APRIL NEWSLETTER
More dates for us to cook and eat together (Fortnum's classes & a brand new supper club date included), plus spring recipes and exciting garden changes.
Welcome to my monthly newsletter - a round-up of news, recipes and life in the veg patch - which is free to all subscribers. If you’ve made it here without subscribing, that’s easily rectified:
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Hello you lovely lot.
I come to you thoroughly reconnected and rewilded this month after a three-day silent nature retreat (the nature wasn’t silent, I was) at Sharpham Trust. If you’re interested in how it went (spoiler: gloriously) you can listen to the podcast episode I recorded after my last visit.
And a calm mind is necessary this month because things are busy. Lots to sow, lots to do in the garden (BIG news on that below), lots of recipes to share, and a NEW SUPPER CLUB date. So grab a cuppa and let me tell you all about it…
(TECHNICAL NOTE: There are a LOT of recipes here and they might not all fit in your email. If so, just hit VIEW ENTIRE MESSAGE at the end of the email, or head to the app or online version.)
Spring Supper Club - Thursday 23rd May
I’m heading back to beautiful Peterley Manor Farm to host another seasonal supper club featuring recipes from my book, From the Veg Patch, and from my Substack, made with produce from Peterley. We’ll serve up big sharing platters outside by the fire and I’ll talk about the food, how it’s made and grown. Last time was a really special evening - my biggest and most magical supper club yet - and I can’t wait to do it again. See you there:
Seasonal Sunday’s at Fortnum’s
As part of my role as Fortnum & Mason’s Veg Expert, I’m teaching a series of Seasonal Sunday classes where we all go shopping together in the food hall (before the store opens!) and then cook a 3-course seasonal lunch. The first, the other week, was such a lot of fun:
Next time - 12th May - you can expect asparagus, Jersey Royals, broad beans and more. Hope you can come!
Garden Changes
Big changes afoot in the garden. Over Easter, I roped my extremely handy husband into helping me put up a greenhouse (and we managed to remain married!) I’ve never had a greenhouse before and it is, let me tell you, the absolute business. I’ll show you round:
Its arrival marks the beginning of a new partnership with Rhino Greenhouses, so watch this space for lots more recipe videos and growing guides coming to you from my shiny new greenhouse studio. Bit giddy.
As if that wasn't enough, I am, as of last week, the proud tenant of an allotment. And it all feels rather Middlemarch thanks to the tenancy agreement which was titled Allotments for the Labouring Poor and features provision for the keeping of rabbits for the pot and references to the Peasant Land Act of 1850 (or something like that). Read about my plans here and come for a little tour below:
Visiting the Oracle
It’s not every day a legend invites you over for tea. And when they do, it’s best to arrive with cake. Which is just what I did a couple of weeks ago when I visited Jekka McVicar’s herb nursery just outside Bristol.
Jekka gave me a tour of the nursery where she and her family grow herb plants and seeds for sale, and host classes and open days. We had her homemade lemongrass tea and cake (the cake, since you ask, was this basic mix laced with blood orange, chopped rhubarb and glazed with marmalade and cooked in a 2lb loaf tin), then headed to the greenhouse where we chatted about life, herbs, and propagation.
A Month of Green Meals
Such a lot of green food this month! Here’s what I’ve been cooking:
Coming up in May, more green (pea mash), radish tarte tatin and some shamelessly girly madeleines. Shout with any recipe requests too:
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You are the absolute Queen of the multi task! Loving all this, and so many great recipes too, you are spoiling us!