Rambling

There is something immensely satisfying about the photograph Nigel Slater chose to place at the very beginning of The Kitchen Diaries. A stack of dog-eared journals, frayed ribbon markers poking out, clippings neatly tucked between pages. Satisfying and reassuring. Proof, as if it were needed, that notating the food in one’s life is hardly a silly business. I’m old fashioned in a sense, romantically attached to the hand-written. To books. To words. To the sound of a 4B pencil scrawling quickly across paper and the thin, elegant strokes a favourite pen makes – these are sensual things that make the act of writing a joy. As worthy of savouring as a pot of soup simmering on the first proper autumn evening of the year or a bag of organic blood plums so beautiful, so sweetly scented, that your previously held prejudice is, at last, banished.

When I began this blog – a word that still, after all this time, jars just a little – my intention was to make ‘health’ food sexy. Along the way I’ve learned that other things, other ways of eating and cooking contribute to a happier, healthier me. I wanted to be a nutritionist, but when push came to (inevitable) shove, lacked the science brain required. A hangover perhaps of years spent looking at and making pictures. Of reading other people’s words, curled on couches, jammed into crowded buses and trains, and, at one stage, even walking down the street. Always head down and always, always, thinking of cooking.

Autumn, she is here. A simple gratin of butternut squash - two lovely squat ones - enriched with ginger and a pile of golden, slowly-stewed onions for a Saturday night spent firmly In. Topped with crumbs of homemade bread, gratings of parmesan and crushed fennel seeds. All it needs is a salad; one using last week’s pears. Ripened to wrinkled juiciness on the sunny windowsill in his studio, they are just right by Saturday afternoon. Mizuna leaves – spiky, bitey – and snowpea sprouts tossed with a blob of very good goat’s cheese.

No wine tonight. No need. 

Cooking weather has finally begun its return and that, for me, is celebration enough. Here's to cooler days and the tantalising prospect of rain falling without evaporating on contact with our parched, scorched earth.

Comments

[another outspoken female]

I love the new B&W photos, can't wait to see more of them :)

[Ricki]

But you DO make healthy food sexy! I've had mizuna only once, but still retain fond memories. :) Gorgeous photos, darls.

[Maman]

Beautiful ,Lucinda! Your writing is superb as are the new photos. Quite in keeping with the more sombre season.

Maman

[Lucy]

AOF - loving B&W. Harder to get food right, but we will get there. Thank you.

Ricki - can you believe they were the only two bags of leaves I could find at my local market? What luck.

Ah, Maman, merci beaucoup. How lovely to see you here! And there I was, just about to call 'n all... XX

[Susan]

Beautiful post Lucy - I too look forward to the promise of autumn, more dampness please and the prospect of roasting and simmering to come.

[ganga]

Hi Lucy, your pics are fabulous as always. You won't be surprised to hear that I write with a pencil too. Even in my work with corporate clients, I work with a pencil.

But summer lingers here in Adelaide. YAY. It was so beautiful on the weekend, I went to the beach twice and it was glorious. I am still on salads and summer fruits and will hold on for as long as I can to the threads of summer.

[chelsea]

Healthy, sexy, gorgeous food indeed. So alluring in fact, that I find myself craving your autumn menu half a world away when I should be gushing over the bright new green veggies Spring is bringing here!

[Ali-K]

There's definitely been an overuse of the word autumnal at the moment but it is esciting isn't it. Nearly time for soups and stews and comfort food. And the weather is so clean and crisp.

[Lucy]

Susan - Yes, please, please more dampness. In drenching amounts. It rained here yesterday morning and it was bliss.

Ganga - Knowing how much you love the warmth, I'm pleased that it's hanging around for you and no, I'm not surprised you use pencil too. Not one bit!

Chelsea - Spring is your gift for waiting out a long, cool winter. Hope your seedlings are coming along beautifully.

Hi Ali-K, and welcome. What I want to know is why, the moment I post about cooler days, does the weather turn into an Indian Summer? Unpredictable stuff...

[reddoorread]

i love autumn. it's my favourite. hmm cosy pics.

[Lucy]

Pretty photos. Nice sentiments. Thank you.

[vegetablej]

This is the kind of journalling that awakens longing for the snug home from which to contemplate the seasons, the warm space with the luxury of time to watch the next precious rain, admire fruit or vegetables as they come into season, and time to contemplate tastes to pair at the table.

With the black and white pictures, a nostalgia arises for grandmothers past and future, and a hope that you will be preserving more of these jewelled days.

[Christina]

Let's raise our empty wine glasses to rain, rain, please more rain!

I'm celebrating the spring. It's finally here, and summer soon to follow. Long days, thank God.

Your butternut risotto sounds fantastic. I was just thinking of life before fennel seeds and how much less sweet it was.

[Wendy]

I adore that onion picture. Can almost hear that papery skin.

[Katrina]

It's been so long since I've had a visit. I think I've been saving it for just the right moment, as I do with my favorite thing on the plate, saving it for the last bite so it will linger longer. And it is your words here and the images that will stay with me today. Exactly the food I needed this morning. Thank you. I am set to go and make friends with the world once again.