Donald-Kim Love-In Promises NK Denuclearisation and US Withdrawal. Elderflower Cheesecake and Jelly.

Sambocade cheese cake

I was gradually rising out of my BrexiTrump lethargy last weekend when President Trump swanned in to the G7 gathering to turn it into a G6 v 1. Having riled America's usual allies in Europe and Canada with his drastic import tariffs on steel and aluminium, Trump was persuaded to sign the usual end of summit declaration, only to withdraw it after seeing the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau give the gently acid quote, on how Canada would react to US tariffs with counter tariffs of their own:
"I have made it very clear to the president that it is not something we relish doing, but it is something that we absolutely will do, because Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around."
Apparently it is however OK for the president to say in his interview before the summit on tariffs and trade imbalances:
"We’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing. And that ends."

However, The G& was obviously just a sideshow, because there were more important global matters to consider, namely the President's key meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong-un today. Apparently the two got on very well and completed with a signing of four key actions arising from the meeting:

1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
2. The United States and DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.

The President also surprised the world and his own Pentagon by declaring that the USA would suspend its exercises with South Korea, something that has always been on North Korea's agenda. Whilst point 3, the North Korean commitment to working towards complete denuclearisation of the peninsula, is a wording previously made by North Korea, President Trump gave a positive response to reporters:
“We got to know each other well in a very confined period of time, I know when somebody wants to deal and I know when somebody doesn’t.”

We can but hope.

Parliament is busy with voting on the Brexit bill after its return from the Lords. I'll tackle that topic tomorrow!

With the weather warming slightly over the weekend, I was struck by the many elderflowers in bloom whilst on walks. It reminded me of a recipe for 'Sambocade' in the 'Pleyn Delit' mediaeval cookbook. Essentially this is an elderflower flavoured cheesecake. The cheese mixture is flavoured with elderflower blossom. I picked three or four large flower heads and tried stripping off the small flowers with a fork. It turned out to be easier to use my fingers, which were yellow with pollen by the time I had finished. you can find a recipe online here at http://www.cookitsimply.com/recipe-0010-014d839.html. I could hardly taste the elderflower in the mixture at room temperature. However, after baking and chilling, the cold cheese cake had a fresh elderflower flavour. Sadly Jane was not too impressed and so I have been working my way through a whole cheese cake over the past couple of days.

Seeing so many elderflowers, it seemed a waste not to do more. Wary of making something that I alone would be eating ad nauseum, I thought I'd try to make some elderflower jelly. Using 4 flower heads stripped into 250ml water with the juice of half a lemon and a ring of lemon rind, I boiled the mixture for a couple of minutes and strained it. Still recovering 250 ml of the flavoured liquid, I added 300 g of jam sugar, boiled for 4 minutes, adding a small knob of butter, and poured into a preheated empty jam jar and sealed. The few remaining dregs that didn't make it into the jar were set to cool on a saucer in the fridge. It gave a delicately flavoured spread. Once the jar had cooled, it was into the pantry to save for a different season.