Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

Bunny biscuits for Easter

I could get used to Easter this early, in late March rather than half way through April and, although the change to British Summer Time was a bit of a shock, I enjoyed the fact that it happened on Easter Day. Skylarks high in the sky – and all but invisible as usual – set the tone and made me hopeful that it might get a bit warmer later on. Faint hope as just as the vicar was urging us to enjoy the sunny weather a whole flotilla of dark clouds sculled over to the church and hung  there, waiting to discharge their load until the very moment that  we left Ipsden Church to descend to North Stoke Church by the Thames for the second service. Liz, who teaches riding, trains horses, does dressage, sings in the choir and for 50 % of time is the organist had created the prettiest and tastiest of sponge Simnel cakes – I meant to take a photograph but it being a 3 giant cafetière day to be spun out over 40 plus adults (thank heavens for children being happy with a biscuit) desire wasn’t mother to the action this time.

We experimented with daughter No 2 bringing the grandson into church just for the very last part of the service which worked for about a nanosecond until he burst out of his handlers’ arms like Titian’s young Bacchus swirling out of his chariot, swooped down the aisle and eyes gleaming made for me shouting ‘Granny Mary’ triumphantly. That cost me 3 bunny biscuits. Nobody at all minds his piratical approach to services but at the moment he’s just a bit too maverick,  unpredictable and somewhat shouty which means his poor beautifully mannered father tends to spend half the service in the churchyard. He will not be thus for ever.

Bunny and Egg biscuits for Easter

Bunny and egg biscuits for Easter

225 g butter softened

140 g caster sugar

1 egg yolk lightly beaten

2 teasp vanilla extract

250 g plain flour

25 g cocoa powder

white chocolate for icing

Preheat oven to 190°C/ 170°C for a fan oven/375° F/ Gas Mark 5

Line 2 large baking sheets with baking paper.

Put butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract. Sift flour and cocoa into the mixture. Mix until combined. Gather the mixture up with your hands and divide it into two. Flatten these, cover in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 or so minutes.

Remove dough from the fridge and roll between 2 sheets of baking paper. Cut out with fancy cutters. I always find the mixture warms up very quickly and then sticks to the cutters and pulls apart. At first I used quite small balls of dough and kept the rest in the fridge until I needed it. But then I had a stoke of  luck. Nearby, defrosting for the next day was a pyrex dish of stuffed chicken thighs which had a firm plastic lid. I found if I rolled my dough  and then left it for a few seconds on the top of this dish the cutters came away from the dough cleanly and the shape was near perfect. (Baking paper made ensured the dough did not make direct contact with the lid.)

Bake for 10-15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

When completely cool decorate with melted chocolate. You could gently melt about 80 g of white chocolate in a bowl over simmering water (making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water) and then fill a forcing bag with the chocolate – much of which tends to solidify in the nozzle in my experience. Or you could use one of the useful  icing devices shown below. I’m sure purists would find the chocolate not of the best quality but I have to say, it tasted just fine. (Sainsbury’s is the only place I have ever seen these but you can probably get them online.)

Life saver icing pen with white chocolate

Easter Day provided yet another surprise for we were not expecting the Boat Race. Surely the first time Easter day, British Summer Time and the Boat Race have fallen on the same day we all wondered? We used to live very near the river in Chiswick and were regular viewers from Chiswick Mall or from above Chiswick Steps (passing the church where Hogarth lies buried). Later as daughter No 1 rowed for Latymer Upper we migrated downstream to Latymer’s boathouse in Hammersmith which provided the best sort of spectating as we could enjoy the minute or so you could actually see the boats on the river and then turn round and watch the rest on the television and probably with a glass of something nice in your hand. Perfect. Daughter No 1 went on the row for Cambridge and only narrowly missed the Blue Boat. But those were the days when the Women’s Race took place on a different day and in a different place from the Men’s and when the boats  didn’t come equipped with PUMPS. Pity the grandson, with mum and dad and one set of grandparents (plus a great grandfather and great uncle) all at Cambridge and the other set of grandparents both at Oxford (plus an uncle who I’ve just remembered about). Who will he support?

Hand embroidered Vietnamese skirt – worked by the Red Mong tribe

With only 2-3 months before we leave Ipsden and the vicarage which has been our home for 9 years, sorting out is becoming a serious business. A mound of magazine and newspaper cuttings have been compressed into 3 scrapbooks while the first edit of my fabric stocks has left me with a pine chest and a couple of boxes all full to the brim. The vicar has been spending a lot of time in the garden burning unwanted documents and old bank statements going back well beyond 9 years – this sudden love of the garden is in direct proportion to the pile of clothes that await him to try on whenever he enters the house as we edit his wardrobe for a new life. There, you see the important things have been dealt with first.

Vietnamese hand embroidered skirt by the Red Mong tribe

The initial cull of children’s books went to daughter No 1’s home a few weeks ago. This week end saw daughter No 2 make her selection –  yards of  The Chalet School, Mallory Towers,  The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and subsequent books with much loved Dido Twite, my old lovely Collins’ edition of  ‘Heidi’, Heidi Grows Up, Heidi’s Children, etc., etc. Packing was halted from time to time for renditions from the Ahlberg’s poetry collection  ‘Please Mrs Butler’. All was a welcome antidote to the piles books analysing modern warfare and documenting the use of cluster munitions which filled her other boxes. A balanced life is a good thing

Red Mong skirt : detail of cross stitch border

Red Mong skirt : detail of cross stitch and appliquéd ribbon border

Red Mong skirt : detail of cross stitch border

Red Mong skirt : detail of indigo skirt with delicate wax resist pattern and appliqué bands

The bookshelves were the easy bit. The garage was the real challenge and Saturday was spent in a bit of a haze as boxes of past lives were emptied out, their contents emoted over and ultimately reassigned to new boxes variously directed to Manchester, North Wales, London, charity shops, the recycling box, the council dump and the fire… Executive decisions were made as things categorised as rubbish just a few hours before were later rescued and reordered as necessities. A well worn T shirt bought when we went to see the musical ‘Grease’ in the West End was the subject of much discussion – it now awaits the bin men later in the week.

Red Mong skirt: hand dyed and embroidered (great with boots and tights)

Well, we were all over the place and the house was a mess (and I don’t even mention the paraphernalia of the 2 year old who was in fact no trouble at all). Someone started muttering about it being stressful. I preferred to see it as the opportunity for a giant spring clean after which we would all feel better and walk lighter unladen by the rubbish of half a lifetime – though I doubt my looks said this. I love possessions but there are times when I look at the animal kingdom and think how much easier it would be if we too had fur and didn’t need to pick up a suitcase or build a solid home instead of a nest. The hares in the field beyond don’t even have a particular home, they just hunker down in the ruts in the field whenever the fancy takes them. I’ve seen them sit like that for hours in the snow and thought how little it would suit me. We are not a family of hares.

Vietnamese embroidery by one of the Mong tribes

But the church biscuit still needed to be made and these were finally completed and iced in the very small hours of Easter Day after everyone had collapsed into their beds. In fact the hours were smaller than I realised as with a house full of people, their clothes washing, food preparation, and their material histories, the day that followed looked much like any other and not at all like the first day of British Summer Time. 7.55 on my bedside chest became 8.55 on the vicar’s radio controlled watch and moderated panic broke out. We sent the vicar on his way for the 9.30 service and in return we got the church warden who came to pick me and the biscuits up. In his gentlemanly fashion, he waited outside as he glimpsed the pandemonium within.

Vietnamese embroidery by the the Red Mong tribe: detail of band around the bottom of a skirt

Vietnamese embroidery by the Red Mong tribe

Vietnamese embroidery: bag embroidered by the Red Mong tribe

All was well. By the time I got to church it was full of people and the urn was already bubbling – but I shall save the rest until I blog on the biscuits tomorrow. Pictorially this post is devoted to my last few photographs of Vietnamese embroidery and in particular daughter No 2’s best and most beautiful Vietnamese skirt. The skirt came from Sa Pa (Sapa) Town in the far North of Vietnam, The other embroideries were photographed in a shop selling vintage pieces in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) just round the corner from our hotel. I am glad to have the bright colours when it is still so cold in the Chilterns and the sun is so very intermittent.

Vietnamese embroidery: bands of appliqué and embroidery by the Flower Mong people

Vietnamese embroidery: bands of appliqué and embroidery by the Flower Mong people

For another post on Vietnamese skirts and brief descriptions of the traditional embroidered clothes of the main Vietnamese tribes see here. Daughter No 2’s skirt above is very like the splendid skirt of the Flower Mong shown in this post. However, I think that of my daughter’s is the work of the women of the Red Mong tribe because it lacks the floral fabric appliqué (seen behind the black squares in the border) to be expected from the Flower Mong. Who knows?