Lilacs & Rainy Days

Scrap Kitchen 13- Film Recs and Recipes

May 31, 2021

Two weeks just passed in a blaze. Some of this might be to do with a lost 24 hours after my second covid vaccine, the frantic pace of planting season, or the single day off out of 14 (which we decided would be perfect for a hike for some reason).

With the sure-to-be hard slog out of the way, I am hopefully returning to posting weekly. While this undertaking may have to be reviewed I feel the loss of pace quite drastically and want to build it back up.

This week’s tarot card is The Empress, which was a crucial card for 2020. Finding the abundance while staying in place. Within her twelve-starred crown the year is represented, holding new growth and the comfort found in nature. Ask yourself: how am I embodying feminine energy? Where do I feel I have abundance in my life? How can I build on this? How can I share this? What if I just sit the fuck down and rest a while?

I have been asking myself these questions too. After the last work week, rest is just as crucial as ever. I actually wrote an article about just that for Refresh Mag, you can read it here if interested. What I have found is that absorbing myself into some media is a pretty good way to ensure I get off my feet for a few hours at a time. As a climate fearful child and somewhat geeky teen, I find my vice of choice is speculative fiction. Or better still, good old-fashioned Sci-Fi.

Having just finished Ministry for the Future, I am jonesing for alternate imaginings of climate futures. These aren’t often found in films but there are several wonderful books, as compiled by the brilliant Climate In Colour on the subject. I also caught myself reminiscing about the Carbon Diaries Series, which not only inspired me to begin writing a diary but has given a rapidly more accurate depiction of modern-day Britain with each passing year.

But on rainy days like these, a good movie is required, and I’m also drawn to the harsher realities. Not devoid of hope but still not the most feel-good. Films that deserve a rewatch are Fast Colour, which focuses on water scarcity and is truly stunning, or there is the classic Children of Men (although watching that mid-pandemic was a little too close to home) and Mad Max: Fury Road, the feminist classic which also gives seeds their true reverence, is on the list. In thinking of these titles, a conversation I had with my flatmate about the lack of climate representation within media is proved all the more true. Without the blueprint, the imaginative scope to process and build on climate grief, how can we begin to tackle the problem at hand?

That being said there are more and more climate-adjacent or even climate-focused films; Io, Interstellar, Birdbox (arguably), The Survivalist, The Day After Tomorrow, hell even Bladerunner 2043. And where films fall short TV sure picks up the baton and bolts it: The 100, Jerico, The Expanse, 3%, Revolution, 12 Monkeys, Altered Carbon, Brave New World, Outcasts, the list goes on. My point in all this being that exploring alternate futures can only help to imagine our collective climate future, from this we might be able to make drastic and meaningful changes. Also, we live in the golden age of TV.

This week we celebrated harvesting our first round of lettuce, this felt extra poignant to me as I had planted it out within my first week or so at this apprenticeship. The lettuce and I had grown together, though one of us is objectively tastier. The sweeping flushes of dandelions that surround the farm have turned sharply from sun-crisped yellow to whisk-me-away white. I do my bit and sprinkle them wherever possible. Asparagus has been found between old beds of the farm too, as has an absolute carpet of mint. In all this spring is here and we are reaping in the benefits.

Lilacs too have caught my attention, all the local bushes have sprung into beautiful tufts of purple flowers. Have I been putting them in everything? Yes, I have. At the moment my fridge holds not only lilac infused coconut cream but also whipped lilac honey that goes really well on these pancakes. I have been ever-inspired by the work of The Medicine Circle, creating otherworldly looking deserts. The infused cream is going to be adapted into Ice-cream, a couple more harvests will go into a Martini or some other infusions and I’m also looking into these scones. As with all foragables, the window is short but preserving the abundance while it lasts, in syrups, sugars or dried stock will keep it open a while longer. If you are picking lilacs please ensure you are doing so in a pesticide-free area, from bushes you have twice identified and from somewhere where you have asked permission or can be granted forgiveness.

Seasonally the leafy greens are coming in as are the squash types. Cucumber and courgette will soon be gracing our shelves. Staying on the pancake train, grating courgette into these bad boys is a morning mood. For cukes, a smashed salad is the one, or of course there are always pickles. I also managed to veganise this delicious spaghetti squash muffin recipe, the trick is to make buttermilk from whatever Plant-Based Alternative milk you have on hand combined with lemon juice, swap the shredded cheese for grated carrots and chuck in a tablespoon or so of nutritional yeast. On the fruit side of things, strabs are well on their way to our tables. Jams are the way to go for preserving but so is drying, I found an absolutely expansive pdf on the subject of preserving them if you’re interested.

This week the podcast I am chucking your way is about how science fiction, or more accurately climate fiction can influence behavior and bring about lasting change.

Thanks again for reading all my musings, tv recs and adapted recipes. If you liked what you read, have some suggested movies or just want to tell me how you have been using lilacs, leave a comment below. Scrap Kitchen will always be free, mainly because I want whatever information I put out there to be accessible (some may even say “useful”). But if you want to support my work consider buying me a coffee. I might even be back next week since the rush time seems to be subsiding, so strap in for more recipes and whatever else.

Until then, stay scrappy

Scrap Farm

Discussion about this post