Stirrin' Blog

Blog Number 3 15th September 2006

This week Stirrin’stuff has been working on children’s Christmas recipes and yet we are still stealing Indian summer days. A child cooking at Christmas ‘stirs up’ childhood memories of cinnamon and orange peel, homemade Danish biscuits, mincemeat, a huge gammon that my father would dare to cut well before December 24th and all of this in mid September. The skylarks have long gone but there are berries on the hedgerows, clad with dewy spider’s webs on early morning walks. Chanterelle heaven is still to be found but we have to search more carefully as the autumn leaves begin to fall. A few weeks ago, we simply had to clear the moss and bracken - now there is leafy forage too. The seasons pass all too quickly.

Time is always against us but yesterday I had a rare opportunity to sit and think- in a steamy kitchen, with the intermittent gentle rumble of an urn to keep me company. Quite bizarre, after all of the rushing to get my demonstration stuff in before a Scottish Women’s rural began its business part of the meeting.
The rural seemed interested in Stirrin’stuff, they had noted the failure of the Scottish Diet Action Plan to reach any of its targets and we all questioned why the younger generation don’t cook. One lovely lady gave the vote of thanks and spoke of how much she enjoyed making pancakes with her grandchildren. Another compared the diets of one set of grandchildren (where the mother worked) with the home cooked food that the other set (with a stay at home mum) enjoyed. Stirrin’Stuff pressed the reality button; sadly convenience food is here to stay. We cited the use of ‘help-cook’ products for busy days. We flagged up Sacla who sponsor kids’ cookery workshops. We need to ensure that children can say, “Don’t want to” rather than “can’t cook”, when they reach adulthood. Scotherbs (based near this particular rural), donated herbs for the demonstration as they do for the demos and workshops at schools and food fairs. They sponsored the workshop at the Scottish Game fair – the Stirrin’ deal is that the cookin’ is
free to the child. One clever lady knew the answer to the most interesting herb used in the demonstration - Sweet Cecily. I was impressed. Scotherbs do pestos and salsa as well for those too tired to cook days.

Stirrin’stuff is off to Abergavenny food festival tomorrow with a very quick Scottish turn around before York the following weekend and then children’s cookery workshops in Carrbridge, in the run-up to the porridge making championships. This is real Stirrin’Stuff, albeit with a spurtle. www.goldenspurtle.com