The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 11

GUARDIAN WOMEN Friday March 2 1979 13 There's no thins like a momemaffl putt continues he month-bymontfa eookevy guide with some traditional recipes edges and reserve the trimmings of pastry. "Warm the syrup in a saucepan until thin and runny if you heat the tablespoon in boiling water you will find it easier to measure out the syrup. If it looks very thin crumbs and leave to stand for 10 minutes for the crumbs to absorb the syrup. Check the consistency at this stage. If the mixture looks rather stodgy, add a little more syrup.

It it looks very thin and runny, add a few more breadcrumbs. The mixture should look rather like thick honey. Stir in the lemon rind and juice. Spread the mixture in the unbaked pastry case. Roll out any pastry trimmings and cut into narrow strips.

Arrange these, lattice fashion, across the top of the tart. Bake in "a fairly hot oven for the first 10 minutes (400deg. gas No. 6). Then reduce to (375deg.

or gas No. 5) until the tart is cooked about 25 minutes in all. Queen oS puddings pint milk I oz butter 1 level tablespoon castor sugar 1 teacupful (packed if fresh) white breadcrumbs Grated rind of 1 small lemon 2 egg yolks 2 tablespoons raspberry jam FOR THE MERINGUE 2 egg whites 3 oz castor sugar MEASURE the milk, butter, and sugar into a saucepan and bring almost to the boil. Put the breadcrumbs in a mixing basin and pour in the hot milk. Let soak for 15 minutes.

Then stir in the grated lemon rind and the egg yolks. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered lj-pint pie or baking dish choose a shallow dish where possible. Place in the centre of a moderate oven (350deg. F. or Gas No.

4) and bake for "3-30 minutes or until set firm. Test by pressing the centre very gently to see if the milk comes out, or give the dish a gentle shake to establish the firmness of the custard. Spread the surface with the warmed raspberry jam and at this stage you 'can. leave-the pudding until ready to finish it off. Beat the egg whites until stiff, sprinkle in half, the sugar and -beat again until glossy.

Then using a metal spoon, gently fold in the remaining sugar. Swirl the meringue over the top of the pudding and return it to the oven for just long enough to brown the meringue about 10-15 minutes. Some cooks like to decorate this pudding with bits of glace cherry and angelica before baking, which makes it look very pretty. Any left over is very good served cold. Fruit cobbler 1 lb fresh fruit or pint cooked sweetened fruit 2-4 nz castor sugar 1 tablespoon icatcr FOR THE TOPPING 4 oz self raising flour Pinch stilt lh oz butter 1 oz castor sugar 3-4 tablespoons milk to mix YOU MUST look among traditional recipes to find the best hot puddings.

Not all the quick or instant mixes i-n the world can compare with the flavour of a homemade recipe. There are lots of hot puddings, I like the easy ones, like a Queen of puddings which has a lemon flavoured custard base, a pretty layer of red jam and a crisp meringue topping. It's my favourite weekend lunch pudding and.not surprisingly, well received at dinner parties too. Choose a shallow, rather than a deep, baking dish for this creation so that you can have a good area for the meringue which is what makes it so popular (especially with children). The custard base can be baked ahead and if you warm the jam it will spread over the top without breaking the surface.

Try to bake the meringue at the last moment, when you can give it the whole oven. Meringue always bakes best on its nwn, when there is no moisture or steam from foods. If you try it and like it, make it again with grated orange rind in place of lemon and a little marmalade jelly (omit the peel, too strong in, flavour) in place of the raspberry jam and it's just as good. A fruit cobbler is like a pie. You.

bake this one in a deep pie dish, but the crust is softer than pastry because it's made with a scone dough. The circles of dough, cut like scones, are arranged on top of a fruit base and bake together to form one crust which seals in the flavour of the fruit below. Success lies in haying the oven hot, as you would for scones, and an preheating the fruit in the baking dish so that you get no unbaked mixture in the centre. It's best with fruit that has a good flavour and colour like rhubarb, green gooseberries, blackberries and plums and it is very important not to put too much liquid in with the fruit otherwise the pudding boils up round the sides and spoils the appearance. By far my favourite pudding, however, is treacle tart, made with golden syrup, breadcrumbs and the addition of grated lemon rind and juice which cuts the sweetness of the syrup.

Traditionally treacle tart is baked on one of those tin pie plates so that the pastry is crisp and the filling not too deep. Use self raising flour in your shortcrust for this one and it will give the pastry an extra lift. All the recipes serve 4. TreaaSe tavt 4 02 shortcrust pastry FOR THE FILLING 4 rounded tablespoons golden syrup 4 heaped tablespoons fresh while breadcrumbs Finely prated rind and juice of -i lemon MAKE the shortcrust pastry using self-raising flour and the usual proportions of half fat to flour. Let the pastry rest for 10 minutes, then roil out and use to line a buttered shallow pie plate of about ft inches in diameter.

Or use a 7 inch flan ring set on a baking tray, a sponge cake tin of the same diameter will serve as well. Ncatcn the voice, bury her face in her collar and say Fuck off, can't you see I'm a bloke It always worked, but was a bit of a strain. Most cars are driven and owned by men, so women are most at risk in the long, dark walk from public transport to their homes at night, and they are often attacked while on public transport. There are men and boys, too, who arc frightened to go around alone at night in case they are beaten up. But it is only in certain areas they are not safe.

Women are not safe anywhere, for any of the time, in the deepest countryside or in the busiest streets of towns. A request for help to the police is usually met by the response that if she was got. at by a man. she must have been asking for it anyway. A new form of feminist demonstration, Reclaim the Night, has sprung from the women's liberation movement.

So far, it has attracted little attention except for a few sneers and weak jokes, marchers through the strip club area of Swho last October naively did not ask for police escort because we did not think it right to psk for male protection." The demonstration ended with a number being treated in hospital. 13 arrests and a court It is no longer safe for women to venture out alone at night, either in the deepest countryside or the busiest town street. A national week of protest against this fact of contemporary life starts tomorrow, and Jean Stead reports on the women's organisations behind it. THIS RECIPE was designed for fresh or home bottled fruit. Bottled (or tinned) fruit needs no sugar for sweetening and should be put in the dish with' not more than 2 tablespoons of the juice from the jar or can.

Any frozen fruit should be thawed, otherwise the pudding might not cook through properly in the centre. Fresh rhubarb, sreen gooseberries, blackberries and plums are best, with sugar to sweetea according to the tartness of the fruit and only one tablespoon of water to start the juices off. Put the fruit, sugar and water', in a buttered 1J pint, pie dish and set in a- preheated oven (400 deg or! Gas No 6) for at least 5 minutes to heat through. Meanwhile sift the flour and salt into a mixing basin. Rub in the butter and stir in the sugar.

Using a knife blade, mix in just sufficient milk to make soft scone dough consistency. Turn' onto a floured board and pat out to a depth of i inch don't make it Idd thin. Use a floured round cutter of about 2 inches and stamp out circles of the dough if you use up all the trimming you will get 6-7 scones. Place the circles- of dough on top of the warmed fruit. Overlap them slightly and arrange neatly.

Brush with a little milk and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Set on a baking tray to catch any juices and put above centre in a hot oven (400 deg or Gas No. 6) for about 15 minutes. Then lower the heat to 375 (Vg or Gas No. 5 and bake for a further 5 minutes test the centre.

Serve hot nice with cream or vanilla ice-cream. can say what they really feel." Their comments reveal a sadly submissive attitude to men, which they are struggling to break away from. One of the things they want to explain to men is that small girls are brought up to be friendly and polite and if they behave like this when thev arc older they are not "giving someone the eye" but behaving in the way they have been conditioned to do. Shouldn't they therefore bring men into the movement they can explain all this to them No. we won't have any men because that would be paternalist women talk tno much to men and not enough to other women." It is a bad state of society where women have felt so put duwn that they have to reolt a totallv anti-male way.

But there's no doubt that thousands of women, most of them i-xtremely young, feel this way. They are unlike those tnuzh northern mill-airls who used publicly to yank the trousers off any man who had a go at them. Thev are submissive and that isn't much help on a dark night. Women may be right in thinking they can transform male attitudes. Yes.

I think maybe you can, but only with a karale kick. Wife walk alone tion of what has come to be known as the woman's predicament (which once meant something rather different) but it seems to work for those for whom a bought-and-paid peer group is better than none. It's also true that most things have a price these days and Sher's own history bears out how hard it is to make headway alone in New York. When her marriage broke up in 1967, she had two young children, no job, no money, and no home. I lived in welfare hotels for months.

There was one bed for three of us and you had to stay up all night to keep the roaches off the children. I had a bachelor's degree in anthropology which made me about the most unemployed person in the United States." A car crash which laid her up for a year also produced 10,000 dollars insurance a slush fund that kept her going while she built up her psycotherapy practice. "The problem was that I've always been more interested in what people do with what they have, not what (hey could have. I couldn't, bring myself to go into 20 years of a person's history. One day I was walking down the street and I had a thought I'd never had before what next I'd spent so many years trying to survive, there had been no time to plan.

Surviving alone is hard, hard like digging ditches, not like jumping over an abyss. Women like me aren't pushed to swallow fear and try a new thing." In 1076 with 300 dollars' capital, she started running Women's Success Teams seminars all over America. For the latest, in New York, she spent 15,000 dollars for a full page advertisement in the New York Times. She is indeed the living proof of what she teaches. I teach techniques by which women can survive.

I'm always seeking what a person wants to be not what I think they should be. At one seminar we had a woman lawyer who said svhat I've always wanted to be is a femme Four women raised their hands and said 'we can help you to do I really do believe we have no right to decide what someone pise should do. The evidence is never all in. I've always wanted to know what a person would be like if they could be everything they wanted and have everything they wanted." Women for whom even Shirley Conran's Super-woman was not enough, can write to Barbara Sher at 123 West OTrd Street, New York, NY 10025. applauds everyone, for instance.

"I'm happy," applause. "I'm scared," rapturous applause. I'm yellow and I'm a kitchen and I'm full of sunlight," "I've noticed that MaryJancAnne is intelligent warm has a sense of humour." I can't sing but I want to be the prima diva at the Metro-politan Opera House." (This is about one's wildest dreams, after all.) There is the frenzied excitement nl the lower fourth netball team going out to win. If you have a baby, you don't pick it up after two weeks and say, 'this can't read, write, or speak' and throw it out of the window," says Sher. "Just ask 'how can it be done That's all -you ever have to do.

Let's see how many ideas we can help to live." Applause. Naturally. The third evening is given over to Brainstorming (for those who don't need a Hard Times Session I am having a rough time and I need someone to know about One woman throws out that she wants to be. say, a fashion illustrator. Theoretically, a flock of other women put up their hands.

One has a brother-in-law who knows someone who knows the editor of Vogue. One lives next door to Oscar La Renta's cleaning lady. Another has a child who goes to school with a child whose mother once modelled for Avedon. The fashion illustrator now has three contacts to follow up. Problem she's scared.

Everyone applauds and says how she can do it really. Anuthcr volunteer says she'll call her Monday to rally her on. Each graduate leaves the seminar with a list of very important things to do (it's rather Winnie the Poohish at times) beforo the first team meeting next week. "Remember," says Sher, "a team meeting is a business meeting, not a kaffee klatch, not a consciousness raising croup and absolutely not therapy." Should graduates waver during the long, lonely week, there is Sher's jolly, no-nonsense Workbook to fall back on. If your life is not all you wanted, you can blame yourself, blame circumstances or get all the hcilp you need and change it." There is a handy section at the end for Crisis calls: "If a member is planning to do something that is emotionally difficult, she Is put on Crisis for that week.

This means that she arranges to report to a team member before she approaches this task and again as soon as it is completed. This phone call should last no more than three minutes." It is easy to poke fun or wince at this commercialisa Linda Blandford's ssasssm mm Super sisters TO TODAY'S woman, the old girls' network is the stuff of life, a lover is but a plaything. Success is fulfilment, Oiappiness but vanity. Husbands leave or, staying, betray their weakness. Mothers are doubting, fathers contemptuous, brothers competitive, and children ungrateful.

Thank heavens for sisterhood, the modern American woman's true security. Thus it was only a matter of time before someone marketed a package of ready-made sisters for those who had neglected to make their own fully grown Barbi dolls for the working woman to practise on. Barbara Sher's Women's Success Teams Inc. to succeed without being a is having its moment. Sher's organisation offers a $250 dollar, 12-hour, three-evenings seminar it can help you discover that special spark of genius that belongs to you and no one from which emerge teams of six to eight women who continue to meet weekly as its members strive for new-found goals rah-rahed on by the sisters small, practical army of women you've never had behind you before Through WST training and support, a waitress found the courage to become a pilot, a receptionist became an art director, and a housewife became a manager in a department store.

It does, you must admit, sound at least as useful as being born again with Ruth Carter Stapleton or turned around by EST. The techniques may be familiar to frequenters of creative workshops and other selfJhelp bashes. Everyone Uli case coming up in April. The innocent intention is tn try to change men's attitudes so that women can walk around alone in safety without fear of attack. When I was in my teens and first realised that people thought it odd and suspect that I walked on the cliffs and in the country by myself in pitch darkness just because I felt like it.

or went out to look at the moon in town parks in winter, I was astonished. What could be more normal It seemed to be my personal right to have the freedom to walk around alone and it still docs. The only difference is that now I'd be more sure of the freedom if I carried a shotgun. There was another Reclaim" the Night inarch through Soho in January, this time the police were informed, and an escort was provided. Over 2.000 turned up.

The movement has been spreading through the country and has branches in Scotland, Cardiff, the Midlands, and Yorkshire. Estates are leafletted and though many of the supporters are young left-wingers and much of the organisation comes from the women's section of the Nntional Union of Students, they include older women who are rebelling against being unable to walk safely to their homes at night through the roads of the big I SPENT the later part of the evening wandering about London, dropping into various bars. I walked as far as St. Paul's and back. I came home late and went to bed.

I slept well." Question was that written by a man or a woman, and how can you tell Answer obviously a man. because no woman could walk around in that heroic melancholy way late at night she wouldn't be safe. The quotation is from Iris Murdoch's novel, A Word Child, and relates to her solitary hero. But it would be impossible to have a heroine of such solitariness because of the simple physical fact that unless she was armed to the teeth, it would be impossible for her self-sought isolation to last long, however much she wished it to. It is so much part of a woman's life that she takes it for granted that she needs a taxi or a protective male escort late at night if she is to get home safely unless she can run extremely fast or is good at karate or extraordinarily quick-witted.

One girl I know, accosted regularly by homeless moths drinkers at Camden Town didn't offer them sympathy she used to deepen her housing estates. They resent always having to ask an equally resentful man fur escort. As more women go to work on night shifts, so their vulnerability to late-night attack grows. A week of action which includes Reclaim the Night marchers, organised by National Women's Aid. the National Union of Students, and women's groups around the country starts tomorrow under the Women Against Violence Against Women banner.

It will culminate next Saturday in a march through the centre of LoihK from Wnodhouse Moor, and afterwards there will be a women's disco. "Most women are worried about going out at nidit and wonder how they can --int home if they do." said one the Leeds organisers. Our aim is to change men's attitude so they do not look on us only as sex objects, but as individuals with individuals' rights." The women's groups arc keen on all-women occasions and why not As they say, men have their own clubs and groups. Don't all-women discos attract Lesbians Sometimes, apparently, but it's no worse and slightly better than the discos "where wc feel as if we are part of a cattle market." They like all-wnmen discussions too It is the only time women fy' Its meagre thirst forpetrol is almost enough to place it in the teetotal class. And while it may not be the fastest car around, it leaves everything else standing whenit comes to parking.

Go for a ride in a De Ville today and you'll see what we mean. After all the flying carpet has been solving traffic problems for centuries. Sit in the Fiat De Ville and you'll find yourself surrounded by a warm, cosy carpet that runs under your feet, up to the doors and over the dashboard. Then, look up and you'll see a very unusualfeature for a small car-a sunroof. But that's not to say you need drive along with your head in the clouds, because when it comes to economy the De Ville couldn't be more down-to-earth.

0 For further information write to: Fiat Motor Company (UKJ Ltd. i uept G2) Gt. West Road, Brentford, Middlesex TW8 9DJ. The Fiat 126 Saloon costs 1,715 and the- 126 Da Ville (featured) costs 1,881, Price correct at time of going to press and includes car tax, seat belts and VAT. Delivery charges and number plates extra..