Compendium 1: October 2024
Hello and welcome to October’s Compendium.
Once a month, I share the things that have captured my attention recently, along with a plant and a recipe or two that are especially good now, and my writing elsewhere. It is for everyone, free subscribers and paid. I hope it brings pleasure.
1: Good News
First up though, thank YOU: my writing of Abundance: Stories and Recipes from a Gardening Cook here as been shortlisted for the Garden Media Guild’s Digital Gardening Writer of the Year Award. This is because you turn up each week, read, support it - the community here is everything - and I am hugely grateful you are here. This, along with the Guild of Food Writers and Fortnum and Mason shortlisting for Abundance - before it even becomes a physical book - is an extraordinary thing, so thank you.
2: Event at Rutland Nursery
Next week, I have the pleasure of being at Rutland Nursery to be interviewed by the excellent writer, garden designer and (much more) Chris Young. There will be garden cocktail tasters, a great deal of conversation and much book signing.
It would be lovely to see you there.
3: Eat
It’s squash time of year and this is one of the very best things you can do with one. For a few more ideas, click here.
Squash harira soup
Harira soup is a classic North African soup, heavy with sweet spices and tomatoes. While it is by nature highly adaptable - lentils, no lentils, which lentils? - I’ve stretched this a fair way from its origins on account of the wind blowing strongly today: warmth and comfort are needed; heartiness and heft essential. You could argue that it’s more of a stew than a soup, and I’d not put up much of a fight: whether it becomes one or the other is yours to choose, depending on the amount of pasta and water you go for. The wind made me tip the pasta in to make it more of a supper than lunch: by all means drop the quantity or entirety of pasta if you wish.
I used red lentil pasta as one of those it is for eats no gluten. Orzo or noodles (around 100g) work really well instead. Bear on mind the quantity of water here is a guide: the type of tomatoes and lentils will affect how much you need, and the texture is yours to choose. I prefer this on the thicker side of thin; you might not.
I used the 5 thin wedges, plus a thicker one from the other half for the chef’s portion…
Serves 6
2 tbsp olive oil
2 leeks, finely sliced
2 tsp dried ginger, ground
2 tsp ground coriander
10cm cinnamon stick
1 tsp ground turmeric
3 tbsp concentrated tomato paste
2 x 400ml tins chopped tomatoes
1.5 litre water
200g puy lentils, well rinsed
160g pasta
sea salt
a generous grinding of black pepper
4 tsp harissa
a good handful of coriander, roughly chopped
6 wedges of cooked squash
A little olive oil for serving; plus yoghurt if you fancy.
In a large heavy-bottomed pan, warm the oil over a low-moderate heat and cook the leeks slowly until soft, stirring often. Season generously.
Add the spices and cook for a minute. Stir in the tomato paste, the chopped tomatoes and 1 litre of the water. Bring to a simmer and add the lentils, turning the heat to low. Cook for 30 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, adding water if needed. Season.
In a separate pan, cook the pasta in simmering water to the packet instructions. Stir into the soupy stew.
Place a wedge of squash into each bowl and spoon over the soup. Add a little yoghurt if you want, a teaspoon of harissa - more if you fancy the heat, a drizzle of oil and sprinkle with coriander.
4: Ears
If I am good for anything, it is a playlist…and if there’s ever a month where you might need something to soothe, or - on a different day - something to lift, October is it. With that in mind, I’ve created two playlists, each what I hope will bring what you need.
To soothe
To lift
5: Eyes
David Hepworth’s I Hope I Get Old Before I Die
If you have any interest in either music or its effect on society - you’ll find a real joy. Starting with Live Aid - ‘when live performance took over from records’ - it traces key moments since, illuminates our changing perceptions (‘when Paul McCartney closed Live Aid in July 1985 we thought he was rock's Grand Old Man. He was forty-three years old’). It’s brilliantly written, with so much great ‘take you back to the time when it was so different’ detail, eg no-one walking up Wembley Way to Live Aid would’ve been carrying a waxed cup of coffee.
Lev Parikian’s Six Things Substack
Every week, it is just wonderful. If you are knew to it, give it a few moments of your time - click here - and you’ll be captured.
6: Drink
Cucumber and Thai basil shrub
I’m making a lot of shrubs at the moment - they give my a physical nudge as well as being crazily refreshing. Shrubs are sweet/sour infusions, comings together of (usually) fruit, sugar, vinegar plus herbs and/or spices, mildly fermented to produce something delicious, refreshing and really beneficial to your gut health.
This is one of favourites, a tweak on a recipe from my book SOUR. I like these proportions - the volume it makes suits my enthusiasm for drinking it. I tend to have it lengthened 1:4 with sparkling water, but as an undiluted, enlivening midmorning nip it has much going for it, as it does with an equal quantity of gin with tonic to taste. I hope you try it - it’s so good. You can use any variety of basil, but I have a particular liking for Thai basil’s soft liquorice and nutmeg flavour here.
Makes around 500ml
40g Thai basil
400ml apple cider vinegar
300g caster sugar
1 large cucumber, peeled
Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar in a pan over a moderate heat, stirring frequently. Take the pan off the heat.
Place the basil in a non-reactive bowl, and pour the warm, sweet vinegar over. Allow to cool.
Grate the cucumber into the bowl, stir and cover with a tea towel. Leave it to infuse for at least 12 hours, and up to 24.
Pour through a strainer into a jug and decant into a sterilised jar or bottle. You can use it immediately, but it’s better off left to mature for a week in the fridge. It will last for 3 weeks or so in the fridge.
7: Garden
I don’t grow many types of garlic, but I do make an exception for Elephant garlic. It can grow seriously large - a palmful is perfectly usual, much larger entirely unsurprising. While it’s botanically more of a leek than a true garlic, all the cook cares about is what it tastes like and how easy it is to use. The good news is it’s utterly delicious and roasts to a gorgeous sweet pureé.
In the UK, now is a great time to sow garlic (and shallots and onions), popping them in around 7cm deep and 20 cm apart.
You can source virus-free garlic cloves to grow from many nurseries, and if you are a paid subscriber in the UK you can get 25% off from my nursery1.
8: My other writing
Have you heard of Scribehound gardening?
30 of the best gardening writers writing about what they most want to, once a month - which means you get one piece of writing every day popping into your inbox or app. there’s everyone from Adam Frost and Joe Swift to Arit Anderson to Alan Titchmarsh and Sarah Raven. I’m delighted to be one of the 30. You can even submit a piece yourself with the possibility it will be published on the 31st day of the longer months.
It’s about to launch - 1 November is the day. Get in before then and subscribe for £1 for the first month, half price for a year, and you can cancel anytime if it’s not for you.
Click here for more info - scroll down to subscribe for £1.
Country Life: Chilean guava
My column for Country Life this month is about Chilean guava - such a special fruit more of us would really benefit from growing. Imagine the best blueberries with a touch of strawberry, kiwi and bubblegum…and perhaps a little bay. They’re just ripening now: I snapped these (and ate one or two…) at RHS Hyde Hall last week.
Click here to read about them.
And if you fancy growing them yourself, click here - and don’t forget, paid subscribers in the UK get 25% off plants and seeds from my nursery2.
Sunday Times Food
Once a month, I come up with three recipes that are tweaks on the familiar - that elevate the usual with a touch of something special. My latest includes Shakshuka with burrata, Leek and thyme tart with fennel pastry, and Spaghetti with tomato sauce and pangrattato. It’s behind their paywall here.
9: Born To Do What They Do
I love the guitar and bass on D’Angelo’s The Root (it’s on the Soothe playlist, above) and didn’t have a clue until a few months ago that it was played by one person (Charlie Hunter) on one hybrid instrument. Glorious.
More soon…in the meantime, happy end of October
Mark
Click the link in the footnote above
Lovely. Lev’s Six Things looks like being a keeper of a curio site. I do sometimes think the key to a good public playlist in is putting nothing too obvious on there. It’s been a while since I listened to The Boy With The Arab Strap. And Angels with Ashes. And did Dusty’s voice ever not make a song so beautifully listenable?
That’s clever - how you embed your Spotify playlist into Substack. Love Leonard Cohen’s You want it darker.