The Holiday Season

December 28, 2025 / aggiemurch / 1 Comment

The card table is balanced on the old coffee table – giving us a square surface on which to play. The fire is on, we are warm. Crumbs from the Dundee cake land on the table and the cards and we brush them to the floor. There are two egg cups perched on the corners of the table. They each hold an ounce of Jameson Whisky. We are poor drinkers and card sharks. But we will play Machiavelli to the death.

The rain has been falling steadily all week but the wind is quiet, not ready to push the rain or us around. The roadsides are splashed with yellow. Some call the big loose bushes Mexican Marigolds but they look almost Indian in their brightness. There is another swatch of yellow and green along the roadside – a succulent who is claiming this climate as its own. Three times I have seen rhododendrons pushing purple and crimson buds into the New Year. No one can tell them to stop.

A member of the Ukrainian military rides on top of an armored fighting vehicle. Ukrainian Ground Forces/Handout/Reuters

And no-one can tell the soldiers to stop either.

While the news reporters focus on Christmas lights, spontaneous angry killings alternating with acts of kindnesses they have withdrawn from the horrors that continue in Gaza, The Sudan and Ukraine to name just those we have carried through this last year. Now the Unites States President has turned his watery unfocused eyes on Venezuela with its oil. He is trying for a replay of the British taking over the Iranian oil fields in the 1950s. Someone must have been watching Taghi Amirani’s film Coup 53 and suggested that America could have another crack at this kind of takeover. We are blinded in the headlamps of this US government administration’s decisions that come tumbling out of the revolving side door of The White House. Last week, off-shore energy windmills were cancelled and more American jobs were lost. In Kentucky the Japanese-owned Jim Beam bourbon whiskey company will halt production at its main site for all of 2026. Halt – not yet close down – but still there are more American jobs lost, families that will go hungry, get sick and even die because of the government tariffs that effect all American industries. This week came the recalling of career ambassadors from around the world. They are to be replaced with new ‘loyal diplomats’ to the agenda of this administration over and above that of the American people. That is a strange sentence to write but becoming more true with every decision coming through the revolving door. First out the door – or into the ring – is the special envoy sent to Greenland to place it ‘under US control.’

With trade and educational wheeling and dealing Sir Keir Starmer is clawing Britain’s way back closer to Europe in a desperate bid for some safety. While Europe has promised Ukraine 90 billion Euros in funds to continue the war with Russia, alliances need to be stronger as Europe faces off openly with Russia and the US putting in place loyal – to the president – diplomats.

It is the Christmas Holiday and in Northern California it is raining steadily, the water soaking into the dry ground making mud, rivulets and drawing nourishment from the soil to turn the hills a deeper, richer green. A Loveliness of Ladybugs has come inside our hayloft home. They crash into the paper lanterns and settle on the window ledges waiting for this storm to be over but the rain continues to fall. Outside the sheep seem not to care, though the chickens return to their pens to wait the weather out. I go into the vegetable garden and hunt for sorrel. The first starter was given to me by a tough midwestern pal of Northern European decent. The sorrel, with a deep tap root is tough too, and thrives with total neglect though the year. It drinks up the rain and now the leaves are ready for my harvest. Sorrel leaves, a potato, maybe a leek and there is soup to warm the family this winter week. At this time of the year, in all our traditions, for a brief time we close our minds to the outside world to focus on our families and yet I cannot but picture the grandmothers in the Ukrainian countryside searching their small patch of land for some sorrel, a potato and maybe a leek. I hope that they can find them.

This has been A Letter From. A Broad Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side and as always supported by Beatrice from MurchStudio

Beautiful Beets

September 16, 2017November 2, 2017 / aggiemurch

The Spring beets laying out on the farmer’s market stalls look lush and inviting. Beetroot has now been elevated to a super good-for-you vegetable. The baby greens are pretty under the bite sized sections of dark crimson roots tossed in with paint-white feta cheese in a salad.
But what happened to Borscht, good old beetroot soup? It appears lost from all but Hungarian restaurant menus. Classic borscht recipes came from Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, and Poland, with various additions of potatoes and cabbages.
But for today’s cookbooks we are urged towards green watercress and sorrel soups to brighten our spring lunches with creamy yellow hubbard and butternut squash soups to warm us in the autumn evenings.

My borscht recipe was probably birthed from Gourmet Cook Book Volume Two an early, possibly desperate, Christmas gift from my husband. But it has been long since tweaked and fiddled with and now I claim this one as my own.

While here in London, as I edit another ‘final’ version of Farming the Flats, I have come to a page that says, insert Beet recipe here. Oh. OK. Back down to the Turkish greengrocer with Monty I go. But as summer gives way to autumn, the dark beets sit cowering beside the bold orange winter squash who are bursting with fresh grown pride. The beets, like the carrots beside them, have had their greens chopped away. The spring greens that were so bright and brave are fading in this late summer harvest.

Harvest on the kitchen counter

I pluck:
4 beets
2 carrots
1 onion
from the boxes and bring them home where I already have
Bay leaves, sage, thyme and chives from the garden.
Olive oil, salt, pepper, caraway and cumin from the cupboard
Chicken or vegetable stock from the freezer.

Now it is simple soup making.
Parboil the beets in their skins then lift the beets into a bowl to cool.
Strain and save the beet water. Some recipes call for throwing out the beets or the water which is ridiculous. The water only needs straining to remove any left over farm soil and grit.
While the beets are cooling heat the olive oil in a big saucepan,
Add the chopped onion to sweat slowly as you peel and slice the carrots.
(You will notice this recipe is 2 beets to 1 carrot).
When the onion is a sweet yellow add the chopped carrots and then
the caraway and cumin to taste. I’m heavy on both of these.
Stir for a while until the carrots are glistening.
Any wine in the fridge? A glug glug can go in now.
Stir some more and then add the thyme, bay leaves (At least 2) and sprig of sage.
Salt and pepper now as you like it.
When you feel the flavors have been properly introduced then pour in the stock.
Bring to a simmer and cook until the carrots are soft.
Time to slip the skins off of the beetroots, give them a rough chop and add to the mix.
Do you need to add more liquid? If so you have the beet water on hand.
When this is all cooked up nicely, twenty minutes or so, turn off the heat.
Put on the saucepan lid and go and do something else for at least an hour.
Only then come back and fish out the bay leaves, thyme stalk and sprig of sage.
Put the saucepan somewhere low, in the sink maybe, and blend the soup until there are no lumps.
How does it feel? How does it taste?
I like a firmish consistency and to be able to taste the caraway with a hint of cumin
Adjust the liquid with more beet water and flavor with seasoning.
The soup is ready now but will be better still after sitting a little longer.
Because borscht is Russian and Eastern European most recipes call for potatoes rather than carrots and a topping of thick Greek Yogurt.
But since I cooked this in London I used a dollop of fresh Devonshire cream before sprinkling on the chopped chives from the garden.
And the little glass of wine? Well I didn’t put all of it in the soup, just a glug, not two.

Soup supper for one

Sorrel Soup

April 1, 2015 / aggiemurch

Sorrel growing in the garden.

Sorrel is an early, easy leafy green vegetable to plant in the perennial vegetable garden.

Garden sorrel or Rumex Acetosa and French Sorrel Rumex Scutatus both have a tangy lemon flavour. I’m not sure which one I am growing but it may be the French because of its pointed leaves. Sorrel looks like its weedy first cousin wild Dock but is a brighter, springier green. They all look a bit scruffy but are equally useful. Sorrel for soup and salad and Dock (with a bit of spit) to calm a stinging nettle rash when you are out walking.

This recipe is adapted from one given to me by my friend Creta Pullen. Creta, her husband Bill, and their two very enthusiastic dogs run Ocean Song Retreat Bed and Breakfast. Creta is an outrageous cook and always concocting something new. It was Creta who gave me my Sorrel starts.

Blended sorrel soup on the stove.

Cut a bunch/handful of Sorrel.
Wash and sort it and set it in a jar until you are ready to use it.
Sauté a chopped onion or leek or shallot in olive oil.
Today I added a little fresh chopped ginger and some turmeric and 4 bay leaves.
Stir to colour and soften while dicing up a Russet potato and
chopping 2 carrots.
Now add these to the onions and stir some more.
Any white wine in the fridge? A glug or two can go in now.
After the wine is absorbed add your home made chicken or vegetable stock.

(There will be more on making stock later).

Ready to serve sorrel soup with a hard boiled egg.

Let it all cook up gently until the carrots and potatoes are tender.
Strip the sorrel leaves from their stems and roughly cut up the leaves.
While the stock cools do something else (lay the table, boil an egg or two).
Fish out the bay leaves and put them in the compost.
Now with whatever blender technique you use, blend the soup and sorrel leaves together. Return to the pot and adjust the seasoning. I add a little pepper here but no salt.
Now it is time to add your own favorites. A little milk or cream or butter will soften the flavor. Tonight I made soft boiled eggs.
Some warm French bread, a glass of wine and supper is yours and goes down a treat.