Snowbound in Summer

I’ve never been snowed in. In South Africa this will be a newsworthy event, especially if it happened in Pretoria, where the lowest temperatures in winter resemble summer days in Vancouver.

But a little more than a week ago, on Monday, the 20^{th day} of February, I had a snowbound day. 

I awoke to the sound of gentle rain patting on the leaves of the mulberry tree outside my window. Late February and already the days are getting noticably shorter. Far away the hadidas were proclaiming the day in a most ungraceful way.

I lay quietly for a moment, recouping on the weekend and contemplating the week ahead. For one, I won't be driving anywhere today, I thought: my car’s battery pack had simply passed away after starting with just a little sluggish behaviour late last week.  The previous evening though, when I turned the key in the ignition, I found it dead.

No need to go anywhere! With a very good reason not to go anywhere! It gave me such a delicious, indulgant feeling. I got up, woke my teenager, packed his lunch and waved him goodbye at the door.Then I made myself some flower tea (recipe follows) and settled in behind my computer.

I needed to explore this feeling. This is where it led me:

“ It’s Monday morning and a full week lies ahead of me. But I feel I have a valid reason to not start right away at working at it: My car is dead. It’s raining softly outside. My life has retracted into this little shell of a house, and I’m blissfully unaffected by the waves of traffic that ebb and wane about me.

I feel playful, like I used to as a little girl, living in a world of make believe. I take stock of what I have available for this stranded day. There are 5 small limes in a bowl. I have milk and flour, eggs and electrical power. Outside the wild palm trees are shedding their yellow skinned fruit in abundance. I have a book somewhere that tells about wild food. If these are not edible dates, I could pretend that they are: no rules to this game! I have dried dates in the pantry which can be slipped in even with the beautiful yellow orbs lying right next to the mixing bowl. All of this point to the unavoidable: In order to survive this ordeal, I will have to bake a cake! Using the magical recipe of a lime and date cake in one of my favourite cook books(recipe follows ). 

I know that in an hour or two, of my own free will,  I’ll be working full tilt in my pottery studio. This delectable space forms part of my house and is my formal place of work. No driving to work necessary. I just walk through the door. But today there will be coffee and the fragrance of home baking around me."

Oh, to play like this all day!

Matilda

Recipes

Herb flower tea

Take a handful each of

-          rooibos leaf tea (or a couple of tea bags),

-          dried lavender flowers,

-          dried camomile flowers

-          dried lemon verbena leaves

Mix well and keep in a airtight container.

To brew tea: Heat tea pot. Place  one heaped teaspoon  of tea mix per person into the tea pot. Fill with boiling water and let it draw for acouple of minutes. Strain.

Drink hot and sweetened with honey. Or as iced tea, mixed with clear juice and sparkling water.

 ***

Date and Lime cake

100 g butter

100 g sugar

75 g brown sugar

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1,5 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda (bicarbonate of soda in SA context)

1 lime

1 cup stoned dates

1 cup sour cream (I use plain bulgarian jogurt with good results)

Icing:

3 tablespoons butter

2 cups icing sugar

3 tablespoons sour cream

2,5 ml vanilla essence

1 teaspoon lime juice, or more, according to taste

For the cake:

Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Gradually add the lightly beaten eggs, beating well after each addition. Sift the flour and baking soda into another bowl.

Cut 1 lime into halves, remove any seeds. Chop and grind in a blender or food processor together with the dates (Yes, you read correctly. The whole lime minus the seeds is used in this recipe.)

Add the lime and date mixture to the creamed butter.

Add the flour and soda alternately with the sour cream.

Place in a greased 23cm ring tin (this is important as it flops in the middle in a round tin!) and bake at 180 °C for 35 minutes or until a knife comes clean when tested.

For the icing: Cream the butter, add the other ingredients and beat well together.

Note: If you don’t have a lime in the kitchen, you can use a fresh lemon.

You can serve this cake without the icing if you prefer.

Published with the kind permission of New Holland Publishers (NZ) Ltd. Taken from Annabelle White’s Best Recipes, p 38. Published in 1999 by New Holland Publishers (NZ) Ltd. Do have a look at the author’s website  
www.annabellewhite.com