Time to look

This weekend was a March weekend like few others. The sun shone, the blossom hung in cascades and London was bathed in an unexpected warmth. In Peckham locals and prospective buyers sat idly at tables on the pavement, sipping their flat whites, perusing the weekend papers and admiring the pampered pouches fresh from the poodle parlour on the corner. I too sat amongst the flaneurs and watched the world go casually by, enjoying the sense of community, shared outdoor space and the first rays of sunshine on my dazzlingly pale skin.

On Friday evening I went to David Hockney's A Bigger Picture, at the Royal Academy. I was bowled over by Hockney's vivid, colourful depiction of his native Yorkshire and, faced with a weekend in London, longed to be teleported to a part of the countryside so resplendent with the sights, sounds and palette of the Spring season.

Hockney commented that you did not need to be in Yorkshire to witness such beauty. He is right of course, although you may have to look harder to find it amongst London's busy streets. On Sunday, I took the opportunity to look, not just a passing glance but a proper look, at my garden and beyond. Here are my photos of Spring.

Brockley and broccoli

A wonderful Italian friend who came to stay last week bought me some amazing Toscana salami (that's not the only reason she's wonderful!). I have been eating this melt-in-the-mouth pork and fennel Florentine sausage all week (it is studded with occasional black peppercorns which cause a flavour explosion in your mouth when you least expect it) in a number of guises all week although my favourite has been thin slices popped straight into my mouth the minute I walk through the front door. Until tonight.

On Saturday, which was my first weekend in London for some time, I went to Brockley Market. Since it was set up in October last year, Brockley Market has become such an important part of my London life that my visit on Saturday felt almost like a homecoming. The market is a local treasure trove. It is home (on Saturdays anyway) to Mike, of Mike & Ollie, who makes the most delicious Lebanese flatbreads stuffed with irresistible fillings such as mackerel, beetroot and Brockley apple, slow cooked shoulder of lamb with Brockley fig and Greenwich chestnut and for the vegetarians chargrilled cauliflower, Brockley fennel, burnt aubergine and Crystal Palace membrillo. There's the helpful girl who I think may have been involved in setting up the market and who sources unpasteurised full fat milk for my friend Kate (and who may shortly become Kate's best friend as a result). Then there's the guy who makes beautiful homemade chocolates, which I always intend to buy as presents and invariably end up eating myself. There are the two ladies from Flavours of Spain with their award winning manchego and pan de higo (Spanish fig cake) as well as chorizo, Jamon Iberico and smoked paprika, Ross from Browns of Brockley with his delicious cakes (I rarely leave without a generous slice of his banana cake with chocolate icing), Wild Country Organics with their dazzling salad leaves and greens and lots more besides. As I said, it's a treasure trove.

And every week I buy more fruit and vegetables than I can possibly eat (or fit in the fridge) from Perry Court Farm. Perry Court Farm are farmers from Kent and so their vegetables take me back to my roots in a nostalgic, earthy sort of way. Their produce looks and tastes fantastic with the result that I fail to exercise vegetable-restraint every week. So this week I bought purple sprouting broccoli, curly kale, the most beautiful purple and green cabbage I have ever seen, shallots, broccoli, fennel, parsley, lettuce and apples - which may not sound like a lot but I am only at home two nights this week.

When I got home this evening, the Florentine salami and all this beautiful veg were looking at me enticingly from the fridge, as were the dozen eggs I received on Saturday from Supercook Kate's chickens... Can you see where I'm going with this?

I didn't have a clear idea of where I was going to end up when I started but I was so happy to be in my kitchen cooking so I just followed my instincts and added whatever felt right. The result was a hot winter salad of purple sprouting broccoli and kale, liberally scattered with Toscana salami, shallots, garlic and toasted sunflower seeds with a just poached egg oozing on the top.

I am going to brazenly cast modesty aside and say that the salad was a triumph of its constituent parts (they take the credit and not me, phew!). My sister and I have long since had a love affair with broccoli and I could therefore be accused of bias in judging this dish. However, whatever your broccoli pre- or mis-conceptions, I defy you not to tell your friends about this recipe.

Hot winter salad

1 shallot, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
Toscana salami, coarsely chopped (or pancetta or lardons)
2 handfuls of Sunflower seeds
A pinch of dried chilli flakes
Pure sprouting broccoli
Curly kale, roughly chopped
Eggs

Sweat the shallot in olive oil until translucent. Add the salami and garlic and fry gently taking care not to burn the garlic. Finely chop any excess stalk from the broccoli and add to the pan. Continue to cook until the stalk has softened. Add the sunflower seeds and chilli and cook for 1 minute. Divide the fatter pieces of broccoli in half lengthways and add to the pan. Cover and steam until nearly cooked. You may wish to add a ladleful of hot water if the contents of the pan are sticking to the bottom. Add the kale and steam until cooked. Season with salt and pepper.

Poach two eggs and serve on top of the salad

Hot toddy and rum & raisin cake

The New Year had, briefly, an auspicious start. A group of friends, a house in the Oxfordshire countryside, log fires, an exceptionally fine pheasant and bacon pie and country walks providing a gratuitous excuse to don Christmas hats, scarves and gloves given the unseasonably mild weather.

The morning of 1 January 2012 started slowly: pots full of tea, English muffins, slippers shuffling around the house as their inhabitants eased themselves gradually into the first day of the new year.

Eventually everyone had found two socks, two contact lenses, a right and a left boot (which had been scattered around the house after the midnight sparkler-lit running races of the night before) and we set off on a walk, escapees from London, secretly delighting, despite the sore heads and aching limbs (the product of the very competitive midnight races), in the freedom of the Bank holiday and the clear air.

Having ambled for at least half an hour and successfully scaled the gentlest of inclines, much needed sustenance was provided in the form of a rum raisin hot toddy. The raisins had been steeped in rum and sugar syrup five days previously. The raisiny syrup was then mixed with lemon juice, boiling water and more rum and poured into thermos flasks for the walker's delight.

We drank our hot toddy, hands cupped gratefully around steaming cups, watched by llamas in a neighbouring field (or were they alpacas, none of us felt qualified to say). Their quizical faces matched ours, 'Were we ready for twenty twelve?', each walker weighing up the challenges, delights and surprises that the next twelve months were likely to bring.

When the llamas realised that we were more interested in our hot toddy than their quixotic appearance, they grew bored and we carried on our way, our tortoise-like progress speeded up by the zingy, quasi-medicinal qualities of our toddy.

The following weekend, the shine having already been knocked off the New Year by a week at work, I used the rum soaked raisins to make a rum soaked raisin cake. Served with homemade clove ice-cream (although good vanilla would work just as well), it warmed the heart and the stomach. The cake improved with age and I ate it guiltily at my desk over the following week (the boozy raisins so right in the cake, so wrong in the office), each mouthful a memory of high days and holidays.

There is no reason to limit hot toddy or its offspring cake to the New Year. It will undoubtedly brighten up any winter weekend. If you don't have time or the inclination to bake, the raisiny syrup would be delicious poured over ice-cream.

Rum & raisin hot toddy

Raisin syrup
1kg raisins
125ml dark rum
375 ml sugar syrup (see below)

To make the sugar syrup, bring 125ml water to the boil. Add 250 ml sugar and allow to dissolve, stirring continuously. Once the sugar has dissolved, remove the pan from the heat (do not allow the syrup to boil for too long as the syrup will become too thick).

Mix the raisins, rum and sugar syrup and leave to steep for at least five days.

For the toddy

160ml dark rum
100ml raisin syrup
60ml lemon juice
400ml boiling water

Combine the rum, raisin syrup, lemon juice and boiling water. Grate a little nutmeg on top, if you like. Pour into glasses or pre-heated thermos.

(This recipe is borrowed from the Zetter Townhouse, London.)

Rum and raisin cake

125g butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
Zest of half a lemon
50g plain yoghurt
125 plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
200g rum soaked raisins

Preheat the over to 180 degrees.
Cream the butter and sugar for 5 - 10 minutes until pale and fluffy. Slowly add the eggs, followed by the lemon zest and yoghurt. Fold in the flour and baking powder. Fold in the raisins.
Spoon into a lined tin (18cm would be ideal) and bake for 35 - 40 minutes until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.

Enjoy x

Autumn bliss

Autumn has been an unexpected delight. Even November, which is usually the bearer of driving rain, biting wind and the gloomy descent to Christmas, has given way to gloriously fine, mild, sunny days. It has stopped me in my tracks. And made it impossible to leave the house without my camera, yet imperative to leave the house and breathe in great gulps of autumn, knowing that these warm, sunny days cannot last.

London has looked its best in the brilliant November sunshine. I have jumped at the opportunity provided by a few quieter weekends to cycle between Brockley and Brockwell, Nunhead and Westminster, Peckham and Pall Mall. Liberated from November's typically cold grasp, I have pedalled, the breeze whistling around my ears, bags jangling from my handlebars, enjoying the time to stop, to photograph, to have a coffee, enjoying London.

Coming of age

On Wednesday I was thirty.

I am not usually a birthday person. I do not know why. Maybe it is something to do with it being 9 November and always raining. Maybe it is because I am invariably at work (if my birthday would have otherwise been on a Saturday it is unfailingly a leap year). Maybe the variety of calamities which have befallen me on my birthday over the years have knocked the shine of the whole birthday concept.

This one I was dreading more than most. Why is it that birthdays with a 0 on the end induce a state of introspection, a checking of one's achievements (or not) against the rose tinted vision of one's life dreamt up as a little girl (I too was going to be married with babies, a dog and living in a wisteria clad cottage by the time I reached the grand old age of thirty) (writing it in full helpfully avoids the need for the nought).

The anticipation was worse than the reality. I actually had a really good day thanks to some wonderful friends, a naughty little sister who excelled herself, and things happening, both related and unrelated to my birthday, which made my day.

1. I came in to work to an email from a client thanking me for some work I had done. A grateful client? That almost never happens (but it is oh so nice when it does).

2. A colleague (different department, different floor) complimented me, out of the blue, on the dress I was wearing. Her exact words were 'you rock that dress'. If I needed an antidote to worrying about looking old, that was it.

3. My naughty little sister sent me flowers at work. Isn't receiving flowers just the most amazing thing? They made my eyes open wide and my heart soar. And these weren't any old flowers: they were pink ranunculus with ornamental cabbages - green with purple hearts and purple veining - antique roses the most delicate and elegant shade of lilac you have ever seen, giant pale green hydrangeas and sprigs of rosemary and eucalyptus that filled my office with the most amazing smell. It made everyone who walked past my office, stop and come in and bury their noses in the flowers. The thoughtfulness of sending the flowers and of choosing such exquisitely apt flowers to send completely overwhelmed me.

4. After work I went for tapas with four of the most wonderful friends a girl could wish for. We sipped on tall glasses of cava and shared plates of smoked beef, pork belly stuffed with butternut squash, prawns with chilli and garlic, padron peppers, jamon, tomato bread and razor clams with chorizo and mint. We laughed a lot.

It made me think that birthdays are not so bad, even thirtieth birthdays.

Winter greens or winter blues?

Autumn has been superlative. The garden is looking far less sepulchral than usual at this time of year. The dahlias are still flowering (a small nod to the mighty Great Dixter), the winter dianthus are offering an unexpected show of pink and many of the perennials are yet to shed their leaves.

Despite this late flurry of summer, I have been busily preparing for the long winter months ahead: mulching; moving tender plants inside; and planting row upon row of cavolo nero, kale and purple and white sprouting broccoli. These keystones of my winter larder are not constrained, like the summer produce, to my raised beds but are planted liberally throughout the garden, in the space vacated by the summer show stoppers.

These seedlings will breathe new life into my winter garden, as well as providing a rich source of food through to spring.  The sprouting broccoli will stand green and tall, its thick glossy leaves defying winter's harsh yoke. The cavolo nero will fringe the garden with palms, each single stem supporting a bunched canopy of leaves overhead, as if laughing in winter's face. The kale will grow wiry and strong, flourishing despite winter's bad grace.

So as the days shorten and I am robbed, from Monday to Friday, of daylight hours by work, the garden will provide an excuse to breathe winter's crisp air, to feel its watery sun on my back, a reminder that all is not lost, dead or hibernating, and a source of hearty winter food. Its vibrants winter greens are the perfect defence against winter blues.

My blueberry bush ablaze with autum reds

The beautiful red spires of dogwood

The smiling faces of winter pansies

The warm brilliance of autumn



Time waits for no woman

I have not written for a while.  Or tended to my garden.  Or cooked any new recipes.  Or run (or done any other form of exercise).  Or taken any photographs that I am proud of.  Or baked.  Or spent time with my naughty little sister who matters more to me than anyone else in the world (but don't tell her).

I have however spent a weekend in Bristol with my university girlfriends to celebrate my wonderful friend Anna's birthday; window shopped my way around the annual Great Dixter Plant Fair (save for one giant pale lavender blue Scabiosa, a Penstemmon Digitalis and a Echinacea Pink Double Delight- given the selection of plants on offer, this was an exercise of the utmost restraint); sampled the wonderful Kentish produce being offered, cooked and quickly sold at the Broadstairs Food Festival; crunched through the rusty leaves in the grounds of Rousham House; eaten a chocolate and almond croissant sitting on the pavement in the sunshine at Columbia Road Flower Market; been on several bad dates; and done my first day's training to be a mentor for Kids Company.

So I have not been idle.  I am however, suffering from a shortage of time to do the things that are important to me, the things that add colour to my working week and make the weekends so irresistible.

So why, you may ask, am I taking on something new?

I first heard of Kids Company the day after the riots that swept through large parts of London (including the usually leafy streets of Peckham Rye) in August in an article written by Camila Batmanghelidjh, the charity's founder.  Sitting reading at my kitchen table over a cup of cafetiere coffee, the article made volumes of sense and touched a nerve (one not yet awoken by the coffee) that I, who am lucky enough to spend my weekends cooking, gardening and escaping the crowded London streets to the countryside beyond and still have time to write about it, can and will fit something else in if it is important.

I have one more day's training in two weeks time and then Kids Company will pair me with a child or young adult who has asked for a mentor.  We will spend a couple of hours together on Saturday mornings having fun and learning from each other.

Saturday mornings will become sacred and something else may have to give.  It seems a small sacrifice amongst the other highlights of my week.  And it will, I hope, in its own way become a highlight for me and more importantly for the child who will become the focus of the beginning of my weekend.

The Plant Fair at Great Dixter

 

The tropical garden at Great Dixter

 

The last of summer flowers against a summer sky

Ipomea lobata or Spanish flag, curling up verbena bonariensis

Early morning sunshine at Viking Bay, Broadstairs

Cannoli at the Broadstairs Food Festival

Midsummer, 2 October 2011: Viking Bay, Broadstairs

Autumn at Rousham House