Comfort
Nick has always told me that to get anyone to follow me on-line I must post regularly. Thank you for subscribing to hear about my life on Orkney and many apologies for missing our chat last week. I am a Royalist and the death of Queen Elizabeth II, although not a surprise, was all-absorbing history.
Orkney is famous for its incredible folk music, but there is music here of every genre. We are singing in two ‘serious’ community choirs (thankfully no auditions required): the Winter Choir and the St Magnus Festival Chorus. With the latter we’d been due to perform Brahms German Requiem in the Cathedral in June - but half of us went down with COVID the week of the concert. That half included us. A re-run was arranged for September 11th, which turned out to be the day of the proclamation of the Queen’s death and the King’s accession here in Orkney. Twenty-four hours was deemed to be the length of time that the news would have taken to get to us from London. Pre smart phones and the constant pinging of ‘breaking news’. The original proclamation was made by the Garter King of Arms from the Friary Balcony of St James’s Palace, dressed in heraldic costume so rich and colourful, a day earlier. We had a couple of pikemen guarding the Lord Lieutenant and Council Officials, but it looked good. And the Salvation Army band to play the National Anthem - our first time with the ‘new’ words.
A packed audience came for the second performance of the Requiem in four months. Our tribute, our comfort. And this time, unlike in the June festival when professional singers, pianists and soloists were brought in, this time it was all Orkney performers. And it was good. Very good.
Comfort Food. What do you crave, to eat and to drink, when something sad happens? For some bread is comfort, not just the eating but the making and kneading as well. We’ve been using beremeal from Barony Mill in our loaves since moving to Orkney, but more of that another time.
Then there’s cheese and specifically cheese on toast. Melting comfort as the cheese changes texture. It’s always good but this spiced version that I created for Orkney Cheese’s new website is especially reassuring. Maybe add a sliced tomato too?
A whisky for comfort? It has to be something Big - more challenging than easy in flavour, a whisky to unpack as it is savoured. OMG - I was just looking at my YouTube channel to try to link to a whisky video: it is all so out of date! That’s something I can work on here, and need to do. But that’s also for another day and maybe I should start with my comfort dram, Ardgowan’s latest release Sailmaker? I promise to tell you more about it very soon.
The real comfort food of these Islands is Stovies. Check out this recipe that I wrote for Orkney.com: it’s a traditional Scottish dish but, of course, I added a few twists of my own. We make it with either Orkney beef or lamb and usually serve it with oatcakes. Whilst lots of bakeries make fabulous oatcakes on the Islands you’ll probably be able to get Stockan’s wherever you are if in the UK. If a farmshop or deli shopper look out for their new traditional range.
