creating food experiences with the seasons
I love this time of year, being able to walk into the garden, basket in hand, moving along the grassy aisles, breathing in the fresh air and making choices from the beautiful selection of home grown grub.
The sweetcorn has been particularly good this season… pop into a pot of boiling, well salted, water for 5 minutes, slather in butter et bon appetit..
Time goes by, not so slowly. Had the pleasure of meeting Trish Deseine last year, while working the busy silly Summer season in West Cork. Trish is the best known Irish foodie in France and with good reason, with two t.v. series and over a million copies of her books sold. I was fortunate to have her taste my ice cream and she asked me to contribute the recipe to The Irish Times newspaper’s Gloss Magazine
Here is the recipe for Blackcurrant Ripple Ice Cream
Every year we like to gather from the hazel and cob trees around my parent’s house. We spend the evening cracking open the little beauties and trying not to eat the entire haul. Those that survive are preserved in the freezer for baking, salads and snacks throughout the coming months.
Right now, I feel like I've won the food lovers lottery. I have finally realised a dream; to work with food in Italy. But it gets better, because today I find myself working as part of the amazing team at The Rome Sustainable Food Project. This incredible project was set up by the indomitable Alice Waters. Here, as in her kitchen at Chez Panisse the principles of sustainability and community are cornerstones of how the kitchen functions. The dining room at The American Academy is a space for not only bellies -but also minds to be nourished and the kitchen is not just a place of production -but a hub of learning. The project endeavours to foster grass roots connections with organic farmers in Rome and beyond. In today's world of predominantly 'mindless mass consumption' it is these alliances, with those who grow our food using methods that sustain the soil, which should be our focus. If you ever find yourself in Roma take a stroll up the hill to Monte Verde and go see what's growing at the R.S.F.P.
Beautiful Brassicas
Forty shades of green in the garden this winter.
Olives Trees
Bergamot Lemon Curd Tartlet
Uno Pranzo Tipico - a typical lunch menu.
Gnochetti di Sardi -hand made with just water + flour.
Alice Waters on a recent visit - 'blessing' the babies with new season olive oil!
Mirto -a digestivo made with myrtle berries.
This a super simple recipe; take a load of tomatoes -the ones that smell like tomatoes, chop them roughly, along with some garlic cloves and an onion sliced -throw all of these into a roasting tin, season with plenty of salt and pepper and drench them with a fairly decent olive oil, pop into a pre-heated oven around 180'C /Gas 4 and cook until the onion is softened...if you can get a bit of char going on all the better. Then whizz everything up in a saucepan, add some vegetable or chicken stock, enough to get it to the consistency you want -warm through, check seasoning. Serve with some cream, basil and whatever bread you fancy. Initially when you have them whizzed, you have at your disposal a kick ass delicious tomato sauce, which you can throw into a ziplock bag and freeze -perfect with linguine and buffalo mozzarella, as a pizza sauce or yum yum salsa with juicy meatballs!
The delicate, florally-ness of soft summer elderflowers married with creamy custard is a combination I discovered a few years back and it never fails to make me smile. In a recent effort to get the last pick of elderflowers I got stuck on a really high wall and had to phone home to get a rescue party organised...it was worth it though.
What you need-
What you need to do-
Recently I was asked to write a piece about why I do what I do for the wonderful HeadStuff Magazine.
HERE it is.