Gratuitous Image of Large Cabbage
I have been defending my white cabbages all summer from marauding cabbage white caterpillars and the even more insidious cabbage moth (worse due to caterpillars' habit of going straight for the heart - as it were) and it has paid off! In truth I quite enjoyed the combat this season, as rather than just picking off the caterpillars I decided to be proactive and it felt wonderfully eccentric pursuing the fluttering foe with a blue fruit tray -leaping over beds and fences to deliver hammering tennis serve blows. Back to the point, nothing swells the pride like a well grown vegetable and the first white cabbage head of the year is only second in proportions to my own! The variety is kilton F1 and its resistance to club root has made it something of a brassica saviour in our garden. This year as sprouts, red cabbage and kale wilted and failed about them, the cabbage plants just grew and grew. The obvious payoff would be a poor texture or flavour, but in fact the hearts are extremely crisp and sweet making them perfect for coleslaw and sauerkraut as well as the normal boiling and steaming.
If there is one thing which gets a countryman going more than an oversized vegetable, it must be a gun and as promised (though later than advertised) Mr. C appeared today with his new shotgun, a Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 bore still in its wrapping. I pride myself in not being materialistic but a beautiful gun is certainly a chink in the puritanical armour. My preferences is for side by sides but his new Beretta is certainly a fine piece of workmanship and it must be said that the Italian manufacturers have bought an elegance to the utilitarian over and under that few other makers have achieved. Richard Jefferies comments in the amateur poacher that ‘... a man likes to see his gun admired...’ and despite the hundred and twenty-two years since its first publication, the sentiment holds true. Any man will give up his gun gladly to be coveted by another and Mr. C looked on like a proud mother as I brought the piece to my shoulder, traced the figured walnut with a finger, ran my hand along the slender fore end and grunted with masculine approval.
Needless to say, a quick shooting foray was squeezed into the busy afternoon and when I had finished looking after G, I wandered out with my old (but much loved) A.Y.A. and the dog (occasionally loved) to find Mr C. After putting up a group of pheasants which all flew the wrong way, we walked together to the old plum orchard where I hoped to find mushrooms after the recent rain. There were only one or two elderly looking specimens and having passed comment on the lousy mushroom year we crossed the lane. Mr. C being without a dog strode down the slope to stand at the point of ' Triangle Wood ' which funnels neatly down to the Bramley orchard below. Treacle in her customarily flamboyant style eventually tracked down a loan cock bird and it flew out presenting what I thought would be the perfect maiden shot for the new gun. Nothing - no bang and I emerged from the wood, as beaters so often do inquiring, ‘What was wrong with that bird?’. 'Nothing,' came the irritated reply and he explained in language which I shan't repeat that the local dog walker (a man who has cost us countless hours of sport over the years) appeared just in time to prevent the shot. Still, around the site of S’s old dung lump creamy white mushrooms were pushing up the straw littered ground, so I at least had some consolation.
Dinner
Faggots in onion gravy with mashed potato and steamed cabbage. Faggots which we make in bulk and freeze at pig killing time are the default meal for a busy day.
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