Are you trying Veganuary this year? The 70 simple but delicious recipes in The Seasonal Vegan by Sarah Philpott are a great introduction to a vegan diet and there are plenty of comforting dishes in the winter section to get you through the colder months like this hearty Swede Gratin with Miso & Maple Syrup.
The Seasonal Vegan is a kitchen diary of seasonal recipes with a delicious mixture of Sarah Philpott’s fine food writing and Manon Houston’s beautiful photography. This guide to eating with the seasons takes a realistic approach to shopping cheaply and sustainably and proves that the vegan lifestyle is anything but expensive.
2 large swedes, peeled and sliced thinly, lengthways
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
3 tbsp plain flour
A generous pinch of salt
500ml oat milk
250ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 heaped tsp white miso paste
2 tbsp maple syrup
Salt and pepper
A grating of fresh nutmeg
First of all, make the sauce. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat, then add the garlic and sauté for 2-3 minutes, until soft and translucent. Add the flour and salt and stir rapidly. Cook for a minute, then gradually add the plant milk and hot stock and stir through, then add the miso paste, maple syrup and vinegar. Cook for another 5 minutes, stirring all the while. Try to get out all the lumps if you can.
Now, turn the oven on to 200C. Slice the swede thinly then use a little oil to grease a casserole or large ovenproof dish. Spread a layer of slices along the bottom and cover with some of the sauce. Add another layer of swede and add more sauce, then place a final layer of swede on top and season with salt and pepper and a grating of fresh nutmeg. Cover with a lid or foil and place on the top shelf of the oven. Bake for 45 minutes then remove the lid or foil and bake for another 25-30 minutes, until golden brown. For a really crisp topping, place it under the grill (lid off) for the final 5 minutes.
Why not also try Sarah’s other book The Occasional Vegan which contains 70 more easy, home-cooked recipes suitable for newcomers and long-time vegans alike.
This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Owl Pellet Poem’ by Catherine Fisher from her collection The Bramble King.
The Bramble Kingis full of darkly resonant tales, ingenious parables, curiously haunted rooms and palaces, and beautifully observed images of the natural world. A prolific, popular and prize-winning author of fantasy fiction, Catherine began her career as a poet, and Seren published her early volumes: Immrama, The Unexplored Ocean and Altered States. The Bramble Kingis Fisher’s first collection of poems since 1999.
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Looking for a last minute Christmas present? Check the opening times of your local independent bookshop – find your nearest using the Books Council of Wales or Bookseller Association shop finders.
If you’re still looking for a last minute gift, you can’t go wrong with Daniel Butler’s new book The Owl House. This pastoral exploration of mid-Wales is beautifully observed, full of evocative observations that can only have been lived to have been accrued. Here is a wintry extract from the chapter ‘Weather’.
Daniel Butler has lived in the Cambrian Mountains near Rhayader for twenty-five years, absorbing the world around him and charting its changes slow and rapid. His passion for the natural world was compounded when two wild birds, barn owls, nested at his farm. Through charting his relationship with the birds, he embarks on a pastoral exploration of his locale, rich as it is in wildlife of all kinds. His new book The Owl Houseis a rich and vivid portrait of one of the most remote and sparsely populated areas of Britain, broad in its horizons yet full of fascinating detail. The perfect gift for any lover of the natural world and mid-Wales.
…
Winter bird activity is not just about survival. I used to think the breeding season was a spring phenomenon, but for many creatures the concept seems to lurk as a constant background urge.
Even in the depths of winter there are signs of what’s to come. Mistle thrushes start to gang up towards the end of August in family groups which later join together to form small flocks. They give off their instantly recognisable football rattle calls as they bounce through the air above the fields, but by the end of the year these groups have disbanded. Instead of looking for the security of a flock to evade predators, the males are beginning to get a head start on next year’s breeding season. They do this by searching for a berry-laden food source. Indeed, the bird’s name comes from its fondness for mistletoe, that strange shrub, a living green sphere that hangs in bunches from the apparently lifeless limbs of oaks and apple trees. A glance at its fleshy white berries and strange green leaves and it isn’t difficult to see why the druids apparently venerated it as a sign of life in the depths of winter. The oak or crab apple host would be no more than a black skeleton, yet its passenger would appear the embodiment of life. Mistletoe is rare in Radnorshire, although it is common enough a few miles away in the acres of Herefordshire cider orchards.
My mistle thrushes are drawn mainly by the lure of another tree beloved by pagans and one which is, if anything, even more associated with Christmas. There is a particularly splendid and always well-endowed holly halfway down the lane. The berries grow slowly all autumn, green and hard and invisible among the glossy spiked leaves until they burst into view by turning red seemingly overnight.
By the time I go to collect a few decorative sprigs in early December, there will already be a resident mistle thrush. His favourite perch is near the crown to gain a good vantage point. He sits here like a miser crouched over his hoard, jealously watching for thieves or rivals which may try to steal his crown. At my approach he flies off giving his characteristic rattling calls of alarm towards the row of neighbouring pines. He perches there and with binoculars I can just make him out staring warily at me, filled with terrors that his jewelled kingdom might be raided in his absence.
He is not always in the holly, however, sometimes he is lurking among the ‘sallies’ (goat willows) that straggle along the banks of the nearby stream. This probably indicates the proximity of a sparrowhawk or goshawk, and he’s waiting for the danger to pass. Normally he’s a pugnacious fellow, fiercely defending his scarlet treasure from a host of increasingly hungry thieves. His greatest ire is reserved for sexual rivals, but he will defend his prize from smaller redwings and fieldfares, doves and even wood pigeons. He does this by intimidation rather than actual violence, flying at them only to veer off at the last second. At stake is not just a precious food supply at the leanest time of year, but the implications this has for the breeding season ahead. The fatter and fitter he is at winter’s end, the better his chances of attracting the best mate, for any bird that can finish the lean months in good condition is clearly a good breeding prospect. So he spends the winter fighting for food and sex.
By Christmas tawny owls are also beginning to stake out breeding territories, hooting out their instantly recognisable ‘toowhit, too-woo’ calls and at about the same point the garden robins become increasingly evident. The clichéd seasonal card image of a robin on a snow-covered spade handle as a representation of the season of goodwill and peace couldn’t be further from the truth. These are testosterone-pumped pugilists, determined to fight all rivals. At first they are driven by the need to protect their food supplies and territories and will pick fights with any other robin – even potential future mates. Once, after a heavy snow fall, I was looking at the crowds of finches, tits and nuthatches hanging on the feeders outside the kitchen window when my eye was caught by flying puffs of snow on the back lawn. Two robins were scrapping in the soft powder, bouncing into view as they pecked and kicked in fury, only to sink almost out of sight whenever they paused. No sooner had the last tiny crystals fallen back, however, than the furious tussle would resume.
This week’s Friday Poem is ‘After the Shock of your Photo on Facebook’ by Katrina Naomi from her latest collection Wild Persistence.
Wild Persistence by Katrina Naomi is a confident and persuasive collection of poems. Written following her move from London to Cornwall, it considers distance and closeness, and questions how to live. She dissects ‘dualism’ and arrival, sex and dance, a trip to Japan. The collection also includes a moving sequence of poems about the aftermath of an attempted rape.
“Funny, moving, surprising, unflinching and, above all else… joyous.” – Helen Mort
Our new short story of the month is ‘All Through the Night’ by Angela Graham from her debut short story collection A City Burning.
A man looks back to the night his marriage reached its tipping-point on a cliff-top in west Wales.
A city burns in a crisis − because the status quo has collapsed and change must come. Every value, relationship and belief is shaken and the future is uncertain.
In the twenty-six stories in A City Burning, set in Wales, Northern Ireland and Italy, children and adults face, in the flames of personal tragedy, moments of potential transformation. On the threshold of their futures each must make a choice: how to live in this new ‘now’.
The story ‘All Through the Night’ was first published in the Irish journal Crannóg which nominated it for the prestigious Pushcart Prize in 2019.
This is an excerpt, read the full story for FREE on the Seren website here.
All Through the Night
I look back now with a kind of dread, yet dread is about the future, about what’s going to happen, not what has already happened. So I dread…? The memory of pain. I never thought of myself as a man given to gestures. Imagination I do have, but I tend to keep it to myself. I remember the road: the little road under the starlight that summer. It was the year Mam and Dad sold the farm. I didn’t want it. They kept the farmhouse and the little bwthyn that had been the kernel of the homestead. You and I had used it for years already for holidays with the kids. They loved its thick walls and deep window-ledges. At Clogwyn Uchel, on the very edge of Wales, the roads are dark (some of them are tracks, really) and the stars sort of spread themselves out overhead, display themselves, with a careless glamour; or like something much more homely, like sugar spilt across a slate, but up there, up above. A sprinkling of sugar overhead. Very confusing if you thought about it too much. And higher into the sky – it’s hard to describe! – there’s a hazy cloud of them. Growing up at Clogwyn Uchel and I never bothered to learn much about them. Anyway, the stars do what they do whether we notice them or not. They’re not waiting for our attention. On a clear night like that one they shed enough light to see your way and the chalky ground of the lane helps. It’s a glimmering path up to the bwthyn, reflecting light from far, far above. Sometimes it even seems to me as though a bit of the sky has dropped to earth because the little white stones are like a rough and tumble Milky Way between the hedges. You walked ahead of me, Mari. Blindly, I thought. Or like someone who’d been dazzled by something. Your feet took you. Your mind? Numbed. Probably. We all have to do so much guess-work about each other! What is she feeling? What will she do next? What does she want? “Do you love him?” I called out. But you didn’t stop, or look back, or speak. I’m sure you heard me. You went on, into the little house. I couldn’t. I walked around it to where the sea suddenly presents itself. A shock! Always. Always that shiver at finding yourself on the edge of a cliff. Acres of water ahead in a dark mass. The endlessness of the sea. It doesn’t stop. It goes about its business, rushing and crushing, floating boats, flexing itself. That night it was shuddering. The stars. Some flung themselves down the sky. Mad bastards. Most looked on in a dignified way, blinking mildly at this recklessness. And I thought of the song. Its beautiful tune. Holl amrantau’r sêr ddywedant Ar hyd y nos.
Ar hyd y nos. All through the night. Nothing like the crappy English version. Sickly-sweet, that. And boring. “Soft the drowsy hours are creeping… visions of delight revealing… hill and vale in slumber steeping”. And the stars don’t get a look-in! Not a mention. You pointed that out to me. When you were learning Welsh. “How come…?” you asked. You were always asking that. “Why is the verb here? Why do I have to say…?” Whatever. And I’d say, “It just is, Mari. I don’t know why. Ask your teacher, cariad. Gwyn knows all that stuff.” Yes, he did, didn’t he?
…
Finish reading ‘All Through the Night’ on the Seren website here.
This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Nativity’ by Jane Simmons which is the winner of the 2020 Seren Christmas Poetry Competition.
Judge Amy Wack said, “It was tight this year, any one of the shortlisted poems might have pipped it. In the end, I went for the one which just moved me the most. I love how ‘Nativity’ evokes both birth and death, the biblical story and recent events; it is very apposite in this pandemic year, 2020. We hold our breaths with the poet, who is suspended at the bedside of an ill loved-one.” Read Jane’s winning poem below.
After leaving the teaching profession, Jane Simmons completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. She is now studying for a PhD at the University of Leicester. Her poems have been published in The Blue Nib magazine and the anthology View from the Steep (Pimento Press). She won the GS Fraser Prize for Poetry in 2019 and 2020.
The countdown to Christmas is well and truly on here at Seren. Browse new titles on our website or discover some of our festive favourites.
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We’re delighted to announce the six poems which have been shortlisted for the Seren Christmas Poetry Competition 2020. The winner will be announced as our Friday poem tomorrow (4th December).
‘The Virgin Adoring The Sleeping Child Christ’ by Ellora Sutton
‘A Merry Different Christmas’ by Jane Burn
‘Nativity’ by Jane Simmons
‘Iktsuarpok’ by Rob Miles
‘The Winter Guests’ by Donna Gowland
‘Rudolph and the Mushroom’ by Stephen Payne
If you would like to hear each of the poets read their entries, join us for virtual First Thursday tonight (3rd December) from 7:30pm. Our shortlisted poets will be opening the open mic following our main readers Jenny Lewis and Adnan Al-Sayegh and Peter Benson. Tickets are £2.74 and available on Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/129485662101.
Struggling for gift ideas? Take a look at the Seren Christmas Gift Guide which is chock full of inspiration to help you find something for even your most difficult-to-buy-for family member. Browse the guide.
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This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Weaving with Rushes’ by Sarah Wimbush from her debut pamphlet Bloodlines which has just been shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2020.
Bloodlines is an exploration of Sarah Wimbush’s own Gypsy/Traveller heritage, a journey made by piecing together fragments of distant stories and a scattered language. Along the way, we meet people who are ‘tethered to the seasons’; voices that reverberate with a sense of family and resilience, and always with that constant wonder of being part of something colourful, untamed and rare.
We are delighted to share that Bloodlines by Sarah Wimbush has been shortlisted for the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets 2020.
In what was a record year for entries, Bloodlines was one of five pamphlets to make the shortlist.
The judges commented:
“Linguistically and formally inventive, Sarah Wimbush’s Bloodlines evokes the world of Gypsies and Travellers, a vital and intensively lived world at once harsh and earthy, exuberant and exotic. A plethora of voices punctuates the sequence as the reader is invited to connect imaginatively with customs, traditions and communities known at first hand by their chronicler and creator. This is an exciting debut pamphlet thrumming with humanity and with the mystery and joy of being alive.”
The full shortlist can be viewed on the Michael Marks Awards website.
The winner will be announced in an online ceremony on Monday 14 December from 7:30pm. You can register to attend for FREE here.
Congratulations to Robert Walton and Abeer Ameer on having their poems highly commended in the Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2020.
This year’s competition was judged by Mark Doty and Mona Arshi, and the two make the list alongside 20 other poets.
Robert Walton’s highly commended entry is ‘Nature Table’ which features the same Mrs Jones who appears in several poems his collection Sax Burgular Blues. Abeer Ameer’s poem ‘The Reed Flute and I’ was called “a truly magical poem a pleasure to read and turns language into music” by Mona Arshi in her judges comments, and will be published in Abeer’s forthcoming Seren collection Inhale/Exile in February 2021.
The winning poems were:
‘Entre-Deux-Mers, June’ – Amy Glynn’Filter Queen’ – Michael Lavers’Calf’ – Elizabeth Cook
Read the winning poems and full judges comments on coffeehousepoetry.org.
