Compendium 6: March 2025
An alcoholic salad dressing, one of the food books of the year, a 4 hour playlist of weathery delights, getting your book proposal right...and more
Hello and welcome to the March 2025 Compendium.
This is the monthly place I share a few things I hope you’ll like, that I hope will feed your senses.
Thank you for the comments, emails and Notes relating to earlier ones: I’m delighted it’s being so well received.
1: Hello again
It’s nice to be back after a short break - though I’m not sure what to make of the post I wrote saying I was taking a break receiving so many likes…
I’ve switched subscriptions back on, and I know some wanted to upgrade in order to come to the next couple of gatherings, the first of which is this coming Thursday: info below.
A new name - Abundance
You may have noticed this place is now called Abundance.
Garden to Table worked perfectly well but I guess it feels a touch bald for what goes on here now; thanks to everyone who comments, shares, likes and makes this place possible, ‘Abundance’ sums it up better. I hope you like it.
Some exciting news…
Talking of Abundance, the final edits to the book are done, and it has gone gone gone…to return as an actual book in late summer. I can’t wait to share it with you all.
And while the book I’ve been writing here in weekly instalments has gone, I don’t see me writing ‘Abundance’ here coming to an end.
2: Ears
This last week I have been frozen to the bone with easterly winds making it feel like -5°C here in Devon, then warmed by Harrogate sunshine in a 18°C a day later. It is jerkin on, jerkin off weather, as a friend so delightfully put it.
In honour of the changeability, a playlist dedicated to weather - I hope you like it.
3: Eat
This is excellent side and a fine way with forced and unforced rhubarb; try it with something like smoked mackerel, a potato and egg salad, or a very good leafy salad. It’s very much the sort of thing to enjoy on a sunny spring day, perhaps with the first radish thinnings.
Fennel, rhubarb & radish coleslaw with elderflower dressing
Next time someone asks what you’d like for a birthday or Christmas, don’t tell them not to bother: tell them to get you a microplane. Kitchen life will thenceforth be divided into pre and post microplane.
This crisp, lively salad took a couple of minutes, if that, with the coarsest of microplanes - by all means chop finely if you prefer.
Stir in as much of the dressing as you fancy, an equal amount of yoghurt (of whatever kind you favour), and give it a tweak of salt and pepper if you think it needs it.
Serves 4
340g fennel, finely grated
400g rhubarb, finely chopped
200g radish finely grated
a good pinch of dill, finely chopped
a little smoked paprika
yoghurt
Elderflower dressing
The pleasure of someone telling you that they’ve enjoyed a recipe of yours never wears off; when that someone happens to be Nigel Slater and by the way can he include it in his Observer column, it becomes laminated in your armoury against the days when the ideas won’t come, when the words run too thick, when mediocrity pours from your fingers. It reminds you that other days are sunnier, and that they will come again.
This dressing was in my book A Year at Otter Farm, and it’s so good I’m not about to tweak it just for the sake of it. This is its best self.
I use this on asparagus, peas, early salads and midsummer strawberries, and at this time of year when I want to call spring on a little quicker. The elderflower and rhubarb hold hands like old friends.
2 tbsp elderflower cordial
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Whisk together the cordial, vinegar, and whisk in the oil until it emulsifies. Season to taste.
4: Eyes
Noor Murad (her substack is here), raised in Bahrain by an English mum and an Arab dad, ex Ottolenghi, has written her first book, and it is astonishing. The writing, the recipes, the character, the flavours: it will unquestionably be one of the food books of the year.
It’s just published - more here. Everyone should buy it.
Laura Thompson’s Substack
True crime, Agatha Christie, the Mitfords and so much more. Always fascinating, engaging and brilliantly written: take a look for yourself.
5: Drink
Double ginger tamarind mojito
A good mojito shows just how much a cocktail really is little more than an alcoholic salad dressing. Sweet, sharp, aromatic and punchy must all be in complimentary attendance, and with this mojito they most certainly are. Here, the classic lime is substituted for tamarind, with the double gingers riding sidesaddle in place of the sugar and soda water. You can make this with tamarind concentrate - it is really pretty good, if you do - but if you bother with the tamarind block that comes with seed, the few minutes faff with be amply rewarded in the results.
From my book SOUR1.
a good handful of mint leaves (ideally Moroccan mint)
20g tamarind
a good slice of ginger
15g sugar
a good handful crushed ice
40ml white rum
ginger beer to taste, 140ml or so
In a cup, add 50ml boiling water to the tamarind, along with the sugar and ginger, and jab and stir with a spoon to break up the tamarind, bruise the ginger and dissolve the sugar.
Place the mint in a tall glass and use the thin end of a wooden spoon to bruise the mint gently - the aim is to release the scent and oils a little, not make pesto. Add a generosity of crushed ice to the mint, pour the gingery tamarind syrup through a sieve into the glass. Add the rum, stir well, then add ginger beer to taste. Stir and relax.
6: Garden
Ice Peach - a dwarf peach
The finest peach I ever ate wasn’t plucked, two glasses tiddly in an Italian orchard one summer afternoon; it fell into my (errr…) lap, causing discomfort to the snoozing me followed very quickly by a quiet revelation. A peach, caught rather than picked, at the point of perfect ripeness and with nothing more the tree can offer it, is an extraordinary thing. As much a drink as a fruit.
Not everyone has room for a peach tree, but everyone has for a dwarf peach. This one -Ice Peach, will reach only 1.8m and is as happy in a container as it is the soil.
Grow it somewhere sunny, sheltered, ideally protected from spring rains: click here to see them.
Don’t forget, if you are a paid subscriber in the UK you get 25% off all plants and seeds.2
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 is about the finest 2 acres I know, and the threat to its existence.
Click here to try for £1 for a month, cancel anytime.
Country Life: Microleaves
My column for Country Life this month is about microleaves - seedlings no larger than 7cm or so, that are full of an even more intense flavour than when fully grown. Coriander, radish and rocket are three of my favourites, but there’s a wide range of deliciousness that’s ready in a very short time.
Click here to read about them.
And if you fancy growing them yourself, don’t forget paid subscribers in the UK get 25% off plants and seeds from my nursery3.
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. This month’s column has three rather pleasing biscuits. I hope you enjoy them.
It’s behind their paywall here.
8: Born To Do What They Do
Federer’s backhand: simple as that.
More soon…in the meantime, happy end of March
Mark
Yes, since you ask it was shortlisted for James Beard Award (aka the global food Oscars) but I don’t like talking about it.
Click the link in the footnote above
Love everything AND have just ordered Ice Peach.
Brilliant playlist, Mark.
Have you heard Karl Blau's version of "Fallin' Rain"?
I find it very beautiful and calming.