Our collaboration as Absent but not Forgotten is 13 years old this year so what better day to celebrate than Friday 13th! We have decided that this is our official birthday.
For a thirteenth birthday celebration we celebrated in teenage party food style with a spread of 13 party foods and toasted our coming of age with a bottle of WKD Blue…
13 mini pizzas; 13 cheese and pineapple on sticks; 13 cheese and pickles on sticks; 13 party sandwiches; 13 cheese straws; 13 mini cheeses; 13 cocktail sausages; 13 mini sausage rolls; 13 doughballs and aioli; 13 falafel; Hummus with 13 cucumber sticks 13 tomatoes and tomatillos; 13 eyeball chocolates; 13 ghost marshmallows.
Our birthday cake was a spectacular splatterfest by Kirsten embracing the horror of teenage angst and the teen slasher, coming of age horror genre.
The first of two Friday 13th in 2023 fell on Hen Galan, the Welsh New Year or the old new year as it was before Britain changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. Hen Galen is still observed in the Gwaun Valley not far away in North Pembrokeshire. Our thirteenfridays menu took a modern Welsh turn in celebration.
We made a 13 ingredient Haraira based on a recipe found in the book below. A Moroccan chickpea and lentil dish made with: Chickpeas, brown lentils, onion, tomatoes, fresh parsley, celery, ginger, turmeric, pasata, sunflower oil, salt, pepper, and a little pasta. Served with 13 slices of sourdough bread from the Bara Menyn bakery in Cardigan. Hearty and warming, just perfect for the cold winter season!
Our drink for the celebration was a nod to the Wassailing traditions that take place this time of year, a non alcoholic spiced apple punch made with Bardsey Island apple juice which is pressed just down the road in Abercych, Pembrokeshire. We added 13 cloves, 13 slices of apple, orange slices, cinnamon and star anise.
Our sweet course of 13 American style pancakes was also inspired by the Llwy Gariad book, served simply in stacks drizzled with a generous quantity of Maple syrup.
Only one Friday 13th this year that also happens to fall on international hummus day!
We decided to celebrate the date with a simple hummus based meal consisting of a 13 ingredient hummus (Chickpeas, Tahini, Garlic, Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, Water, Salt, Pepper, Sumac & four seed mix topping: Sunflower, Sesame, Pumpkin, Golden Linseed, Sumac). Served with a 13 ingredient salad (Little gem, Rocket, 13 Asparagus spears, 13 Purple sprouting broccoli spears, Cress, Spinach, Jack in the hedge, Pennywort, 13 pieces of Haloumi, 13 baby plum tomatoes, Wild garlic flowers, 13 Olives, Chive flowers), 13 crudités of carrot & 13 of cucumber and 13 slices of Bara Menyn sourdough bread.
For dessert we found a recipe for dessert hummus, using peanut butter and almond milk instead of tahini and lemon and with no garlic of course! Although the hummus recipe didn’t use 13 ingredients itself, we served it with a selection of 13 things – 13 ginger biscuits, 13 Strawberries, 13 Blueberries, 13 slices each of Pineapple, Apple, Banana, Pear, Melon & Fig. 13 chocolate buttons 13 walnuts, 13 Almonds and 13 Hazelnuts
Celebrating the end of the Covid19 restrictions with our first 13 themed meal in over a year we found that it is also International Left Handers day! (Sinister is Latin for left!)
Lefties have apparently had a really tough time over the years – For thousands of years, the Devil has been associated with the left hand in various ways and is normally portrayed as being left-handed in pictures and other images. In the seventeenth century it was thought that the Devil baptised his followers with his left-hand and there are many references in superstitions to the “left-hand side” being associated with evil. (from https://www.anythinglefthanded.co.uk/being-lh/lh-info/myths.html)
Resolving to create our celebration meal using our left hand, we found mention of a town in West Virginia called Left Hand and were inspired to draw on some traditional foods from WV.
We made a traditional cornbread sliced into 13 to accompany a couple of simple summer salads, both with 13 ingredients of course!
13 ingredient Corn and Cucumber Salad – Corn, Cucumber, Mini Cucumber, Capers, Chives, Coriander, Parsley, Basil, Olive Oil, White Wine Vinegar, Caster Sugar, Salt, Pepper
13 ingredient Tomato and Mozzarella Salad – Mozzarella, 6 types of Tomato, Cucumber, Mini Cucumber, Basil, Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper
Our dessert was inspired by a Blackberry cake recipe on the Sweet State of Mine blog with slight adjustments to make it 13 ingredients and egg free. The blackberries are just coming to a nice ripeness here in west Wales. Uncertain of how many we might need we gathered 169 (13×13) of them in the morning in preparation for the cake! Our 13 ingredients Flour, Butter, Sugar, Milk, Blackberries (13 in each layer and 13 on top!), Baking powder, Vinegar, Cloves, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Vanilla, Coffee. Slicing a round cake into 13 is always a source of amusement too! (Hint: divide the circumference by 13!)
The full moon on Halloween this year is a blue moon which means that there are 13 full moons in 2020.
To celebrate, Absent but not Forgotten have been looking at TV and cinema in the horror genre which use images of the full moon and have compiled a selection of 13 spooky clips.
When two full Moons appear in a single month the second full Moon is called a “Blue Moon.”
This year October has seen two full moons, the Harvest Moon on 1 October and the Hunter’s Moon on 31 October.
A Halloween Blue Moon hasn’t been seen across all time zones since 1944 and the next one will be in 2039.
With the current difficulties surrounding us all with the anti Covid19 virus measures we created a simpe thirteenfridays meal for complicated times!
A 13 ingredient soup (Onion; Garlic; Carrot; Celery; Swede; Potato; Lentils; Tomato puree; Vegetable stock; Olive oil; Butter; Pepper; Pumpkin seeds) with 13 chunks of Bara Menyn sourdough bread, salad and 13 tomatoes on the vine.
Our thirteenfridays comrades, Kirsty and Sam, were isolated in their own home but made a batch of 13 ingredient brownies. We hooked up on FaceTime to enjoy our respective dishes together but apart, Absent but not Forgotten…
13 ingredient chocolate brownies with 13 fruits (Unsalted butter; Dark chocolate; Plain flour; Cocoa; Large egg; Golden caster sugar; Brown sugar; Self raising flour; Baking powder; Salt; Icing sugar; Honey; Egg white)
Thirteenfridays: Lussinatt Smörgåsbord Friday 13 December 2019
As we discovered when we began the thirteenfridays project in 2013, December 13 is Lussinatt and we’ve been inspired to celebrate the festival again this year by creating a Scandinavian Smörgåsbord of 13 dishes.
This week we were joined by a guest, musician Sianed Jones, and we shared a range of dishes served buffet-style:
Beetroot & onion salad; Soused herring; Smoked salmon with mustard and dill sauce; Cucumber salad; Poached Salmon with dill; 13 Swedish style non-meatballs; Rye crispbread; Pickles; 13 slices of dark rye bread; Seaweed pearls; Lingonberry jelly; Jansson’s temptation; Herring & beet salad.
The table included 13 candles and we accompanied the meal with a 13 ingredient Glögg (a warm spiced wine with fruit and nuts) made with – Red wine; cloves; star anise; cinnamon; orange; lemon; prunes; raisins; bay leaf; cardamon; almonds; figs; currants
Following our savoury 13 smörgåsbord we nibbled 13 Swedish ‘fika’, sweet treats with coffee to finish.
Absent but not Forgotten were very pleased to be invited to create a work for the opening event at the Afon microfestival in Abercych on September Friday 13th.
Continuing our ritual of making and sharing food to celebrate the date we baked a couple of batches of the 13 ingredient black pepper cookie cakes that we had made for our thirteenfridays picnic by the river Teifi in June 2018. These were offered to Afon visitors along with a postcard celebrating our outing to the river and listing the 13 ingredients. (recipe below)
13Ingredient Black pepper cookie cakes
(makes about 40-50 small cookie cakes)
Cream butter, spices and sugar together until smooth, beat in the egg & essences then seive in the dry ingredients and mix into a stiff dough. (I add the cocoa first and get that mixed in before adding the flour so that you can ensure you get all the chocolate in case it gets too dry to take all the flour. You can add a little water, milk, coffee, brandy to help get the flour mixed in).
The dough should be stiff and relatively dry so you can roll into 1″ diameter balls and flatten into greased bun tins or baking sheet. I like to use mini muffin tin, this makes nice bitesize cookie cakes, they are quite rich.
Bake at 190 for 12 min.
The cookie cakes were very well received by visitors who also got to watch the short video from the river presented alongside the dark chocolatey offerings.
Following on from our 13 picnics polaroid exhibition in Bara Menyn Bakehouse, Cardigan, we have installed a new work for the season…
With a particular interest in the visual aesthetics of the horror genre, this changing selection of records combines rock and pop, classic soundtracks, spoken word and sound effects to explore the diverse and evocative imagery in celebration of the Halloween season.
Absent But Not Forgotten 