Dinner for 25 !

Yesterday, I held a dinner party at Balintore Castle to thank everyone who has supported the restoration over the years. Some of the guests are involved with their own restoration projects and have provided advice and a shoulder to cry upon, when things have not gone to plan. There was a contingent from Wales and a contingent from Orkney, so quite a gathering.

The event, more or less, was at full moon (actually tonight) so was one of the castle's Lunar Dining Club soirées, albeit one at a larger scale than usual - 25 guests rather than just a handful. In fact, I catered for 32 to be on the safe side, but there are always last minute cancellations and no-shows.

Naturally, I was too preoccupied to take any photos, but friend of Balintore James sent me these rather splendid ones, so I thought I would share.

I love to see light shining out of the windows at Balintore, as it is a sign that the building is alive. The photo below shows the full moon. It is actually a night shot, but digital cameras perform miracles with exposure nowadays.

I had pleaded with my builders Craig, Gregor and Gavin to clear the chimney in the Servant's Dining Hall in the basement  for the event so we could heat this space with a wood burner. Finally on Friday, after several months of encountering impenetrable blockage after impenetrable blockage, the stove was installed. Result! For several weeks, Gregor's chimney rods were stuck up the chimney, it was Craig's refusal to give up that eventually retrieved them. This chimney goes from the very bottom of the building to the very top, so challenging is the word.


Here, in another night-time shot you can see smoke coming from the Servant's Hall:

I picked up the massive wood-burner from an architectural antiques yard outside Bath for £60. I put a large pan of water on top of the stove, just to clean the surrounding fireplace, and the water boiled in just 3 minutes. I was so pleased by the sheer quantity of heat pumped out by the stove, and it was gratifyingly warm during the meal. Below you can see the stove on the go and the red wine chambre-ing on the mantel shelf above

We set up 4 tables each with 8 place settings, and did our best to create a festive ambiance for the guests. Winter is now beginning to bite and I have been suffering from some health issues, so we all badly needed distraction and cheering-up. The dinner party was just the ticket.

The menu so you can recreate your own Balintore dinner party at home:

starter - stuffed mushrooms

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/triple-cheese-tarragon-stuffed-mushrooms

1st course - Mark's pheasant and apple stew

https://www.gressinghamduck.co.uk/recipes/pheasant-breasts-casserole-with-bacon-and-apples/

main course - venison casserole
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/succulent-braised-venison

dessert 1 - Bailey's and Coffee Cheesecake

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/baileys-cheesecake

dessert 2 - Veronique's French Apple Tart

venison casserole

Bailey's and coffee cheesecake

A special thank-you to all my friends who stepped in concernedly to help, given my health issues, with the catering and clearing up. They were amazing. I was told just to sit at the dining table and enjoy myself, which I did, flitting between tables during the meal like a social gad-fly. :-)

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

The famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (IKB) was an illustrious Victorian gentleman with his finger in many pies. The architect of Balintore Castle, William Burn (WB), was also an illustrious Victorian gentleman with his finger in many pies.

It is almost inevitable, therefore, that at some stage they should have their fingers in each others' pies, and friend of Balintore, Gareth, has just unearthed some evidence of this at the new museum in Bristol dedicated to the life of IKB.

Gareth's photos tell the story, but it is astonishing to think that WB was going to build IKB, his own version of Balintore albeit with sections of the building in a very different (and clashing) style. IKB himself was an architect and constructed many buildings including a house in Abingdon, close to my home in England, that was once pointed out to me. So for IKB to engage WB, must have meant that he rated him very highly.

The Toilet Paper Mystery

I have been charged twice recently for unpaid postage. My suspicion was that someone in the Post Office was on the fiddle, and there was no indication of which eventual deliveries had merited the extra charges.

However, today this letter arrived:

Inside was a short section of toilet paper folded in an exceedingly neat manner:

Can anyone solve the mystery or identify the printing? All I can conclude is that someone in the Glasgow area (the post mark) wants to wreak revenge for some unidentified wrong-doing of mine by charging me postage by using no-longer-valid stamps. £1.10 is a lot to pay per wipe. :-)

PostScript

The mystery was solved by my housekeeper who contacted the guest that took away the key to the AirBnB in error. He attempted to post it back and was able to identify the envelope. It's still a mystery why the key was not inside the pocket of toilet paper, but the envelope has been with the Post Office for 3 weeks so anything could have happened.

Butler's Pantry 2

Gregor and Gavin have finished repairing the lining of the window reveals in the Butler's Pantry.

Here is the after:

And here is the before for comparison:

The restoration of the original door of the room is underway:

Gregor asked me if I wanted him to restore the original door. I responded "What kind of question is that?". Gregor knows that I am scrupulous is re-using every single bit of original fabric when I can, and of course in reality, it is good that he actually did ask. Gregor misses no opportunity to tease me mercilessly, so it is only fair that I reciprocate. :-)

The original door would have been here:

I have decided to move this blog more into the multi-media age, as a video can give you a far better feel for a space than a sequence of photographs. The video below hopefully captures the feeling in the Butler's Pantry, largely before the full restoration that lies ahead. 

 

You will notice in the video that Gregor has freed up the three-point lock on the large iron door to the silver safe. The relative proportions of brute force and WD40 required have not been revealed. :-)

 

Butler's Pantry

The butler's pantry in the basement is one of the most intact rooms in the castle.  Having said that, the flooring had been totally removed long before I bought the building, so the space was not usable.

It still has its original window, with just one broken pane of glass at the bottom right, The original door is still there too, but it had been kicked off its hinges in the past, so is rather in need of repair.

window in butler's pantry

Gregor has recently been repairing the wooden linings round the window, using new bespoke linings manufactured locally with an absolutely identical profile. The cost of these was eye-watering. We have been very careful to "repair" existing fittings throughout this restoration, not only does this exempt the work from any form of planning considerations but it is also perhaps the purest and best approach.

paint "lip"reveals location of original worktop for butler's sink

I instructed Gregor to keep the 5 short existing sections of moulding on left hand side in the above image. These reveal the location of a worksurface which would have held a butler's sink. There was a blocked-up drain underneath as corroboration. When I visited Mellerstain House in the Scottish Borders, I was delighted to see their butler's pantry and committed the details to memory.

In fact, it was the blocked-up drain than prevented us from rebuilding the floor over the top for the longest time. Unblocking the drain was quite an adventure in itself but this is a story for another day - suffice it to say that the drain is now flowing.

Anyhow, Gregor called me over a couple of days ago for a site meeting in the butler's pantry, and asked how we were going to line the walls underneath the worksurface and wouldn't it be better to take the new lining down to the ground instead of just replicating short sections? Gregor was of course correct, and I abandoned my principle of retaining all original fabric in this one instance. The five short lengths could go, especially as there was already a lot of this original lining surviving in the room.

Anyhow, removing this small amount of original fabric made me record the "before" and indeed create this particular blog entry. You can see the original lining on the left hand side of the window reveal, and the new lining on the right hand side of the window reveal.

original lining on left

new lining on right

While the Victorians generally had great attention to detail, I am constantly amazed that linings on sides and on tops, don't line up! :-)

Chicken-of-the-Woods

One of the side-effects of walking in the countryside with friends at this time of year, is unscheduled foraging. As soon as I walked past this bracket fungus growing on a tree in the vicinity of the castle yesterday, I instantly knew what it was: "Chicken-of-the-Woods" (Laetiporus sulphureus).

I had the fungus pointed out to me around 20 years ago, on a professionally organised "fungus foray" at Wittenham Clumps in Oxfordshire. Unfortunately the Oxfordshire fungus was high up on a tree and well out of reach. This time the fungus was within arm's reach - hurrah! The guide had told us that Chicken-of-the-Woods" is one of the most delicious there is: both looking like and tasting like chicken and we should grab any opportunity to try it.

I could not believe my good luck this time and picked one piece. Of course, correct identification is vital. The seek App on my mobile phone also identified it as "Chicken-of-the-Woods", and prior to cooking I looked at a number of YouTube videos, for both identification and preparation purposes. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K8HuTHTyP8

However, "Chicken of the Woods" is so distinctive being a bright yellow, growing on trees, and consisting of multiple clusters of fans, that it could hardly be anything else - and certainly none of the dangerous fungi in Europe look anything like this.

chicken of the woods growing wild

The YouTube video suggested marinating in olive oil and Teriyaki sauce, and I improvised with olive oil and Soy sauce - 2 minutes was enough.

marinated chicken of the woods

The video barbequed the slices for 2 minutes, but I fried for 3 minutes ensuring that the pieces were well-cooked and had turned brown at the edges. Cooking the pieces well removes any risk from natural bacterial contamination apparently.

cooked chicken of the woods

I presumed that "tasting like chicken" was just a figment of the imagination as the slices look like chicken. In fact, the fungus really does have a mild taste of chicken, and there is also a good robust and meaty texture. This contrasts with some mushrooms which go slimy after cooking.

This delicious fungus would work well with a venison casserole and presumably would keep more texture than a conventional mushroom. "Chicken-of-the-Woods" is much more quorn-like than mushroom-like, and it probably would work well in a casserole where it would absorb other flavours. One YouTube video makes a version of KFC from "Chicken-of-the-Woods", and anything which brings in other flavours like the KFC batter, would be a great accompaniment.

I would go so far as to say "Chicken-of-the-Woods" is the best edible fungus I've tried! :-)

My Big Fat Greek Rap Posse

In January of 2021 I was approached by a Georgios from Newcastle-upon-Tyne who wanted to book a night in the Kitchen Wing AirBnB at Balintore Castle but he insisted he needed a lot of snow.

I did my best to explain that conjuring up snow on demand was not within my capabilities :-), but that the castle was in a part of Scotland where there would be a number of heavy dumps throughout the winter but you could not predict when these would be. Even the UK Met Office admit that predicting snow is known to be a particularly hard problem, and you can only give a relatively accurate prediction of snow a day ahead.

I was down in England at this time so I would have to communicate with my builder Gregor on the weather, and then relay the information to Georgios. This was almost on a daily basis, and I wondered why I was going to all this trouble; if only I had a webcam at the castle and could have pointed Georgios at the URL.

This was during the third lockdown and so the calendar was totally empty of AirBnB bookings. Georgios mentioned his party were doing a work photoshoot and this legitimised the use of the accommodation. Then a "rap video" was mentioned, but the whole thing sounded rather dubious. I suspected the group just wanted a mini lockdown break, but the AirBnB guidelines stated the onus of legitimacy is on the guests not on the host, so I was not worried.

Finally, around the 7th of February there was a massive dump of snow, and Georgios booked in for the 10th. I was crossing my fingers that the snow would linger around the castle. My neighbour contacted me on the 10th, in a state of some alarm, to say there were some young people cavorting in the field in front of the castle. I was able to reply "I believe that is my Greek rap posse.". It's not often that the Fates conspire to give one the intense joy of delivering such good lines. :-)

Much later, Georgios sent me a link to the resulting rap video on YouTube. His stage name is Arva, and so the guests had been legit after all, and what's more the video and song "Lady" are excellent: there is real art in the cinematography and real musicality and an excellent "flow" in the track.

The video does feature the objectification of women as is standard in the rap genre. One is accustomed to this, but when one sees mild lady bondage in one's own salon :-) this objectification does rather make one ponder. However, there is post-modern humour and irony in the presentation, so I don't think the imagery is problematic.

objectified lady, doubly exposed, on sofa in salon

Later on, an acoustic remix appeared on the same YouTube channel - this time shot indoors in the big Victorian kitchen.

I am highly impressed by the group's professionalism, efficiency and economy. They produced two quality videos out of a single day's shooting at the castle. There was clearly no messing around. I did not get any filming fees, and they just paid for a single night's accommodation.

The important thing is that Balintore Castle looks great and particularly so in the snowy landscape. Three days after the dump, when filming took place, there had been a considerable amount of snow melt, but the blanket of white was good enough to give an atmospheric winter vibe. The drone shots and one particular bit of VFX where the castle is mirrored in the sky are outstanding.

rap video opening credits

drone shot of snowy landscape

rap posse on castle terrace

Overall, I was delighted to have been a minor accessory in this work of art. The other videos on the ArvaOfficial channel do not quite have the same magic. Ironically, I subsequently went to work for the UK Met Office, so perhaps my regular weather bulletins for the Greek rap posse reveal a pre-woven tapestry by the Fates of Ancient Greek mythology.

magical castle with stars shot