God save little shops, china cups, and virginity

This is a horrendous long one! Grit your teeth!

Those of you who have been with me for a while (and for those of you, congratulations and hello!) may remember that I once had a dramatic Damascene revelation in Sheringham and decided I was going to make more of an effort to avoid supermarkets and seek out more local options. Well, it has been quite a ride. It has had high points, i.e. I have discovered that there is still fruit that tastes like fruit in this world, and have been introduced to such things as purslane, sea bream, sloes, samphire, it has been thrilling. It has had low points, notably when I managed to spend £7 on a single portion of fish, how did I manage this and was it gold plated or the fish equivalent of fillet steak, I do not know but fortunately it has not been repeated. Before I started heading bravely out and seeking out markets and farm shops, this is what I thought of the whole avoiding-supermarkets situation:

1/ I thought people who made a point of avoiding supermarkets were effete middle class people who ought to be worrying about more serious things.
2/ I thought there were no local shopping alternatives anywhere near where I live.
3/ I thought when people talked about non-supermarket shopping they meant things like expensive Italian delis like on  food programmes on the TV where you go and buy a slice of proscuitto and a small block of parmesan and it costs you £10.
4/ I didn’t understand what people were talking about when they said eating seasonally was cheaper.
5/ I thought if I was busy or tired it was reasonable that cooking was the first thing to go and I could be perfectly healthy if I chose my ready meals carefully.

And the moral of this is, never pose with a pig, even a dead one, as the resulting photograph will inevitably turn up on some kind of protest literature

What I actually found was that there were lots of local alternatives to the supermarkets, and as soon as I looked for them, I found them. Like pixies. And they aren’t special expensive delis: they’re as cheap as or cheaper than the supermarket, for miles better quality. I mean, I don’t think it makes a difference necessarily in terms of taste if you’re getting your tinned tomatoes from the wholefood co-operative or Tesco, but for things like fruit and veg, meat and fish and especially CHEESE, I can’t describe how different it is when it’s not from the supermarket. And being able to get a sense of the seasons, and what’s new in, is so much easier, because you just cook what’s in season, simply. Then when you’re bored of eating rhubarb or peas or whatever bang, it’s out of season, and it’s time for something else. Whereas I couldn’t get any sense of what was in season when I bought things from the supermarket, because TBH, unless I got really lucky, strawberries from Tesco tasted just as crap in July as they did in January and often are on offer at really strange times anyway.

In terms of eating supermarket ready meals: I now cook from scratch for (virtually) every single meal. It’s often no more trouble than putting a ready meal in the oven, because I don’t cook complicated things all the time, and now I’m buying better food I don’t mind having it plain. I don’t know if it’s better for me, but I will tell you that I used to have IBS so badly that up until last year I used to spend a couple of days every fortnight doubled up with stomach ache, if I woke up too early I would throw up, and it was generally a bit miserable to be spending quite so much time googling ‘acute appendicitis’ every five minutes and wondering if I ought to drive myself to casualty. Now my stomach is fine, and I look a lot healthier. Obviously there are other factors (trust me on this one) so don’t take that as gospel, but, you know, I do wonder if eating better food has helped a tiny bit.

I can absolutely promise you that this shop sells things you can't find in Tesco

So this has been my experience. I don’t think we should have no supermarkets at all, I can see why that would be inconvenient: but I think there should be the choice to not shop there, and I think a vibrant non-supermarket food culture is a necessary thing. Unfortunately though, it feels a bit like, if Tesco or Sainsbury’s have decided they are going to bring their special brand of never-quite-fresh food to your neighbourhood, it is as if it has been ordained by God. You have got to have them. There is nothing you can do. You can fight, but they can fight harder. You can campaign, but they can campaign longer. I had been thinking about this because of what is happening on Mill Road in Cambridge, and then there was this article in the Guardian which talked about it as well.

Basically, because the supermarkets have levels of wealth that would make Croesus a bit nervous, they buy their way out of the planning regulations. They do this by appealing, appealing and appealing again, while the council runs out of money to fight the appeals, until they get a foothold, or by offering to pay for other things a town might need at the same time as building their depressing warehouse full of crisps. In Clay Cross, which is near where I am from, Tesco used the latter method, and gave Clay Cross money to ‘redevelop’ in return for building a huge superstore in the town centre. In Cambridge, which is a (relatively) wealthy city, Tesco used the first trick to get a supermarket on Mill Road, which is famous for its independent shops. Now Sainsbury’s is trying to open a store a couple of hundred yards down the road.

Apparently not universal support for a new Sainsbury's

People are protesting. Opposite the proposed Sainsbury’s is Al-Amin, which is a lovely grocery shop which has lots of brilliant things which Sainsbury’s would never stock in a million years, and the owner is standing for Chancellor of the University to publicise what is happening. There is an action group. There is the Mill Road Song (God help us). But, this is the thing: there was a HUGE swell of protest against Tesco, before. There were petitions. There were meetings. There were people arguing nicely and compellingly. There was an anarchist collective established in the building Tesco wanted to take over which held events for the local community. And none of it worked. Tesco opened. And I cannot believe that Sainsbury’s won’t open, too. For those of you thinking, well, people could just not shop there, that is true: but, Sainsbury’s and Tesco make huge, huge profits. Do you think every store they open has to turn a profit? Do you not think some of them might just be useful strategically? And for those of you thinking, well, perhaps there are some people who live near Mill Road who would find a local supermarket useful, well, yes, I agree. But the first Tesco was opened practically next door to a big Co-op: there was a supermarket there already. There is another small Tesco round the corner. There is a huge Sainsbury’s at the end of the road. There is a huge Asda behind. This is nothing about making useful provision for the local people; it is about destroying an area to make a profit. I do find it a bit depressing.

Now, this is where I normally think of something cheerful to say at the end: but, like I say, I do think it’s a bit depressing, so instead I’m going to recommend some things to read which will depress you more, but if you’re interested it’s worth having a look. When I was at university, someone once had a Tesco Value Range party (aaaaand I was at Oxford. You are more than welcome to refer to my last post about poverty tourism). They were more innocent times, when the blue and white of the Value Range was looked on with affection, and when Tesco was not seen as a mean old rampaging beast. Perhaps if the Big Four would all bugger off with their mad expansionist plans those happy times could come again?

Further Reading:
Tescopoly. Information, articles and reports on the impact of supermarket expansion
Shopped, by Joanna Blythman. This is v exciting and actually a page turner
Bad Food Britain, also by Joanna Blythman – more about the effects of supermarkets on our food culture. I am her biggest fan in a non-creepy way
The No Mill Road Tesco campaign which failed
The No Mill Road Sainsbury’s campaign setting off
Clay Cross, which was ‘regenerated’ with money from Tesco (I rang and asked how much but they refused to give me a figure, although he said they wouldn’t ever have had the chance to regenerate Clay Cross without Tesco)
Guardian article on supermarket protesters, no beard or muesli necessary

Musing about stuff

I was looking at the blog of one of my upcoming interviewees, Niccy from Scrapunzel Pixie (waves to Niccy in non-stalkerish fashion), and she is doing a 52 ways to leave your high street retailer where she is making 52 things she would normally buy. This got me to thinking. Now, obviously you may have worked out that I too like to make things that I would normally buy, and I was thinking about how I started doing this and why I continued. Because, and I know this may surprise you, grit your teeth ;-), I am not actually a natural anti-consumerist. I love shopping. I read the Boden catalogue with rapt attention. I don’t quite want to be buried in John Lewis but, you know, I do like Having Stuff.

An example of homemade charm. Don't get attached! Being ripped out as we speak!

Also I used to think, and for this I blame Germaine Greer, that trying to make a difference in terms of what you consume was a form of activism that was not powerful: that it caused women to spend a lot of time thinking about trivial things, such as whether or not to buy a ready meal, whereas actually we should buy the ready meal, save time, and spend the time saved doing something effective. I am not entirely sure what the something effective was (and indeed – neither was Germaine!), but I am quite sure I didn’t always do it, and I would have been better off not buying the ready meal and cooking something instead and eating something nice. To start with I am not convinced that ready meals do actually save time, and I definitely didn’t save the world in the 15 minutes it (arguably) saved me. And the price of the 15 minutes was that I didn’t enjoy my meal, or feel it had nourished me or done me any good.

My watershed moment came when I started buying handmade things from etsy (when I had money. Violins) and realised they were just better. I don’t mean this in an anti-consumerist, dignity-of-craft kind of way, I mean it just in really shallow terms. If I bought handmade I got miles better quality, unusual, effective things that I loved and enjoyed using, and which made the things I bought on the high street seem, well, a bit crap. And when you have had good quality things, you start to think, why should I pay what is after all only a bit less for a High Street something which has been produced in really questionable conditions and which I don’t like as much? Aren’t I worth more than that? So then I started making my own things because I was interested to see what it was realistically possible to integrate the making of into your life, and I discovered that actually some things (like soap) that I assumed before could only be made through a vast scary industrial process were actually really simple to produce at home and knocked anything L'Oreal could make into a cocked hat.

So now I have read books and poked my nose into things, and I can do the politics of why small production and handmade is good, and why big businesses don’t always act ethically and what should be done, and that kind of thing, but really, I just still come back to my first impression. I’ve always found handmade things to be just better, in a cheerful, life-enriching way, and that is why I make my own or buy handmade when I can. Otherwise, frankly, I wouldn’t be as motivated. I mean, obviously there’d still be the same arguments for, say, why Tesco shouldn’t be allowed to expand unchecked, if they still had all the same crappy business practices but they produced food that was like the nectar of the Gods: but for me the most effective argument is, if I make a scone myself it will be light, fresh, delicious and satisfying, whereas if I buy one from Tesco it will not. It will be a strange simulacrum that will leave me unsatisfied and will probably make me keep eating because I’m not full from a satisfying meal. And why should I have a nasty scone rather than a nice one? Don’t I merit a nice scone? (Is that the worst anti-Tesco rallying cry ever? Let’s never put it on a tshirt).

In fact, if I was cynical, I would say that this is how consumerism works, we’re sold things that are never quite right and because they are so unsatisfying we keep on buying more until we run out of money or end up on Hoarders. But obviously, as you know, I do not have a cynical bone in my body, so I just cook and knit and make cosmetics, whether it is unpowerful or unfeminist or not, and I enjoy all my stuff more than if I were buying it. In fact that’s the final irony in a way: all of us breaking our necks and ruining the planet to get Money to buy Stuff and then it’s just a mass-produced simulacrum of a satisfying thing and we could just have made it ourselves and it would have been better and more fun.

What do you think? Is handmade better or is this a slippery slope which will end in me making my own knickers and boasting about it? (I do actually make my own knickers. And they’re very comfy! OK, things are worse than I ever suspected).

Shopping local and risking looking foolish with the fish man

Now. For those of you who have been with me since last year (and gosh, well done if you have), you may remember that the Truth was revealed to me in the middle of Sheringham, and I decided I was going to do more of my food shopping in small independent shops and less in supermarkets. Then I read Shopped and various other anti-supermarket books and bored all my loved ones with my discoveries, became righteously indignant about various encroachments Tesco was making into North Derbyshire, and rang the man from the Clay Cross planning department and alarmed him with my questions about how much of Clay Cross Tesco now owns (he wouldn’t tell me. He was very nice though, we had a long chat. I think he was worried I might be an incompetent Guardian reporter). So I like to update you periodically with how I am getting on with my efforts to bring down the supermarket monopoly single-handedly by buying my sausages from the butcher down the road and not from Waitrose.

I can call in for a sausage and then pop in to town via the river and it is much nicer than trailing round the artificially lit Mordor

Partner says I am just making my life more difficult and he thinks I have masochistic tendencies. He says instead of my various things I do i.e. knitting my own socks and similar, perhaps instead I could just hit my hand with a hammer as this would give me the same effect but with less trouble. As soon as he sees me heading off looking grimly determined with my Hemp Shopper, he mimes hitting his hand and says, ‘Ow! Ow!’ and then laughs. It has not yet palled for Partner. He also says my life is now like this Monty Python sketch of John Cleese in a cheese shop, I have to tell you that I do not find Monty Python funny. Not any of it. Not the dead parrot, nothing. I have watched this sketch all the way through to check there is nothing obscene before I link it, and my opinion of MP has not changed.

Anyway, it is all very exciting because I thought I would try shopping in independent shops for a week and then give up and go back to Tesco. However, I have not, I now shop in independent shops more than when I first started and was keen. I do still do a weekly shop at Tesco, but for fewer and fewer things (although I’ve found it hard to replace the supermarket for things like washing powder and toilet rolls. Ecover stuff is twice the price at the wholefood co-operative). I have found that I spend far less on food, and, actually, it is much cheaper to buy some things at small shops, like, free range eggs, vegetables, and meat (I never bought the really cheap meat, though). Instead of doing a weekly shop in just one place, I now go shopping about 4 times a week. I do the supermarket and the wholefood co-operative at the weekend, then I do a quick run to the butcher, the farm shop for fruit and veg, and the cheese shop on Monday morning, the veg box comes on Tuesday, then on Wednesday I go and get some fish from the fish van.

I actually go to a veg stall just out of shot on the right and the man says to me 'don't have the plums, they aren't sweet enough. Have this rhubarb!' and I am impressed by his honesty and product knowledge. It doesn't take much

Now, you are reading that and thinking, God that sounds a performance and she’d never manage to do that if she worked in an office. Well, readers, this is where I am going to surprise you, because actually it is easier than the once a week supermarket shop (honestly), and, if I went back to working behind a desk 12 hours a day fortified only by coffee and fury, then, knowing what I know now, I actually would do a version of it. For instance, it is no more trouble to get the bulk of our stuff from the wholefood co-operative and then get the rest from Tesco than it is to only go to Tesco: it’s actually easier, because going to the wholefood co-operative is on the way, and is much more pleasant, so I enjoy my shop there. And the veg box comes anyway, so whatever hours I was working it would be easier to have one delivered than go schlepping about dragging back potatoes. And I might be able to go to a butcher/ fishmonger near where I was working.

I never realised until I stopped doing about 50% of it quite how much I hated supermarket shopping. I really hated it! The fruit that you buy even though it won’t taste of anything, having to predict what you’ll want to eat all week when really you’ve got no clue, pushing your trolley round like a pratt thinking, God, where have they put the harissa. I felt like I never really wanted to eat what I ended up buying. Also the person at the till always tells me how fed up they are. One person gave me a long explanation about how Tesco always stiffed her on overtime and how she missed her old job, where she’d done something completely horrendous like work for a major pharmaceutical company poking guinea pigs with a bodkin, but at least everyone knew her name (I don’t go round asking people how Tesco is treating them, I want you to know, she did volunteer the information ;-) ). And a man once in Asda gave me a long explanation of how Asda was manipulating me as a customer. I mean, he was quite right, but the man in the fish van never tells me how I’m being cheated. He looks like he thinks I’m getting some rather fine fish. And I am!

One thing I have found with shopping in independent shops is that it was a bit of a learning curve. For instance, I have become very fond of a cheese called Cornish Yarg which I buy from the cheese shop and which is wrapped in nettles (cheese shop cheese is seriously an entirely other breed). When I last went in to buy my Cornish Yarg I had a sudden panic that I was pronouncing it wrong and that in fact it should be pronounced Yurglurglurgle or something ridiculous, like Belvoir is*. I have found in circumstances like this I have to be brave and ask. The thing with supermarkets is, you never risk looking daft as you never have to talk to anyone. You just pick up your item in a packet and then you go to the till and grunt. Whereas, in a small shop, you have to chat and say things like ‘how much braising steak is 500g’ or ‘what is your cheapest fish today’ or, ‘I would like just one very large potato please’. I always feel I will walk in and a spotlight will shine on me and a voice will say, this woman has no idea how many grams of Red Leicester is an appropriate amount for two adults for lunch for three days, because she is insufficiently middle class. I have decided this is my own insecurity and so now I just smile sweetly and ask my silly questions or gesture with my hands (‘this much!’) because the alternative is ending up with a small piece of fish which costs £7, as once happened to me. I decided that as a one-off I would look upon this as an Idiot Tax, but my budget does not allow for too many Idiot Taxes, so now I interact.

The cheese shop appears to do pork pies as well, be still my beating heart

Anyway, those are my Independent Shopping Adventures and I look forward to many more. It seriously is loads more fun, also it takes me wandering around the back streets of Cambridge and I have discovered that the area I live in is not as depressing as everyone tells me it is, it is actually quite nice. And I can stop and stroke unfamiliar pussycats, some of them are rather furrily striking (and terrifyingly trusting. Pussycats! Be cynical!). I accept I haven’t quite brought down Tesco yet, but on the plus side, we’ve had some really amazing cheese. Is there a better kind of activism than that?

* Beaver. I know you know but just in case you don't.

How we can defeat global capitalism by knitting socks

Right. Following my previous post about how much we spend on crafts, I have had further thoughts and now I have a Theory which is going to embrace all sorts of things from the marginalisation of the craftsperson to Heartless Global Capitalism, so I would go and make a nice cup of tea before you start. (Thank you so much to everyone who left interesting comments which made me think further, and especially to Rachel over at Growing Things and Making Things, who wrote a very interesting blog post referencing my blog post, which I agree with. So now I am going to write another blog post referencing her blog post, and thus the world turns).

Circle shrug. I did not have a shawl pin but never mind! I had a leaky biro!

This is my Theory About Knitting. Although many people have been knitting all the way through, I think it is fair to say that in internet and Meeja terms, knitting had a bit of a renaissance in the last 10 years or so, and I think part of the reinvention of knitting – and of craft in general – was people making an effort to show that crafts were not cheap embarrassing things, but that they could produce desirable, luxury products. Now, I agree: I am completely sold on this. I think handmade things are better, and I thought this when I had no time to make them myself, too. And if I was a process knitter producing beautiful complex lace/ colourwork/ entrelac socks and really enjoying every single yarnover, I can’t see any reason why I wouldn’t want to spend every bit of disposable income I had got on the yarn and the tools. I can’t see why I would want to economise, because it would be a treat purchase (assuming I had the money, obviously) – the yarn I liked would make the process much more enjoyable, and the enjoyable process and the luxury end product would be the whole point.

Shalom cardigan. It is very warm

However. As I have said before (and I hope they don’t take my Ravelry account away ;-) ), I’m not a process knitter. I’m not really a process anything. (although I like writing. I am a process writer. You can tell, I blog too much). And one of the things I would like to do is make things that are better and more economical (not necessarily cheaper up front, but more long-term economical) than things I could buy. At the moment, I feel like a lot of craft supplies are marketed to encourage people to make small luxury accessories, because I suspect most people can’t afford, on a regular basis, more than about 2-3 skeins of a lot of the yarns that are out there. 200m of something soft and handpainted for a cowl? Lots of lovely choice. But if you want to buy a job lot of affordable hardworking yarn to make a functional jumper to wear in the garden, you’re perhaps not quite so well catered for.

I cocked up the buttonholes a bit. But it's fine! I can force a button through!

Now, I think it is fair to say that the people who are making the small luxury accessories are making much more interesting things than Mr Gradgrind-type people like me would knit, but, for me, the joy of craft is in making things I would normally buy, not only in the art of it (I suspect this makes me unusual. Don’t hate me). So, if I can only afford enough yarn to make an Ipod cosy, however beautiful that Ipod cosy might be, that just depresses me. Because although having beautiful luxury Ipod cosies out there in the world is a wonderful thing, for me, I think only having (metaphorical) cosies (obviously except killer rabbit ones, which are both useful and wonderful), encourages the idea not that craft produces beautiful high-end things – which it does – but that it is something you do as an extra hobby, not something that could realistically replace the things you buy. And that marginalises it.

Right everyone, put down that alpaca laceweight and start knitting wonky garter stitch trivets like me. What? Do I hear dissent?

I don’t want to go back to the days where you had to walk about with your great big long double pointed needles in a leather sling knitting a jumper for your husband to wear down the mine while you were milking 50 cows (or whatever), but, look, I am sitting here knitting anyway, I would like to knit something that I find useful. Because, as I have bored on about before, I think being able to make things is very powerful. It stops us being sheeplike (ha!) consumers: it implicitly makes us informed critics of capitalism.

To me, it is a bit like cooking. Whenever I watch celebrity chefs on TV, there they are waving their truffle oil about and banging on about the importance of good quality ingredients, or going visiting people down country lanes who are producing honey from heritage bees and charging £10 a pot. Well, I agree that the world needs the £10 honey, and there are many reasons (political/ eco ones, too) why good-quality ingredients are better. However, the truth is that if you make a Victoria Sponge out of value flour, random jam you made from foraged hedgerow bits, and week-old butter from the corner shop, it will still taste nice, and it will taste much better than if you had bought one ready made from the supermarket. And I think sometimes celebrity chefs banging on about expensive ingredients – which most people can’t afford, or get regularly – means people are discouraged from using basic, cheap ingredients everyday, so cooking becomes a thing you do for special occasions rather than an everyday thing. But I have found the important thing in terms of taste, health, cheerfulness, everything (and I am conscious of the irony of this after the fondue post) is that you cook it yourself. Great when you can get excellent ingredients, and make an effort to get them by all means: but if all you can get/ afford is a tablespoon of lard and a floppy carrot from the local co-op, cook anyway. I feel the same about knitting/ crocheting.

So this is a manifesto for everyday knitting/ crocheting, making things we use. Not all the time, obviously, because I still want to knit a dalek and also I saw a Gargoyle on tatknitcat’s blog the other day and I might want to do him. But let us use our knitted items, sometimes make boring functional things, and wear the things we make, proudly. Let us get out there with our beautiful shawls and make non-knitters jealous. Let us knit socks which are a million times better than the ones you buy in a threepack (like condoms! And actually practically no more durable!) from Asda.

Good functional socks drying on the radiator. Now Elizabeth Taylor has sadly shuffled this mortal etc etc someone has to fly the flag for Glamour

Let us think about what we buy, and think if perhaps we want to make it instead, because making it instead is a radical act (although I agree we don’t want to do it all the time. I knit very slowly. Right hand thrower, hand off needle). I know this doesn’t help with the ‘yes but yarn is very expensive and that is actually the whole reason you are doing this blog post’ issue, so I am going to go away and think about what things I have knitted that are actually, truly cost-effective, and ways of making the whole thing financially manageable with a view to doing another post at a later date. In the meantime I shall go and weave in ends.

Mr Fierce, and a Spratley Cake Recipe

It’s my mother’s birthday today, so Happy Birthday mother! Following my previous post, she would like everyone to know that it is actually she who is responsible for my love of sewing as she used to make my furry toys when I was little. She used to make a long furry sausage with eyes and ears, then she stuffed it with corrugated cardboard (yes really), sewed a bottom on, and that was my toy. I had many of these and my mother says that she and I spent many a happy afternoon rolling corrugated cardboard and stuffing it up the respective bottoms of Snowcomes (Snowcomes was white), Rover, and Mr Fierce. I have tried to get my mother to take photos but she says Rover et al are ‘all in the attic with their stuffing out’. Well, this seems quite an ignominious end, especially for Mr Fierce, but I will try not to be sentimental. Anyway, Happy 32nd Birthday, mother, and I am hoping Dan has a better handle on how old you actually are rather than how old you tell us you are, just in case you are ever kidnapped in Ecuador or something and one of us has to give information to the Foreign Office.

Anyway. Since I did my post about the evils of supermarkets, I have so far managed to reduce the money I spend in them by about £20-£30 a week, although I am definitely still buying some stuff there. The £20-£30 was very little effort, I have got to say, although I can see that reducing it further might take a bit more thinking about. I am certainly glad I am giving Tesco less of my money, because I was in there on Saturday and they were making a great big fuss in the fruit and vegetable aisle about sourcing things locally:

Stop criticising, all you nasty people. All our fruit and veg is British! Or at least a miniscule proportion of it!

Look! Look at their commitment to reducing air miles!:

Before supermarkets screwed up all our agriculture there were hundreds more varieties of apples than there are now. Thanks for the sop, though

And then when I looked where the apples came from:

Integrity. Ur doin it rong

There were some British ones – I think there was about one crate out of about 20. The rest were mostly from Portugal or New Zealand. Honestly, I don’t know how dim Tesco think we are. (Quite dim if you look at the Tesco Values customers supposedly want – I don’t know about you, but I can even manage compound sentences!). Anyway, I won’t go off on a rant, because I wanted to give you a recipe.

One of the things I have been doing recently is cooking much more from scratch, and for some reason I have been drawn to very boring, basic food of the kind that you will never see on Nigella. Why can’t food be boring and basic, though? It still tastes nicer than a ready meal. In fact I often think with these programmes where someone goes and tries to get people to cook proper food instead of living on deep-fried Mars Bars and turkey twizzlers, they should just say, why don’t you just stick a baked potato in the oven, yum (I do see that wouldn’t be very exciting: it’s probably best for all of us that I’m not involved in television).

So in the interests of rediscovering more basics, I bought a book on Derbyshire cookery when I was in London recently (I was brought up in Derbyshire), and I found a recipe in it for Spratley Cake. Well, Spratley Cake is as unglamorous as it sounds. It is essentially a big flat Garibaldi biscuit. But I made some Spratley Cake and it was quite delicious although, it has to be said, not attractive. While I was considering whether the photo I had taken of it was just too ugly to put on the internet, I found myself listening to the Only Album By Any Of The Beatles I Can Stand To Listen To, (and even then I suspect Yoko wrote most of the good bits. Go on! Unfriend me! ;-) ):

O if only I knew someone with a band who would let me cover this song. Hey! Wait!

And I thought, if Yoko can look like this on the album sleeve notes – unairbrushed and in a not very attractive jacket, with that expression of slightly irritated tolerance – I can show you my rough-looking Spratley cake. So here it is:

There were some bits which looked a bit better but we ate them very quickly

And this is the recipe, here. I used slightly more pastry than this – 6oz (made with 4oz flour and 2 oz butter), and honestly, it was lovely, I shall certainly be making it again. It would be fine as well if you don’t have any fresh mint (we have some in the garden – it’s not worth buying any for it, it would just be delicious in a different way without).

There is one huge, huge problem with making things from scratch, though. They are much, much more moreish and delicious than things you buy, so unless you quickly invite everyone you know round to your house the minute you make biscuits, you end up eating more. I fear my rear is expanding, possibly even as I type this. You know that saying about having to choose between your face and your figure when you get to a certain age? Well, I wanted to keep my figure. I didn’t think I’d get to choose explicitly, exactly, but I did think I’d have a bit of a say in it. And after years of stress and looking slightly haggard but fitting into all my carefully-curated vintage, I now I find myself looking bright eyed and healthy, with a muffin top. Bugger. How did that happen? I hope it’s not going to come down to a choice between breaking the stranglehold of the supermarkets and still being able to get into my Vivienne Westwood skirt. Activism. Always has its drawbacks!

A party political broadcast from the Craft Is Not For Sad People party

I was reading the Guardian this morning because I live in Cambridge and it is compulsory, and there was an article about how everyone at the Labour Conference was grumpy that Ed Miliband has been elected as the new Labour leader. There were quotes from people about how this would mean a return to the wilderness, and how now they were out of power the stuff at the conference was no longer dynamic and exciting but was back to things like ‘one-legged knitting circles’. (This is a bit of a confusing image. I think the person meant knitting circles comprised of one-legged people or, let’s be honest, women. If that person could knit they’d probably have developed enough discipline of thought to formulate a more convincing metaphor). Anyway, this got me thinking. I know some people still think crafts in general are a bit sad, although it is crafts which are traditionally associated with women which mostly attract this kind of casual contempt. I don’t encounter these people often because I don’t go round googling ‘is knitting a bit sad lolz’, and people I meet in real life are normally quite polite about my creations, indeed often they are whipping them out of my hands and spiriting them away (waves to mum).

When I was growing up, though (I am nearly 36, God how did that happen, so I was a teenager in the eighties), you Did Not Do Crafts. It was not fashionable. You only made things if you couldn’t afford to buy them, and if you couldn’t afford to buy things, well, this was not admired. The eighties did not do thrift where I was born, the eighties did consumption. From proper shops. It was my misfortune that somehow I had needlecraft right in my bones from birth. Oh, the difficulties I faced. Hoarding old copies of The People’s Friend in my wardrobe in secret, like pornography, and drooling over the sewing pages. Hanging surreptitiously around the one craft shop in Chesterfield hoping not to bump into anyone I knew and suffer social death. Quivering in embarrassment behind the embroidery flosses. Doing needlepoint in secret. It is a tragic tale of a double life. I went to a very traditional university – twice! Because I don’t learn from my mistakes! - and I suspect my tutors would have rather I sold ecstasy to supplement my grant and wandered the streets drunk and naked apart from my sub fusc than knit a scarf, because I think any kind of craft work would have been seen as a retrograde, unintellectual, silly thing to do. I don’t think I bought a craft book without embarrassment until I was quite a good way into my twenties.

So I am obviously pleased that crafting has been so wonderfully reclaimed and I can now go into a shop and buy Yarn Forward without having to look shiftily at the man behind the till, but also I think crafting is a hugely political act in itself. Because I think being involved in the creation of anything, no matter how small or wonky or odd, stops you being a stupid consumer. It is a cliché but it is true. Step one, learn to knit/ sew/ crochet, step 2, walk through every shop on the high street muttering to your increasingly despairing companion, I could make this myself and it would look better. Since I started making my own stuff and buying handmade I have made permanent changes to the way I buy, live, and think about things, and I suspect many other crafters have done the same. E.g. I now question much more how things are produced, and have altered my buying habits: I feel a sense of connection with crafters before me: I question the nature of productive work which has made me more political: I value cumulative effort, learned skill etc more than I did before. So what I am (finally) getting to is that if the Labour conference had actually had a knitting circle, that might have been one of the more effective political workshops taking place there, because not only do I think craft can be transformative but also someone might have got a pair of socks out of it. And they could have given them to David to make him feel better. (Possibly there wouldn’t have been long enough for an actual pair of socks. Let’s say a chunky cowl).

That was a party political broadcast from the Craft Is Not For Sad People party. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow!

How to make Sugar Scrub (and a tiny bit more anti-capitalism).

We nipped off to London quickly this weekend for a weekend away before Partner starts autumn term (Partner works for the university, I'm not involved with a sixth former). I had fun eyeing up brightly patterned things in Pop Boutique in Seven Dials and wondering if I might wish to make such cushion covers.

I wish my house looked like this and actually I don't know why it doesn't

Cupcakes may also have become involved.

That is Partner's hand. Oh my God, he said, are you photographing your bun? Stop it! None of your blog readers care about your bun

And (and if anyone wants to give me a gold star here I think one is probably warranted,) I braved the tourists at Portobello Road market on the Saturday morning to get to the man under the railway bridge who sells vintage scarves. I had a nice time popping into Books For Cooks, and admiring the shops and stalls, and pondering what seems to be fashionable in vintage this year. I think I may (casually buffs nails on lapel) have been ahead of the game with my sparkly butterfly top, which I will dig out and show you when we have some light here which is not grey. It is quite a top, and fine if I don’t sit in front of any lights, although if I do they reflect off me like a disco ball which can be a bit embarrassing.

I feel the thing which improves an antique shop more than probably anything is when the outside is sparkly

But then unfortunately, oh no. I came upon something which annoyed me.

Lush. Not entirely my idea of local, I would suspect. Not entirely my idea of fresh, either, come to that

Local, I thought? I don’t think so. Lush is a national chain. So I looked on their website, which tells me about 3 UK suppliers, although there could obviously well be more, and also tells me that Lush operates in 46 countries, which I didn’t know. I suspect their idea of local is ‘some of our ingredients are produced in the UK’. Which is fine, and there’s nothing wrong with that, in fact, good on them: but that isn’t my idea of local, and I think that advert is disingenuous and misleading.

Now, is this important? Possibly it isn’t, and I’ve got to say, if I was going to go for the Heartless Face of International Capitalism I wouldn’t start with Lush. They might well be an excellent company, who deal with their suppliers really ethically, and I doubt it's possible for them to source all their ingredients from the UK, anyway. But it just hits a bit of a sour note with me. I have to confess, I probably wouldn't have found this so annoying if it hadn’t been right in the middle of an enormous street market full of people selling handmade and vintage things, and possibly some local produce, including a man with a stall full of handmade cold-process soap (and no marketing budget). Life is tough for independent businesses. It might be tough for the man with his cold-process soap, I didn’t ask him. And for a multi-national company to say that buying their stuff is buying local to take advantage of a shift in what customers want, well, I just don’t think that’s entirely playing fair. But I might be doing Lush an enormous disservice: so that’s why I’ve emailed them to ask how their products are local to the shop I saw, and if I’ve got the completely wrong end of the stick, which I do admittedly get sometimes, I’ll let you know and we’ll add Lush to some kind of mental Retail Heroes List (or even an actual one, because I'll be writing a links section one of these days!).

Finally! Someone else whose idea of minimalism is the same as mine!

And, as a thankyou for staying with me through my anti-capitalist ramblings (and I promise you we’ll have a break for the rest of the week, because I feel my focus shifting to sheep and to Ely Wool Shop where I had a marvellous but financially ruinous time today, I feel it shifting irrevocably), and just because genuinely handmade cosmetics (and on this subject Vivianne from Kismet's Companion has just put some of her soap up for sale! Congrats Vivianne) are actually rather nice, here is my recipe for Brown Sugar Scrub. If you’re in the UK, you can buy ingredients for stuff like this from your nearest health-food shop, or from Helen at Fresholi, who is terrifyingly efficient but in a good way. If you don’t have cup measures, just use anything (or use a small mug) but keep the proportions.

You need:
1 cup brown sugar (I tend to use demerara).
1/2 cup Sweet Almond Oil or olive oil or a mixture.
1/2 teaspoon Vitamin E oil (you can leave this out if you haven’t got it).
1 tablespoon Aloe Oil.
About 15 drops essential oils (whatever you like – I always think lavender/ geranium and patchouli/ ylang ylang go well together. Coffee and vanilla would be delicious).

Basically – just mix everything together in a bowl. That’s it. You can keep it in any kind of container with a top (e.g. a tupperware). You might have to mix it together a bit each time you use it, as the oil tends to separate, but it will last a good long while. Do give it a try, it’s dead easy and nice. And who doesn’t want a gently exfoliated epidermis? I certainly do, but I wanted Malabrigo Lace more. And now I’ve got it! But more about that tomorrow…

Incidentally the revolution will be achieved via scones

When I did my first post about Shopping Local, Anna (sorry Anna don’t know your website to link) left me a comment about some books I could read – she mentioned Not On The Label and Tescopoly. Well, our motto here at Useless Beauty Designs is, never do anything without reading a book on it first, so these recommendations were very welcome. So, I have been reading Not On The Label, and also Bad Food Britain and Shopped: the shocking power of Britain’s supermarkets (excuse the Amazon links, they are just to show you. Support your independent bookseller! - I got mine from Oxfam & the library). Well, Shopped, in particular, is quite a page turner. It has everything: suspense, villains, plucky little heroes, it’s great. Now whenever I pick up a book with a title in a big font, Partner looks at me nervously and says, is this one of those books that make you suck your teeth and say, ooooo? Are you going to tell me how I can’t buy wine from Tesco anymore? So, I suspect I may have become something of a bore in my personal life and, I’m sorry readers, but this is one of the benefits of having a blog, now I can bore you all as well. Hooray! Joke! (Kind of!). Basically (although do read Shopped in particular, I thought it was great), this is what I’ve learned:

The Asda Trolleys of Alienation. I knew this photo would come in handy one day and I'm glad it did because I looked daft taking it

- Supermarkets treat their suppliers badly, and pay them such a low price that they cut corners on quality and the way they treat their workers.

- Supermarkets ride roughshod over planning laws, and have various tactics to force councils into granting them permission to build or expand stores, sometimes despite enormous local opposition.

- Supermarkets dictate to suppliers what they should supply, with the result that our farming industry has been changed for the worse and in a way that isn’t now recoverable.

- Supermarkets try to nudge us into buying more value-added (processed) foods and less ingredients, because the profit margin is higher.

- The number of new jobs supermarkets provide doesn’t compensate in number overall for the number of jobs lost in other shops, and the effect of supermarkets on nearby towns is generally pretty rotten.

When did you last see a mad wooden chicken in a supermarket book section? Shop independent and save the mad wooden chickens!

Now, I’m sure there’s some bias in the way this is reported in the books I’ve read, and I don’t think all local supermarkets necessarily have a bad effect on the places they’re near – I’m sure some can have a helpful, regenerating effect, and bring some useful competition. Likewise, I’m sure not all suppliers are unhappy with the way they’re treated. However (serious face, finger on lip), I think I’ve read enough to convince me that overall, the way supermarkets operate isn’t beneficial for our health, quality of food, diversity of choice, etc, and I’m no longer comfortable with giving them as much of my money as I was previously. So, this is my Manifesto. These are the things I will do:

- Replace as much of my supermarket shop as is practicable with things from the market and independent shops. This has been quite a lot of fun so far, and no more trouble than doing a once-a-week shop at the supermarket. It’s just different. (Basically, you have to chat more).

- Cook as much from scratch as possible. Every time you get your mixing bowl out, Tesco’s share price looks a little bit shakier. Every time you think to yourself ‘I don’t actually believe that the Finest Range is the highest possible peak of gastronomic perfection’, a shiver goes down the spine of Tesco’s chairman. It’s a marvellous revolutionary kind of political act, and it’s even better because you get food at the end of it. Che Guevara might be on a lot of tshirts but he never did anything that produced a cupcake.

Our northern correspondent, i.e. my mother, has sent me a photo of her fruit and veg that she bought from the market and scones, buns, and bread she baked. So I want you to know that although I have convinced one other person, I don't actually demand photographic proof

- Educate myself about food. I am not a bad cook by any means but I’m surprised how little I know about cooking seasonal things, basic recipes etc, and ingredients. Indeed I don’t think the fishmonger respected me yesterday when I couldn’t recognise a Sea Bass (or was it a Sea Bream? Who can tell?).

- Not buy non-food-items or services from supermarkets, because I think they’ve taken over enough of the food part of the retail sector without taking over the rest of it as well. We have our car insurance with Tesco at the moment and I’m going to move it (and yes, I am looking forward to trying to find a really ethical insurer, thanks very much ;-) ). I don’t buy clothes at the moment and the last time I bought something electrical from Tesco it was rubbish (don’t get me started), so I’m not keen to repeat that. So we’re alright until they start selling Malabrigo for 50p a skein in which case I might have a bit of an inner battle.

- Grow My Own. Well, it’s fair to say I’ve failed this year, but by God it can’t be beyond the wit of woman, can it? So next year is going to see me with a trowel in my hand poking at a sprout top and being marvellously connected to the earth and the food chain.

How hard can it all be?

(Aaaaaaand… if you want to know more, there are some good resources at Tescopoly, and some leaflets about the problems with supermarkets at Corporate Watch. I’m just off now to read the one about the problems with supermarket shop local initiatives. Eternal vigilance, people. Eternal vigilance!).

This is not real mayonnaise. A rant.

This is a rant, and I apologise. Grit your teeth, go and make some coffee, we’ll get through it together. You’re actually doing something very charitable in reading this because you’re stopping me firing off a complaint email to Unilever which might be a bit mad and also would mark my official transformation into Disgruntled of Cambridge.

Delicious real food growing in a very real fashion in my garden, with bonus spiky weeds

As you know, I’m trying to buy more local food and cut down on supermarket shopping. It’s going ok so far and I’ve been finding some good local suppliers. However, this is still a work in progress, which is why I recently found myself in Tesco, cross-eyed under those halogen lights, trying not to run my trolley into anything that might feel pain, and reaching out for a new jar of mayonnaise.

ceci n'est pas, etc. Do they think we are daft?

Now, I know they’ve probably been branding it like this for years (‘Real Mayonnaise!’) but I hadn’t really noticed it before. However, seeing an entire shelf full of mayonnaise jars all screaming it at me annoyed me. I actually could not buy it. I reached in again. I am now officially boycotting Hellmann’s mayonnaise. This is why it annoyed me (come on. Teeth gritted. Stop me sending that email.):

Processed food is fake food. It is fake. It is a simulacrum of the real thing: it is not satisfying. We all know that. We all still eat it, (I do, certainly), because we are too busy to cook, or because some of it is quite nice (Waitrose curries!), or we don’t know how to cook something, or we feel like eating something fake (cough Pringles cough. Or Tunnocks teacakes.) There’s nothing wrong with that. We’re not in a who-has-the-most-perfect-diet competition, if we were I would most definitely lose it, and, let’s be honest, some things are a great big faff to make yourself. I’m not eager to try and make marmite, for example, and I think it would have to be quite special circumstances that would induce me to make my own croissants again (hours and hours. Then the butter squashed out everywhere!).

But – fake food is fake food. Call a spade a spade. Don’t tell me it’s real. What does that even mean, anyway? It’s real because it’s the oldest mayonnaise brand? (is it?) It doesn’t have as many chemicals as some of the others? It’s made by a process that bears some resemblance to the way you make it by hand? Whatever the justification (I’m sure there is one somewhere, funnily enough their website is not helpful), the underlying message is actually really nasty and insidious. What they want you to think is, it’s not worth making your own. Processed Food Is Real, providing it’s been around long enough and gives a bit of a cynical nod to fashionable ethics. Hellmann’s is as real as it gets. Well, obviously this is complete rubbish, as well as being a bit scary. So, as I am now boycotting Hellmann’s, I have made my own mayonnaise. It took me 10 minutes and that included washing up a bowl. And I am dopey, you may well do it quicker. This is how you do it:

Delicious mayonnaise made by me. Yum. (No honestly, it really was delicious.)

To make 5ml mayonnaise you need:

1 egg yolk,
1/2 clove garlic, squashed (WARNING this makes it very garlicky – if you don’t want that, put less in - if you live in Forks perhaps use a bit more)
Sprinkle salt/ grind pepper
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder.

Mix all the above together in a bowl. Then take 5ml of oil (I use a mix of light olive oil and sunflower oil, in fact I use the same olive oil I use to make soap, bear that in mind if you ever come to dinner) and add it 1 drop at a time, then whisk it thoroughly after each drop. This is to stop it curdling. However I have never had a mayonnaise curdle on me apart from one time when I used an electric whisk not a handwhisk – I don’t know why that was but I have used a handwhisk ever since with no problems. When your mayonnaise starts to thicken and look like mayonnaise you can start adding bigger drops. When you have added about 3ml oil, add 1 teaspoon white vinegar to loosen it, then add the rest of the oil.

Voilà! Delicious mayonnaise that is a million, million times better than anything you could buy. It only keeps for a few days as it doesn’t contain Calcium Disodium EDTA (but, you wouldn’t expect to scramble eggs and then add preservative and keep them for three months, would you? Make it in small quantities, eat it up. Enjoy it!)

Real food. I don’t think so!

Beauty products and preservatives (snappy title!)

I think there are some things that, once you have made them yourself or bought them handmade, you never go back. Bread is one of them. I am also a bit like that with handmade beauty products (soap!) so I have been experimenting this weekend with different ways of making body butter (in fact this is going to be a bit disjointed as I am going to have to keep going off and whisking my shea). OK, I am back now (it isn't working, I think I needed more oil.) Anyway, in my travels around the internet and other places, I have learned something interesting about handmade bath and body products, and I am going to pass it on to you here. Because this is my blog, and I can be boring if I want to be. And also otherwise soon people are going to not answer the phone if it is my number calling and will say to each other 'Oh God it's Susie, don't answer, she's going to tell us about parabens.' But first. A picture.

This is my Honey Healing Balm. I will not recommend it. Not only did I spend a Saturday night stirring it when really I ought to have done something more sociable and dynamic, it will not set, and honey is really sticky, so when you rub it on yourself you feel a bit like one of those cartoons where people get covered in honey and are chased by bees. I shall experiment further.

OK, so this is what I have learned. You can make two different types of moisturising-type things. One is anhydrous and one is not. This means one has water in it and one doesn't. Now, this is the exciting thing: you cannot make anything with water in without a preservative, unless you are going to keep it in the fridge and use it really quickly. Sorry got to go and whisk again. OK, here I am back and with a new appreciation of why people have Kitchen Aid mixers. If you don't use preservative, it will get mouldy quickly. An anhydrous moisturiser (like, to pluck an example out of entirely thin air, hmm, whipped shea body butter), will last for months without preservatives, but if you want that familiar shop-bought texture, or a lotion, or a cream, you need to use water, emulsifier, and preservative.

So this has made me start thinking about greenwash. I read an article in a newspaper today (I can't find a link), about a woman who was selling mineral makeup, who made a big fuss about her products being 'all natural' and not having 'fillers'. This woman sold liquid foundation. People: liquid foundation *must* contain the following: 'fillers' in the form of lotion (otherwise it would just be powdered pigment), emulsifier, preservative. Now, I am not saying that this is necessarily wrong – I think you just accept that if you're going to use something like this it needs preservative in it – but implying things that are just not true about something you're charging £40 a tube for is pretty rich. Eco friendliness: not just a marketing gimmick. So, this is my counter recommendation. The best foundation to use, bar none, is powdered mineral foundation, which you can buy from lots of sellers on etsy. You apply it with a brush, it lasts forever, and it even makes my skin tone look attractive, and this is quite an achievement. Also I suspect you could buy quite a lot of mineral foundation from etsy for £40. I think you might have enough left over to buy the brush! (and a hot pie!).

You see how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I'm going to spare you my rant (this time. I will certainly do it later, be very afraid) about how commercially produced soap is not proper soap, because I have got to go and obsess over my Shea Butter. The whole house smells of patchouli. I am hoping Partner does not rebel.

Cheesecake, herbs, but sadly no Borax

I've been trying to eat healthily, because since about January I feel as if I've been in a biscuit-eating competition. And I've won! So now is the time for vitamins and fibre. So I was pleased, when we went to Scotsdales the garden centre earlier, that they had a good, healthy, non-indulgent lunch for me. I could feel it doing me good even as I ate it.

We'd gone to Scotsdales because yesterday I went out on a mission to buy 2 items: Borax to make my own washing powder, and a Lemon Balm plant so I can make this lovely lipsalve Mumma Troll gave the recipe for on her blog the other day. Well, I won't say I walked the length and breadth of Cambridge looking for these two items because I didn't, I mainly popped into Homebase and then into a more general DIY-type place, but I drew a complete blank. I've looked for Borax also in Tesco and Waitrose and nothing. Don't you think it's odd that you can buy 90 different kinds of things to put in your washing machine and not one ingredient to make your own? I do, in fact in Waitrose I started muttering about being oppressed by capitalism which was a bit hypocritical on many levels. You can buy caustic soda in Homebase, though (you make soap with caustic soda – it is sodium hydroxide, lye) which is useful to know for when I run out of the supply I've got at the moment. (I have a soap-related confession, actually. You're supposed to let your homemade soap cure for 4 weeks, but I used mine last night after only leaving it a fortnight. And it's great! I'll put more scent in the next batch, but really, for a first attempt, I'm very happy. I shall be putting some soap in the post to my mother tomorrow who is going to risk her skin PH and try it out for me (no, really mum, it'll be fine, you'll survive.))

Anyway, after I couldn't get any lemon balm either I started to think there had been a great big meeting of shopkeepers in Cambridge, and they had somehow tapped into my brainwaves as I slept and worked out everything I might ever want to buy so they could make sure they wouldn't ever stock it. Note to shopkeepers: procion dyes and spindles. You get destroying your stocks. But my fears were unfounded. Scotsdales had loads of herbs:

And I got a nice big pot of lemon balm. I think it's too small for me to strip it of leaves this year, but I will wait to see if it establishes and get ready for next year. This will be the start of my herb garden.

This is my lily which is blooming at the moment, soon I'm hoping it's going to be joined by some friends. The bees aren't keen on it though, surprisingly. They prefer a scruffy bush just opposite. There is no accounting for the aesthetic senses of bees, they are mysteries to me, mysteries with fuzzy white bottoms.