Eggs 'Mehalah'

The Tartist's Eggs 'Mehalah

 

The artist's mum Pixie had a visit from his brother, the lovely Will Weaver to celebrate Mother's day at the weekend and they came round for some of our granddaughter Amelia's 2nd birthday cake at Holly & Martyn's house.

It's always nice to see Will and have a catch up but it was made extra special this time by his praise for our own latest invention at the Artcafé  - Eggs 'Mehalah'.

Blanching local samphire

I'd actually forgotten how much time we spent trialing this dish and what a pain making Hollandaise was before our new recipe. And yes, homemade Hollandaise really does make all the difference!

Not as long I might add as Raymond Blanc takes - his dishes sometimes take 6 months of effort, but this does result in fabulous things like his chocolate cup and saucer filled with coffee sponge and mousse, I wish I had one of those to eat now!

Maggie's Soda Bread

Now that the kerfuffle of our refit has died down and nearly everything is done my mind has turned to bread making. 
We have been asked so many times for a yeast free bread and a brown soda bread seems like a jolly good idea. I’ve been making it, and eating far too much, for the last few weeks, and thought I’d put some samples out for everyone to try. So today, (Friday 15th March) and tomorrow we will have samples in the Artcafe and in The Cakehole.
Come and try a bit and let me know what you think.
Soda bread doesn’t have the long shelf life of many breads but my most recent one at home is now three days old and still lovely. If it does go dry its very nice toasted and eaten with butter and honey. Although I haven’t tried this yet  I’m sure you could slice it, freeze it and have a slice whenever you like.

 

Here's one I made earlier!

Reflections ~ Daily Sketch 04/12/16

Reflections - Watercolour + Wax

I sketched this from my studio window after the sun had set behind Salcott Creek & Tollesbury this evening.

Advent Calendar 2016

3rd December

Today's window reveals a rather androgynous looking fellow, wearing  an elf's jacket carrying a basket full of rather gender specific Christmas gifts.

Advent Calendar

2nd December

So today's window on our advent calendar reveals a nice sprig of holly, ancient celts among you will recognise this as a symbol of good luck, or if you swing the other way it can be symbolic of Christ's crown of thorns.

We're Back!

Yes we are back on this first day of December 2016 with an advent calendar and a recipe from the Tartist. 

This year we have bought ourselves a traditional advent calendar, not being big fans of the dodgy branded chocolate ones.

1st December 

Today's window reveals a couple of young bell ringers, presumably ringing in the season. Nothing says christmas more than a couple of roister-doisters ringing bells, sporting hats at jaunty angles. Except perhaps the birth of the messiah.

Now I'm no Delia Smith but...

I do know a thing or two about food.
Yesterday when I was having my haircut Nicky kept stopping the blow drying process to ask me what she could take to a friends for dinner party pudding. She wanted something she could make on Friday and take on Saturday night, straight after work with no hassle.
So we came up with Baileys Cheesecake and I promised to send her a recipe this morning. It's 5 am and I can't sleep so Nicky here it is:-


• You need about a 10" spring sided deep tin. I'm not sure what these are properly called but they are deep and have a hinge that opens to loosen the sides.
• Crush 8 oz digestive biscuits (or ginger, any biscuit really but I think chocolate might be a bit yuk with the butter ) Melt 3 oz butter and stir in the crushed biscuit. Use this to make a flat layer in the bottom of the tin. Stick this in the fridge until firm. 
• For the filling you need 400g cream cheese, 6 tablespoons of icing sugar, 2 cartons of double cream 
(I think they are about 300ml each) and about three tablespoons of Baileys. Stir the icing sugar into the cream cheese, pour in the cream and whisk until it thickens. It wants to be fairly thick so that it will set with the alcohol in it. Stir the Baileys in gently. Plop onto the biscuit base, smooth the top cover and pop back in the fridge.
• To make it look Christmassy you could make a stencil, with something like a margarine lid, and use edible glitter to write something or to do a Christmas Tree and holly.

Approaching Rain ~ Daily Sketch 06/01/2015

Approaching Rain - Watercolour

I decided to leave the boats out of this view as they seemed to interfere with the simple composition of sky/marsh/water. 

Three Shells ~ Daily Sketch 05/01/2015

Three Shells - Watercolor + Pencil

Marshes in the Fog ~ Daily Sketch 04/01/2015

Marshes in the Fog - Watercolour + Pencil

Today's effort in the freezing fog, I could see almost nothing and lasted a wimpy 10 minutes but at least made some marks on paper.

The Old Lady Mug ~ Daily Sketch 03/01/2015

The 'Old Lady Mug' ~ Watercolour & Pencil

This old fashioned floral mug has been in service in our house for about 20 years. I can't actually remember how we came by it, I have always loved the blue floral design and the completely circular handle, it holds just the perfect amount too.

Simon 'Golly' Gamble 17/01/1967 - 02/01/2014 ~ Daily Sketch 02/01/2015

Simon 'Golly' Gamble 

17/01/1967 - 02/01/2014 

Pencil

It's a year ago today that this fine man passed away, a good man. Golly always made me smile and left me feeling better for having been in his company. 

01/01/2015 New Year's Day. 'View Towards the Packing Shed' ~ DailySketch

First day of the new year brings damp, windy, grey conditions to our island, however I start as I mean to go on with a watercolour sketch. From the window of my studio I can see the choppy, cold creek emptying but there is an almost complete absence of colour.

Custard Cream ~ Daily Sketch 05/02/2014

Today's sketch, the ubiquitous custard cream. Nicey and Wifey  say of this great British biscuit barrel staple "with it's baroque detailing the Custard Cream defies us to pin it down to any particular period of history. It is tempting to think that it was knocking around in the sixteenth century, it's ornate swirls providing the muse for such great artists as Rubens or Caravaggio, as they nibbled on one over a late morning cuppa."

Splash! ~ Daily Sketch 02/02/2014

Mersea Beach ~ Daily Sketch 12/01/2014

Ten minutes sketch with gloved hands

As you can see from my hasty, wobbly pencil offering today I went to the beach. It is the first time i've walked along the beach for some time and although the sky was beautifully clear and the sun was bright the wind was nipping at my fingers. However I resolved to make a sketch but kept it brief with a few notes, simply in pencil, my gloves stayed on for the ten minutes it took.

This particular stretch of the shore is mostly shingle and shells at the water line giving way to finer sand higher up by the beach huts. As is often the case I picked up one or two shells for further reference and to accompany the many others that grace the window sill of my studio.

The few shells that made it home

As it has been quite a while since the last one, I'm now pondering another bigger studio painting of the huts and the beach/foreshore which will be an amalgamation of various sketches, photo's and found bits. 

Gigas Oyster ~ Daily Sketch 08/01/2014

The Gigas oyster or Crassostrea gigas to give it it's latin name is now so abundant on the beach here on Mersea Island that it is pretty much the dominant species along the shoreline. You can't walk along the beach without treading on great clumps of them in the sand and mud and it makes me wonder what will be the fate of the more precious native Ostrea edulis with it's more sought after zinky flavour.

Houseboats at Spring Tide ~ Daily Sketch 05/01/2014

The spring tides are still pretty big at the moment, leaving debris on the roads and verges along the seafront. Today the salt marsh around the house boats was well flooded and the sky threatened rain but did not deliver until the evening. I took a walk along past the boats and up through the village with Mabel my four legged black furry friend.

Yellow Skiff on the Hard ~ Daily Sketch 03/01/2014

Selfie ~ Daily Sketch 02/01/2014

A New Year Begins

Daily Sketch 01/01/2014 'A Cup of Beach Finds'

A new year began today, with continuing blustery showers. I had a few hours to myself in my studio and the chance to think a bit about how to proceed creatively into 2014. Not too keen to venture out I stayed inside and sketched a cup of shells on the window sill for my daily sketch. 

To me the new year represents among thousands of other things a peculiar new challenge since deciding to sketch daily. It's a funny thing really, looking forward into the next 365 days as if down the wrong end of a telescope, with December 31st 2014 a mere dot on the horizon. But that's what we do isn't it, in an effort to make some sense of where we are in time and space? We have our calendar more or less shoehorned into the various rotations and perturbations of our solar system and it works and makes sense for us most of the time. However when I see the 365 neat little blank squares on my planner I can easily go from feeling a huge sense of opportunity to make and do good 'stuff' to feeling an equal sense of responsibility not to waste a single square! 

Happy new year friends.