Yesterday was the last day of the recipe photoshoot for the book and it was up to me to bring the last few ingredients – medlar jelly, autumn olive jam, mizuna, salsify, chinese 5 spice mix and microleaves. The last of this little lot are just a few well chosen veg picked remarkably young – within a few days of germinating when no taller than 6cm. They are the suckling pig of the veg world, although less likely to get Paul McCartney in a tizzy.
Rocket, radish, fennel and in particular coriander are the perfect micros to try first. Each has its characterisic flavour only more tense and cleaner than when it’s usually harvested. Sow them today, get them on a sunny window sill and in a couple of weeks (half that in summer) you’ll be snipping little harvests that I promise will blow you away.
The coriander will take the longest to germinate. When it gets to that 6cm height, pull one seedling out, only one. Brush the compost off the roots and pop it in – chew it at the front of your mouth. It’ll be like a mouthful of regular coriander only better. And what happens when you grow coriander normally? Sow it, nurture it, wait a few months get a good load one day and it bolts the next. Waste o’ time. Grow it as microleaves and you’ll never go back, I promise. What you can pick up between first two fingers and thumb is enough salad to go with any baked fish.
As for the photoshoot – apart from a sweaty commutersville trek across town from Hither Green to Acton – nothing could’ve been more relaxed. The truly talented Laura Hynd, with her assistant, has taken all the recipe shots and the mini-polaroids that she printed out as she took them are just amazing. Wait until you see them.
And then there’s Debora Robertson, who took the original recipe list and made it into something a zillion times more gorgeous. Seven words: Jap An Ese Wine Berry Tri Fle. Having eaten a spacehopperful last week my belt buckle is pointing at my shoes, but it was worth it. I hope we get to work together on a thousand other books, or at least that she invites me round for tea a lot.
Both were clearly born to do what they do. I’ve written here and there about the mixed blessing of people so born to do what they do – I find them half inspiring, half paralysing. It makes me want to stop doing the pale impersonation of what they do. But whatever else would I fill my time with? Drink beer, play bass and pool is suspect. And I’m crap at all three. Apart from pool, which I always feel I can beat anyone at, even if the evidence suggest otherwise.
Jenny White,the stylist/person cooking the recipes, managed to cook 8 recipes many of which used ingredients she may not have seen before with less fuss than I create when making a sandwich. She cooked thme perfectly, which was even more special because after they’d been photographed we ate them. There is little better first impression that someone can create.
Also there were Simon and Nicola from Quadrille – we looked through spreads on their Mac. Spreads are what you see when you open the book – the two pages-worth. Some already had Laura’s earlier recipe shots in. It looks wonderful already. It is moments like these that fast-forward life, make the reality of the book coming out very apparent. The same happened when the outline of it went onto Amazon a few days ago.
Which is when it hits you how much of a team thing it really is. I write a load of words, someone takes the crap ones out and puts them into a gorgeous design along with your photos and someone else’s. Then I walk away and get all the credit for the good bits. It’s all entirely wrong. It’s also very exciting, although I’m sure I should be dreadfully cool about it all.
I’m getting some thank you’s out of the way right now because this is the moment when the words I wrote have changed into something else. It has become a book because of everyone else’s expertise and enthusiasm, although editing and messing around mean it’s still 6 months from being published.
Soon I’ll know all the pages and where the photos are: the book will become more normal to me, rather than the surprise it was yesterday. Hence a few thank you’s now.
And besides, in 6 months time I’ll be busy pretending it was all my doing alone.
Bloody hell, Diacono you're making me blush with your Oscar speech (but let what happened to poor Sandra Bullock be a lesson to you. No sooner had she simpered out her thanks, than her biker dude Sir Gallahad had a dozen tattoo'd ladies tumbling out of his closet, if biker dudes have closets). Can we do another book soon please, failing that just come round for tea and we'll talk about books we might write if we could be arsed. Then we can eat cake and talk about football. That is if the refreshments sign from the old Highbury stadium that hangs in my kitchen doesn't give you indigestion.
That quince shot is really very, very good indeed. All Dutch still lifey and 'ting.
Even I am getting quite excited by your book now although not as excited as I am by your trifle.
About which, incidentally, you seem do a lot of boasting and absolutely no sharing.
I always had fond memories of my mother's trifle which, incidentally, was custard free (as she thought custard was frankly a bit common) until she fed it to me again recently and I realised that it was just a sham.Too much cream and tinned fruit cocktail on top of stale sponge.
Another childhood dream shattered.
The reason for the disillusion is that, in the time that has passed between leaving home and now other people have introduced me to custard. Not just heavily sweetened Birds custard (which also holds a place in my heart) but the real McCoy.
It is ambrosial in every way.
So, unless you are carrying a tupperware box (without evidence of spoon marks) with a clearly visible label spelling out "TRIFLE – KEEP OUT" next time we meet then I will be unable to answer for the consequences.
That's a beautiful book, I have added it to my reading list and suspect I'll be having a word with my favourite local bookseller soon…
Wow, what an impressive team. No wonder the book's going to be so expensive… The pear photo (is that the cover photo?) is utterly, utterly lovely, as JAS and Gilly say, and the book looks like it's going to be very special indeed. I only hope I can get my hands on a heavily discounted copy.
we grow loads of micro veg and sell a lot of seed of them too. when we talk too people find it hard to understand that eatting seedlings is good for you. they look at you as if you are stupid espesialy the older generation but after they have tryed it they are converted and want to grow more. love the pic's
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I had never thought about coriander as a micro-crop but it makes perfect sense! I am going to bang my head against the wall for a while, then plant a tray of coriander seed for my kitchen windowsill.
I vaguely remember being fed a salad in Kuala Lumpur that contained seedling fennel and was utterly delicious. Now I'm looking forward to the book to see what else I can learn!
Good grief Mark, you are actually bestowing garden wisdom left right and centre. Whatever next?
Love those micro leaves, they are the best and go with practically everything. Love sprouts too they are both yummy and healthy.
Happy sowing & munching and good luck with the new book, it sounds frightfully promising.
YolandaElizabet from Bliss
HUSH on about your not being born to do what you do, honestly, if anyone was a total natural you are. SHUT UP!!!! Emma xx
ha ha i just preordered the book on Amazon, i'm gonna get that book up the charts if it's the last thing i do,
All the photos look great and enticing. I hadn't previously realised quinces are so pear like. I had imagined them to be lumpier and oranger . . . that they are pearish explains why I never liked things with quince in . . . but the photo of one is old masterish.
Maybe I'll try the micro crop idea. (Competition for space on windowsills is the reason for uncertainty.) I'm so careful with seed, each packet tends to last several years, then I begin to wonder whether that is the last time it will germinate. I could use all the ends of packets on a -throw-away-caution-crop.
Esther
Fascinating to know what goes on behind the scenes, looking forward to the book
Debora – I will happily pass below the Highbury sign, after all, you'll only have snuck in a place above us this season – and as everyone knows 3rd and 4th are the same these days. And we might even get some silverware this year….*hides*
JAS – thank you, glad you like the cover, although you'll be unsurprised to here there are moves to change it…apparently books with veg front the front sell morezzzzzz….I will bring trifle, I promise. Winner of the tennis gets the biggest spoon
Mel – thank you, i hope you like it
Gilly – that JAS has very little to do, which means he gets commenting before others. Think of it as a compliment to your full life
Lia – no chance
Green seeds and Mrd B – thank you two too
Allotment blogger – you'll be very happy when you get snipping I'm sure
Yolanda – don't worry, I'll be back to irrelevances very shortly. Apologies for a little moment of bestowing 'wisdom'. It won't happen again
EmmaT – you are nice. I've always said you are better than this rabble
Esther – well worth your end-of-packet gamble, you be glad you did
Your photos are utterly GORGEOUS!
OMG i am BEYOND excited about your book! looks utterly delicious…
So agree with you re. deep admiration of other people's skill which OUGHT to make you stop but instead makes you strive to do more…best kind of brilliance that…
btw my word verification here was 'pidance'….
Laetitia
This book is yours.
"Let your bookcases and your selves br your gardens and your pleasure grounds.Pluck the fruit that grows therin gather the roses the spices and the myrrh"
Juddah ibn Tibbon
Hi Mark
I just linked this post of yours to one I've just done on micro greens on the vertical veg site… hope that's OK?
http://www.verticalveg.org.uk/fast-fun-healthy-greens-for-winter/
Very best
Mark
Of course, m