ODE TO KATHY*
by Bithi Das
14.12.2005
Our honourable little Kathy
She always looks very happy
Her smiling delightful eyes
Can be compared with divine sky.
She has no foes but only friends
And everybody runs round her with a hand to lend
Kathy we all wish you the very best
Because you are the ideal example of rest
May God bless you darling and
Wish you a very Merry Christmas
Your loving friends
Third Age Project
*First performed at the Third Age Project/Time Bank Chrismas Party,
02.12.2005. Confusingly, for non-time bank memebers, the "Kathy" of this
poem is not Kathy Randle. Bithi's poem mentioning Kathy Randle can be found
in her T-A-P poem celebrating the founding
of the Third Age Project in 1997("Edna, Jean and Kathy - the three
musketeers")
PURPLE POET'S ELDERBERRY
PORT
Kim Morrissey
2 quarts elderberries to:
1 gallon water
3¼ LB sugar
4 oz raisins
FROM A BOOTS SHOP OR WINE SHOP: wine yeast or port yeast,
sterilising solution, gallon bucket or jar, bored cork and plastic airlock
Pick berries on a hot day (don't pick after it has rained, or the berries
will be tasteless. Strip berries from their stalks using a fork, strip them
into a large bowl. Place berries in a large pot. Add the water and bring
to the boil for 15 minutes, and then simmer for 15 minutes. Using a sterilised
funnel and sieve, pour liquid into the sterilised jar, discarding the pulp.
Add sugar and raisins to the liquid in jar. Stir to dissolve sugar. Let the
liquid cool. Sterilise cork by boiling. Sterilise plastic air lock in sterilising
solution. Add yeast to liquid. Leave liquid to finish.
Recipes say the port should be left a year; delicious after 8 weeks. 1983-
made Sept 15th with Serena Beard, very drunk with Serena Beard November 16;
1992.
PURPLE POET'S SLOE GIN
Kim Morrissey
1 pint sloe berries to:
1 bottle 75 CL gin
6 oz sugar
Pick sloe berries in late October onwards (you need at least one hard frost
to sweeten the berries). Do not wash the berries. Pour out half the gin from
the bottle, and make two gin & tonics. Drink as you work. Pour sugar
into bottle with a funnel, and shake to dissolve. Prick each sloe berry several
times with a needle to release the juice. Drop berries in the bottle with
gin and sugar. Shake well.
Shake the bottle every 2-3 days (or whenever you're passing) until
the New Year, then remove berries from gin. Most books tell you to keep it
a year before tasting - it's delicious after three days, and more delicious
the older it gets.
Serena Beard taught me to make Elderberry Port and
Sloe Gin, at her home in Trillis, Gloucestershire in 1983.Like sloe gin,
she was always delicious company. She died of ovarian cancer March 13th,
2001. This poem was published in painted, spoken
(edited by Richard Price) in March 2007.
For Serena
by Kim Morrissey
first draft 24.11.2006
You are there
baking for Christmas, siphoning
wine in the afternoon
laughing at The Singer Not the Song
your first schoolgirl crush
in Sales I see your colours:
Cinnamon, Spice, Terracotta, Rust.
I put them back
for someone else
breathing in the Blackened Orange
the small ache of cloves
Red Sand; Dust.
NATIONAL POETRY
DAY
October 4th 2007 MENU
breakfast:
chocolate almond croissants and tea or coffee
official opening:
champagne, cranberry juice or water
served in purple poet champagne flutes
lunch:
purple poets' soup
served with bread and sour cream
chicken curry, dal, rice
bananas and mixed fruit
18 carrot muffins (split in two)
with purple poets plum jam
tea-time:
1 chocolate cake
1 lemon drizzle cake
1 carrot cake
tea in china tea-cups
blueberry/raspberry juice
2007: culinary gifts to the Time Bank Café from the Purple
Poets
20 purple champagne flutes, 2 purple pitchers for water or juice
12 ceramic purple mugs. We gave the last remaining jar of our 2006 purple
poets' plum jam to our special guest Henry Woolf (and
gave him two of our plastic purple champagne flutes as well, for himself
and his wife Susan, who inspires most of his poems. Henry said he would use
one of the purple flutes as a prop in THE HOTHOUSE that evening (the Pinter
play he is currently appearing in, at the National Theatre).
Thanks for the Memories ....
Special Thanks to Pusha Begum, Ratna Begum and Maya Khatun, who helped prepare
lunch for the poets, and cleared away everything, even though National Poetry
Day falls in Ramadan. Thanks to our time broker Shahanara and our
beloved TAP staff member Urmi for their help over-seeing (which means help
cleaning!) the kitchen. There are people who also helped to made this
day special: purple poets Patsy for her sterling work stirring the soup,
Bithi for making a roti for Henry to take to work, Carol for bringing
her birthday bottle of Avery champagne for the opening, Kim for two bottles
of Etienne Dumont Champagne and Islam for the beautiful bottle of white wine
for the Celebration. Thank you everyone, for your time, your
friendshipyour laughter and your poems. See you next year!
TAP 10th ANNIVERSARY
POTATO SALAD
which would have been served at the TAP Anniversary Barbeque,
if Kim hadn't been photocoying the Purple Poets' poem-pamphlets instead.
six potatoes
six organic free-range eggs
six tablespoons of mayonnaise (or to taste)
a large sweet mild onion
a handful of red radishes
freshly ground pepper and sea-salt to taste
This salad is about texture - you need
big bite-size pieces.
Boil the potatoes and put the eggs in with the potatoes to boil for six minutes
or until they are hard-boiled. Cut each egg roughly into six pieces, put
the boiled potatoes into big bite-size pieces. Put them in a bowl with the
onion chopped into big bite-size pieces. Add the potatoes, and mayonnaise
to taste.
Cover with aluminum foil (to celebrate the TAP 10th anniversary) Chill.
Add radishes, each cut into roughly six pieces,at the last moment
(if you add them sooner, their red colour will bleed into the salad).
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WEST EUSTON THIRD AGE PROJECT ON
ITS TENTH ANNIVERSARY FROM THE PURPLE POETS 09.06.2007: Babushka, Bithi Das,
Carol Moon, Eileen Frances, Eppie Caredda,Ferdous Rahman, Islam Molla, Jean
Watt, Kathy Randle, Patsy Futatsugi and workshop leader: Kim
Morrissey
NATIONAL POETRY
DAY
October 5th 2006 MENU
Betty's Purple Poet Potion
created especially for the Purple
Poets
to celebrate National Poetry Day 2006
all herbs and spices on the day donated by
Betty's Herbs
From Heaven (organic)
Borough Market
9:30
a.m.
Purple Poets' Canadian
Pancakes
1 cup of milk
1 beaten egg
1 cup of flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1 Tablespoon of baking powder
Beat the egg into the milk,
add the rest of the ingredients and stir slightly.
Heat oil in a frying pan.
Pour the pancake into the pan and
wait until bubbles start to form in the batter.
Flip the pancake and fry the other side.
Serve with butter and blueberry jam
(or Canadian maple syrup).
11:00 am
"Let Them Eat Cake"
Morning Coffee
and Fanny Keats'
Hazelnut Cake
Fanny was the sister of John Keats.
This was one of his favourite cakes.
(Recipe provided by Keats' House, Hampstead).
Fanny Keats' Hazelnut
Cake
6 ounces sugar
3 eggs
1/4 pint of milk
4 ounces breadcrumbs
4 ounces chopped hazelnuts
Beat the eggs with the sugar until smooth,
pale and fluffy. Fold in the nuts and breadcrumbs
and enough milk to give a dropping consistancy.
Turn into a greased 7" cake tin and bake
for fifteen minutes in an oven at 220,
then reduce to 180 degrees
and cook for twenty to thirty minutes
until the cake is firm to the touch.
Cool. Serve.
"After the War" Chocolate Fudge Cake
baked by designer Paula-Jane James-Scott
After The War
By Patsy Futatsugi
22.07.2006
My mother worked in a sweet shop
And every Friday she brought me
My special treat. Fuller's Chocolates .
Round with bits of purple and red
Square nougat, sugared almonds
Walnuts covered in Dark and Milk
Chocolate. They were just there.
Every Friday when she was paid.
One Friday my mother forgot
I remember screaming
Kicking and crying
"Where's my bloody chocolates"
And being put to bed without supper.
The next Friday she came home
With more glossy, shiny,
Gooey chocolates.
Glossy, shiny, creamy,
Milky, syrupy-sweet
Smearing on the hands and face
Of a five year old
Melting in my mouth.
First performed at the Cumberland
Market Festival,
Cumberland Market, at 2 p.m. on the Main Stage
on July 29, 2006.
|
noon
The Purple Poets'
Purple Soup
Simmer fresh sliced beetroots with
fresh tomatoes (whole)
fresh celery (sliced)
fresh carrots (sliced)
Betty's bay leaf
cooked haricot beans
salt and freshly ground pepper
Simmer for several drafts of a poem.
Serve with Sour Cream
and fresh-baked Bread.
PLEASE NOTE:
THE POETS' POKER AND POKER CHIPS
HAVE BEEN CANCELLED.
THE POETS WILL BE PLAYING POOL
WITH LES WATERS AND FRIENDS AT ONE PM INSTEAD
Poker Chips
Slice the root vegetables thinly:
potatoes, parsnips, carrots and beetroot.
Dry them with paper towels.
Fry until crisp in hot oil.
Mix all the chips together.
Salt with freshly ground Maldon sea-salt,
and be sure to give people paper napkins
(to keep the cards clean).
4(ish) Tea with Bee
(and her Rushey Green Friends)
FEATURED: PURPLE POETS' PLUM TARTS
RECOMMENDED READING:
"The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts
All on a summer's day ...."
--Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
(Recommended by Camden Councillor Penny Abraham
)
PURPLE POETS' PLUM TARTS
FIRST, MAKE YOUR PLUM JAM
Pick damsons and Victoria plums on August 24th,
2006.
West EustonTime Bank and Third Age Project
Coach Outing (the next outing will take place August 30th, 2007)
Hewitt's Farm
01959532003
Hewitts Road,
Orpington,
Kent BR6 7QR
Make Plum Jam on the same day or the next.
PURPLE POETS' PLUM
JAM
1 pound stoned damsons to
1/2 pint of water.
Simmer until reduced by half.
Add one pound of sugar.
Simmer until the sugar is dissolved, then
boil until the jam sticks slightly to a wooden spoon.
Ladle into washed, boiled, heated jam jars and seal.
RECOMMENDED READING:
William Carlos Williams poem "This is Just to Say"
"I have eaten
the plums ...
(Recommended by Councillor Arthur
Graves)
TO MAKE THE TARTS:
Preheat your oven to Gas 5, 190 C 375 F.
Oil or butter your tart tins. Press the rolled out pastry into
the tart tins.
Prick the pastry base with a fork and bake for about 25 minutes
until golden. Remove from the oven to cool.
Turn oven down (Gas 2 150C 300F).
Fill your pastry shells with one level teaspoon
of jam .
Bake in the oven for about ten minutes, or so,
until firm. Leave to cool and then chill.
Serve with tea.
Thanks for the Memories ....
2006: culinary gifts to the Time Bank Café from
the Purple Poets
2 large purple salad serving bowls, 30 white ceramic soup bowls,
5 large glass jars and 30 ordinary glass jars for making jam,
a gigantic tea-pot, a potato peeler, and a silicon pancake flipper. 20 china
teacups collected from Charity Shops (with thanks to Jan at the Goodge Street
YMCA Charity Shop). Some of the small jars of jam were given to
the Purple Poets' Special Guests (Rose Hacker, Richard Price, Gareth
Edwards, Karen Lyon, Bee, David Neita, The Mayor of Camden Jill Fraser, CLLR
Penny Abraham, CLLR Arthur Graves, Time Bank Broker Shahanara Begum, TAP
Director Tony Bloor, West Euston Time Bank Master Baker Cyril and Graphic
Designer Urmi, Betty from Betty's Herbs from Heaven, Paula for her four beautiful
Chocolate Cakes, Emily Jewell for her superb readings of purple
poet Patsy'sm "After the War" Chocolate poem). The West Euston Time Bank
Purple Poets' Plum Jam' label was beautifully designed by Urmi (who also
designed our National Poetry Day Poster) and wrapped by Cyril (who heroically
baked our scones on the day). The Thank You letters to our special
guests were composed by Islam Molla. The remaining (bulk) of the jam was
donated to the Time Bank Cafe for use throughout the year.
Special Thanks to Islam, from the Bengali Men's Cooking Club, who helped
prepare lunch for the poets, even though National Poetry Day falls in
Ramadan.
VOLUNTEERS
NEEDED
(TO EARN TIME CREDITS)
'Hamlet who?'
-- Ophelia joins the West Euston time bank café.
This event has been co-sponsored
by the West Euston Third Age Project
and the West Euston Time Bank
West Euston Third Age Project Staff:
telephone: 020 7 383 4922
address: The Crypt
e-mail address: info@thirdageproject.org.uk
Poetry Workshop Facilitators:
Tony Bloor
Urmi Nurjahan
Heeron Begh
Karen Givens
West Euston Time Bank Staff:
Telephone: 020 7383 4382
Address: 69-75 Stanhope Street London NW1 3LD
Time Broker
Shahanara Begum
shahanara@westeustontimebank.org.uk
For Press and Promotional packs
and details concerning the Norah Platt Prize,
(or to be added to the e-mail mailing list)
please contact Tony
Bloor. |
