Homemade hummus in the early morning sun. Little bit of parsley in it. Basic recipe here.
The book in between is THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR. Set in a fictional castle in Aberdeenshire, Ailish Sinclair’s debut novel blends an often overlooked period of history, the Scottish witchcraft accusations, in particular the 1597 Aberdeen witchcraft panic, with a love story. Out now.
Universal links:
Sunrise from our garden…
Autumn is well and truly underway. High winds. Flooding. Beautiful trees. Log fires. And lovely roast dinners. Above is a quarter marrow (peeled, deseeded) stuffed with the simplest of nut roasts made by blending/processing walnuts, almonds, sweet potato, celery, parsley, sage and some Vecon stock. Roast for about 45 minutes at 200c/400F. YUM.
Holly Bourne’s new YA novel, The Places I’ve Cried in Public is too important a title for us not to mention. It’s a book about abuse. It could help prevent abuse and even lessen the lasting negative impact on the targets of abusive behaviour.
We follow Amelie as she revisits the places she cried during her relationship with Reese, a relationship that she thought was loving. Through this story the author deftly points out many of the red flags that are hallmarks of abuse and which are often ignored or not noticed by young people (or people of any age). This can be because when you’ve grown up in an atmosphere of abuse and control, these behaviours seem normal, but it can also be because they are new and unknown, or because they are perpetuated as acceptable, as in one conversation we were party to recently where an abusive individual was described as merely having a ‘strong personality’. No. A world of big bad no.
Two of the strongest early indicators of whether you’re dealing with an abusive or narcissistic personality, in any relationship type, are that person’s reactions to both your failures and your successes. A toxic person will revel in your failures, your heartbreaks and, in fact, anything that goes wrong for you at all. They will patronise rather than empathise, and sometimes try to convince you that an event that was simply unfortunate was actually your failure.
And success? Well, you’re not allowed to have any. They will chip away at it, pointing out others who’ve had more success, or are ‘better than you’. You may actually learn never to speak of your own achievements, understanding that it makes this person feel bad. They will attempt, and quite possibly manage, to sabotage you too.
No. Walk away. Read this book!
That was all rather more serious than we usually do here now… so do have some cake. Morrison’s chocolate vegan cupcakes and Aldi’s Raspberry Tarts.
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Sometimes that’s all you need. Vegetables in a stir-fry. Broad beans from the garden. A good book.
And some sea and sand…
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We are enjoying the gentle magic and mystery of The Near Witch. And hot chocolate. And the spring sunshine.
Then there’s beautiful bowls and easy meals. Goodfella’s have a new vegan pizza:
But, our best place to be? Or one of them 🙂 The wild and wonderful woods…
White chocolate coins, £1 from Asda. And beside them on the coffee table, bringing social justice to Pride and Prejudice: Longbourn.
From the Co-op 🙂
We’re eating lots of carrot soup and reading The Telling.
And enjoying the beautiful low winter sun as it lights the trees…
Oh the products! Hardly a day goes by without us hearing of a new one or two or twenty-six 🙂
Above is the Morrison’s Red Velvet Cupcake (they have chocolate ones too). Lebkuchen hearts and tarts from Aldi in the background.
Let’s all remember to eat some vegetables too.
And read books. Currently enjoying The Child
Also: Great Crowns of Stone.
And seriously: remember, remember, the broccoli of November!
It’s summer! Well, summery… sometimes. Along with the start of barefoot beach walks this means The Last Bus Canteen (totally vegan café near New Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire) is open again at weekends:
Also of interest to local people: The Davron Hotel in Rosehearty has a new extensive vegan menu which boasts starters, mains and various puddings.
Book-wise we’ve been enjoying:
Philippa Gregory’s The Taming of the Queen and Deliciously Ella with Friends, a plant based cook book with lots of full colour photos.
And rainbows, we’ve been enjoying rainbows…
First up we have Fat Gay Vegan: Eat, Drink and Live Like You Give a Sh!t by Sean O’Callaghan of the well known Fat Gay Vegan blog.
We LOVE this book. It’s political but it’s also deeply personal, containing many stories from the lives of Sean and other contributors. The book is about how to be vegan, but it’s more about how to be a better vegan, and really it’s about how to be a better person. And we can all work on that.
It’s refreshing to read a vegan book that tackles how minorities and traditionally oppressed voices are treated, even within the vegan community. We have experienced and witnessed shocking able-ism and racism in our 21 years as vegans, and yes, sadly, sometimes from vegans. It weakens the movement. It weakens the world. It needs to end.
And we can all check our privilege. We can all watch our language. Some in this house have, upon occasion, described various unfortunate things as ‘crazy’. Not good, Vegan Family House, not good.
So it’s a challenging book, a personally challenging book, but it’s in no way downbeat or depressing. Although forthright, it’s written with a compassionate sense of humour. It’s empowering. Why should we shut up and put up about our veganism to please or appease non-vegan friends and relatives? At the end of each chapter there are little refuelling stops with delicious and simple recipes and food suggestions. And in the final chapter Sean predicts a world that continues to become more vegan, and perhaps more importantly, more kind.
Here it is on Amazon (out tomorrow Jan 4th).
And now, for a practical guide from Veganuary!
For those who don’t know, Veganuary is a charity that encourages people to go vegan for January and the rest of the year. And this is their compelling guide. It’s so persuasive that apparently the proof-reader went vegan!
The book has sections on why you should be vegan, with warnings of graphic content that you can choose to read or not, and then being vegan at home, when out, visiting friends, answering questions, and everyday foods you maybe didn’t know were vegan. It’s a very good starting point for anyone who is thinking of going vegan and wondering how to go about it and how hard/easy it will be.
Enjoy your vegan reading!
