Richard Rowntree, an unbroken chain, Nigel Slater, 7/8 time, and maybe the best way to eat rhubarb
Abundance: Tuesday 13 February 2024
The sun splashed across the dining table like spilt custard yesterday morning, and for a sweet moment I felt whole.
My skin sang, my mood lifted, my shoulders dropped. A shaft of light sent 8 minutes 20 seconds ago from 93 million miles away caught me unknowingly in need of exactly that; the complex individual that woke up too early rendered a clapping seal by nothing as unusual as a ray of welcome sunshine.
There’s a song1 by Animal Collective that moves gradually from glorious semi-chaos into glorious sunshine. Yesterday, as the sun bleached the table, felt exactly like that sounds.
It has been endlessly grey, heavy with mist, and cloudy. ‘Gray’s where that color should be.’ Today and the rest of the week looks the same. I don’t care. Yesterday came the antidote, imbuing me with the antibodies to handle it all.
An old friend too long unseen got onto the same train, into the same carriage, and the 10 morning minutes we shared between his boarding and my alighting were soaked in laughter and flashing sunshine. Soon after, I walked with an old friend who once again marvelled me with his inventive take on how to spend his time on this planet2. Later still, I stepped into the garden to talk to a good friend about an exciting opportunity that had fallen into his path, and having stepped into the garden saw light blasting shadows across and through what was in its path.
The artichokes with new lush growth next to desiccated flower stems that bore such deliciousness last summer; the Babington’s leek (a perennial that thrives in the early part of the year) poking enthusiastically skywards.
And when I came indoors, sitting waiting for the kettle to whistle, I accidentally discovered perhaps the best way to eat forced rhubarb - raw, dipped in the syrup that bathes the golden orbs of jarred stem ginger3. It really is something else.
These are the days that not only put fuel in your tank, they oil the engine and every moving part.
Let it rain: everything is ok.