seem to cry enough tears. I am lucky in that I am a stranger to those whose precious children were taken from them. My anguish is but a shadow of what they are going through and I can't even pretend to comprehend what these parents are suffering. I just know that there are so many like me suffering with them. People who don't cry are crying, people who don't pray are praying, people who don't pay attention are standing in solidarity with the fallen and their families.  My heart is breaking. I keep thinking how scared they must have been. How they must have presents under the tree that they will now never open. That these families will never be healed as there is a child sized hole haunting there homes. That all those little faces will never grow up to experience both the pleasures and the pain of a full life. I don't know them, I never would of known them but it doesn't stop me from feeling that the world is a poorer place now that they are no longer in it. I want to remember all of their names. The shooter can disappear but those innocents should always be forefront in our hearts and minds. There was one little boy whose sweet face has come to represent to me all that has been lost in this horror. His name is Noah and his mother's words at his funeral brought forth even more tears from me, even when I thought the well had run dry. I will let her speak for all of us...interchange the name, it is the love of a parent for a child that is now gone for no good reason. I also see in him the son that I might have had if things had been different. He is beautiful as they all were, I will miss them and hope that their parents and siblings will see them again beyond this life.

"The sky is crying, and the flags are at half-mast. It is a sad, sad day. But it is also your day, Noah, my little man. I will miss your forceful and purposeful little steps stomping through our house. I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room.
Most of all, I will miss your visions of your future. You wanted to be a doctor, a soldier, a taco factory manager. It was your favorite food, and no doubt you wanted to ensure that the world kept producing tacos.
You were a little boy whose life force had all the gravitational pull of a celestial body. You were light and love, mischief and pranks. You adored your family with every fiber of your 6-year-old being. We are all of us elevated in our humanity by having known you. A little maverick, who didn't always want to do his schoolwork or clean up his toys, when practicing his ninja moves or Super Mario on the Wii seemed far more important.
Noah, you will not pass through this way again. I can only believe that you were planted on Earth to bloom in heaven. Take flight, my boy. Soar. You now have the wings you always wanted. Go to that peaceful valley that we will all one day come to know. I will join you someday. Not today. I still have lots of mommy love to give to Danielle, Michael, Sophia and Arielle.
Until then, your melody will linger in our hearts forever. Momma loves you, little man.