A few weeks ago, my neighbourhood exploded in crimson. Like beads of blood shaken briskly from a deep wound, pendulous redcurrants started to dangle from the bushes lining the streets. Their weighty chain-like stems drooped abundantly, inviting birds and passers-by to gorge on their bright, tart goodness. And yet gorge they did not. Every time I wandered past I would survey the crop covetously, convinced that those who had an actual right to the bushes and their bounty would soon awaken to the ripeness of the harvest and take full advantage, but the day never came. The currants lingered. I waited. I decided enough was enough.
Read moreNorwegian(ish) blackcurrant custard buns
It is a myth universally peddled that Scandinavia has excellent baked goods. The British press, in particular, would have you believe that if you walk into any coffee shop or bakery across the entire Nordic region (they very rarely pause to acknowledge that Finland and Iceland are not, technically, part of Scandinavia) you will be greeted by an exquisite smorgasbord of soft, buttery delights, the gentle waft of cinnamon and cardamom softening the pungent accent of freshly ground coffee. And indeed this would be the case, were you to walk into any bakery across Sweden or Denmark. Norway, however, is another story.
Read moreOn seasonality, stockpiling, and Seville oranges
The other night, I made Claudia Roden’s famous boiled orange cake. So much more wonderful than that rather prosaic description suggests, this cake is the stuff of legends in the recipe world. Variations on its theme in cookbooks are invariably accompanied by an introduction reassuring you that you need not be sceptical of boiling two oranges in their entirety then folding their pulverised forms into a cake batter: the result is a delectably moist, fragrant cake packed with citrus aroma and the moreish (and, indeed, Moorish) hit of slight bitterness that only boiled orange rind can provide.
Felicity Cloake, in her Guardian ‘Perfect’ column from 2017, argues that neither tangerines nor navel oranges ‘can touch the gloriously tangy Seville for flavour’ in this cake: during their short season, ‘you can’t beat them’. Luckily for me, it happens to be Seville orange season. So why did I make this cake the other night using two rather sad, bullet-hard sour oranges from the freezer, when in my fridge’s salad draw sat an entire drawstring bag full of fresh Sevilles?
Read moreSpiced pumpkin pie and maple pecan cheesecake
The season for pumpkins is over!, I hear you cry. Well, not if you're me, and you've spent the last two months steadily stockpiling massive gourds so that you now have a small collection on your balcony, enjoying a radiant sea view. In my head I refer to them as The Gourd Gang, and they're a mighty attractive bunch, some with delicate slate-blue skins, some knobbly and dark green. I'm pretty sure I've burned enough extra calories from lugging them around town in my bike panniers (at one point I was carrying three, which is basically like having a pregnant bike) to justify an extra large slice of this recipe, which remains my favourite ever sweet dish with pumpkin. (Contenders for the savoury title are a lasagne, a Thai coconut noodle soup, and Italian pumpkin ravioli with sage brown butter. In case you were wondering, which I'm sure you were).
Read moreReconsidering the apple
If J. Alfred Prufrock measured out his life in coffee spoons, I could measure mine out in apples. For those fussy nursery years, the inoffensive blandness of the Golden Delicious, which I wanted pre-chopped in my lunchbox but would refuse to let my mother put lemon juice on to stop it turning brown, because the idea of something as exotic as lemon juice seemed, to my picky infant self, a truly atrocious adulteration of my lunchtime snack. During my pre-pubescent years, having figured out that the Golden Delicious was in fact anything but, I craved the juicy sweetness of the ubiquitous Pink Lady, soothed by the succulent flavour of homogeneity. The perfect apple for a child who just wants to blend in. For my teenage years, I favoured the Granny Smith. Hard, speckled and slightly sour, I think this apple is a fitting metaphor for my experience of adolescence.
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