More good ideas from the Pure Style Design Files  



Sea, sky, and windswept beaches, it's  good to be back on Long Island and looking forward to the weekend book signing  



I’ve been told that if I want to have a go at sourdough , it will rise particularly well  in a banneton bread proving basket as seen here,      



Very cool looking , white pestle and mortar by eero aarnio for Alessi



It’ll be the marmalade making season soon: could be good if you're an ardent jam maker to   invest in a stainless steel preserving pan .      



  Measuring pegs and twine for nice straight planting lines.  



  School room style folding chairs have been around since I was a student in desert boots and duffle coats  but still work well  as  simple  seating in even the most grown up interior.  



A brilliant shot of floral colour for wintry rooms that need cheering up



  I need adorning with this  textured silver beaded  ‘Mystic’ necklace from Wright and Teague,  

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There’s pink and there’s pink.  I don’t go for baby.  The more shocking, shot with fuschia and blazingly pink the better. That’s why  roses work for hot pink lovers like me. Voluptuous  blooms  of Constance Spry, John Clare, Gertrude Jekyll partyish hippy pinks.  And they still keep coming during the un-Novemberish warmth.   I can't ever  remember  picking quite so many  hips and blooms together.  As strange as the sunny  cornflowers and marigolds amongst the  dried seed pods and grasses  on our south downs walk last weekend. PS I'm getting ready for my NY trip , where I shall have another chance to show off  the chocolate and chestnut cake  at the Long Island  signings  with Trish Foley and Loaves and Fishes.  I felt a bit mean not sharing the recipe from the new book with you all last week, so here it is:   Chocolate and chestnut cake (Makes about 10 slices) 400g/2and two thirds cups peeled chestnuts, chopped 125g/two thirds cup caster sugar 125g chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids), broken into chunks 100g/scant 1 stick unsalted butter   for the icing 125g/4oz chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids), broken into chunks 1 tbsp butter 1 tbsp fresh orange juice 1 tbsp grated orange zest Mix the chestnuts and sugar together until smooth; it’s best to use a food processor . Melt the chocolate and butter in a large saucepan. Stir in the chestnut/sugar paste until smooth. Turn into a 20cm (8 inch ) greased square cake tin. To make the icing: Melt the chocolate with the butter orange juice and zest, and stir until smooth . Pour over the chestnut and chocolate base, and chill in the fridge overnight.    

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  More good ideas from the Pure Style design files  



  The utilitarian zinc bucket is in my top 100 of good things  that  combine quality, function and looks in equal parts:



  At this time of year can’t get enough of  blankets and throws for body insulation.   This brushed mohair example is by Irish company Avoca.    



  Time for tea by the fire  with a packet of crumpets and a vintage toasting fork    



  One  good quality cashmere cardigan  is worth a dozen of the flimsy thin ones all over the high street. In mustard? Yes please.



Diptyque candles actually smell of what they purport to represent.  Tuberose is one of my favourites, together with  aromatic, Oranger.    



  All sewers  should have a good pair of  dressmaking scissors and a good hiding place because like one's special box of  birthday chocs  they have a habit of disappearing.    



  The  Midcentury Modern Show is on this weekend at Dulwich College, with masses of stallholders  including Lucy Bates who specialises in vintage textiles,  such as this sixties' Dekoplus, kitchen print    

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  A  chunk of 70% cocoa solids chocolate and chestnut cake is a very good way to beguile potential book buyers at a Waitrose book signing. Feeling rather exposed under the supermarket glare, but in a prime position by the checkout, I set out books and plates of the rich chocolate deliciousness that has set overnight in the fridge. I am soon attracting the chocoholics of  who wolf down the samples,  asking to take ‘an extra bit for so and so in the office’-  a ruse I suspect. Mothers hand out pieces to children in buggies and a pair of schoolgirls plugged into i-pods eat theirs instead of lunch. Not everyone buys a book but the chocolate element is a useful 3d enticement to look at the other simple delicacies that lie in 2d between the pages.  



  The only disappointment  is not to be able to say to the man in a fedora hat (maybe he likes my performance at the Pure Style side show) that I am related to actor Benedict Cumberbatch.  But I have my own family drama, of  Bajan Cumberbatch ancestors with slave trade roots. (I think the Sherlock Holmes star is from the Sugar plantation  owner side ) and  an intangible, shadowy  grandfather, an Oxford student from Barbados, long wiped from the  family map because, I suspect,  of his colour.  But I’m hoping for some substance,  more detail about the man as I’ve recently got in touch with the Barbados records office, and in return for my ‘British postal order in the amount of six pounds to the Registrar of the Supreme Court’  will  receive a  certified copy of his birth certificate.   PS  I made extra so that we could enjoy more chocolate chestnut cake for tea.  As you can see the   garden roses just keep blooming as if it were still summer.  

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Monday morning has  the look of grey soup and needs a little  excitement  or I'll feel  far too  dreary  screen side.   A blast of colour  then, with  a halfway-to-the very-last nasturtium  bloom. This beacon of brilliant orange gives my desk an upbeat almost sunny perspective.  I take the hint and  add a swish of  duck egg blue  and turquoise silk Liberty scarf to cheer up my shades of black ensemble: tights, striped shift and at least a decade old Agnes B jacket. It's not that the day in itself  is depressing,  the quiet fluttering  of leaves in the park and the bristle brush outlines of the tress are beautiful- peaceful. It's more the disappearing of the light, the shorter days, and the fact that evening begins at teatime that makes me feel as if I have to keep the visual batteries charged, to soak up as much colour as I can. NB Red camiknickers are also a  good antidote to winter according to one of the  countless pearls of wisdom in my friend Clare's  new  book  Dangerous Women - the guide to modern life

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More good ideas from the Pure Style design files  



  Blue, white and thrifty: retro style  2pint Burleigh jug, 50% off.  



  All green and fuschia pink  the  “Nightrider’ tulip is  from Sarah Raven’s new spring  bulb collection



Try  Tinder's Canadian campfire look  (with an English flavour)    and  take a nip or  sip from a classic  0.24 litre stainless steel,  Stanley  flask.  Space for engraving too.  



Think sixties’ bistro taste of  cassoulet and red wine with ‘Provencal’ stainless steel oak stained cutlery from David Mellor.  Looks so right for contemporary kitchens, too.  



Braided wool rug in neutrals  just the thing for simple  Pure Style floors.  



  Endearingly spindly and homespun: mohair and wire xmas tree with vintage baubles  (based on tradtional twenties and thirties feather trees) from Tobias and the Angel  



    Local style: where I’m signing copies of my  new book this weekend!!

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