I visited Kensington Gardens in September and noticed there were so many Sweet Chestnuts on branches. They must be falling down to the ground by now and ready to eat.
While looking around in the park at the little details, I noticed something camouflaging so well in big trees.
I mentioned that Kensington Gardens is famous as the place where the fictious character Peter Pan lived but it is also famous for the place Princess Diana lived after her divorce with Prince Charles. When I visited Kensington Gardens, it was also a memorial period of 20 years since her death. Apart from looking for Peter Pan another main purpose of my visit to this park was seeing the memorial garden of Kensington Palace which was specially planted for this occasion.
Kensington Palace is located very west part of Kensington Gardens. Several bunches of flowers were placed at the front gate of the Palace. If it was on the actual day of her memorial I am sure there would have been more flowers.
I have recently read ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’. It is the story everybody knows that Peter Pan visits the bedroom of Wendy and her two brothers and then they fly to Neverland and fight with Hook the captain of Pirates. It is actually published by following the story of ‘Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens’ and also the Play script ‘Peter Pan (The Boy Who wouldn’t Grow Up)’. Of course I knew the story but when I saw the book in library I thought “Hum, I have never actually read it. How much do I know about the characters?” so I borrowed the book.
Now I have finished reading the story and can tell you I discovered several new factors about the story. The biggest surprise was Peter Pan’s age. Okay, he is a boy and also old, because he never grows up and lives forever, which means he is very old. But do you know how old he was when he left his parents’ house? He says in the story “Wendy, I ran away the day I was born”.(+o+)(=ﾟωﾟ)ﾉ😵! It means he is not even 1day old!! Even in the story of ‘Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens’ he was 7 DAYS OLD!! I don’t know why but the author J. M. Barrie changed when Peter decided to leeve his parents’ home but one thing I can tell you is that he is not even a toddler. He is a newborn baby. Realistically he cannot speak or even stand up?! OK, it is a fictious story so anything is possible.
Anyway, after he left his parents he started living in Kensington Gardens. When I had time in central London I suddenly wanted to see where Peter Pan spent time so I visited Kensington Gardens.
Japanese Anemone
Apart from Grape Mochi the sweet I have created for my September Japanese sweet. I used a perennial flower called Japanese Anemone as the inspiration for this time. Japanese Anemone get lots of flowers around this time of a year which has either pink or white petals with a greenish yellow round centre. When the flower’s gone this round part stays and it looks like small a pom-pom on a stick sticking out from the plant.
I chose Japanese Anemone as the design for this month’s sweet not just because it is a very seasonal flower in gardens right at the moment but also it has the word ‘Japanese’ in its name. What else is more suitable for this occasion than that.
September has just started. It means it’s the time that my sweet for this brand new month should be introduced. During the spring – summer season we get various fruits and vegetables harvested or found in a shop and I have used some as inspiration for the flavour or the image of my sweets such as mango, strawberry or Raspberry. So what kind of plant or fruit I can use for my sweet this month?
The variety of fruits are becoming less in this season. Luckily I found a very good one. Actually it was in my garden. I noticed that there were some branches stretching out from the next door. That was a grape vine and the fruit was just getting ripen. Yes, it is not my plant but some branches are coming into my side and reachable, AND nobody-else seems to care, And I think it is a sin to waste food so I took some grapes and tasted. It was a little sour and tangy comparing to the shop bought ones but not too bad to eat.
The Grapes from my garden
So, it is the Grape season now and I used this inspiration for creating my September Japanese Sweet.
This is a Mochi type sweet. I decorated the plain Mochi with Grape pattern as a reminder of what is inside.
When you fly to or from London, where I live, you can see many greenery area from the sky. Although it is the capital city of England, even apart from the famous parks in the central area there are many great woods in London. The further out you go towards suburb, the more woodland there are. There are several woods quite close to where I live as well and I went to one of them at the last weekend for a short walk.
One of my favourite woods near my house is Queen’s Wood. According to the council’s website ‘Queen’s Wood is one of the boroughs four Local Nature Reserves and one of four ancient woodland in Haringey. These woods are thought to be the direct descendants of the original “wildwood”, which covered most of Britain about five thousand years ago’. That sounds very impressive.
As it’s described as an ancient woodland as soon as you step your foot in the wood, most of the ground is covered thickly with tree canopies. They are all native trees such as English oak, beech, hornbeam, midland hawthorn, hazel, mountain ash, field maple, cherry and holly etc.
I picked a huge bowl full of Blackberries at the beginning of August and then I was daydreaming what I could make with them. It could be muffins, tart, cake and bread… I mainly used them for baking but there was one recipe for dessert that I wanted to try. It was a plain Frozen Yogurt. So I combined the recipe with my beautiful Blackberries in my mind and started making the dessert.
I used a tub of Greek Yogurt flavoured and sweetened with honey. The original recipe I referenced had lots of sugar mixed in so I add just 2-3 Table spoon full of sugar on top. It was quite good and not too sweet and had some sourness from the Blackberries and yogurt too. If you prefer the sweetness for the chilled dessert which sold in a shop you can add some more sugar on this recipe.
It seems like Summer’s back💕
Have a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend!
It was about a month ago that I picked the first Blackberry of the year. On the way back home from a little walk to the local Sunday market I noticed the berries were just getting ripe. It means that one year has passed since I had missed all the possibilities to pick Blackberries last summer and I did not want to miss the chance this time again. So, my Blackberry picking time started!
I have picked Blackberries twice so far this summer. Since then the weather became very rainy in London and I haven’t had a chance to do the third one yet. Apart from eating them fresh as a dessert with some other fruits and yogurt I made Frozen Yogurt and Sourdough Bread with them and also added Blackberries to anything I bake.
When schools break up for summer holiday, it is the signal that lots of local festivals are ready to start all around in Japan. Many stalls appear in a square that sell food or goods to the people visiting. There are some stalls for offering games too and ‘Kingyo-sukui’ is the one of them. ‘Kingyo’ means Goldfish and ‘Sukui’ is a noun form of a verb to-scoop in Japanese. So what does ‘Scooping-Goldfish’ mean?
Children enjoying ‘Kingyo-sukui’
On the Kingyo-sukui stall they bring a pond with many small Goldfish. The customers pay to get a small ladle which is made of paper and can keep scooping goldfish until the paper tears up and it is no longer possible to scoop up any fish. That is the time that game is over! At the end of the game you can take the goldfish home you scooped. I have to say I was very good at Kingyo-sukui when I was a child. I could get about 20 goldfish easily with just a one paper ladle.
So when I see Goldfish it reminds me of the Summer holiday. It is very nostalgic and that is why I chose Goldfish as the design for the sweet for August.
Although the fish is called Goldfish, the main colour of them is Red, bright red so the Goldfish on my sweet is also Red.
Sakura Junction 