Compendium 5: February 2025
Hello and welcome to February’s Compendium.
This is the monthly place I share a few things I hope you’ll like, that I hope will feed your senses in one way or another.
Thank you for the comments, emails and Notes relating to the last ones: I’m delighted it’s being so happily received.
1: Writer Gatherings
Every month, I run an online event to do with writing. Some are to do with Substack, others about moving a book along the potholed road towards getting it published.
I have just launched two new writer gatherings, ready to book on if you fancy.
The first will help anyone who is writing (or wants to write) a book proposal to get it right; the second, is for anyone struggling with any technical or practical issues with starting or running their Substack. Click below for more info.
If either (or both) sound like they might be for you, I can help. Click on them for more info.
2: Eat
While my body crazes carbs in the cold months, my mind occasionally overrules with thoughts of a salad: this bitter-leaved delight, with a dressing that hints at spring, is one of my favourites. It’s taken from my book, SOUR. I hope you like it.
Chicory, red grapefruit, olive, avocado, toasted pine nut, dill with a red grapefruit and elderflower dressing
This is one of those salads that is as much of a split carrier bag of ingredients as it is a recipe. Its magic lies in the contrast of sweet, sour, bitter and salt - and while you can (and should) alter this to your heart’s content, don’t hold back on any of those flavours. Here, boldness rewards.
I use half red and half green chicories for looks, keeping the smallest leaves whole.
Serves 4
4 small-medium chicory
1 red grapefruit, peeled
130g black olives
1 avocado
50g pine nuts
a small handful of dill, chopped
Red grapefruit and elderflower dressing, see below
Toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan over a moderate heat for a few minutes, agitating the pan frequently to prevent the nuts from burning. You can either lay a base of grapefruit sliced thinly parallel to its equator, or slice either side of each membrane to release each segment.
Tumble the ingredients together with as much/little care and flair as you wish, serve on a large platter or individual plates, sprinkle with dill and splatter with the dressing sweet/sharp dressing.
Red grapefruit and elderflower dressing
2 tbsp red grapefruit juice
4 tbsp elderflower cordial
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Whisk the grapefruit juice, cordial, mustard, a good pinch of salt and a generous peppering together in a glass. Add the oil, whisking to create an emulsion. Taste and add a little more salt and pepper if needed.
3: Ears
Thank you for so many comments, emails and messages about last month’s playlists - I’m delighted they are bringing pleasure. This month, just one, but what a fine one it is.
Outside, a coal tit punctuates my indoor day as I write, the occasional sparrow hawk watches fat pigeons from the telegraph pole, and wrens flit about, their tails pointing skyward like a hitchhiker’s thumbnail: the birds know it is nearly - but not quite - spring.
And so this month’s playlist has birds at its heart. I hope you enjoy it.
4: Eyes
Lucy Brazier is a brilliant writer - author of the River Cottage Christmas Book, and of numerous other books you may well own but not know she ghost wrote. A few months ago, I got an early copy of Lucy Brazier’s book The Honesty Box. I know Lucy and have seen this book evolve from what started as a great idea, into something really remarkable. This is an extraordinary book - brave and brilliantly written - about what it is like to try and rebuild a marriage having decided to separate but in the light of Lucy’s husband’s diagnosis of ADHD and autism. As the blurb says, ‘it is a funny, heart-wrenching, uplifting quest for truth, transformation and marrows’.
Lucy Brazier’s Honesty Box Substack
Lucy is also here, and her Substack is all all about ‘sharing seasonal stories from my honesty box; every day life, simple recipes, garden tips and a misspent life in show business’. Highly recommended - click below to take a look.
5: Drink
White Dalmation
The traditional Dalmatian cocktail - a marvel of vodka, pepper syrup and citrus juice - traditionally uses black pepper, but I prefer it with white: this is a recipe where the excellence of the pepper shines through particularly well. I use white Sarawak peppercorns. It’ll be outstanding with bog standard supermarket specials, but use great pepper and you’ll tell the difference. It is delightfully lively: should you have a slight sniffle or be feeling in any way lethargic, here is your medicine.
For the syrup, enough for 4
1 tbsp white peppercorns, roughly crushed
160g caster sugar
Serves one
50ml white pepper syrup
50ml vodka
100ml grapefruit juice
First, make the syrup by warming the peppercorns, sugar and 120ml water in a small saucepan until it reaches a simmer. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Pour through a fine sieve and discard the pepper. Some finer particles may well pass through, but these will only add to the impact.
Add the syrup, vodka, and grapefruit juice to a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake vigorously. Pour into a martini glass and prepare to be wakey wakeyed.
6: Garden
One of the herbs that gives the garden some presence during winter is salad burnet.
This pretty, UK-native perennial produces cucumber flavoured leaves from around now until about May when the plants flowers and leaves become a little bitter.
The young succulent leaves bring fresh punctuation to a spring salad, and in summer brighten a jug of Pimms. I probably use it most - with mint of solo - to flavour a jug of water for the table. Cut it back when he leaves toughen, and it will spring back with soft new growth.
Salad burnet loves a moist soil and dislikes shade. Now’s a good time to buy one - you can get them from some specialist nurseries - including mine - and don’t forget, if you are a paid subscriber in the UK you get 25% off all plants and seeds.1
7: My other writing
Scribehound gardening
We are into the third month of 30 of the best gardening writers - including Joe Swift, Advolly Richmond, Huw Richards and Sarah Raven - writing about what they most want to.
Subscribe, and once a day an email of brilliant gardening writing will arrive in your inbox to read or listen to. My latest about planting a pecan orchard - likely the only one in the country - and what it brought me.
Click here to read your first article free, and for an subscription offer.
8: Born To Do What They Do
A few months ago, I walked the estuary path with three very lovely people - two of my oldest friends, and the third, a man I’ve known a long while but not shared much time. He and I fell into step and talk turned to his then imminent book and our old dads, both now toes up.
His first, Standing In Gaps, had me laughing out loud, moved, and deeply envious at his touch with words. Seamus was on Tommy Tiernan’s show a few weeks ago: here he is reading a beautiful passage from his latest, Leaning On Gates, about ‘the old fella’2.
Happy end of February, maybe even almost end of winter, to you.
Mark
If there is a better arrow fired at the heart of many a father/son relationship than ‘Was there many on the plane?’ I don’t know of it
Looking forward to diving into the playlist – a few tunes new to me. Thanks!
Thank you, Mark. This was all very lovely. That reading by your friend Seamus ♥️