photo by author Sarah Gabriel
Lacey
The Critique Group
All authors need others to help them evaluate prose and ideas. If you want total support, get a dog. They think everything a writer does is wonderful.
But for real criticism, you need cats. I adopted Grady and Lacey as kittens from the SPCA. First cat, full price, second cat, half price. Meet my critiquers.
Lacey is much more high-strung and volatile. Look at her sideways or dangle a participle, and she’s outta here. But when she’s pleased, she expresses herself most charmingly. She’s the half price cat, and I recently learned that she is classified as a torbie, a combination of tabby and tortoiseshell. I had wondered if such a combo was possible ever since I realized there were orangey patches under some of those stripes, so it’s nice to know that the category exists.
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M. J. Putney
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Lacey |
Grady, a suave sophisticate who has seen it all, says, “Amuse me. Surprise me. Keep me awake.” He’s the full price cat. He looks a whole lot like a Russian Blue, but since he was found lost on the streets of Baltimore, I figure that he’s a wrong-side-of-the-blanket aristocrat. I call him my little Romanov.
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Grady
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Welsh Cakes
When Simon and Meg are escaping from the bad guy, they have to take off across country and the only food they have is some broken currant cakes from Simon’s saddlebags. Those cakes are based on the Welsh Cakes I learned to make when I lived in England. A Welsh friend introduced me to the cakes, and gave me her recipe.
Barbara’s Welsh Cakes
8 oz. plain flour
Pinch salt
½ teaspoon nutmeg or cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 oz. lard
4 oz. sugar
4 oz. dried currants
Egg beaten with tablespoon of milk
1) Sift flour, salt, nutmeg; rub in lard until well mixed and mealy.
2) Add sugar, baking powder, currants, and stir.
3) Add egg and milk mixture. Mix well, then knead. If it seems too dry to roll, add a little more milk.
4) Roll dough half an inch thick, then cut into rounds.
5) Brown on both sides on a griddle or reasonable facsimile, over medium heat. Keep griddle minimally greased with lard or bacon fat.
Makes about 25 2” cakes.
Notes: Using lard and bacon fat are part of the distinctive flavor of these cakes—tasty but not too sweet. I found when I returned to the United States and tried the recipe that the texture was different, probably because the standard British sugar is much coarser than standard American sugar. This made the cakes less crumbly.
In the Celtic fringes of Britain, cooking over a hearth and using griddles was much more common than using a stove, so griddle cooked cakes like these are very characteristic of Wales and Scotland. |
Welsh Cakes, American style
This version uses American measurements.
2 cups all purpose flour
¾ cup of white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg or cinnamon
½ cup butter
½ cup dried currants (can substitute raisins)
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 to 4 tablespoons of milk
Directions:
1) Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, then cut in the butter with a pastry blender until mixture is well blended.
2) Stir in currants
3) Use a fork to blend the lightly beaten egg and about 3 tablespoons of milk. Add egg and milk mixture to the flour mixture and blend with a fork. Add a bit more milk if the dough is to dry to roll out easily. Don’t mix any more than necessary.
4) On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it’s about ½ inch thick, then cut into rounds. I use a drinking glass for the cutting.
5) Heat a griddle or frying pan over medium heat until hot. Grease with a little butter (or non-stick cooking spray. An electric frying pan will work if you have one.) Fry the cakes about 3 to 4 minutes a side. If they brown too quickly, turn down the heat because the cakes might not be cooked all the way through. Cool on rack. Delicious with tea or coffee. Can be frozen.
The cakes can be cooked in the oven like American cookies, but I found them much less interesting that way. The browning on both sides—and probably the extra butter and salt the cakes acquire this way—give a better taste, and a result much closer to the original. |
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