"It’s homemade"
If I see another show on TV about home crafts I will be forced to stab someone with my bodkin. It seems we have forgotten that great strides were made to free up our time for more erudite activities than measuring flour and needle pointing cushions because we had no other choice. Any moment now we will be turning our sheets and making aprons out of flour bags. Wait, there are people doing just that, buying up old flour bags in Eastern bloc countries and turning them into tea towels. So you don’t need to.
My mother fell on white sliced bread like it was manna from heaven. Each new labour saving ingredient was eagerly incorporated into her repertoire in the kitchen and elsewhere around the house. Concentrated orange juice, fabulous. Cake mix, fantastic. Frozen pastry, a gift from the gods. Ready-made curtains, be still my beating heart. These things allowed her to spend more time doing the things she loved, reading, travelling and writing psychometric tests, saving her double first in psychology from going to waste. Having said that she was a brilliant cook and all birthday parties featured a cake that was magical to look at and was delicious to taste. It was a balance she enjoyed thanks to technology.
Now we are being bullied back into the dark ages. Make your own soap; make your own hat and even make those ubiquitous cupcakes. Is it a conspiracy to stop us achieving elsewhere? Are we really so bored we need to fill our day doing the things that machines were invented for?
‘It’s homemade’ your guest cries, arriving at your dinner party, clutching a bottle of some suspicious looking hooch. From plums in the garden no less, gathering no air miles and presented in a recycled bottle and crumpled recycled gift bag. As soon as they leave I will be recycling it to clean the drains and the blocked basin in the down stairs loo.
With Christmas on our heels the threat of not being able to make the whole shebang from scratch is being held over our heads like the sword of Damocles. Decorations must be fashioned from old newspaper and poster paint. Your pudding should have been made ages ago and be nestled under the bed in the spare room at just the right temperature. Mince pies should be in the freezer ready to be dusted with icing sugar in the shape of a snowflake. You will have spent hours creating crackers from old loo rolls and left over wrapping paper from 2001. Am I only the one with a facial expression like Munch’s Scream?
You are not a lesser person because you are happy with something store bought. It was not so long ago that being able to buy goods in a shop was a sign of sophistication and success. How that home made dress worn to the school dance made you squirm in embarrassment, while your better off friends paraded some gorgeous creation from a department store. To admit your Mother made your clothes had changed from being the normal state of affairs to being a sign you were poor.
Now making your own is the more expensive choice. Even with a bit of foraging in the hedgerows for blackberries and sloes you still end up paying more for your homemade jam or gin than you would in the shops. So home crafts that used to be the only way to get your hands on jam, cushions, hats and so on now has an air of ‘look at me I have so much time and money that I can afford to indulge in a bit of tatting.’
You must pick your battles. If you enjoy baking, then bake. If you love a bit of embroidery, then good for you. I am partial to a bit of crochet and knitting but I also enjoy buying sweaters from shops. Do not be shamed into thinking you are less of a person if your idea of home baking is to buy your cakes at the WI stall and pass them off as your own. Home made sure but not necessarily in your home.
Guilt be gone, is my battle cry.
When we had no option but to create our own beauty aids we went along with it willingly but as soon as it was possible (late 1900s!) to purchase moisturiser, blusher and shower gel from a company we saved up to send away for the latest lotion or potion. On the back of this mail order way of purchasing came the door-to-door sales companies most notably Avon that are still a market leader today.
David McConnell from upstate New York started Avon Calling in 1886. Originally a book salesman he instigated an introductory offer of a vial of perfume if the lady of the house would allow him to make his sales pitch. He soon discovered that these women still did not want his books but wanted more perfume and so Avon was born. That’s the ultimate accidental market research. People who lived in rural areas would be unlikely to make a special trip to buy cosmetics, which led to Avon’s success.
Now we have the luxury of buying beauty products in a variety of ways. However, whichever way we buy, we are still concerned about which are the ‘right’ ingredients. There are many companies trumpeting their all-natural organic ingredients and then there are those that present their product with a lady in a white lab coat showing us how much serious science and technology has gone into production.
If you study the contents list on the packaging of a product from a natural range you will see that a lot of them are plant derived with other ingredients acting as emulsifiers or retarding bacterial growth. When we make something from kitchen ingredients at home more often than not it must be used immediately before it starts oxidising and rotting.
It is at this gift giving time of the year you need to make the decision whether to give shop bought beauty presents or hunker down in the kitchen and start a production line of your own. If making something means it is not full of chemicals that irritate the recipient’s skin or you are having fun in the creation of it then go for it.
However you choose to tackle your present list don’t forget those doyennes on the TV busy spinning a single silken angel to hang on the tree they have cut down themselves, in the moments they have free between placing fifty storm lanterns up the garden path and brushing gold leaf over the fruit and nuts in the centre piece of their Renaissance themed table, have nannies and staff and a production crew of experts doing the real work behind the scenes.
Happy Christmas, Readers, Happy Christmas.
Christmas comes but once a year
Traditional Christmas ingredients that spring to mind are cinnamon, nutmeg, almonds, vanilla and oranges. Any of these bring about a warm feeling and the anticipation of good things to come.
If you are going to be making one or two gifts this year try out the following for an uncomplicated hour at the kitchen table – eat a shop bought mince pie to off-set the home craft ‘miles’.
Sugar and spice and all things nice scrub
•300g white granulated sugar
•½ bottle of vanilla essence
•100 ml sunflower oil
•2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
•2 teaspoons ground or freshly grated nutmeg
Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the vanilla essence and then slowly add the oil until you have a thick paste. You may need more or less oil see how you go.
Directions – dampen skin then massage thoroughly with the scrub then rinse well. This will last for 3 months in an airtight container. A Kilner jar is a typical receptacle. Tying a few cinnamon sticks to the jar with gingham or tartan ribbon is a pretty touch.
Soap in a Jar
•50g oatmeal or a combination of oatmeal and ground almonds
•50g dried lavender
Grind the oatmeal until its fine. Grind half of the lavander (to release the oils) and leave half as whole flowers. Mix the two elements together. Cut circles from a piece of muslin.
Put a handful of the mix in the muslin then draw it up like a little purse and tie it with string or raffia or ribbon, whatever you have.
You can put a dozen or so of these into a large jar and tie some lavender sprigs to the neck with a black ribbon for a chic look.
Make the bundles as big or as small as you like. They last for 6 months in a jar.
Float the purse in the bath as its being run then use the bundle like soap. The soothing oat milk with the soothing almonds and calming lavender are a great treat for someone with eczema or dry or sensitive skin. Each bundle has one use only.
Chocolate and peppermint scrub
•50g dark brown sugar
•30g cocoa powder – organic if you have to hand
•50g peppermint tea bags – tear open to release the contents
•100ml coconut oil – found in supermarkets and health food stores
Mix and use as for the scrub above and then store in an airtight container for 3 months. Tying a few candy canes with a green or red ribbon to the jar gives it a festive air.
First Published December 2011 By The Dart
