Guru Kaur's Blog
Knives, Women and Respect
Thursday, 29 May 2008
There's a lot in the UK news now about knife crime. I have carried a knife since I was a very young girl. My grandfather gave me a penknife with which to sharpen my pencils, peel fruit and tighten screws which I kept all through my schooling in my pencil case, then in my pocket, until I started wearing a Kirpan, the Sikh knife.
A knife is also the symbol of a woman and her power to change situations. When a society is able to respect both a knife and a woman then, indeed, we will live in a community. This is the basis of my latest article for Sikhchic.com....
Eating Royally of the Earth's Finest Ingredient
Tuesday, 06 May 2008
Saffron's worth more than platinum by weight and yet its ethereal nature can carry you across continents simply by its exquisite uplifting taste and bewitching aroma. Last autumn my husband, Nick went to Kashmir to photograph the saffron harvest. His stories of how the soil suddenly blooms forth into a myriad of purple parcels, each containing those beguiling stems richly enchanted us all. He's recently returned from another month there again bringing us a small pot of dark red saffron stamens. These are the royalty of spices and it seemed most appropriate to make for lunch today the most majestic of deserts with it: Shrikand.
Wild Garlic, Bluebells and Crochet
Tuesday, 06 May 2008
As we drove up the woodland lane that unmistakable fragrance of wild garlic filled the air, immediately taking me back to the halcyon days of my childhood in my grandparents' quintessentially English garden. Now, however, I was arriving for a crochet workshop at Laughing Hens, nesting deep in the timeless landscape of rural Kent. This, however, was no whimsical reminiscence of bygone days of permanent happiness, blue skies and Victoria sponge for tea. This was all for real. The excuse was a crochet workshop, but to describe our day thus is a massive over-simplification of heaven.
Five Reasons Why Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is a Regally Graceful™ Woman
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
1. She is successful in her own right
2. She knows how to make a man feel as though he is the only man in the world
3. She knows how to...
Spring Comfort
Wednesday, 09 April 2008
Risotto's one of those comforting savoury foods which bring floods of memories of my time in Italy where I would regularly be put to stir the risotto. It's a very responsible role because forget to stir it for a second and it will stick to the bottom of the pan.
Millie's Biscuits
Wednesday, 09 April 2008
Inspired by the book Pupcakes Nick developed these biscuits which are an amalgamation of a couple of the book's recipes. Millie loves them, and rather regrets that I have the discipline to ration them. She gets one after we're completed "Pretty Millie" morning grooming, and one after her afternoon walk. She's quite insistent that she has them. I tried to photograph her eating a biscuit, but it was unsuccessful.
Millie and Her Accessories
Monday, 07 April 2008
I never wanted a dog. I wanted an angel in my life. And then Millie came into our lives bringing us all so much love and joy. At first, I decided to be thoroughly strict and make do with old socks with knots in for her as toys. She was not overly impressed with this, partly I'm sure because like me she loves pink....
Snow Blossom
Sunday, 06 April 2008
Have you noticed that since the Spring Equinox on 21st March that the light has changed? Even though the days are only lengthening minute by minute each day, there is somehow an uplifting vibrancy outside. On Tuesday Millie and I went for a long walk through the Ecological Park. It was all primroses, in that subtle baby-clothes yellow, nestling in the verdant freshness. In the orchard the pink buds of apple blossom ...
Victory in Knitting
Sunday, 06 April 2008
I love that rhythm and meditation with outcome of knitting. It is one of the ways that I unravel my day as my beautiful wooden needles unwind my tension and create from a strand of wool a piece of a garment. However, up to now, when I came to assemble the finished pieces into a cardigan often it had a homemade look rather than a beautiful handmade one. It was therefore with great relief that I went yesterday to one of Laughing Hens’ Knitting Workshops on Knitting Finishing Techniques.
Rikyu-Ki
Thursday, 03 April 2008
There is something very beautiful and reverential about commemorating the death of Rikyu, the founder of the Way of Tea. Each year the Tea Room, here in London, as do all the Tea Rooms round the world, celebrates with a Tea Gathering called Rikyu-ki.
'Tis the Season of Good Yogichinos
Thursday, 20 December 2007
I've just got back from a walk with Millie in the Ecological Park near where we live here in London. There's been a heavy frost the last few nights leaving a festive frosting to the gloomier parts of the woods and the water in the pond with a fine layer of ice. It was definitely bracing and, even with gloves on, my fingers felt the cold biting them.
Millie's solution was to run, and run, and run, on the grass skidding through the grass to the layers of mud underneath. She's all clean now after her bath and being lulled into a magic world by the pink lights of our festive decorations. My solution was to get a steaming cup of frothy Yogichino.
Oh yes, it's Homemade Scones for Tea
Monday, 17 December 2007
There' s something very primal and magical about the smell of bread. It goes a long way to making a house into a home. Wherever we've travelled somehow that smell of bread in its local form is there. There is a universality to that distinct aroma, coloured by local traditions. It brings people together. It conjures up feelings of being cared for and nurtured.
Across the River Styx
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Here's the third article for sikhchic.com. I often look back to the time described in this article when I need inspiration to overcome fear when I'm looking it in the face. I hope you're inspired by it too.
Cleopatra's Bath
Sunday, 09 December 2007
One day in Latin class we were translating, rather slowly, some bit about Cleopatra and her famous bath of asses' milk. Of course, we giggled. How absurd was that? We were far more into floral bubbles. So when a few years ago I read that Yogi Bhajan recommended a bath with yoghurt I remembered the legendary beauty of the Egyptian queen. Suddenly it seemed that maybe she had been onto something.
So what exactly do you serve your guests?
Saturday, 08 December 2007
My grandmother never really got what being vegetarian was all about. She never though let that influence her role as a hostess. She did not want to cause offence with meat, fish and eggs on my plate.
Whenever I went to stay she always produced for me very fine, well-cooked fresh vegetables in the English tradition of lightly boiled (she never obliterated them school-dinners style). Mashed potato with lashings of butter and milk nicely browned off in the Aga, honey glazed carrots with mint flavoured peas she had shelled lovingly with her arthritic hands were followed by stewed apple and junket topped with nutmeg.
Portrait of a Lady
Sunday, 02 December 2007
Millie settled into our household earlier this summer filling it with her baggage of love and feisty spirit. This fine portrait of her by John Gustard was a gift from my dear godparents, Richard and Katrina Burnett for my birthday at the end of the summer.
Although Millie here is still a puppy of only five months, already her innate beauty and inner radiance shine through. The day that Nick and I collected her from her breeders at Tenderella Bolognese, she immediately decided that these cushions were her domain.
Timelessness is of the Essence
Friday, 23 November 2007
This is my second article for sikhchic.com. I've been asked to become a regular contributor and I'm really looking forward to it. This article is all about my time in Punjab. Incidentally, the photo that the Editor has chosen to illustrate the article is of a man who will feature in one of my forthcoming articles.
"When I received a piece of advice from someone whom I deeply respected, prefaced by "... and this is going to change your life in India completely", the last thing that I ever imagined it would be...."
Recycling in Punjab
Wednesday, 07 November 2007
SikhChic.com, the leading website on culture and arts of the Sikh Diaspora, picked up an article I wrote about my time with the Nihang Singhs in Punjab, India.
Read the article on SikhChic.com here.
More information on and photography of Nihangs Singhs is available on my husband's website, www.nickfleming.com
101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life
Tuesday, 06 November 2007
Excerpt from the book:
"Looking around me at the women whom I came into contact with through my high-powered work, so many of them seemed, like me, to feel dissatisfied deep down within. They were working in a male orientated world and had adapted male values and attitudes to make it. They denied and suppress their innate femininity, killing off what was most precious in them. Worst of all, they had lost not only their self-respect but also that of those they worked with.
I realised the answer was not for women to leave the work place. Instead we needed to regain those qualities that made us womanly and integrate them into our daily, domestic and working lives. It was all upside..."
Breaking through the Pain Barrier
Tuesday, 06 November 2007
(3m 46s) You can get into a real VICTIM mode through suffering. Or, you can get into a real VICTORY mode by not taking it as suffering by as a chance to expand...
