what's in season: october

windfall apples, October 2015

Apples
Behold the apples’ rounded worlds:
juice-green of July rain,
the black polestar of flowers, the rind
mapped with its crimson stain.

The russet, crab and cottage red
burn to the sun’s hot brass,
then drop like sweat from every branch
and bubble in the grass.

They lie as wanton as they fall,
and where they fall and break,
the stallion clamps his crunching jaws,
the starling stabs his beak.

In each plump gourd the cidery bite
of boys’ teeth tears the skin;
the waltzing wasp consumes his share,
the bent worm enters in.

I, with as easy hunger, take
entire my season’s dole;
welcome the ripe, the sweet, the sour,
the hollow and the whole.
Laurie Lee (1914-1997) 

what's in season: september

wild brambles (about 20 feet from my front door!)

Blackberry-Picking
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots

what's in season: august

a red pepper dragonfly!

Crimson pepper pod
add two pairs of wings, and look
darting dragonfly.
Basho 1644-94

I was ambling around the internet looking for some poetry inspiration to introduce this month's roundup of seasonal produce. Basho's haiku on the subject of red peppers and dragonfly wings really rather tickled me. His haikus are a joy and still speak vibrantly down the centuries.

what's in season: july

pink gooseberries from my garden - July 2015

We are having a heatwave and at the moment my garden feels a little tropical. It is not just because of the riot of colour from masses of towering hollyhocks that have self-seeded, but but a small pandemonium of ring-necked parakeets roosting in both mine and my neighbours' gardens. While very pretty, in shades of green and a hint of pink, they are, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody noisy.

what's in season: june

a june rose from my garden

My garden is lush at the moment, overgrown with rampant roses, honeysuckle and elderflowers. I know I should probably have cut them back, but they do look so wild and pretty. (Although in my defence I have developed carpaI tunnel syndrome over the past few years, and sometimes it is just too painful to do any proactive gardening. This is also one of the reasons why I haven't been cooking or blogging much over the past few months, as I have had problems handling cooking utensils. It has just been far too dangerous!)

what's in season: may

purple sprouting broccoli

Yet again, May has got off to a bit of a grey start - the sky over London is a murky shade of gunmetal. Last night there was a spectacular hail storm, although the garden doesn't appear to have suffered; everything is looking rather lush with bluebells, wild leeks, the odd nasturtium and some early roses, as well as a few tulips. It has of course been another mild and wet spring.

what's in season: april

scented clematis armandii - April 2015

April Rain Son
Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain. 
Langston Hughes, 1902-1967

Like Langston Hughes, I love the rain too. Of course, I am equally partial to a bit of sunshine too. Which is probably a good thing, since we seem to get both types of weather on the same day in England during April.

what's in season: march

spring garlic and the green shoots of recovery!

Helloooooo. I'm back!

Which might be a strange thing to say if you hadn't noticed I'd gone. Well, I won't bore you with my tales of woe. I had  bit of an accident and I've been recovering. Frankly, I hadn't been doing much cooking either, but now I want to get back in the food saddle and start blogging again. Yippeeaiyay!

what's in season: november

Boskoop Rouge apples from Chegworth Valley at Borough Market

The Crossed Apple
1've come to give you fruit from out my orchard, Of wide report.
I have trees there that bear me many apples. Of every sort:

Clear, streaked; red and russet; green and golden: Sour and sweet.
This apple's from a tree yet unbeholden, Where two kinds meet,
So that this side is red without a dapple,
And this side's hue is clear and snowy.
It's a lovely apple. It is for you.

what's in season: october

autumn leaves 2014

Autumn Movement
I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.
The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

what's in season: september

vegetables at Borough Market

With half-hearted levies of frost that make foray, retire, and refrain
Ambiguous bugles that blow and that falter to silence again.

With banners of mist that still waver above them, advance and retreat,
The hosts of the Autumn still hide in the hills, for a doubt stays their feet;

what's in season: august

a beautiful display of tomatoes in Borough Market - summer 2014

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity?
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

what's in season: july

clematis - london july 2014

I get so excited in July. If June is a dreamy, soft focus kind of month in muted pink. Then July is bright and full of sunshine colours with food to match. But this year, I have even more things to be excited about. If you weren't aware of the fact, then this is just to let you know that for the past few months I have been given a weekly column on The Guardian's website as part of their Live Better sustainable living challenge on the subject of leftovers, a subject very close to my heart!

what's in season: june

june elderflowers

The Elder Fairy
When the days have grown in length,
When the sun has greater power,
Shining in his noonday strength;
When the Elder Tree's in flower;
When each shady kind of place
By the stream and up the lane,
Shows it's mass of creamy lace
Summer's really come again!
Cicely Mary Barker (1895-1973)

what's in season: may

springtime nasturtiums

May has got off to a bit of a grey start - the sky over London is a murky shade of gunmetal. Although when I step out into my garden, or walk along the lane to the main road, there are spots of colour everywhere, from bluebells and nasturtiums that have seeded unexpectedly and survived the wet, mild winter.

what's in season: april

plum blossom from an elderly tree in my backgarden

Always Marry An April Girl
Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you. 
Ogden Nash, 1902-1971

T.S. Elliot called April the "cruellest  month", which probably resonates with all cooks in Britain since it is rather lean in terms of seasonal British produce. This is not helped by the strange weather we have experienced over the past few years. God only knows what we have in store over the next few months in terms of unseasonable conditions, since at the moment London and southern parts of England have just experienced a dust cloud of sand blown in from the Sahara!

what's in season: march

a riot of clematis in my garden

what's in season: february

an orange for Chinese New Year

It's raining. It's been raining constantly for months. It has been the wettest four weeks in over 100 years *. My personal ark, (the good ship Get Stuffed) is about to be dragged out of the shed for her annual spring clean. Still, there is always good food to look forward to, even while splashing around in your galoshes (although not I suspect if your kitchen has been flooded).

what's in season: january

orange clove pomander for the new year

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.
G.K. Chesterton

New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
Mark Twain

what's in season: december

my santa's elf hat chilli!

No Christmas elves were harmed in the delivery of this seasonal post. 

Wha?

I was tidying up some plants on a dusty windowsill and found the saddest plant you've ever seen. I say plant; it was actually a few twigs in some dried-up compost. It had been a chilli plant and still clinging to it was this wrinkled chilli, which to my mind looked like the sort of hat you might see on one of Santa's little helpers, if he hadn't bothered to iron it. 

Once I had stopped laughing, I decided to photograph the chilli to illustrate December's good food. And it is highly likely that I will later even use it in some paste or other. That's a guarantee really.