Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2019 i The Simple Things

Foraged crops are free, abundant and flavourful. All you need do is get to a good spot at the right time, basket and secateurs in hand, and you have some of the best food available. Through the foraging seasons of spring, summer and autumn, we’ve shown you where to find these crops, how to pick them, and ways to turn them into delicious dishes.* THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER November brings us to the close of the foraging year. The hedgerow harvests are all but over, packed away in jars and bottles. But there is still one final act. As the leaves fall away, a last harvest of berries is revealed: the rosehips and the sloes. These are the toughest and most astringent of the berries, softened and slightly sweetened by…

Pearly queens A conservation project aiming to restore native oysters to the River Thames is under way. The river’s oyster population has seen a 95% decline in the last 200 years, due to overfishing and habitat loss. However, the new ‘mother oyster’ sanctuary, established in an Essex estuary, is hoping to reverse the decline. Adult female oysters were introduced during the summer and have since spawned. Plastic-free Paros The Greek island of Paros will become entirely free from plastic waste within three years. At least, that’s the hope of the Clean Blue Paros project, which is being run by UK-based NGO Common Seas. The project, which organisers say is a first of its kind, will include eradicating some types of plastic, overhauling the waste management systems, educating residents and changing…

FRESH Water: marine notes, sea salt› Green: tomato leaves, cut grass, peppermint, spearmint Citrus: lemongrass, mandarin, tangerine, lemon, orange Fruity: bergamot, blackcurrant, sweet orange, other berries. FLORAL Herbaceous: basil, rosemary, parsley, oregano› Summer garden: rose, jasmine, geranium, lily, ylang ylang Floriental: orange blossom, tuberose. ORIENTAL Musk: benzoin, clary sage, myrrh, angelica root, labdanum Spices: cinnamon, cloves, anise, cardamom, ginger› Nutty [sweet]: pistachio, almond, cocoa, vanilla WOOD Woody: sandalwood, palo santo, cedarwood, cypress, cade Earthy: oakmoss, vetiver, patchouli, frankincense…

Favourite shop CAPICÚA Cutting-edge fashion and accessories by Laila Chaaban and guest designers. San Lázaro 55, 10400 Havana Favourite gallery MUSEO NACIONAL DE BELLAS ARTES DE CUBA The Museum of Fine Arts has two pavilions – the ‘arte cubano’ building shows an array of Cuban masters past and present.bellasartes.co.cu Favourite café or bar BELVIEW ART CAFÉ Delicious coffee, otherworldly décor and an amazing exhibition of German photographer Sven Creutzmann’s stunning Cuban-themed images. Calle 6 #412, corner 19, Vedado Favourite restaurant LA CORTE DEL PRÍNCIPE I dream about their parmigiana di melanzane, and their mojitos are hands down the best in town. Avenida 9na, Calle 74, Playa Favourite markets ‘THE BOUTIQUE’ The market where the best chefs buy their fruit and vegetables. Calle 19 and B, Vedado IBRAIN PORTIELES TORRES The…

PATERNOSTER A murder mystery by Sophie Hannah and Leah Holroyd Offices of Unwin-Carruthers & Unwin-Carruthers, Solicitors, April 1930 “Philip…” “Hm? Oh. Good morning, Miss Marfleet.” She looked troubled. “I see. You’re back to addressing me as Miss Marfleet. No more Alice. Am I to stop calling you Philip?” “I’m sorry. I never know what to call you, or how to think about our… predicament.” My own grumbling bored me. The trouble with complaint is that it does not move things forward. “Do you have good news for me?” I asked. One might as well remain optimistic for as long as is feasible. “Philip, I can’t bear this uncertainty. I must decide. I have decided. I can’t marry you. Not with Father’s passing still unresolved. Don’t you see? It’s bad enough…

Roses are the star of the show with floral prints on organic cotton that pair beautifully with block-colour pieces crafted from linen jersey, heathered alpaca and other tactile fabrics. MORE ECO THAN EVER True to its folklore heart, the brand – famed for its rich colours – has always had its designs turned into fabric by suppliers with strong textile craft traditions. Its mission is a more eco-conscious production of clothes that can live for many, many years rather than fast fashion. Their modal fabric, made from cellulose, is sourced from European beech forests and every stage of the manufacturing process is certified to environmental standards. Team their retro-looking Blomster dress with a beret made from recycled cashmere yarn. How satisfying to know you’re wearing something made from materials that…

• Mixing vintage finds with industrial materials will help soften an industrial look to make it feel more liveable and friendly. • Wicker baskets are a good way to store items that are needed in the kitchen, but that you don’t want on display. They also add another layer of texture to the room. • Don’t feel forced to use colour. It’s fine to embrace neutral tones for calming rooms and use natural or pastel colours to add warmth. • Like Susannah, you can create more space in poky and cramped rooms by extending the openings and doorways with old oak beams, which will allow light to flood the space.…

Kenyan tea growers are first paid an advance after six months on their trees, which are quantified and measured so their carbon uptake can be certified and audited by internationally recognised methods. Some 70% of the profits from selling the carbon credits goes direct to the farmers. These are additional credits – in that the investment from Yorkshire Tea ensures carbon is sequestered that would not otherwise happen – on the sliding scale of still voluntary carbon offsetting, these are more valuable and therefore the credits are worth more. The sheer numbers involved are the way it makes a difference on a global scale. The Yorkshire Tea scheme is part of a much wider programme run by TIST that covers more than 18 million live audited trees on over 100,000…

The English Romantic poet John Keats stayed in Winchester during the late summer and early autumn of 1819. Every day he walked through the Cathedral Close and out along the River Itchen. It was on one of these walks that he was inspired to write To Autumn, one of the few poems that most of us recognise and can actually quote: ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun…’ A couple of days in this gracious and prosperous town is enough to make anyone wax lyrical. It regularly tops those ‘Best places to live in the UK’ charts and you can see why: the homes are the stuff of property dreams, the cathedral is stupendous, and the town is wrapped in woodland and has a sparkling…

Wool has been worn for millennia on every part of the human body. Coated with lanolin, its fibres are waterproof and absorb odour. Wool draws moisture away from the skin, keeping us warmer and dryer than most synthetic fabrics. For several thousand years, humans have spun the hair from sheep, goats and other animals using spindles and spinning wheels. Once twisted into yarn, wool fibres can be knitted or woven into cloth then draped across the floors, walls and windows of our homes, blocking drafts and damp. Wool cocoons our families, and its thread runs back several thousand years through British history. It’s this thread that I followed as I knitted my way from north to south, east to west. SOCKS FOR A VIKING I challenge myself to recreate Britain’s…

“My last flight was in 2007 and I have no sense of loss. This is an emergency – climate and ecological – giving up flying is one way that an individual can cut their carbon footprint dramatically.” Sue Hampton, an author, is one of a growing number of people to quit flying in order to help save the planet. Though she abstained from planes years ago, she reaffirmed her commitment recently by signing up to the Flight Free UK campaign, which aims to get 100,000 people to give up flying next year. It follows a similar movement in Sweden called f lygskam, or ‘flight shame’, which stigmatised flying through social media. A more constructive sister campaign, tagskryt (‘train brag’), encourages people to feel virtuous about taking the train instead of…

LACEMAKING Lace is a fine example of what is known as an ‘openwork’ fabric; its structure is essentially like a net, with the spaces making up as much of the design as the intricately woven threads. While these net-like fabrics have been around for many thousands of years, the specific techniques that are used to create lace didn’t emerge until the 16th century. There are two main methods of making lace: one uses a needle and thread (needle lace) to embroider together hundreds of tiny stitches, while the other method (bobbin lace) is a technique more akin to plaiting, where lots of threads wound onto bobbins are crossed over each other or twisted to form a pattern. The pattern is first drawn onto a piece of paper, then pricked with…

Today I think Only with scents, – scents dead leaves yield, And bracken, and wild carrot’s seed And the square mustard field; Odours that rise When the spade wounds the root of tree, Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed, Rhubarb or celery; The smoke’s smell, too, Flowing from where a bonfire burns The dead, the waste, the dangerous, And all to sweetness turns. It is enough To smell, to crumble the dark earth, While the robin sings over again Sad songs of Autumn mirth.…

Many thanks to our judges: Sophie Hannah for turning her story over to our readers – look out for her next Poirot book, which she is currently writing; and author Cass Green, who teaches crime fiction writing at City University and whose new book, The Killer Inside (Harper Collins) is out now. Both enjoyed the way Leah continued and concluded the story. Cass said; “loved the wit here and the ingenious ending,” while Sophie added: “Not only did she introduce a brilliant extra plot point but she also added a surprising relationship twist at the end. Brilliant!” Leah wins a set of 10 books from the British Library Crime Collection and a set of Sophie Hannah’s New Hercule Poirot Mysteries (HarperCollins). Read the ending Sophie originally penned for the…

Blackbirds: mealworms, wild bird seed mix and fat balls Blue tits: peanuts and wild bird seed mix Chaffinches: wild bird seed mix, peanuts and sunflower hearts scattered on the grass Coal tits: peanuts, wild bird seed mix and fat balls Collared doves: grain and wild bird seed mix Dunnocks: nyger seed and peanuts on the ground Goldcrests: fat balls Goldfinches: nyger seed and sunflower hearts Great tits: sunflower hearts, peanuts and fat balls House sparrows: seeds and peanuts Jays: peanuts Long-tailed tits: peanuts Mistle thrush: mealworms, wild bird seed mix and fat balls Nuthatches: peanuts, sunflower seeds and fat balls Robins: mealworms, peanuts and sunflower hearts Siskin: peanuts and wild bird seed mix Song thrushes: fat balls Starlings: peanuts Treecreepers: peanuts and sunflower hearts Wrens: mealworms…

Jo Fairley is going on holiday in a couple of days. You may expect that the co-founder of Green & Black’s – the organic chocolate brand that was one of the first companies to receive a Fairtrade Mark 25 years ago – would be headed to some far-flung location. But no. Jo is travelling to the garden ‘shed’ of her Hastings home. And she sounds genuinely excited about it. “I love holidaying at home,” she explains. “But if I stay in the house, where my office is, people ask me to do things and before I know it, I’m working again.” You can easily imagine this – Jo is an obvious ‘do’-er – founder of several companies, a mentor, speaker and philanthropist – and, admittedly, Jo’s Instagram account reveals that the ‘shed’ that…

• If you prefer to learn independently, piano and guitar are slightly more self-explanatory and immediately rewarding. Brass can be harder to manage if you don’t have at least a bit of tuition in embouchure (how your mouth affects the sound) and, likewise, violin and its respective bowing techniques. • Even if you’re learning independently, it’s worth finding a regular ensemble to play with, both for the practice and also to gain the satisfaction that comes with playing as part of a group. See makingmusic.org.uk for local groups. • Reading music, especially if you’re new to it can be a real challenge, but there are plenty of books available to help with this. Look out for books aimed specifically at adults, such as the Michael Aaron Adult Piano Course books.…

Maker of the month Bethan Mitchell, founder of The Sit Still Studio, celebrates the art of rest From her studio in Wales, designer Bethan champions traditional Welsh craftsmanship by local artisans to create timeless interior pieces. Honest, local and not led by trends, products include a daybed made from locally-sourced Ash with a handmade linen mattress, filled with organic sheeps wool. Also in the collection is a three-panel screen, hand-printed using a rice-paper stencil technique. A stool and series of cushions complete the collection of investment buys.thesitstillstudio.com Gung-ho girl power Holly Kyte brings to life feminist trailblazers throughout history in Roaring Girls “A roaring girl was loud when she should be quiet, disruptive when she should be submissive… she was everything a woman was not supposed to be.” It’s a…

Perhaps one day it won’t feel so fantastical to direct cars along routes suggested by satellites orbiting 12,500 miles overhead. There’s no real mystery, of course – to the scientifically minded, this most modern form of mapmaking is all perfectly explainable. No, the real puzzle is how it all began. Kevin Sheehan studied the history of cartography to doctoral level, and even he isn’t sure. “Nothing survives before about 1290,” says Kevin. “We know maps must have been made from about 1200, but there are so many things we still don’t know about how they made them. That caught my fascination.” And how. If a love of the maps augmenting The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit prompted nascent cartographic fumblings in his Denver high school art class, it…

We’re Going to be Friends The White Stripes Reach Out I’ll Be There Four Tops All of Your Days Will Be Blessed Ed Harcourt Ritual Union Little Dragon Let’s Stay Together Al Green May You Never John Martyn Into My Arms Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Saturday Sun Nick Drake Cinder and Smoke Iron & Wine Twilight Dawn Landes Rhymes of an Hour Mazzy Star Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby Cigarettes After Sex The Outdoor Type The Lemonheads Sleepyhead Passion Pit Autumn Sweater Yo La Tengo Blanket on the Ground Billie Jo Spears thesimplethings.com/blog/cosyplaylist stop look listen Goes well with a mug of something warming…

ZESTY VEGAN ORANGE CAKE Vegan margarine for greasing 250ml soya milk (or other non-dairy milk, such as almond) 1 tbsp cider vinegar 250g plain flour 2 tsp baking powder 175g golden caster sugar Zest of 2 oranges 70ml rapeseed oil 4 tbsp freshly-squeezed orange juice Orange slices for decoration 1 Preheat your oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas 4 and grease a loaf tin with vegan spread. 2 Put the soya milk into a small bowl and add the cider vinegar, then whisk until frothy. 3 In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and sugar. 4 Add the orange zest, rapeseed oil and orange juice to the milk mixture. Stir it thoroughly, then add the wet ingredients to the dry mixture in two batches, stirring well. 5 Pour the…

Since 2010… The global mortality rate of malaria has decreased 28% The incidence per 1,000 ‘at-risk’ people has decreased 18% The proportion of ‘at-risk’ people sleeping under insecticide-treated nets has gone from 29% to 50% The number of countries with fewer than 10,000 malaria cases grew from 37 to 46 The number of countries with fewer than 100 malaria cases grew from 15 to 26 (Source: World Health Organisation: World Malaria Report 2018)…

November’s long, dark evenings offer a great excuse to fill your home with the warming light and soothing scents of homemade candles and to create a snug nook in which to hide away from the outside world. Making your own candles means that you can create fragrance combinations that evoke memories. For example, nothing says winter like the scents of cinnamon, oranges and pine needles filling your home. You can also ensure that you use natural ingredients. Synthetic oils may be cheaper, but you’ll get a stronger, fuller scent by using essential or botanical oils. And when it comes to wax, soy has a lower melting point to paraffin waxes, giving it a clean, even burn. You can also upcycle items from around your home – from terracotta flower pots…

* There’s no better way to get to the heart of a city than through the people who live there. Every month we ask someone, clearly in love with their city, to take us on a personal tour and tell us what makes it so special. You may feel inspired to visit one day or to rediscover the charms of a city closer to you, but for now just sit back, relax and enjoy some armchair travel. How long have you lived in the city? I’m from Montreal originally and have lived in Havana part-time for the past three years. I first set foot in the city 30 years ago when I came to practise my Spanish and fell in love on the spot. I’ve been devoted ever since. Tell…

There is much truth in the maxim that when the temperature drops you are never more than six feet from a puffer jacket. In high streets, outside school gates, in parks and playgrounds, there they will be, keeping their wearers swaddled and snug. As a nation, we have embraced this padded coat with as much warmth as it provides. It brooks no boundaries: politicians, rappers, influencers, film stars, your dad, Alan Partridge, you, me, we all love a puffer. And why wouldn’t we? What other garment offers such immediate cosiness and weighs so little? Advances in puffer technology (there must be such a thing) now mean that they pack into the tiniest of pouches, replacing the voluminous styles that made the wearer look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. “The…

Kejriwal Serves 1 80g mature cheddar, grated 1 or 2 thick slices of white bloomer, sourdough or brioche 1 or 2 large eggs (one per slice) 2 spring onions, chopped 1 green chilli, very finely chopped Coarsely-ground black pepper 1 tsp vegetable oil (optional) TO SERVE Tomato ketchup 1 Let the cheese come up to room temperature so it’s workable. 2 Meanwhile, heat the oven to 240C/ Fan 220C/Gas 9 and place a baking tray inside to warm up. 3 Toast the bread until lightly brown on both sides and set aside to cool. 4 One at a time, crack the eggs into a cup, keeping the yolks intact. 5 Keep a small handful of grated cheese (roughly 10g), 1 tsp spring onion and a pinch of green chilli to…

Social media can be a place to make new friends, foster a sense of community and to share ideas (not to mention silly cat memes). But those benefits sometimes seem to be swamped by the negatives. The statistics back it up: a study by Amnesty International revealed that an abusive or problematic tweet was sent to a woman on average every half a minute. Rather than accepting this depressing state of affairs, Seyi Akiwowo decided to do something about it (she has form in ‘doing something,’ being – at 23 – the youngest ever black female councillor elected to Newham, East London). Seyi experienced the very worst of social media when a speech she gave at the European Parliament went viral on Twitter – and she received torrents of abuse. Rather than be…

Rough concrete, gritty zinc and raw timber are usually the materials you’d find in an edgy loft conversion in east London, but Susannah Le Mesurier has taken the uber-chic industrial materials and reworked them into her Victorian home to evoke the warm soul of a country cottage – without the chintz. “I’m drawn to interesting textures and grey is my favourite colour,” says Susannah, who has incorporated varying shades of the neutral tone throughout her home, “but this home is all about cosiness and calm.” Her kitchen is filled with different textures from well-used wooden chopping boards and cupboard doors to smooth and sleek ceramic bowls and glassware, but the centrepiece is a concrete kitchen island, cast in three sections, then carefully assembled on site by her builder. “Concrete is…

Nearly 4,000 small tea farmers in Kenya are part of a scheme to plant trees on their mixed-produce plots, which mitigate climate change through the carbon absorbed in their leaves. It’s funded by Yorkshire Tea, which receives carbon credits from its tea growers and supports the tea-growing community through funding other projects. This month it celebrates planting a million trees across Kenya and Yorkshire. The story so far Imagine a productive patch where the growing season lasts all year and rains fall at predictable times – a distant dream for those of us growing our own in temperate, damp northern Europe. The climate, soil and weather in the foothills of Mount Kenya produce these ideal conditions and enable a particular type of camellia bush to thrive. We know its leaves…

From peaceful pastels to creative greens and passionate reds, colour evokes emotion. So, whether you want your home to have a sense of happiness and wellbeing or to foster an atmosphere of fun and frivolity, a pop of colour can either lift your mood or leave you feeling off-kilter. We are all wonderfully unique and enjoy colours in a multitude of different ways, but there are some fundamental rules that identify how particular colours affect our moods. If you’re looking to shun the magnolia and varying shades of grey and embrace a bolder colour scheme, picking bright colours for the right rooms can help to boost your creativity or create a sanctuary away from the rat race. Choosing colours is never easy, but by knowing how different hues make us…

Gaia Goddess of the earth, who gave birth to many children. So good at it that she even conceived three all by herself. Zeus Zeus wasn’t just king of the gods, also king of disguises - becoming a swan to seduce Leda, and into a bull to abduct Europa. Hera Goddess of marriage, Hera punished husband Zeus’s illegitimate children with tricky tasks. A fine advert for matrimony. Aphrodite The goddess of love won a celestial beauty competition. But didn’t wish for world peace – her lover Ares was god of War. Athena Goddess of both wisdom and war but also associated with pottery, weaving, and teaching Greeks to make olive oil. Poseidon Something odd in the water? Definitely if the god of the sea’s chariot was around – it was…

She grew up in all of ten minutes. Baby with little furled pea-pod toes, toddler pointing, wobbling gory teeth for the pillow coin, sleepovers, roller skates, hair braids and theme parks. College. College in a far away town, college with study rooms, college campus with falling leaves and long walks back from the library, the town, the nightclub. Oh, in heels, without a coat. I put my fingers in my ears and la la la — but it’s my voice, isn’t it? I don’t want her to be gone. Her room neat, the air unbreathed and the belongings she left behind gathering dust. I’ll spend my days crying over a sock found behind the radiator, or listening out for her tread on the stair. I could get a Shih Tzu…