My Dad loved Delia Smith, cookbooks and cooking – In a Vase on Monday

“When I’m at my best, I am my father’s daughter.” Unknown

“It was my father who taught me to value myself.  Dawn French comedian.

“My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.”  Unknown

I was always a Daddie’s girl right from my earliest memories – and this continued into my adult life.  My Dad was a mentor in my working life too – he always had wise advice, helped me think through processes and issues.   We shared many interests, cooking, reading science fiction, how to make things, the outdoors too.  He was an engineer and planner.  It was 19 years at the end of January since my Dad died from lung cancer at only 70 years old. I think about him every day (as I do my brother).  Often, I know what my Dad and my brother would think about things.  He was a friend to many people and like my brother, people remembered him after one meeting.  His habit of making people feel at ease rubbed off on my brother and I.  He was a kind and funny man – I miss you Jay 🙂 We all do.

Things a girl should know

As I got into my teens, My Dad decided to start teaching me useful things, as I was out and about in the world – he wanted me to be confident, astute, hardworking, but most of all kind and helpful, person. These are just some of the things he taught me:

• how to shake hands properly especially in business meetings.
• open champagne bottles properly (and wine bottles too)
• how to make a decent cup of tea 🙂
• how tie bow ties
• how to iron – he used to be in the RAF To be fair I absolutely hate ironing and probably iron four or five things a year.  My mother thinks I’m a slob because I don’t iron.  I just buy clothes that don’t need much ironing 😉  Life is too short for ironing.
• how to look after me in a fight, how to land a punch, but also how to defuse tricky situations.
• the ability to stand in another person’s shoes and see their perspective.

Cooking = love

My Dad started teaching me to cook when my brother and I were about five or so – we learnt all the basics and were soon making our tea, with my mum supervising when we got home from school.  She would empty During the week my Dad was home late from work in London so he cooked everything at the weekend and made food for the freezer for a couple of meals during the week. My Mum is most definitely not a cook – she has never enjoyed it.  I got my love of gardening from her.

Jay used cooking as a way of expressing his love   He and his brother and sister were really excellent cooks because their Mum was taught to cook by her mum who was a cook in a big house in the country.  So if you’ve lost track my great granny was the cook to gentry.  It was very unusual for two boys born in the late 1920s to cook so well.   I have very happy memories of eating food at my Uncle Fred’s and at Aunt Joan’s homes.

I’ve written a few times about what cooking means to me and our family:

• In a Vase on Monday – three flowers. birthdays, third-hope-and-kindness/ – 12 February 2018 – favourite cookbooks
• In a Vase on Monday – love and rosemary for remembrance/ on my Dad’s birthday December 2015 – a story of my Dad’s favourite chefs, Matt my brother, Steve and Uncle Fred and my Chap too.

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All this got me thinking about what flowers to pick on an unseasonably warm late February Day.  I picked the Delia cookbook’s as she was probably his favourite cookbook writer – he said he loved the way she de-mystified cooking, gave simple instructions including what to do when things when wrong.   My Dad used to say that recipes were a blueprint but some could be adapted and some couldn’t. But baking was chemistry and you need to get that right – measure everything twice 🙂

In a Vase on Monday – Daffodils and a Hellebore

• Daffodils
  These three standard daffodils were the first three daffodils to flower in my garden – I picked them at the weekend but they are still going strong.  They beat the tete a tetes into bloom (which is unusual). I planted many daffodil bulbs last Autumn which are coming into flower – I’ve got plenty of crocuses up too but they never look happy in a vase so I’ve left them.   I chose the Daffodil’s as it is St David’s Day this week, but also because my Dad’s family were from North Wales (all four of his grandparents were born there) though he and his siblings were born and grew up in Hackney in the East End of London.
• hellebore
  This is one of three plants in my garden – it’s the standard variety that has pink and white flowers.  I am coming to love hellebores.
  Their common name is lenten rose (even though they’re not a member of the rose family.
• Rosemary for remembrance and cooking too.
• The Vase came from My Chap’s work (he works in the florist industry) – a milk bottle style vase.  I picked the vase because of my Dad’s love of cooking.  It’s also a simple ‘vase’ which suits the flowers well I think.
  We are seriously considering switching back to glass milk bottles to our bit for the environment and reduce global warming.  It was 20 degrees yesterday in Salford – this time last year we were deep in the chill and snow from the ‘Beast from the East’.

As usual, I am joining in with Cathy from Rambling in the Garden for In a Vase on Monday – it’s a simple idea, pick the flowers and plants in your locality, photograph and write about them.   This week she has Tete a tetes and  lovely they look too.  I love looking around everyone’s links to see what’s growing and also peoples’ thoughts on life.

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Views from my Garden Bench is 4!

I can’t quite believe it but my blog is four; so much has happened since I started out in Feb 2015.  I’ve written many posts about flowers and gardening, some history and life in Manchester.

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“I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes”  Vladimir Nabokov Author. 

I love and miss my awesome Dad Jay and wonderful brother Matt every day, but I celebrate and remember their lives, their thoughts and all the fun and happy memories.

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And remember everyone – life isn’t a dress rehearsal – wear the shoes, eat cake, drink gin, climb a hill, plant flowers, go on adventures with those you love (and tell them you love them too)

Being a Daddie’s girl was the best thing 🙂

Carpe Diem,

Love Bec xx xx