Camera free chicken

A fortnight ago now, a birthday celebration with the younger branch of the family, a celebration involving roast chicken without a photographic record, at least not much of one.

Full strength bacon procured to top off both the sage and onion stuffing and the chicken, with the dried sage from Turkey topped up with fresh sage from the back patio. The fresh not having done terribly well this year: tastes fine but not very much of it.

Fat, jelly and  left over mashed potato from the oxtail noticed at reference 1, combined in the usual way to make gravy. BH not sure about confusing the flavours of oxtail and chicken but I would be surprised if anyone other than herself noticed. I thought it was fine, but then I only take gravy by the dessert spoon, rather than pouring the stuff on.

Chicken nearly all done in the one sitting, taken with, for a change, fizzing Prosecco. Stuffing nearly all done too, certainly all gone by breakfast time the following day. Followed by a handsome cherry pie, the last of the cherries mentioned at reference 1. Taken without hot yellow custard, the tin of custard powder having gone missing - recovered now, but not before a replacement had been purchased. Which left the Stoneleigh Supervisor with the small tub of cold yellow, factory custard which she much preferred.

Outdoor entertainments followed, including organising a picnic for Polly and her friends on their special picnic table and the Supervisor taking a turn at chariot driving, using the strap noticed at reference 2 to harness the horses (mainly self) and the trolley noticed at reference 3 as a chariot. A rare outing for the strap, but both strap and trolley served well.

Later on there was an outing for the dancing water bowl. Having not tried it for a while, took a while to get going, but I got there in the end, even if I did not achieve 75% coverage.

Back indoors, it was the turn of the Sitwells, in the course of which I turned up the early poem, snapped above, of the youngest of the Sitwell trio, Sacheverell. An excursion which started from the Sitwell story of reference 4, where (on page 106) I came across a poetic publication called 'Wheels', with which the Sitwells were heavily involved. Which took me to the facsimile of the second edition of the first number at reference 5, a facsimile provided by Brown University, of Rhode Island. It looks as if it was kicked off by a famous socialite of the day, Nancy Cunard, presumably flush with money from the shipping line of the same name, and as if Aldous Huxley, prone to be snooty about aristos with arty pretentions, was a big contributor to the second number. Cunard contributed the opening poem for which the publication is named. One wonders how often it, and any of the rest of it, are read now.

Next job was to strip off the remaining meat and boil up the carcase for chicken soup for the following day.

This turned out pretty well, but two or three rashers of full strength streaky bacon was a bit too much for the delicate flavours of the remainder, even though I had blanched it in boiling water before transferring it to the soup.

BH cooked the balance of the chicken in a simple white sauce, which did very well with roast parsnips etc, as snapped above. And she was pleased that the Supervisor from Stoneleigh, back again for the occasion, seemed to do quite well with it too. Rumours of veggy tendencies were not, on this occasion at least, substantiated.

PS 1: I had always thought that Rhode Island was an island famous for the chickens called Rhode Island Reds. With the name once famous for an country estate call Rhode Hill, north of Lyme Regis. While today I learn that Rhode Island, while the smallest continental state, is mainly continental. There is a Rhode Island, but it seems to be better known as Aquidneck Island.

PS 2: I think that Huxley had a swing past Cunard at one point, with the result that his long suffering wife carried him off to the continent to escape from her clutches. With thanks to reference 7 for the picture.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/oxtail.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-mixed-day.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/08/trolley-426.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/08/facades.html.

Reference 5: https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:456660/.

Reference 6: https://www.brown.edu/.

Reference 7: http://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2014/09/nancy-cunard.html.

Reference 8: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/af561b59-763b-49fe-b5eb-980e53066e1d. Cursory inspection failed to turn up anything that a list of the constituent farms and buildings, but I dare say there is more if one works at it. Maybe some relevant Puritans from the west of England - of which I believe there were once plenty - made it out to New England in the 17th century.

Reference 9a: The Rebel Heiress - Caroline Weber/NYT - 2007.

Reference 9b: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/books/review/weber.t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. Paywalled there but reproduced in reference 7.