I am sailing into 2022 with optimism!
It’s a while since we’ve had a sweet treat as the recipe of the month, so I thought I would kick off the new year with one. These little biccies are so easy to make and soooooo delicious.
I made a batch of these for a very special day in 2021 when I hired the beloved Green Shed in Muswell Hill for a writing day.
I put a shout out to my beloved scribe tribe The London Writers’ Salon to see if anyone wanted to join me. After almost a year of getting to know people via the wonders of zoom, it was so great to meet some of the faces for real. Barrie, Manisha, Konrad and Katy all popped in to write with me.
4 of us joined Writers’ Hour from the shed which was so much fun. I didn’t get a photo of Katy in the shed but you can see her in the zoom room below. We managed to concentrate on our writing – I think!
I was wearing my Marilyn Monroe cardigan as I was writing a piece about her that day. It gave me such a creative boost to have other writers with me, each beavering away on their own project.
If you are a writer of any stripe, published or unpublished, whether you are scribbling academic work, poetry, blog posts, novels, songs – whatever it is, and wherever you are in the world, the Writers’ Hour is a beautiful place to be. It’s an international gathering on zoom, you can drop in whenever you feel like it, for 50 minutes of writing in silence with other humans. It happens four times a day – 8am-9am in 4 different timezones but you can join as many you like. I absolutely love it and I get so much done in that early morning slot before work, Monday – Friday almost without fail.
Last year, when I was in isolation for two weeks, the LWS Christmas party really lifted my spirits. The communal singing of this song almost made my heart burst, because I truly have made friends in this community.
and the 24 hour writing marathon in March was full of wonderful, creative surprises such as Monica doing a sensational tango for us
and we had a bonkers communal boogie to Xanadu by Olivia Newton John.
It is hard to express the joy, support, friendship and inspiration that flows forth from this group of writers, but it is there for absolutely everyone in the whole wide world to tap into. Plus, it’s free! Here’s the link – try it – and here’s Mary’s biscuit recipe. Excellent writing fuel!
By the way, I really want to have a card party so I can cut these into clubs, hearts, spades and diamond shapes as Mary suggests! I didn’t have a small round cutter so I rolled the mixture into balls then squished them down on the baking sheet with a fork.
Each of the writers who came to the shed chose a postcard from my movie star collection with an appropriate recipe written on the back.
So for example, whoever chose the Dorothy Jordan postcard got her Asparagus with Crumbs recipe, I do fancy making this sometime…
I’ve decided it is time to stop hoarding these beautiful postcards, I am sending them out into the world! Artist Tracy Bickley and my birthday buddy Kathryn Koromilas gave me this idea one day when I did a little evening cooking demo of Anne Francis’ Gazpacho for the gang. Here’s me, in Tracey’s kitchen – madness!
So as we go into a new year, I just want to express my gratitude to Matt & Parul who created the brilliant entity that is The London Writers’ Salon, and wherever you are in the world, if you ever put strings of words together for whatever reason, do try Writers’ Hour. You never know who you will meet, or what you will create.
