Singapore, Satay and Sun

One of the greatest joys of a nomadic life has been the privilege of delving into other customs and cultures, including cuisines. That being said, there are times when any of those three C’s might leave a rancid taste, but therein lies the fascination of travel.

Memories of an early childhood in Nigeria are hazy – sometimes jogged by a photograph or a smell, and sometimes a dish. I do remember disliking ‘fufu’, which our Sudanese cook would make as an accompaniment to casseroles or soups. In most of West Africa fufu / foofoo / foufou is any pounded, or combination, of meal, such as cassava, plantains or yam, which is then rolled into balls and boiled. However, in Nigeria, only fermented cassava is used thereby producing a thicker consistency to their fufu, or akpu. It is a gluggy, stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth, kind of dish which probably accounts for my aversion to porridge. And communion wafers.

As childhood progressed Singapore and Malaysia became my playground, and with that came an introduction to Asian food—a cuisine that proved far more to my liking. As an adult, and by then with our own children, sitting on the roadside or beachfront in Singapore, memories became reawakened as we watched a stall-holder crouch over a brazier, alternating fanning the charcoal flames with turning sizzling sticks of satay. The aromatic scents rising in a swirl of smoke as he brushed more seasoned oil over the chicken or beef.

Now living in rural Cambridgeshire, those heady experiences seem a long way off and so, every now and then, I will try to recreate the warmth of both the place and flavours of my youth. Satay is not a complicated dish, although a quick skim of a recipe will, at first, appear daunting – a teaspoon of this, a teaspoon of that – but as I grind and mix cumin, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon and garlic with a handful of roasted peanuts, the aromas transport me back in time. Sometimes I will replace coriander leaves with the seed from the same plant. The smooshed leaves give up a citrusy scent, whilst the seeds smell toasty and sweet. Mixed with the aniseed fragrance of cumin, the fruity pepperyness of cinnamon and the pungency of garlic, the tantalising colours of Asia rise to merge with my memories. Adding vegetable and sesame oil, then sweet chilli sauce, to the spices and slathering it over slivers of chicken to be skewered onto bamboo sticks, the essence of childhood is complete as the kitchen is filled with scents of the Orient.

But the sensory delights of satay would not be complete without the traditional accompaniment of kuah kacang, or peanut sauce. This time it is a cup of this and cup of that, plus a smidge of galangal—that spice closely related to ginger, then lemon grass, the tanginess of tamarind and a couple of tablespoons of palm sugar. 

The latter is not always easy to find and, over the years, I have come to know that cane sugar is no substitute for the viscous sap of the palm tree. But, if I can be bothered, a mixture of brown sugar, molasses and date sugar comes close to the real thing. A Canadian friend once assured me that maple syrup is an adequate replacement for date sugar but I can’t attest to that. 

As I squeeze a little lime juice then dip my satay into the kuah kacang, stab a piece of cooling cucumber, again the flavours of Asia merge with snapshots of my past. All that’s missing is a Tiger beer, oh yes, and the sun!

Finding Serenity in Paris

The City of Lights so named because, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Paris became the first city to use gas illumination on her streets. And Paris needed all the light possible this last weekend. It rained, then rained some more, and some more. But nothing could dampen my spirits as we wandered the city which provided so much background to my book Transfer, (OC Publishing 2019).

Standing at the Place de la Concorde surrounded by evidence of the primping being undertaken for the Summer Olympics in July this year, I gazed along the grand Champs-Élysées towards the Arc de Triomphe, and thought of Georges-Eugène Haussman’s vision for the pestilence-filled city of 1845. His, at the time, widely unpopular demolition of parts of medieval Paris produced the magnificent avenues, and fountain-filled parks and squares that give such pleasure to Parisiennes and tourists alike. It is a beautiful city, even in the rain.

The weekend in Paris had come about through surreptitious planning with the husband of a dear friend from St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. A surprise for a landmark birthday. We pulled it off! But I also wanted to do something memorable with Isabel – sans mari, and so I booked us a place on a perfume workshop. We left our husbands to their own devices – I think it involved pastis and wine – and found our way to Candora, on rue de Charles V, not far from the Bastille. 

The rough walled room held two long tables set with red runners and plates, as if for dinner. But a pencil and squat beaker took the place of knives and forks. Instead of a floral arrangement and candles as a centrepiece, a tray held four tall narrow beakers, and vase of perfume test strips.

Emmanuelle, a tall somewhat intimidating woman, stood before us. Her chestnut hair fell just so, her slacks and blouse fell perfectly as well. Despite a smile, her first words in perfect English, did little to lessen the feeling. “It takes a perfumer five years of chemistry study. You are learning how to make a perfume in two hours.”

We learnt that the brother and sister team of Béatrice Delorme and Emmanuel Frossard started Candora after many years working for companies such as L’Oréal and Guerlain. Madame Delorme had grown up accompanying her mother to a beauty atelier, or studio, where powders, lipsticks and fragrances were tailor made for clients. This cosmetics wizard had once been an opera singer (another connection to Transfer) whose stage name had been Candora. What better name for a perfumery than something that evokes a promise of riches? Or, more prosaically, Emmanuelle explained, a ‘can do’ attitude in English.

History lesson over, we were handed strips dipped in a mystery bottle and asked to describe the smell. Anise came to mind but, urged to try harder, we had to find another underlying scent. The woman to my left, who in a strange coincidence happened to come from an area of Houston I know well, suggested ‘tobacco’. She went to the top of the class, as the rest of us nodded in sage agreement.

“The olfactory nerve,” Emmanuelle said, “enables our sense of smell. As the shortest sensory nerve, it starts in our brain and ends in the upper inside of our nose.” She went on to explain about our library of smells, suggesting a smell is difficult to express and differs from one person to another. Not something I’d ever thought about but it makes sense. 

Chanel No. 5 is categorised as the first ‘designer’ perfume. Gabrielle Chanel (Coco) charged Ernest Beaux, a French perfumer working for the Russian court, to create her signature scent which although released over a hundred years ago remains the world’s best-selling perfume.

Before being trusted to create our own perfume we learnt about top, middle and base notes, about vapour distillation. We learnt that five tonnes of rose petals creates one litre of essential oil at a cost of 15,000 Euros! No wonder eau de parfum is so expensive.

We played with fragrances from Candora’s five families – fresh, floral, woody, spicy and fruity. Grapefruit, iris, wild herbs, marine, oud, cedar, ginger, sandalwood and others wafted on strips of paper under each nose as we tried to come up with a scent purely our own. 

I found it easiest to eliminate the smells that didn’t suite me: jasmine, too floral; lily of the valley, too old – it’s what my grandmother wore; tobacco leaf, too smokey despite being told it had undertones of honey and almond; cotton flower, too subtle. Not only does it help to be a chemist in the art and magic of perfume making, a good grasp of botany would also assist. 

And then I got it. Seringa, yuzu and pink peppercorns! But the actual formula, suggested by Emmanuelle, the true perfumer, shall remain a closely guarded secret, known only to Candora and me. As will Isabel’s creation.

But I can tell you what I named my perfume. Finding Serenissima – the name of my contemporary novel due to be released by Vine Leaves Press in March 2025. The perfume might not have been created in Venice, where the book is set, but I found a certain serenity in spending a few days in Paris with special friends, despite the rain.

I can see clearly….now

On the first day of each month of 2023 I have flipped the page of a calendar given to me by my Australian goddaughter, Jossie. The images are details of Delvene Cockatoo-Collins’ art and, each month, the intricacy of her work has given me pleasure. The Quandamooka artist lives and works on Minjerribah, on North Stradbroke Island. By a strange twist of fate, Straddie is the island on which my other Australian goddaughter, Niamh, spends a great deal of time.

I have just flipped through the twelve months of images and I think they have spoken so closely to me this year because of the labyrinthine twists and turns depicted in some of Delvene’s work. Sometimes her art must be viewed in its entirety – whether a painting, a mural or a sinuous wallhanging, in order to get the full meaning.

And a maze is what 2023 has been like for me. 

It started on St Croix. My axis flipped, rather like the calendar page, in February when we made the decision to leave the Caribbean. In March I oversaw the refurbishment of the bathroom chewed by termites in our Downtown Houston apartment, whilst John packed up our home. In April I flew to England to find us a house. In May I went to Trinidad to watch Kate’s first major production, Wonderland, staged at the national auditorium, to great acclaim. In June we packed up Houston and landed in Cambridgeshire. 

A life made complex by no-one but ourselves and, in the great scheme of things, of great insignificance. But one, which nonetheless, has caused a certain amount of angst. Yet when I take a step back, take a breath and look at that bigger picture I can see the meaning behind the move.

Uppermost in the joy column has been the birth of our grandson – a gurgling, happy little boy who lives thirty minutes away. Followed closely by the delight we get from seeing our granddaughters thriving in Trinidad, and where John is currently welcoming in the new year.

I have been painting the bathroom and, as those of you kind enough to read my wanderings over the years will know, is the time when my mind floats free. China Porcelain Blue walls have lulled me into writing an entire manuscript … in my mind, but something else that sometimes requires a step back.

Dee, my daughter-in-law, her mother and that gorgeous baby have been staying for a few days but are now home in Hitchin, thank goodness, because I have come down with the lurgy making its way from house to house in our village.

I shall see in 2024, not with the fizzing of fireworks and popping corks, but with the splutter of a cough. However, as I close the calendar on last year I shall revel in the knowledge that family and friends around the world remain woven in my life to form an intricate pattern, much like the workings of the cobweb I saw on a recent walk, or indeed the artwork of Delvene Cockatoo-Collins.

I can see clearly now, and delight in wishing you a happy and healthy New Year!

Seeds of Friendship

The plum and date crumble is ready to to bake for supper tonight, and a half-eaten Apple Dorset Cake is sitting on the kitchen counter waiting for any passing taker – in all likelihood either my husband or son, my grandson hasn’t quite got to solids but I anticipate a healthy taste for it is in his future.

Who cares about my recipes? 

Well, I do, because they remind me of people I have known around the world who have shared their culinary delights. The crumble comes from a published cookbook – Dates by Jo Parfitt and Sue Valentine – written whilst both lived in Oman. Jo, a dear friend and the publisher of Summertime Books www.summertimebooks.com is the woman responsible for setting me on my writing life. 

But it is the little tartan book that is packed in my suitcase when I travel, just in case cooking might be required. Or indeed somewhere I might find a new recipe. Our daughter, Kate, wrote the flyleaf – her writing has improved, mine hasn’t. The scrappy hand-written recipes are ones I have poached from friends or family. Mum’s liver pate is the first recipe in the book. Alison McCloskey is responsible for the aforementioned family favourite apple cake. Kay’s Beef Stroganoff is always better from her kitchen than mine, but still I try. This ragged book is part of my history. 

A few days ago, as I coated dried fruit in flour for the Christmas cake – another purloined recipe – the rhythmic movement took me back to St Croix, where a part of my heart lingers and where I mixed the cake last year. Because it is not only recipes that send my mind wandering to friends around the world. Plants have the same power.

In Christiansted, it was our garden that reminded me of friends. A jungle of creeping Bride’s Tears to a quarry of rubble rocks and discarded beer bottles became a lush tropical paradise thanks to the generosity of those whose plants I coveted.

No Frangipani on the island remained safe from my acquisitive eyes – tender pink from Isabel, glorious sunshine yellow from Toni, lush plum from Jackie. Poor Man’s Orchid from Emy bloomed in riotous orange abandon where once mouldy crotons leant their gnarled and aching branches against the front of the house. From Judith, a delicate white orchid arched over a blue china frog given to me by Roz. Orchids from Susan settled into a contented symbiotic life on branches or snuggled onto old coral-stone walls. I learnt from her that the trick to orchid growing is benign neglect – that is an edict I can follow.

Not everything was begged. John returned from a St George’s Village Botanical Gardens armed with a stately Portlandia in whose trumpets the bees thrived, whilst the humming birds bathed in the leaves. Two other plants from the Gardens joined our garden – Golden Cup and a plant whose name had been contested since its arrival – he said Oleander, I said Camellia . It didn’t matter because the vine flowered with reaching pink beauty as it climbed the pergola, behind which a passionfruit eventually produced a delicious bounty.

It must be admitted, some plants were snipped – Coleus and Firebush come to mind – but those, and the generosity of friends attracted the humming birds, bees and butterflies. A blue heron enjoyed fishing in the pond – an act of sabotage neither Bonnie the cat, nor Stan the dog made any move to discourage.

Now living in Cambridgeshire, England, a steady drizzle soaks the bleak winter garden but robins, blue tits, great tits, and collared doves flit to the feeding tables and hanging suet and seed balls. John has made a hedgehog house which will provide a safe, pesticide-free space for the omnivores who, in return I hope will feast on the slugs. The latter are undoubtedly Italian – their favoured meal being basil topped off with oregano. 

This garden will, I know, spring to life both with the onset of warmer weather and  under John’s steady labour. There will be surprises as buds begin to show. With luck my English garden will one day provide the same pleasure, that same sense of belonging, as plants are embedded not only with their botanical names but with the names of new friends.

How’s that for a recipe for life?

Finding Mum

Speaking at book clubs I am sometimes asked whether I find the research element of writing historical fiction tedious. I reply, “Never.” Research can send the writer down a warren of tunnels, the difficult part is knowing when to stop scrabbling. To decide which facts are inviolate, which snippets of information will add colour and depth to one’s characters, which descriptions of a place are integral to the story. Then the fiction is sifted around the facts like thousands of grains of sand to eventually form a beach.

I am in the throes – no, I’m lying – I’ve just started writing the first draft of my next book with the working title of Annie’s Day. I’m fortunate to have a provisional contract with my publisher, Vine Leaves Press, as long as I get the manuscript to them by June 2024 so, as winter draws in around me and the initial flurry of decorating a new home is over, I no longer have an excuse not to get to work.

Annie’s Day has been nibbling at the back of my mind for many years. It will be loosely based on some of my mother’s wartime experiences as an Australian Army Nurse posted to New Guinea in 1943. (Mum was also in Singapore as it fell to the Japanese in February 1942 but that is a period about which much has been written.) Facts gleaned from her war records, occasional reminisces brought to the fore when she returned to live in Papua New Guinea in 1973, and photos have all given me a bedrock from which to start. 

I am currently reading Phillip Bradley’s monumental book, D-Day New Guinea. It is one of a number I have read about the WWII conflict sometimes skimmed over by historians, in favour of the other battles in the South Pacific. Australian forces, along with American, were instrumental in the defence of New Guinea, the last line of defence before Australia. New Guinea, then, and now as Papua New Guinea, has an inhospitable and brutal terrain. Mountains swathed in mist that test the best of pilots, rivers and coastlines swamped by crocodiles— fresh and saltwater, razor sharp grasses and, during the war, a native population not always on the side of the Allies. There is a quote, a Japanese military saying, on the back flyleaf of the book, “Java is heaven, Burma is hell, but you never come back alive from New Guinea.”

An afternoon of grim reading had me, once again, in awe of my mother. She did not suffer fools gladly, could have a sharp tongue, but her compassion for those in pain could never be doubted. She smoked for most of her life. She had two glasses of whisky each and every night until she died – Christmas Eve 2005. She was a good dancer, an excellent driver, couldn’t sing a note, and was often the last to leave a party. She was a loving if, at times, tough mum.

Amongst her papers I found photos of her, sometimes in fatigues, sometimes in a crisp uniform complete with hat, and sometimes in more traditional nursing garb. A number of years ago I found a photograph of her leaving Singapore aboard the SS Empire Star. Perhaps now there would be more, and so I delved into the world hidden in my computer.

Today, when I entered, “Ida Arundel Morse, NFX7686”, up came two new photos. Both taken on August 8th, 1944 at the 111th Australian Casualty Clearing Station at Alexishafen. Mum is No 2 in both photos. It is the nudge I needed to write Annie’s Day.

And no, research is never tedious.