People often ask me where I get inspiration from. So I thought I’d share some secrets with you. I hope they will help you to discover where I got some of the ideas for things I’ve written about in Plum Puddings and Paper Moons.
When I was a little girl in primary school, the milkman used to deliver milk to the school in small glass bottles with lids made of silver foil. We used to wash the lids and save them up to make Christmas decorations at the end of the year.
My younger sister and I used to love making wishes, especially when it came close to Christmas. But my parents didn’t have a lot of money and often we didn’t get what we wished for. Sometimes my dad would assemble bicycles from bits and pieces of other bikes. Then he’d paint them and decorate them with transfers. My mum would make beautiful rag dolls with scraps of fabric left over from dresses she’d sewn for us. So even when our red-kite kind of wishes didn’t come true, we were just as happy with our rag dolls and second-hand bicycles.
I used to ride my bicycle to school and on the way home I’d call in to the post office to collect our mail. The people who ran the post office were Mr and Mrs Rasmussen.
I left school just before I turned sixteen and one of the first things I bought when I got my pay was a white cake tin with cornflowers painted on it. I bought it for my nana.
In that small country town where I was born and grew up, there was a factory that preserved meats. A lot of the people who lived in my town worked in this factory. It is still there today and now people who are refugees from other lands have come to live in the town and many work at the factory.
A few years ago, I heard on the news and read in the papers that soldiers from Australia were going to a war in a far away land. Because of this some people in our town arranged a peace march. We all walked up the main street holding candles until we got to the sports ground behind the school. We held hands there and talked and sang and wished that we could change the world. Afterwards we had supper. A lady called Elsie gave me a piece of cake. She said it was called Armenian Love Cake. It seemed right to me to be sitting on the grass under the starry sky, eating cake that came from a recipe from a land far away and wondering how we could change the world. The cake was so delicious that I asked Elsie for the recipe so I could make it myself. And now I’m passing it on to you. Perhaps you could ask an adult to help you make it.
Armenian Love Cake
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup brown sugar
A pinch of salt
125 grams butter, chopped
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ cup roughly chopped golden walnuts
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
Line a cake tin with baking paper. (I like to use a heart-shaped tin, but any kind will do.)
Sift the flour, baking powder, brown sugar and salt into a large bowl. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingertips until the mixture is crumbly. Place half of this mixture in the cake tin.
In a separate bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the milk, then add the egg and nutmeg. Combine the remaining dry mixture with the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly. Pour this on top of the dry mixture in your cake tin. Cover the top with the chopped walnuts.
Bake for about one hour. You can test to see if it is cooked by inserting a skewer. If the skewer comes out clean, the cake is cooked.
When cooked, remove the cake from oven and leave in the tin for about 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Serve warm or cold.
Best shared with friends and eaten in peace.