HAPPY EASTER

Happy Easter reading Easter wouldn’t be Easter in my family if we didn’t have Easter biscuits! They go down very well with a cup of tea and a book (mine of course!). I’m attaching a photo of this year’s baking to whet your appetite… Using the same recipe for many years – I think it was first aired at cookery classes in the 60’s – and with a few strands of saffron soaked overnight in brandy , strained and added for that special flavour and yellow tinge, the result is appetising so I’m told (‘more-ish’ my mother would have said!) Sadly one member of my family does not like currants or any dried fruit, so she doesn’t fare too well at Easter – or Christmas come to that…… Moving onto another Easter delight, this time for the Friday before, we come to Hot + Buns. These I have never made – usually buying very nice ones from a local bakery or supermarket, and this year from the Co-op. Mummy never made them either – her local bakers was Trim’s in Wincanton whose van called at our village 3 times a week in those days. I should know as I worked for them during a couple of summers as a holiday job in the early 1970’s. As well as showing me all the various breads and cakes it was a very useful job for giving a good introduction to some life skills…. lots of mental arithmatic in totting up the customer’s bills and making sure their books tallied with Trim’s – actually my first year we were still dealing in pounds, shillings and pence just to complicate things! Then of course, the social skills in dealing with a very wide range of people and always remaining cheerful and trying to appear calm! Plus an exercise in memory as all the houses, streets and places on a ’round’ had to be memorized, also the route into and around properties to make deliveries. Energetic too – always trying to complete the round in record time so running to and from the van with my basket of bread. I actually cycled every day into Wincanton from home – about 7 miles in all – before and after work, so quite an active and responsible job for a student! I never did the bread round in the Easter break otherwise there may not have been so many Hot + Buns to sell! So, Happy Easter and enjoy your biscuits and buns, look out for another of my books in a year or so – ‘A Baker’s Dozen’.

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