Biscotti And Biscuits And Giving Up

SATURDAY

  We start our walk - one of my favourites -  by the River Dart at Fingle Bridge on Dartmoor which for some forgotten reason we always call Three Bridges..

A ghostly fisherman on the other bank...created out of some flimsy metal...

One of three waterfalls....

 A fountain of grasses....in amongst the Ling heather and gorse....

The smell of bracken always takes me back to  my childhood - playing wide games on holiday in Wales with my cousins....crouching down low, hiding in amongst the musty, scratchy leaves waiting to be found or trying to race home to base without my father catching us. 

Rowan tree on the edge of the ridge leading up to Castle Drogo -  our lunch destination.

Wild honeysuckle on the way back...all along the way, although I try not to, I find myself in a tangle of suppressed rage and embarrassment ....triggered by my husband's exuberant greetings of all those we pass by on the path.....But I'm impressed by his stamina for a much longer walk than usual... we are out for three hours - including his lasagne and slab of Rocky Road lunch.

Back home we bake a batch of rock cakes together. My husband has expressed a desire to make biscuits. He's become passionate to the point of obsession about some particular very delicious biscotti made by my nephew's wife on the occasion of his( my nephew's) birthday last month.  Not having all the ingredients I took him to Carluccios on Sunday morning  - hoping to buy a bag of their Cantucci as a temporary substitute. He tried one with a cup of coffee and declared them not a patch on the nephew birthday ones.

I have now emailed my nephew's wife for the recipe - the rock cakes are just a stop gap to satisfy my husband's creative baking urge.

SUNDAY

The Lemon Almond and Honey Drizzle cake I made to contribute to the picnic we are invited to at our friends' in Sidmouth. Because of the expected gales and rain we eat inside in their lovely kitchen with the patio doors wide open, the wind whipping round the garden and the sun pouring in on her array of salads and a sizzling Spanish Roast Pepper Tart. It doesn't rain. And we don't get to eat the cake with the Blackberry Compote and Honey and Vanilla Yoghurt because even though my husband retires for a sleep after the first course, after more than two hours he has reached the limit of his socialising-round-a-table ability - just too much talking and listening and not understanding -  and I can see we must go home.

We take a windy tour of their garden....a whole bed of Californian poppies....

 and a  single delphinium still standing after a collision with their bounding pointer dog....

and massed flowering Thyme tumbling down raised beds.....blessed by a butterfly.

Because we missed dessert ( but did take home a couple of slices of cake)

my friend gave us some of their sweet ripe figs which were a deep wine red surprise when I bit into one much later for supper.

TODAY

My husband comes back from a walk - no not a walk - a visit to Dart's Farm Shop with a friend on his   wonderful support team - with two different kinds of biscuits. One giant soft American Cookie packed with white chocolate and cranberries and the other, a six pack of huge All Butter Crunchy Cookies wrapped in cellophane. He says he'd like to make some. 

Yesterday he said he like to make another big biscuit  - Oat and Sultana -  that  he bought in Waitrose on special offer for 25p.

I have all the ingredients for that. So this evening when he comes back from a drive and a visit to the allotment to pick basil ( a handful) and tomatoes ( 8 cherry) and courgettes (I big 2 small) we make Oaty Coconut Sultana Cookies With Walnuts  - I read out from the list of ingredients, pointing out which is the bag of flour and the tub of baking powder, the bottle of vanilla which I've assembled on the counter. He weighs  and measures them and mixes them up into a sticky dough. He dollops huge spoonfuls onto the baking tray - I flatten them with the back of a spoon and he puts them in the oven.

He's very pleased with them - says he's never made a biscuit in his life before  - has one after supper along with a rock cake and several other bought biscuits from his stash in the cupboard - and then insists that I made them and not him.

I've said we'll make them again.... and again.... and the biscotti and the other ones..... so that after a while and after writing down the recipes and putting labels on all the packets of ingredients, he'll be able to make them himself.  At least that's the plan.

 I've given up trying to be the Fat Cookie Controller.....I suppose making them instead of buying them is preferable -  at least he gets a sense of achievement along with the sugar rush....