Book Review - The Minutes of the Lazarus Club

The Minutes of the Lazarus Club

by Tony Pollard
published by Penguin

ISBN 978-0-718-15403-5

Paperback - The Secrets of the Lazarus Club
ISBN 978-0-141-03589-5

This is set in 1850s Victorian London, at the height of Isambard Brunel, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale and graverobbing.  It starts with dead and disembowelled bodies being dragged from the River Thames, Dr George Phillips starts as a suspect in the killings but later starts to investigate the deaths under his own steam.  He is then inaugurated into the secret Lazarus Club and discovers a series of grim and creepy almost Frankensteinian events going on.  The story culminates on board the largest ship of the time, created by Brunel.

This is a wonderfully evocative book written by Dr Tony Pollard who has worked as a forensic archaeologist with Police Forces in Britain - his background is obvious in this book, which contains some rather gory scenes!!

This is an excellent read, but not for the faint-hearted!!!!!

Stabilo Point 88 drawing pens

A few months ago, I ordered some Kuratake Sketching pens online from a company called Cult Pens their website here and received as a free sample a Stabilo point 88 pen.  These are brilliant!!!!  I loved it so much that I bought a box of 20!

I think there's more colours in the range than 20, though, but these are the ones I received in my order

They're a thin-liner pen and are really good for - well, fine line drawing!Wonderful colours too!!!

The Cult Pens website seem to have quite a few deals on at the moment including for mini-pens of the same point 88 pens (presumably they're shorter in length)  I've cut/pasted some of the webpages here but the website itself (link above) is worth perusing if you're a pen fanatic!!

Cult pens try one for 10p

Cult pens pack of 8

Cult pens pack of 10

Cult pens pack of 12 mini

Cult pens pack of 18 mini

Cult pens pack of 20

Tomato soup recipe..... yummm!!

RECIPE: 1 large carrot

1 stick of celery

2 onions (brown/yellow will give a sweeter taste, purple will be tangy)

crushed garlic to taste

450g/1lb tomatoes

2 tbspns olive oil.

1.2 litres water

1 vegetable Knorr stock pot (or similar) - google that if you've never heard of it!

salt/pepper

Chop up the carrot, celery and onions and fry in a big soup pan in the olive oil until soft.  Add crushed garlic.  Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes in half and add to the softened veggies.  Add salt & pepper.  Stir for about 5 minutes until all the veggies are part cooked.  Add in the water and vegetable stock and simmer for about 40 minutes.  Blitz the soup with a liquidizer - we use a hand held one similar to this

- blend until the vegetables have been totally blitzed and it's a thick soup.  Add basil leaves and then eat.  

This is our favourite soup recipe!!!

Kneipp bath oil

A few years ago, we discovered Kneipp bath oil which are (I believe) a German company using aromatherapy as a base for bathroom products.  There's about 10 different smells which can be used to aid different problems.  The three bottles shown above are the full size 100ml bottles in Juniper (burgundy label) which is good for soothing muscles and cramps, Arnica (white label) which is good for soothing joints and muscles and the Eucaplytus (green label) which is good for aiding head colds.  The Lavendar is also good for assisting sleeping.  You only need a cap-ful of the oil poured under the running tap when you run a bath and they're brilliant!!  I am not being paid anything to run this post.  I really do love these bath oils!!!!!

Kneipp also do bath salts which are good, plus a whole range of other stuff.  Google them to find local stockists or mail order people.

Savoury Brioche recipe

This weekend, we made savoury brioche and it came out rather well!!

We used 500g plain white bread flour

7g salt (1.5 level measuring teaspoons)

10g Allisons easy yeast (2 level measuring teaspoons)

140 ml full fat milk

5 medium eggs

250g unsalted butter

2 level measuring tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese

1 level measuring tablespoon of dried oregano

1 level measuring teaspoon of Colemans mustard powder.

3 cloves garlic, crushed.

First of all we put all the dry ingredients into a big bowl, with the crushed garlic and mixed it all up.  We let the butter soften and then we rubbed that in until it all looks like breadcrumbs.  Then we added the milk and eggs and mixed it all up with a wooden spoon.  Then we put a big dish on top of the bowl and let it stand overnight.

The next morning, we butter-greased two small loaf tins.  We put a handful of flour on the worktop and tipped out the dough.  We folded it over on itself a few times and then cut in half and put half the dough in one tin, the other half in the other tin.  Then we put both tins inside a plastic bag, closed up the open end of the bag and left it to prove for 2 and a half hours.  

Then we preheated the oven to Gas Mark 6 (about 190 C) - whipped up another egg in a cup and brushed a bit on the top of each loaf and then put the loaves in the oven for 45 minutes.
Remove from tins, and cool on a wire rack.

Yummmmm.....!!