Nibbles #4

Farming in a cemetery, inside the world's biggest Jewish cookbook collection, and some important thoughts on food creator burnout.

Welcome to Nibbles where once a month I share everything brilliant I’ve been reading on the web as well as some general updates from my kitchen, my vegetable garden during the growing season, and other miscellaneous ‘you really need to know about’ updates.

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A rather special Mangalitza pork chop with a wholegrain mustard butter, blackberries and tarragon J and I shared at Wyatt & Jones in Broadstairs (press visit).

• I know summer is over but bookmark this brilliant essay on, and recipes for Caponata vs. Ratatouille for next glut season:

  Palermo vs. Provence

• Also saying goodbye to summer but more relevant all year, Trevor has also published a lovely little piece on making Pasta alla Norma. There is a recipe included, but also here is my BBC Food contribution as it uses tinned cherry tomatoes rather than fresh so is therefore better suited to year round cooking.

  Alla Normcore

• Is it bad that I’m regretting that I’ve got a Bonfire Night¹ party coming up to plan not a brunch party, so I can’t build this Bloody Mary bar. In that vein: I’m still undecided about making the centrepiece several different lasagnas (depending on the number of RSVPs) or several different curries with all the trimmings?

• On the topic of lasagna, I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently because it is something I want to start doing (we don’t eat any pre-made meals at home and I never have enough ready made ones in the freezer): some tips on how to freeze homemade lasagna. (Whilst we’re here, here is my beef lasagna recipe, and my vegetarian one!)

• Ever wondered how to grow and preserve capers? Emiko has you covered:

  Everything you didn't know about capers

• This cemetery in Vancouver which is also a vegetable farm is fascinating (though I do wish to point out to the author making cemeteries more about the living than the dead is not just a ‘trend’, just ask the Victorians - thanks to research for the novel I’m hoping to get published at some point, Victorian cemeteries in London are one of my specialist trivia subjects!)

• Alicia has some thoughts on how us food writers are expected to interact with and create social media content to keep our businesses alive, and she really captures the stress (and I think also resentment) we feel about how we’ve been roped into the perpetual system that is not actually what our jobs are about: read, I still really, really hate making video content and Alicia has made me feel a bit better about this.

  On Selling a Lifestyle

• On how a diet of white rice killed many of Japan’s elite.

• I hope J realises after reading Kiki’s post I’m going to be planning us a weekend city break to Spain with the sole purpose of eating suckling pig:

  “Baby” food, cochinillo edition

• I could very much get on board with the concept of butter boards for entertaining.

• Inside the world’s biggest Jewish cookbook collection.

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What I’ve been cooking: As we’ve properly arrived in autumn, I’ve been zero-ing in on all those cosy one pots. Over for my Macknade residency I’ve got a deliciously saucy recipe for Sticky Baked Sausages with Red Onions & Plums (if you’re local to their Faversham butchery their Mr Pepper’s Sausages are incredible), which I’ve matched on the blog with the above recipe for One Pan Chicken with Masala and Figs (big thanks here to Kiki for helping me test the recipe!) I’ve also posted recipes for a rich, hearty but still rather special Sausage & Saffron Risotto, and a quite refreshing but still very seasonal Damson Cordial with Cinnamon.

What I’ve been listening to: As followers of my bookstagram account will already be aware I spend the bulk of my leisure time steeped in fantasy, gothic and historical fiction, which I know might now be everyones cup of tea. However, I really want to tell you about a brilliant audiobook I’ve had in the kitchen this month, I Know You by Claire McGowan (affiliate). I don’t usually do thrillers, but I picked this up because it sounded intriguing and as a sort of ‘we share a literary agent’ loyalty thing. Rachel is happy with her quiet rural life, her perfect boyfriend and her lovely dog, until she stumbles across a body in the woods. She already knows to run, because she’s found a dead body before. I was seriously HOOKED as Rachel’s life started to unravel, as she debated if she was being framed for murder or not, and if someone had uncovered her true identity, changing her name after she fled what had happened the last time she’d found someone dead (which we get to see through yet more ‘did she, didn’t she’, ‘what the hell is going’ on flashbacks). It’s on Kindle Unlimited if you have a subscription, and well worth the download.

1. For my American readers, on November 5th every year we gather to celebrate the fact a man called Guy Fawkes and his associates did not blow up the King and Parliament. We gather around bonfires where we burn a ‘guy’, usually a scarecrow type effigy (one of the most famous of such gatherings happens in Lewes, in the next county over, where these days they tend to burn a politician or other public figure of hate in effigy each year - do check out the event website which is full of fascinating British oddities as well as a good overview of Bonfire Night’s history), and we have fireworks displays and sparklers, probably because the plotters had stashed gunpowder to blow everything sky high. Traditional foods include hot dogs (made with proper British bangers) and cups of tomato soup (usually Heinz, rather than homemade, and the only canned soup I actually enjoy).