If you went out walking in the UK in August and September, you probably noticed the epic quantities of blackberries in almost every hedge. I can’t go past a blackberry bush without stuffing my face, but with all the face-stuffing dedication in the world I couldn’t possibly eat all the blackberries on offer, so I took to making hedgerow jam.

“Hedgerow jam” is really a catch-all name for any jam you make using the fruits of your foraging labours – blackberries, elderberries, crabapples, rosehips, sloe, hawthorn, damsons and so on. You don’t have to have a particular ratio of fruit, but with the current blackberry glut I’d suggest you pick lots of blackberries and supplement them with a few handfuls of whatever else you happen to find. If you’ve got a cooking apple at home, throw that into the mix, too.

Here is the basic recipe for jam: boil approximately equal weights of fruit and sugar together, maybe with a bit of water, until it sets.

That’s it. At the heart of it, making jam truly is that simple. Now that you realise jam-making is well within your capabilities, here are the only other things you need to know to make epic jam.    

Low-pectin fruits don’t set as well, so, if you’re concerned about that kind of thing, combine them with high-pectin fruits or add a good squeeze of lemon juice to the mix. To give a few common examples: damsons, blackberries and crabapples are high in pectin; elderberries and garden fruit like strawberries are low in pectin. If you’re not sure, Google it.  And remember: under-ripe fruit has higher pectin levels than over-ripe fruit, so it makes a better jam.    

Clean your fruit thoroughly, discard any spoilt bits and chop it up if necessary. Boil together any fruits that will need straining, such as whole crabapples, damsons and sloe, with just enough water to cover them. It will only take a few minutes for them to get mushy, at which stage you can push the mixture through a sieve or colander to get rid of the pips and skins. (If you're using hawthorn, rosehips or elderberries, it's probably better to make jelly instead of jam - see below.)

Return the mix to your saucepan and add the blackberries and sugar. If you’re using blackberries by themselves, they’re fine to cook with the sugar from the start.

Feeling adventurous? Go for it! Add your spices as early as possible to give them time to infuse. Some spices also look lovely suspended in a jewel-like jelly (see below). You could try cardamom, chilli, cinnamon, star anise, cloves, peppercorns… the list goes on. Let me know if you strike a winning combination!    

If you’re using rosehips or hawthorn, or if you prefer jelly to jam, you’ll need to add a step. First, boil your fruit in water until nice and mushy (rosehips take ages), then, before adding the sugar, let the mixture strain for at least an hour through a sterile cloth (e.g. a clean, freshly ironed pillow case or large handkerchief) into a bowl. Some people say to leave it overnight – I don’t have the patience! But be aware that if you squeeze the cloth, pulp will come through and give you a cloudy jelly. Mix the liquid and sugar together in your saucepan and proceed as you would for jam.    

Your fruit-sugar-water mixture will set only after it’s reached a rapid boil (about 105 degrees), so get it bubbling before turning it down to a lively simmer. The easiest way to test your jam is to pop a small dollop onto a cold plate out of the freezer or fridge, let it cool for a minute, then swipe through it with your finger. If the mixture wrinkles up a little bit/stays separate along your swipe-line, it’s ready. If it oozes back in like a liquid, it isn’t ready. If you jam’s not setting, add a squeeze of acidic, pectin-y lemon juice to help it on its way. But in all seriousness, don’t stress about this: runny jam is still delicious (drizzle it over icecream!) and if it doesn’t set in the jar overnight you can always tip it back into the saucepan and cook it a bit more the next day.    

Just joking – I know you know how to eat jam. So, who’s for scones and tea?    

The “So Create A Difference” exhibition was organised by Hastings Urban Design Group under the RIBA’s local initiative fund and was first displayed in Priory Meadow in April 2014.

Proposals from 13 local and regional architects and designers included a pedestrianised Hastings seafront with new trams, refurbishment of the Lido site to create a modern bathing pool, an infinity ice rink in West St Leonards and attention-grabbing student accommodation. Architects HazleMcCormackYoung also joined a long line of dreamers to reimagine Hastings Pier as an undulating “sculptural caterpillar” that would move with the tide.

Perhaps the most striking and whimsical exhibit was DD Architects’ “Kype Steps to Nowhere” – a stairway to the open sky, carved into a series of huge, precariously balanced solid blocks jutting out from West Hill. While hard to imagine such a project ever gaining planning permission, the audacious design admirably fulfilled its aim to “recreate the engineering marvels of the Victorian period”, taking Hastings’ much-loved funicular railways as a starting point.

Rhonda Ellard of Hastings Trust said there had been plenty of interest in the map display from passers-by and that local people were keen to share their ideas. Suggestions for a market in Bottle Alley (the beachfront space beneath the promenade) had stimulated lively discussions among exhibition visitors, said Ms Ellard. Sticky notes from residents argued both for and against permanent market structures, claimed a white floor would make the alley more inviting and pushed for the inclusion of performance areas.

On the whole, the community’s suggestions steered clear of the professional designers’ statement pieces, opting instead for practical plans to improve everyday liveability. There were requests for showers and drinking fountains on the beach, play/hangout spaces, exercise parks, allotments and a park and ride scheme for commuters. The future imagined by the community also emphasised creativity through art hubs, designated performance and busking posts and a legal graffiti wall. Notes ranged in tone from the quietly ironic (“A harbour?”) to extremely enthusiastic (“MORE CYCLE LANES! like Amsterdam! haha!”)

Hastings Trust’s Development Officer Jon Aldenton said, “At Hastings Trust, we want to make sure that what happens in the future is based on local demand and need. The idea behind the exhibition is to help the charity set an agenda for Hastings and itself, and to move forward on a firm base.”

There are plans to take the exhibition to local schools and colleges in the future. Meanwhile, members of Hastings Trust (membership is free to local residents) are invited to a meeting on 30 September 2014 to evaluate the proposals. Those who did not make it to the exhibition are encouraged to bring their suggestions on the night.

This article first appeared in Hastings Independent, Issue 14, Friday 12 September 2014, p14. Photos: Daniel Katz.

We were watching George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces on 4OD, and this ad came on.

A number of smiling women run lightly past the camera, through a wooden farm gate into a field of yellow grain. The sun is shining and the women are dressed in summery clothes: a red sun dress, a red and white striped t-shirt, a red headband, a white cotton dress with red flowers, a fedora with red band, a red button-up shirt. The music drips with contemporary folk pop nostalgia.*

After two or three seconds, I turned to my partner and said, “I bet this is Special K.”

And so it was. The women make their way through the grain (a hand strokes the grass), a vineyard (a laughing woman steals a grape) and an orchard (two smiling women crunch on red apples), before bringing their “harvest” into a barn artfully back-lit by bright sunshine. The group then sits down together at an outdoor table to feast on nature’s bounty in the form of some cereal from a box.

The voiceover tells us that Special K is “opening up the world of granola”. What on earth does that mean? Well, this granola has “thirty percent less fat” (than what? I can’t read the tiny print), so people can now “feel free to enjoy” their cereal. Is the ad making the point that we live in a dystopian world that polices our enjoyment of granola? Not deliberately, I'm sure. I think they're speaking to their target audience: people who aspire to look like the happy, active, social and wholesome women models in the ad (who are all able bodied, skinny, well groomed and mostly white).

Sarcasm aside, my almost-instant recognition that this was an ad for Special K piqued my interest.  It reminded me that Special K has outgrown its original place as a minor runner in the Kellogg brand stable to become a super-sub-brand of its own. 

Special K’s visual identity comes through in this ad partly in its cast of conventionally attractive, slim women (target audience’s desired outcome) and red clothing (brand colour), but there’s more to it than that. Brandhouse offers an insight into the visual evolution of the Special K logo:

These brand elements are carefully encapsulated by the granola advertisement, too: the confident women, the morning sunshine, the red clothing with white and blue secondary colours (like the new logo), the visual focus on a plentiful harvest. The recurring imagery of opening gates and doors reinforces the positive, active language of the voiceover (“Special K is opening up the world of granola”) and the music (“Take me outside”), building the feeling of fresh opportunities, new days and your chance to become a new (better, healthier, skinnier) self.

The use of multiple actors also reflects Special K’s recent use of social, interactive elements in its marketing. If you don’t remember their two-week challenge, you can easily check out the “My Special K” section of their website. This is a diet/fitness resource where members can not only log food consumption, track their exercise and get “personalised info . . . to keep you on the right track” but are encouraged to “invite your friends” and “share your meal plan” – because “a healthy lifestyle gets easier with your supportive friends cheering you on”.**

So, social dieting is Special K's thing, I guess: no longer is a woman laughing alone with salad, women are now laughing together with granola.

* I could write a whole other blog post about the reasons Special K has sampled this tiny part of Laura Mvula's "Green Garden", how if you listen to the whole song it becomes much more synthy, how watching her video clip helps highlight the very specific kind of "outside" produced within the Special K ad (and how white it is!). In fact, why don't you watch it and see for yourself. . .

** Of course, the real reason Special K wants us to share is that the diet industry is invested in making you and me and all our friends and acquaintances feel like we’re always deficient, always failing to reach a certain standard of being – whether that standard is the attractiveness of the models used in their ads or an “ideal weight” their plans can help you decide upon. They want everyone to feel we have to “do more”, so we buy more diet food – or, in other cases, more gym memberships, more body-sculpting clothes, more quackery, more fitness apps or more surgeries.

Got something to add to this analysis? Want to mock the marketing jargon of We developed a Brand Story about ‘Inner spirit, outer sparkle’ . . . ? Share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter.    

I love sharing food with friends, many of whom are vegan or have allergies/intolerances, so I’m always on the lookout for tasty, friend-friendly things to cook.

One of my favourite muffin/cupcake/cake recipes is vegan, does not contain nuts and can easily be made gluten-free, soy-free and alcohol-free. This means it’s perfect for office parties, bake sales and picnics. Also, it’s easy (which is great for me because, unlike some of my amazing friends, I am not Bake Off material). Obligatory vegan recipe statement: this cake is so decadent and delicious that the most annoyingly anti-vegan person won’t feel the need to smear bacon fat on it in order to enjoy it. 

This recipe comes via Where’s the Beef?, who call it “un-beet-able chocolate cake”. Go and check out their amazing foodie blog! I use the same quantities as them, which makes about 18 muffins (so make sure you have enough muffin cases). 

For the muffins

• 1 generous cup grated fresh beetroot (1-3 beetroots, depending on size)
  
• 1.5 cups plain flour (you can use gluten-free flour)
  
• 2.25 cups white sugar
  
• 1 generous cup cocoa powder
  
• 3 teaspoons baking powder (check for gluten)
  
• Pinch or two of chilli powder (optional)
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
  
• 1 cup sunflower oil
  
• 1.5 cups soy milk (check for malt/gluten, use rice/oat milk for soy-free)
  
• 3 teaspoons vanilla essence (replace with a generous shake of cinnamon powder for alcohol-free)
  

For the icing (all quantities are approximate)

• 2 big tablespoons vegan margarine (check ingredients for soy- and/or nut-free)
  
• 1.5 cups icing sugar 
  
• 1-2 dessert spoons of beetroot juice
  
• Squeeze of lemon
  

Preheat your oven to 180°C, pop large cupcake/muffin cases into a muffin tray.

Wash and peel the beetroot, then grate it into a large, deep bowl (the sides will help keep the juice from splashing out and staining everything). Give it a little squeeze to get some of the juice out for the icing. Pack a cup with grated beetroot and pour the juice into a glass/small bowl to reserve for the icing.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl (along with the chilli powder and ground cinnamon, if using). Add the oil, milk and vanilla and stir with a big wooden spoon until just combined. If you’re using gluten-free flour, the mixture will be much runnier, but this is normal. Fold the grated beetroot into the mixture, then spoon it into the muffin cases, leaving a centimetre or so at the top.

Bake the muffins for about 15 minutes. Use the skewer test to check, or simply poke the top with your finger to check that the muffins are firm. This recipe makes quite a dense cake (a mud muffin!), so don’t expect them to rise too much. Repeat this step with any left-over mixture.

When the muffins have cooled, you can ice them. I often leave a few un-iced, because they are extremely rich already and some people won’t be able to take the extra sweetness.

To make the icing, beat together the margarine and icing sugar in a small mixing bowl. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and a teaspoon or two of beetroot juice and stir vigorously, adding more beetroot juice as necessary to make the mixture a bit easier to spread/pipe. I like to pipe the icing on in a nice pattern. Well, I like to try. Some of my efforts are better than others.

Aww, yeah. Time to put these delicious muffins in your mouth.

This corner of the white-washed courtyard is a sun-trap.

Warmth gathers here and sticks to other warmth, then to my legs, like dust-fairies around a hallstand in an unswept corridor. I lie back in the folding chair and watch weeds climb up through the concrete and turn their colourful flowers to the sun. A tomato plant stretches a large leaf over to pat me on the thigh. Beyond the walls, the sky flitters around, tangled up in the over-sized songs of tiny birds that call from inside thickets and hedges, invisible.

The tomatoes came as seedlings from my manager, before I left my job. They're a mixed bunch and I’m no tomato professional, so even now with the fruit growing fatter and blushing ever-warmer shades of orange I can only say this is a big one, this is a Roma or something like that, this is some kind of cherry tomato. I am sure, though, that they will bring singular flavours to my salads and pasta sauces.

In the meantime, I imagine becoming an expert in tomato identification, starting with these six plants. I create a recipe for success. First, send photos of these tomatoes to my ex-manager and get the names, then look the varieties up online, then start an album with tasting notes and photos. Grow more tomatoes next summer – ones with names like Moonglow, Mortgage Lifter, Juliet and KC 146 – and more again the summer after. Start a blog. Maybe get an allotment or move to a house with a bigger garden, then a farmyard with polytunnels. By this stage, I’m growing a wide range of heirloom tomatoes and entering them into local shows. I’m winning ribbons for my obscure varieties and luscious flavours and making a name for myself in the world of tomato cultivation. I have perfected organic cures for many mysterious tomato ailments. I start selling seed packets to fans of my blog and eventually turn my tomato concern into a moderately lucrative business, producing chutneys for local restaurants and showing tourists around my farm on the weekends. I use the profits to return to university, where I research the historical influence of tomatoes on international relations. The research becomes a PhD and the PhD becomes a book, published in hardcover with gorgeous botanical drawings throughout. The book is an unexpected bestseller in the UK and Sweden and I’m whisked away for a season of book signings. The Observer gives me a guest column and I make a cameo appearance in a long-running cozy English crime programme, opening a village flower show.

The tomato plant strokes my leg. The birds keep singing, louder and louder, saying this is mine, this bramble, this piece of space that curves around the hedge, this gust of wind has entered my territory so it is also mine. They sing to fill the whole sky from soil to stratosphere with their tiny lives and I dream for hours in the sun, collecting dust.

I have time for all this, now I am unemployed. 

Are you tomato enthusiast – grower or eater? What are your top five tastiest varieties for the kitchen? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter.  (P.S. I may have taken some liberties with the truth in this piece.)

Like many kids, I had a thing about making nests. Blankets and cushions under the dining table, shelters built from fallen tree branches and quickly abandoned to Australian creepy-crawlies, beds at the top of a hay bale stack. . . Practical living spaces they were not, but they’re highly enjoyable to create!

Nowadays, I only get to curl up in a nest when we go camping - or glamping in a pod (e.g. Rhosgadw Farm), shepherd's hut (e.g. Lanefoot Farm) or yurt (e.g. The Sustainability Centre). But my fascination with living in tiny spaces has only grown. I enjoy watching short films and TV series about small spaces and I love seeing how people make tiny and unusual living spaces work for them.

The tiny house or micro home movement would offer lots of material for academic study. I often see tiny living marketed as a new idea, probably because these days a lot of relatively “normal”, middle class, white USAns are doing it (often post-global-financial-crisis), rather than poor people, indigenous people, people in countries other than the USA, nomadic people or culture-appropriating grungy hippies. I’d be interested to learn how participants imagine the movement and how a sense of community has developed through online and offline networks. I wonder how it is influenced by geography, laws, culture and climate? How do people negotiate the classist and racist elements I’ve just mentioned? How do people decide – and who gets to decide – who and what is/n’t included in the community? What counts as “tiny”, what counts as a “house”? If anyone’s doing a PhD on the topic, I’d love to read your dissertation!

In the meantime, one of my favourite places to get a fix of small-space design and living is the Tiny House Blog. Their motto is “living simply in small spaces” and their blog goes beyond pretty images (for those I follow Tiny House Swoon). They often host personal stories, “how we built it” articles, reviews of space-saving gadgets and/or research into history and design influences. I am a bit sick of seeing the (USAn) standard wood, mezzanine, peaked roof, tiny verandah, trailer-bed house, so I’m glad Tiny House Blog offers variety. If you’re on Twitter, you can get regular updates from @tinyhouseblog (and another great feed, @ilovetinyhouses).

Well, that's it for today. Now I’m going back to dreaming about building my own, grown-up nest. . .

In North Norfolk, at the mouth of the Wash, the wind churns the sea into choppy brown peaks and sends clouds scudding across the wide horizon.

At low tide, mudflats and salt marshes stretch endlessly, carved through by meandering waterways, spiked with grey and yellow grasses, lightly but thoroughly trampled by flocks of wildfowl and waders. Inland, fields of wheat, corn and sugar beet stretch across the gentle, shallow swells of a landscape punctuated occasionally by dark stands of trees and the grey flint spires of village churches. Life exists here on a thin strip, like the Earth’s crust, sandwiched between sky and stone.

Having visited Norfolk several times during the colder, off-peak months, I’ve tended to describe it as flat, bleak and full of birds. But this time, after the best summer in years, I was struck by the abundance and diversity of the hedgerows, streams and tidal marshes. As I explored the area, I couldn’t resist making the most of this wild harvest. . .

Stinging nettles and mallow are familiar friends. We found them growing in great quantities along a footpath snaking between coastal villages and we sautéed a few bunches with mushrooms to make a tasty snack. The wild mint we found alongside the nettles went into fresh mint tea. We later found a stream overrun with watercress, but we were out without a bag or container, so I made do with munching on a few peppery leaves.

Established hedgerows encircled the village we stayed in, offering a variety of fruit. Blackberries are probably one of the most commonly foraged fruits in the UK and we tossed a handful of small but sweet specimens into an apple crumble along with the last cherry plums from a nearby tree.

Intertwined with a couple of sloe bushes, and easily distinguishable in such close proximity, I discovered damsons – the first time I’ve found these small plums in the wild. I made a tiny batch of damson jam to experiment, and it was absolutely amazing – tart and flavoursome. We went back later to pick a few more and made them into jelly with some crabapples collected during a bike ride. This wasn’t quite as lively, but it was still good spread on challah toast in the morning.

The hedges were dripping with droopy bunches of shiny, black berries on bright red stalks. After checking with some knowledgeable friends on Twitter, I identified them as elderberries.

These were completely new to me, so I decided to make something simple to get a feel for the flavour. Alys Fowler in The Thrifty Forager claims elderberries “have a slightly rank taste so it’s always the last jam in our house to get eaten”, but I was not to be dissuaded! I made a tasty (if slightly too sweet) cordial, which was reminiscent of a well-known blackcurrent drink. We drank it with ice out of champagne flutes while sitting in the Norfolk sunshine. . . bliss!

My most exciting find, out on those wide, sticky flats, was patch after patch of marsh samphire. I had never eaten samphire before. I snipped a few bits (not sure if it was legal to harvest it, not wanting to disrupt an ecosystem I was not familiar with) and added it raw to a salad. It was gorgeous – tiny, crunchy pockets of salty sea-flavour bursting in each mouthful.

(N.B. We later went to Titchwell Manor for a delicious evening meal, during which I was presented with an enormous bowl of samphire. It made my foraging efforts look rather paltry in comparison. . . but food is always tastier when you find it and/or grow it yourself!)

Over the course of our holiday, this flat ribbon of North Norfolk became more than a beautifully bleak and bird-filled landscape to me. Through our foraging excursions, I connected with it on a personal scale and felt grounded there in a way I hadn't before.

I like animation, but I’m a casual viewer rather than a connoisseur.

I watch a bit of Studio Ghibli to keep up with the cool kids, morning cartoons with my niblings when I’m on holiday, short films at festivals, the latest blockbuster (if it gets good reviews from someone I trust), something that catches my eye at the library…    

… by which I mean: The Secret of Kells is gorgeous, but I can’t tell you which animation traditions it draws on or how good, technically, the animation is. We watched it recently and I fell in love with the visual rhythm of the film. Celtic spiral motifs repeat through the leaves, branches, creatures and skies; the patterns weaving through the film infuse it with dreaminess. It's interesting to see an Irish-French-Belgian animation production focussing on the visual traditions of Ireland.

The story, a fictionalised account of the making of the Book of Kells, isn’t complicated. Nevertheless, it features a nice range of people (almost all men, but the monks are from around the world; the bad guys/Vikings are definitely bad, but the abbot shows more complexity) and non-human characters (Aisling the forest spirit, Pangur Bán the cat, the comedy goose, the wolves and Crom Cruach the serpent god).

Although the subject is inherently religious, the film itself has a very light touch in this regard. It feels quite secular. I appreciate this, but I also imagine that those wanting to find echoes of their faith in the film will probably be able to do so. Why not watch it yourself and tell me what you think?    

Have you seen any interesting films lately? Please recommend them in the comments or on Twitter - I'm always on the lookout for new viewing material.

Keemun (Anhui Province, China). The leaves are long and rolled fairly tightly, so I let it brew for about 5-6 minutes – longer than usual – to give the tea time to unfurl and infuse. These leaves produce a gorgeous, warm, copper coloured tea (or ‘liquor’, as it’s known in the business), with a bright aroma and a lovely combination of bright, rich, floral flavours, along with a hint of smoke – but only a hint, as though my mouth is recalling the memory of smoke from a distant chimney, across frosty fields.

I bought it from Hazelmere Café & Bakery when we visited the Lake District a few months ago. I keep curving my focus back to this cup, the warmth against my hand, the smell and flavour, giving each sip my full attention.

Enough open-mindedness about milk in tea. If you are going to have milk in your tea, the tea goes into the cup first and the milk goes in last. This is an objective fact as verified by science and has nothing to do with cultural customs or personal preferences.  Here are my top tea-then-milk reasons, in order of importance:

• You have more control over the tea:milk ratio and are better able to regulate the tea colour. People can be very particular about this, as you will know if you've ever tried to make tea for an office full of tea-drinking colleagues.
• I don’t drink my tea from soft-paste porcelain on loan from the V&A (I wish!). Milk-first is allegedly a hangover from a time when teacups were so delicate they might crack if very hot liquid was poured into them directly.
• When using a teabag, the tea won't steep properly if the milk is already in the cup.
• The milk makes pretty swirly patterns. I like to drink art.

If you're interested in reading further and potentially discovering that my tea-then-milk answer might in fact be subjective opinion, heavily influenced by cultural customs and personal preference, the Guardian has more debate and anecdata.

I used to work at a lovely shop called Tea Party, at the Vic Market in Melbourne. We sold black, oolong, green and white tea, as well as rooibos, herbal and fruit infusions. You can still buy some Tea Party teas through Petal.

The top sellers were French Earl Grey (a black tea with bergamot, fruit flavours and rose petals) and Eastern Sunrise (a sencha flavoured with passionfruit, rose petals and marigold). Non-flavoured teas, such as Scottish Breakfast (a blend of African teas, if my memory serves me correctly) were also popular, but people often wanted to try new things or buy gifts, so they tended to go for flavoured teas. One of the silliest things I heard from a customer was that they would not buy French Earl Grey as a birthday present “for a man” because it had pink flower petals in it. I am not sure what effect they thought this would have on the recipient - maybe they thought he would lose Man Points™?