Occasionally, I revel in the ‘plains’ of life.
Plain Cake
plain yogurt in a plain pot
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- Plain yogurt
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- Plain pot
plain words
Canterbury
On this great plain the eye
Sees less of land than sky,
And men seem to inhabit here
As much the cloud-crossed hemisphere
As the flat earth. ……..
‘plains’ that sustain us;
Canterbury Plains
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- ‘Sight rides on power-poles’
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- ‘and tops of trees’
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- ‘then dreams begin’
that form the staff of life.
Plain yogurt bread
How good are the ‘plains’. 🙂
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Gallivanta – You take us on the most delicious journeys. Seeing the perfect home-made bread has me remembering the smell of my mother’s kitchen. She always had so many to feed, we had homemade bread at every meal using flour made from the wheat Dad had harvested. Sometimes the olden times seemed simple and then I stop and think, just how much work went into making all that happen 365 days every year.
Oh, yes, those olden times were hard work, I am sure of it. But I love the picture you create of your mother’s kitchen and the bread made from the wheat harvest. I make my own bread because I can, not because I have to, so it is a pleasure to make. How fortunate I am.
Indeed you are.
The simple things are the most precious and valuable ones – but they are also the most difficult ones to achieve or create. I often admire design with simple, clean lines, for example. Or simple solutions to things. How do people come up with them? I admire them immensely.
Mmmm…simplicity is not as simple as it seems. 🙂
I came a couple of times to this post – your posts have layers that I enjoy peeling away like onion skins. I think that our lives become plainer and simpler, the more we enjoy the present and being within each moment. Here’s a quote that I think you will enjoy:
“Love is like a good cake; you never know when it’s coming, but you’d better eat it when it does.” C. JoyBell C.
Ah, your quotes are always wonderful, Clanmother.
And I tried very hard to keep this post plain, but, alas, my love of layers did creep in. 😉 I am glad you don’t mind peeling the onion.
Often times it is the simplest things that we come back to. We might venture and try other things but in the end it is the simple loaf of bread or the beautiful piece of music you posted that is most intriguing.
Your latest post on summer at the cabins and the simple fish soup is a perfect example of our longing/need to return to the simplest aspects of life.
all the great plains here. I absolutely LOVE your original way of thinking, Gallivanta. so happy that we haven’t missed each other in this universe. but then again: that would be probably impossible.
Some things are meant to be, I guess. 🙂 I have been travelling across the Canterbury Plains again which is why I haven’t responded to your comment till now. Blew the cobwebs from my head, out in the wide open spaces.
Travelling is the best excuse for being offline.
🙂
Wonderful words – “On this great plain the eye sees less of land than sky…”
Yes, it’s a lovely poem. I guess it could apply to many prairies as well.
Love the sentiment in this!! My students and I were watching a little dvd version of the Nightingale story and they had the insight to mention that the nightingale’s worth was his song, and his plain brown feathers could never disguise his inner beauty. I so love that. Maybe if we all saw the beauty in the simple things, found the value in the everyday, our world would be a more beautiful place. Thank you for finding beauty in the lain for all of us!
What delightful students! Perhaps they are learning the wonders of life from an insightful, delightful teacher. 😉
If I evern find her, I’ll let her know! hehe Thanks. I do hope that the little I can do can make an impact on their little lives….
I am sure you make an impact. 🙂
Even with spelling mistakes? *cringe* Glad you know how to interpret ‘Lazy Finger’ dialect. 😀
I know that dialect well! I use it a lot.
Oh how good is this blog. I loved it, for its originality and the creative use of photo with text.
Mary, you have a generous spirit. Thank you. Thinking of that spirit, you may like to know that one of the reasons I chose the Belgian group singing the plain song was because I was remembering the WW1 commemorations happening in Ypres; remembering, too, the young men of the Canterbury plains who fought and died in Belgium; and remembering the generosity our ‘plains’ to the Belgian refugees of WW1. http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=THD19141214.2.51
Bumble and I were just listening to the plain song and watching the plain cover art taking shape. We agree that the plain truth is that plain posts can be just plain lovely. Bumble adds: if they are crafted by Gallivanta and smell newly baked breads. He knows this stuff 🙂
Please tell Bumble that he is plain gorgeous. And he is going to be one of the stars of my next post. 🙂
He’s delighted! Poor little one is on antibiotics for his cough, but already improving 🙂
Oh, he is having a rough time. Stitches and now coughs. Gentle pats from me and Jack.
I love your plain thinking, Ann 🙂 Those big skies with the poem that fits so neatly, and that video is so nice to watch.
Thank you Jo. Perhaps one day I will manage a walk on the Plains for your Monday Walks ! 🙂
You have made such an interesting post out of the word “plain”. Your pictures of NZ and Canterbury Plains remind me of my trip to your beautiful scenic country, The chocolate cake looks delectable and the yoghurt bread so healthy! Delightful … 🙂
Lovely to know that you ever visited our shores. 🙂 Next time you come, drop by for some chocolate cake.
Yummy!! Thank you. 🙂
The “plains” of life are what the special gifts one can find in life – I like this post very much!
Thank you Mary. 🙂 Some of the photos of the fields and the trees remind me of your landscape artwork and your recent tree challenge.
Did you know that plain and plane are just different spellings of what is etymologically a single word? The historical meaning was ‘flat’, and from that came the senses ‘simple’ and ‘ordinary’, the last two now conveyed by the plain spelling.
Indeed, indeed, that is the plain truth of the matter. 🙂
Your plains look plenty fancy to me! I’ve always loved cake without icing and bread without butter. Keep it simple–yay!
For the most part I prefer cakes without icing, but I won’t say no to cream or butter. I am curious that you use the term icing, as we do, and not frosting which is the term I learned in the US..
Hmmmm . . . i never thought about icing vs. frosting, I’ll need to pay more attention to what others say. It may be a regional thing?
Is icing the word you would normally use? Icing is likely to be an older word than frosting. So it could come from the language of the early settlers in your region.
You know how I love good titles, and this one is great! “Living on the plains” makes me think of life on the plains of Kansas, but then all the “plain” things delighted me, especially the basic staff of live, homemade plain bread. I also appreciate “plain truth” and “plain prayers” (which are personal heartfelt prayers instead of “official” prayers from THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER of well known prayers like “The Lord’s Prayer.”) Wonderful post.
I can’t help feeling that God must appreciate plain prayers too; the others must get a bit routine after you’ve heard them for millennia. 😉 I can almost hear the occasional sigh and an ” Oh dear ones, change the channel, please.” Oops, is that a bit too irreverent!
I really like this. How clever you are! Thanks for this. A refreshing post.
Thank you Cynthia. Our Canterbury Plains have been a source of livelihood and sustenance for my family for generations. They haven’t made us rich or extraordinary but have provided a good, basic living. Our Plains have provided, and continue to provide, the basics to many outside of New Zealand, too, in the form of milk and that most basic of all ingredients, seeds. http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/cropping/9695230/Seed-exports-rise-in-value I expect Canadians feel as grateful to the Prairies as I do to our Plains.
That yogurt bread looks delicious! It’s probably good PLAIN, but I’d put some strawberry jam on it. 🙂
Strawberry jam would be a great addition. One of my grandmothers always started her day with an early cup of tea and a slice of plain bread with jam. Later on, she would have her breakfast. She lived into her mid nineties, so her plain start to the day must have done her good!
What a delightful post. The plain cake and bread look so good I wanted to reach out and take a bite. And I found the plain song, with the graphics unfolding in front of my eyes, a real pleasure to hear and to see. Thank you Gallivanta.
I am glad you enjoyed the plain song. The group is new to me, but is, no doubt, well known to those who follow/sing plain song. I do love my plain cake and bread. If I remember correctly, you also like gluten free goods. Although this recipe is a little more complicated and ingredient rich than my one egg cake, it is my favourite easy to make gluten free chocolate cake. http://www.healthyfood.co.nz/recipes/2007/may/gluten-free-chocolate-cake It is delicious, plain or with the berry sauce.
Plains can be so very good and should definitely not be overlooked!
Indeed yes! I am also thinking of that stunning plain blue sky you showed us from Cape Town.
I love those recipes – thanks so much for the share 😀
Watching that CD cover artwork in this video is very hypnotizing!
It is hypnotizing. I love the way the simple/plain lines end up creating such a detailed, intricate piece of art. Glad you like the recipes.
Plainly put!
😀
I would like both loaves of the plain bread please????? Or…….errrr were you planning on eating it?
There may be half a loaf left, if you are quick. I was a bit hungry today!
Dear Gallivanta – I love all your plains! When I lived in Christchurch back in the late 80’s my home was in Lyttelton and I taught in Opawa. The drive through the tunnel each morning culminated in a brief but ever-changing vista of the Canterbury Plains which I have never forgotten. For me Christchurch and the surrounding countryside remains eye-catchingly beautiful. The Arts Centre on a Saturday morning, dining somewhere along the Avon on a Friday night with my colleagues and friends, listening to the Cathedral Boys Choir practising – singing like angels and then running madly out just like little boys do, the view from the top of the hill and how it used to bring foreign visitors to silence 🙂 All of this and more came rushing back to me as I read your post on the plain and simple pleasures of life.
Thank you! xoxo
TCC (The Contented Crafter 🙂 ), those little Cathedral Choir Boys haven’t changed a bit. They still make me laugh with their antics. And they still sing like angels. Our lovely plains are changing slowly, with the increase in dairy farming, but, on a fine day, it remains a great treat to go up on the hills and look out across the Plains and see the fields and mountains stretching for miles and miles. It is breathtakingly beautiful. When I have time, I enjoy driving on the Plains as well; so many lovely routes to follow. Glad you were able to share the loveliness with me.
The ‘plains’ are very good, I love the illustration and the plain chant in the video. 😉
JAA, I think the video is gorgeous,too. The internet turns up the most wonderful items whenever I go looking.
The internet is a veritable treasure trove. 😉
🙂
just plain good…
Thank you, Maureen. 🙂
Yogurt bread….that sounds good!
It is! I suppose adding yogurt to bread makes the bread one step above plain, but it is still a fairly basic bread. Do you make bread?
Rick is our home breadmaker. Whole grain, lots of good things in it! He does experiment from time to time, so I may have him try to make some yogurt bread. Right now he is into sourdough.
Oh excellent! And yum to sourdough. The yogurt can give a slight tang to the bread which is nice. I also make a bread using cottage cheese which is very good. Guess what? I love bread! All kinds. 🙂
Plain is good, life is too complicated…. and sometimes too frilly…..take the frills off and enjoy plain! (and your plain cake looks very delicious! )
Exactly right, Ute. Frills are fun but sometimes they can get irritating and itchy. 🙂 It’s good to strip down to the basics.
very
I appreciate your plain speak; pithy and to the point. 🙂
I think when someone finds joy in plains of life, the person is much happier. Feel calmer seeing the ‘plains that sustain us’ and hearing the song.
This is very nice post!
Thank you, YC. Your comment reminded me of another beautiful song; the Shaker song “Simple Gifts”
<It was a joy to hear this again. Thank you.One of my favorites. 🙂
Yes! I am so glad YC’s comment made me think of it. I am now also remembering my love of Shaker furniture/houses. For years, I kept a scrapbook of all the plain Shaker furniture I wanted in my dream home…..the dream goes on. 😉
Know any carpenters? Perhaps my sister (a Mennonite) could send down someone to help you build that dream…wouldn’t that be lovely?
Carpenters are in short supply in Christchurch. 😦 If your sister sent someone they would be snapped up before they made it to my place! But, yes, it would be lovely to have a carpenter devoted solely to my dreams. 🙂
Thank you Gallivanta for sharing this beautiful song!
It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I am sure there are many other lovely versions of it, too.
I’d say you’ve ex-plained it very well! The plainchant is wonderful, and the bread looks so good. I’ve not done any bread baking in a while, but that photo certainly tempts me toward it.
There’s a very similar recipe I grew up with for a chocolate cake we called “Iowa Cake”. It was so moist and rich it didn’t require frosting, and it would last as long as a week without drying — if there was any left in a week. The ingredients were a little different, but the technique is almost identical.
Plain cake reminds me of something we have here called Chess Pie. Some of my southern friends insist the name is a corruption of “just pie”. It’s a very simple concoction of eggs, sugar, and so on, the sort of thing that always could be whipped up with ingredients sure to be in the house.
Ex-plained! I like it. 🙂 The one egg chocolate sponge I made comes from a time when ingredients weren’t as easily come by as they are today. It has always been a great standby recipe for me. Another simple standby is the old fashioned steamed pudding. And I do like the idea of your Chess Pie. I am determined to make it. 🙂
To explain is to make plain, i.e. simple, as my other comment on this post makes plain.
“Less is more” architect Mies van der Rohe stated once.
The plain cake and the yogurt bread look delicious, looking forward to the recipe 🙂
Mies van der Rohe has it right!