Beautiful Soup

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Spring is almost sprung and we now have flowering rhododendron and daffodils to rival Dartington Hall (almost), right here in the Vicarage garden. We also have our first crop of nettles, picked by Tam and his friend Benedikt who arrived on Saturday from Germany. Here’s a photo of the two of them busy making soup, scones and flapjack in the Vicarage kitchen….you can just never start training young men too soon!

The flapjack was made to my mother’s original ‘toothbender’ recipe and in honour of our friend Philip Reeve, who has his birthday today.
Happy Birthday Philip!
We had a blow over the Moors with him and his lovely family yesterday, before getting stuck into serious quantities of Devon cream tea and cake. Do check out his blog on the link below

http://philipreeve.blogspot.com

Not only is Philip one of my favourite authors, but he’s a talented illustrator too and often posts his drawings of both Dartmoor and the W.O.M.E (That’s the World of Mortal Engines to the uninitiated… which took me months to work out, even after reading all the books. Actually this is due to a medical condition known as post church acronym traumatic stress disorder.)

Here’s our tureen of beau – ootiful green Soo – oop… aka awful green scunge & worthy of the Soup Dragon This photo is for you, Philip!

Our first nettle soup of the season, toothbender and time with the Reeves has brought on an attack of nostalgia for much loved stories from my childhood and I found myself cleaning the kitchen, while singing Lewis Carroll’s parody of ‘Star of the Evening’. Here are both James M. Sayle’s original and Carroll’s ‘Soup of the Evening’. Personally I much prefer Carroll’s version…