Major magazines to go, lockdown update

Iconic magazines to close down  -- but is it because of the coronavirus?

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern says no, that the company owning the Listener and the Women's Weekly, was offered the booster that other companies are getting -- and turned it down.

Both magazines, however, have been in trouble for a long, long time; I know for a fact that Bauer, the German tycoon who owns the company, was paying writers out of his own pocket to keep them submitting work, until it became untenable.

So the closure of these magazines was probably on the horizon, whatever.  The pandemic either made it easier to make the decision, or it was being made, anyway.

But it is so sad.  I remember that my mother-in-law loved the Women's Weekly, reckoning it was better than anything back in England, because of the domestic hints and recipes.

Which takes me to the lockdown update ...

It involves food.  A lot of food.  No one knows how long it is going to happen, so everyone is stocking up.  Potatoes and bread are hard to come by, and flour impossible.  Why? Because, while the flour mills are working non-stop, the packaging for smaller amounts, the kind you buy in supermarkets, is unavailable.  So, if you want to buy flour, ask for huge quantities, and you might be luckier than most.

A friend phoned me today with news of her latest accomplishment.  She had listed everything in her deep freeze, totaled it up, and reckoned she had forty meals in there.  So what did she do?  She baked utterly new bread, and cooked utterly new vegetable soup for lunch.

Knowing she is a wonderful cook, I do so wish I had been there at the table.

Perhaps you remember my joy when a wonderful gift of mushrooms arrived at our apartment building.  And eggs.  Mushroom omelets galore.  Wonderful.  But once the appetite runs out, what would one do with such a bonanza?

The same friend favored me with a recipe for the stock for amazing mushroom soup.

8 oz mushrooms
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 and one half cups of chicken stock

Wash the mushrooms, put in a pot, add the onion, cover with the chicken stock, and simmer for 30 minutes.

That's it.  The result is rich and smells divine.

It is not the soup, of course, just the base.  I have frozen mine, but of course you can make the soup right away, if you want.  And here is what you need:

2 oz (tablespoons) of butter
3 tablespoons of flour
1 and one half cups of milk
One half cup of cream
1 teaspoon of mixed salt and pepper -- more salt than pepper
2 tablespoons sherry or sweet wine

Heat the butter in a big pot, stir in the flour to make a roux, gradually add the milk, cook until thickened, mix in the cream, but be sure not to let it boil (or it will curdle).  Blend in the mushroom base, and season with salt and pepper.  Add the sherry last.

Believe me, it makes any kind of lockdown sybaritic.

For a little while, anyway.