Painted gardens prove a peaceful tonic to modern life

Water Lillies (1916-26) Monet

Picasso observed that “art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life,” so what better way to start a weekend than to spend time in a gallery?

And even more than that, how therapeutic would that art be if it was to be about gardens?

The announcement of London’s first art blockbuster of 2016 was met by much muttering that the Royal Academy was merely chasing after the money of a sort of art show dilettante.

There seemed to be a suggestion that Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse was not quite ‘serious,’ as art goes.

The Wall of the Vegetable Garden, Yerres, Caillebotte

Even the Daily Mail got in on the act with a sneery piece about ‘Monet mania’.

But none of that was going to put off someone who has, in recent years, experienced Damascene moments when it comes to both of those named artists.

So a week ago, after work, The Other Half and I toddled along to Piccadilly.

It must be said that, in terms of the Matisse element of the exhibition, it’s a bit of a disappointment.

Organised in conjunction with the Cleveland Museum of Art, some paintings are being seen in London but not in the States and visa versa.

Woman and Child in a Meadow at Bougival, Morisot

In the US, according to the catalogue (which is rather poorly printed in terms of colour reproduction, by the way), there will be three Matisse’s on view that are not to be found in London.

The two here are not his finest, although Rose Marble Table (1917), on a second look, does generate light, even though, by Matisse’s standards, the background is downright muddy. Bloody geniuses.

But that’s being picky. There are fascinating works here by myriad other painters – some of whom were new or little-known to us – and then there are the works by Monet.

The exhibition opens with two fascinating pairings: first, of flower pictures by Renoir and Monet and then, Renoir’s Monet Painting In His Garden At Argenteuil together with the painting that Monet is shown working on, The Artist’s Garden in Argenteuil (A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias), from 1873.

View of a Garden, Linköping, Johan Fredrick Krouthén

The first duo are highly conventional still life paintings; the second sees both artists moving toward what we recognise today as an Impressionist approach.

The exhibition makes much of the rise of recreational gardening among the growing middle class and its influence on artists, although some painters continued to be inspired by their own preference for rather more traditional vegetable gardening – a group that included Camille Pissarro, who painted his kitchen garden.

And indeed, Gustave Caillebotte did the same, with The Wall of the Vegetable Garden, Yerres (1877) proving a rare pastel work in such exhibitions, and very modern, with its stark geometry.

The Terrace at Méric, Bazille

In making sure that the link between recreational gardening and painting is clear, there are exhibits of seed catalogues, magazines and other gardening materials, plus a rather marvelous film of Monet painting.

There are painters represented from around the world, including the likes of Joaquin Sorolla, with his Spanish courtyard gardens dripping in heat and the cool of shade.

In such terms, Frédéric Bazille’s The Terrace at Méric (1867), though unfinished, reeks of the warmth and light of the south.

The Birch Avenue in the Garden of Wannsee ... Libermann

We have the chance to meet up again with other artists, including Berthe Morisot, whose beautiful Woman and Child in a Meadow at Bougival from 1882 is on display, while there are the joys on a single Manet in Young Women Among Flowers from 1879.

There are several fine works by John Singer Sargent, and then there are the Scandinavians, Karl Nordström, Laurits Tuxen and Peder Krøyer.

For me, Johan Fredrik Krouthén’s View of a Garden, Linköping (1887-88), stood out from these works.

Murnau II, Kandinsky

Light-dappled paths leading through tree-filled gardens are a particularly successful recurring theme – Max Libermann’s The Birch Avenue in the Garden of Wannsee Looking West (1918) is just one excellent example.  

Setting aside the fact that whoever named the next part of the exhibition ‘Avant Gardens’ (hohoho) should be given a serious seeing to (fnar fnar), we then move into an explosion of colour. 

And what is very clear is that the artistic leap forward from red and white borders to riots of colour was made possible, in part at least, by improvements in botanical science. 

Emil Nolde’s canvases of flowers bring extra vivacity to the exhibition, as does Kandinsky’s wonderful Murnau II. 

Munch’s Apple Tree in a Garden (1932-42) is a revelation if one is primarily only familiar with The Scream. 

Rose Marble Table, Matisse

We are even treated to three fascinating small pieces by Klee, while Klimt’s Cottage Garden from 1905-07 is unmistakable and Santiago Rusiñol’s Gardens of Monforte (1917) has wonderful light.

But then, as throughout this exhibition, is Monet – taking an extraordinary artistic journey in one lifetime.

And the three vast Water Lillies canvases, from 1915-26, 1916-26 and 1915-26 (left to right as they are hung) are staggering. Now all hanging in different US galleries, they are reunited here, in Europe, for the first time in the best part of a century.

Like the paintings at the Orangerie in Paris, they have the power to evoke a sublime, almost spiritual response. Their apparent simplicity belies their power and their beauty.

So forget the cynics and the snide snobs. Quite simply, time spent contemplating these works is worth the admission price alone.

Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse is at the Royal Academy in London until 20 April.

The potager's back in business

Not really like coffins at all

It’s just possible that some visitors to this corner of cyberspace may wonder what has happened to the potager – the unkempt wedge of a carpark flower bed that gave me my Schleswig-Holstein moment a couple of years ago.

Well, there were plans, but last autumn, with its soul-destroying grey dampness, rather put paid to them.

But although it was two seasons later than intended, the central scheme has now been realised.

The potager as it existed had a number of problems.

After the housing association had accepted a tender for gardening services from a different company, the flowerbed areas at the back of our small block of flats had been allowed to get into a mess.

In one, weeds had run riot, while a bush that had been growing around a small tree was dying, and rusting bikes, left by long-gone residents, had been left chained to the trellis that formed one border of the patch.

Initially, mine had been a small land grab – enough to put some beans in.

But these things are addictive and, the following year, I increased the size and even managed to produce some very small carrots.

As it was at the start, in 2012

Neighbours then took up the cause and helped clear the entire patch, apart from the tree and one deep, old root from the bush.

And last year, there were a few more very small carrots, one or two miniature turnips, a couple of gigantic courgettes, a few salad leaves and chard that eventually threatened to reach record heights.

But the ground was uneven because of that tree, with roots breaking the surface in a number of places.

The soil is fairly shallow soil, with sand beneath, and that soil is, typically for cities apparently, also very, very clayey – that means it’s very rich, but also very difficult to work and not much cop on the drainage front.

There are now, though, three large raised beds in place, built to fit the space perfectly.

Ian, a local craftsman who has done a number of jobs for us, built them just as I wanted – and then went down to nearby Hackney City Farm and returned with enough well-matured manure to provide a substantial layer at the bottom of each new bed, which was then topped up with soil.

There is, apparently, a whopping two tons of the latter there now – a frankly amazing figure that would never have entered my head when I was planning the little development.

In effect, though, while the area is technically the same, the actual planting space is greater – simply because he has built around and then over roots and unevenness, to create evenness above.

And of course, drainage will be considerably improved.

So we’re back in business.

The first weekend back, I started off by making two trips to Colombia Road flower market – the first with The Other Half to provide extra carrying capacity – coming home with vast amounts of herbs, plus flowers.

Otto exploring slightly later developments

One planter now has those herbs arranged around the outside, with a splash of summer colour in the middle.

Our neighbours seem particularly impressed – even though one of them did apparently suggest to Ian that he could start a new career as a coffin maker.

There’s common thyme and lemon thyme, rosemary, flat leaf parsley, chives, French tarragon, chervil, lovage, common sage and bloody dock sorrel.

We still have oregano on the patio, plus the bay tree, and I’m going to get a really large pot to go there for mint.

But that seems to me like a great herb collection, and the sorrel and sage are already growing at an incredible rate.

And the inclusion of the likes of lovage and chervil are exactly the sort of thing that inspires me to continue this adventure – there is no shop that I know that ever sells such things.

One of the tarragon plants has some leaves that are not happy, but by and large it’s doing okay – and tarragon is notoriously delicate – while the chervil looks to be thriving.

On the herb front, everything else seems to be fine too, although, in spite of regular watering, some of the flowers didn’t take too kindly to the sunshine in the days that followed their being planted out.

This last weekend, I took enjoyed my first harvesting – just a few chives, snipped for a garnish, but bang full of flavour.

And of course, it won’t take long before such things have more than paid for themselves.

If I have to buy chives, for instance, then I have to pay for a bag of (less tasteful) ones at 80p or more, with the chances being that most won’t get used.

This way, I get to just harvest my half dozen chives when I need them, and waste nothing.

And for the winter, I may explore freezing some winter.

The flowers include French marigolds, which apparently help to keep pests away: I’m still trying for the most natural way of gardening possible.

I timed it well – which was a fortunate accident, really – because July seems to be the final month for sowing seeds outside for autumn and winter food crops.

So in the coming days, leeks, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots and fennel will all be sown in the next planter.

Now, this isn’t guaranteed to be a rip-roaring success, but there’s really only one way to find out.

And there’s a great deal of pleasure in doing just that.

When autumn leaves you hankering for comfort

Chard from the potager

The return from France was followed by several days of continued high temperatures (and high humidity), which managed to give the sense that summer was set to continue for a while.

In fact, one of the first things that we became aware of getting back to Blighty this year was just how much earlier the sun seems to set in the UK – party, of course, because of the hour difference, but it still left us feeling that the world was closing in rather suddenly.

However, at the end of last week the temperature had dropped too and, by the weekend, one could sense autumn on the wind. When that happens, food has to change.

The delivery, while I was away, of Tom Kerridge’s Proper Pub Food gave me a starting point, and the discovery within its pages, during my Saturday morning browse with coffee and notepad, of a dish involving chard, was enough to inspire.

In this case, it was pan-fried grey mullet on a bed of chard, with a butter sauce. Fortunately, since mullet isn’t always readily available, the recipe also mentions bass. I found some of that without any problem.

The sauce is made of two finely-chopped banana shallots, with white wine, white wine vinegar and water, all of which are measured accurately to 75ml each and then reduced to a glaze. It has cream stirred in and is then seasoned with lemon juice.

I suspect that there were shortcuts taken in the editing of the book. The picture shows a smooth sauce, but no mention is made of sieving it to remove the shallots. I chose to do so, since that made sense. There’s also a strange, contradictory instruction on the chard.

Okay, with an ounce of culinary experience you should be able to work around such things, but you still don’t expect such issues in a book that was hardly dirt cheap in the first place.

That said, the sauce was delicious, although you really do need to reduce it to a glaze at the first stage, which I didn’t quite manage (you fret that there’ll be nothing left).

The chard – our first from the potager – was nice, and still remarkably tender, given how long it had been growing. It’s cooked in water and butter and lemon juice.

The fish fillets are pan fried, having had the skin side lightly floured. That, I will say, is a superb way to cook fish – and very easy.

Kerridge says to put it in a little oil (I used olive oil), floured skin side down, and leave until you can see that it’s almost cooked through.

Then it really only does need a minute on the other side.

Sunday, however, was set aside for Cooking Without Any Book Anywhere Near (well, not open at any rate).

To start with, a piece of braising steak, bought from Matthew, was trimmed and cut into large pieces, joined in a bowl by a diced carrot, a chunked onion and a chopped stick of celery, plus a couple of bay leaves, some peppercorns and (secret ingredient coming up) a good strip of orange peel.

That last item is very much a southern French influence, used in daubes.

A bottle of red wine went over it all and the bowl was covered in cling film and popped into the fridge over night.

The wine in question was a JP Chenet syrah shiraz (under a fiver from Ocado, so complying with Raymond Blanc’s assertion that you should never pay more for wine for the pot).

I picked it because that syrah that we’d had at La Balette was so smoky a taste that I thought the grape would go well with the beef.

Beef, cooked in a southern French style

Fast forward to Sunday morning.

Everything was drained, the wine reserved and the meat separated from the vegetables.

Each piece of beef was then patted dry individually – it’s the only way to do it if you’re going to get it dry enough to brown, but if the pieces are large, it’s hardly very onerous.

Next, a couple of carrots were peeled and cut into large slices, a large onion was diced, four cloves of garlic were peeled and smashed, and a couple of sticks of celery were sliced.

Shortly before we went away, Blanc had been demonstrating, on his new TV series, slow cooking. And to cook a piece of beef, he’d put it in the oven at 160˚C (fan) for four hours.

I’ve been using 150˚C for four to five hours, and it’s been just missing the completely melted point by a tiny amount. A case of: nearly there!

The basis for my 150˚C was that most books that deal seriously with slow cooking – “seriously” meaning more than pretending that 90 minutes or two hours is an example of the method – talk of a low or medium oven.

However, in this case, I preheated the oven to 160˚C.

And then some dripping was melted in a large sauté pan, and all the pieces of meat were browned before being popped into a Le Creuset casserole.

The onion and garlic went into the fat and was softened a little, before a dessert spoon of plain flour was sprinkled on top and stirred in. After a minute cooking, a ladle of the reserved wine was added and stirred carefully in, before another followed.

That too all went into the casserole, together with the other vegetables – three more bay leaves, another couple of strips of orange peel, plenty of black pepper and a shake of ground ginger. The aim was to add a hint of warmth, but not a discernible ginger flavour.

Mixed gently together, the rest of the reserved wine was added, a piece of foil placed over the dish with the lid on top, and then into the oven.

After four hours, it was essentially done. The meat was flaking, the wine had reduced and thickened and sweetened gloriously.

Since it was earlier than I’d intended, I added a little boiling water to thin the liquid and gave it another hour, with the heat reduced to 150˚C. I added some pitted black olives at this point.

After that, it was served with a helping of boiled basmati rice.

I was absolutely delighted with this: finally, I’d got the wine to a taste and consistency that you find if you eat such a dish in France.

The flavour that the orange gave the dish was wonderful. The meat was flaking and the vegetables were all cooked.

As a slight diversion: carrot is remarkable, in it’s ability to be cooked for hours without falling apart.

And reheated gently, it also served well for an easy Monday night supper.

Finally, it seems, I’ve sussed slow cooking. Next up will be something a bit more northern, with beer – and a similar cooking time. Perhaps it’s time for a Vlaamse Stoverij again? Autumn does have its advantages.

Peas please me do

The first harvest

And so to Liverpool for a week’s conference work. It’s not a city I’ve spent much time in – the last time I was here was during Euro ’96, for a group match between Italy and Russia at Anfield, marvelling at the sight of Gianfranco Zola bringing a ball down out of the air, apparently stuck to his boot, before haring off on a run.

Then afterwards, being ticked off by a very young policemen at Lime Street Station, as I swore with frustration on learning that my train had been cancelled for some reason or other, and two trains worth of us were crammed into one for the journey back to London.

But before then, late on Friday afternoon, pottering in the potager, I harvested three pea pods. There’ll be many more to come, but those were not going to wait for a further week.

Oh, the smell from those pods, freshly picked. Just a few hours later, the aroma had faded somewhat.

But by then, the few tender, young peas were being podded into a pan to blanch for just a moment, alongside asparagus and courgette.

There were few enough of them, but enough to experience the extraordinary taste.

Some people think that growing peas is a waste of time – you need loads, after all, the podding takes time, and the frozen variety are excellent.

I’d certainly be lost without frozen peas – but they are a different beast; a very different taste.

And podding peas is as enjoyable as scraping new potatoes. Or, for that matter, podding broad beans, of which you can also get quite decent frozen ones.

Oh, but the taste. Freshly-picked peas really do please me. And after a completely failed harvest last year, this is already looking good.

The potager is so full of life now: chard, lettuce, radishes, spring onions, the pot of various salad leaves, turnips and carrots are all, finally, on the way.

The blackcurrant bush has produced it’s first fruit. There won’t be a lot, but it’s a start.

The peas are producing many more flowers and already some baby pods. The broad beans are producing many beautiful, delicate black and white flowers. And the runner beans are running away up the wigwam.

On the patio, nasturtiums are finally growing, and the vine is close to seeing us start to train it along the fence. The pyracantha has burst forth with delicate, creamy flowers, and the belis and sweet William and violas add vibrant colour.

Hopefully, it’ll all be even further on when I get back later this week.

In the meantime, Liverpool.

Our hotel restaurant was rammed by the time we went looking for food. Forced, then, to wander a little, we were equally unfortunate as we ambled into the Liverpool 1 area and tried to see if there was any chance of getting in to Jamie’s Italian.

Fortunately, around another corner, we found a Bistro Franc – and thoroughly decent it turned out to be.

As a general point, each place that we checked out was not only busy but so noisy that you’d have had to shout to make your dining companion/s hear you.

Bistro Franc was perhaps not quite as loud.

First lesson: get to know your waitor/waitress.

We were served by a delightful French woman from Toulouse, who was tickled pink that I, entirely coincidentally, was wearing a limited edition Olympique Lyonnais top.

They had a monthly menu – a point that The Other Half pointed out as something impressive.

I started with a chicken liver parfait on onion toast, with a small salad. But I couldn’t resist one of the side dishes on offer – pan-fried frogs’ legs, so that I had that alongside.

For my main course, I opted for confited leg of duck with an orange and cointreau sauce. The Other Half had the bourguingnon, and we were given a substantial side dish of assorted vegetables.

Bistro Franc

Both courses were very good – and left us very nicely fed as we pottered back to the hotel, and we'd enjoyed a bottle of 2012 rosé d'Anjou 'Tourville' from the Loire, which had a nice fruity sweetness to balance the acidity.

The space, it’s worth adding, has been very nicely used.

Our arrival in the city had coincided with the sinking of a ‘yellow duckmarine’ with 31 tourists on board in the dock opposite the hotel.

Thanks to the incredibly quick action of the RAF rescue service, together with the local police, ambulance and fire and rescue services, all on board were rapidly rescued and accounted for, with no major injuries sustained.

Nobody could imagine publicly-owned restaurants – whether serving French or otherwise. But why on earth can anyone imagine that privatised emergency services, which would have a legal obligation to maximise profits for shareholders as their priority, would be able to perform their jobs any better than the way in which those emergency services reacted on Saturday?

A mixed economy is best for the majority. And long may it continue.