Japanese English Tea.....Bread and Bowls of Soup

In the pink at Coleton Fishacre.....

At Robin's six monthly check-up with our Professor of Neurology at the hospital early this morning, he gives a vivid demonstration of the voices and the phrases which plague him, run out of his mouth, infest his brain, fill the air of our house, the car, the garden, the shops we visit, the seaside and the rivers we walk by, the tables we sit around, the rooms of our friends, our family. The ever present agony of a radio playing heavy metal music that you can't turn off.

When I express my concern about Robin driving with a dodgy arm the professor suggests he applies for a road test....which will take it out of my hands at least. One less thing to dread. 

This afternoon my Japanese friend visiting from Tokyo comes to tea. I want to give her traditional English fare which, as we live in Devon, must include  fruit scones and jam and clotted cream. Mine are the Cranks variety made with spelt flour and soft brown sugar. Instead of cucumber sandwiches I make smoked salmon triangles. Instead of shortbread I serve Robin's coconut flapjacks. Instead of a Victoria sponge cake I bake chocolate brownies. Except they are more like dense chocolate cake. At the last few minutes in the oven my neighbour rings the door bell to talk about the leaking down pipe and the drains, and so I miss the crucial cooked-but-still-squidgy-in-the-middle stage. When I finally stick the skewer into the cake it comes out clean. I could have cried.

It doesn't matter of course because we have a lovely catch up - I haven't seen my Japanese friend for 2 years. We share the loss, in different ways, of still present husbands.

She brings me gifts of  beautifully wrapped rice crackers and a calendar of famous Japanese scenes. I give her jars of  my jam and a foil parcel of the chocolate not brownies to take home as she seems to like them.

The beautiful table cloth my Japanese friend gave me the first time she came to eat at  my table with my father who introduced us.

The Chocolate Not Brownies,

 and for the scones, my Strawberry and Redcurrant Jam, my Victoria Plum Jam and my sister's Blackcurrant With a Flash of Raspberry Jam.

 I can't help thinking about the twenty thousand Syrian refugees arriving on the Greek Island of Lesbos tonight and what they'll be eating for their supper. If anything.

This is an article I read in the Saturday Guardian 'Cook' section when I was looking at recipes for what to do with plums.

In the Guardian's video "The Tiny Greek Island Sinking Under Europe's Migrant Crisis", journalist Phoebe Greenwood describes how on Leros, a tiny island in the Dodecanese, retired magistrate, Matina Katsiveli and her small band of volunteers are feeding Syrian refugees, in their thousands, day in and day out.

Europe's greatest humanitarian crisis, says Greenwood, is being left in the hands of its most fragile nation. And yet far from being crushed by the burden, Katsiveli's team works tirelessly. One of her colleagues watches a ferry, packed with the refugees he's just helped, depart Leros for the mainland and says simply, "I love them". That shows real love and humanity: bread and bowls of soup for strangers in need.