Cookbook Club in person event: Wednesday 9th October, 6.30pm - 8.45pm
at Divertimenti Cookery School in central London
UPDATED: Well, this was a total and utter joy. What a thing to have a lovely group of the community here gather together (in real life!) to share and discuss dishes they’d each made from my very own cookbook. The recipes from Seasoning that we cooked and ate and shared were:
Cauliflower, leek and coconut soup
Patty pan squash with dried shrimps, ginger and lime
Celery and Hazelnut Gratin
Puy lentil, beetroot and baked feta
Black olive, shallot and tomato stuffed peppers
Cabbage leaves stuffed with mixed mushrooms & potato
Baked za'atar meatballs with tomato sauce and beetroot leaves
Shaved cauliflower, sultanas, preserved lemon and chilli salad
Rhubarb sponge
Fig, Chocolate and Pecan Frangipane Tart
Poached apples with rosemary and black pepper - this one was my contribution and an adaptation of Seasoning’s poached pear recipe. You can find the recipe here
A feast! Thank you to everyone who joined in x
A real-life, in-person meet-up where everyone coming brings something they have cooked. We will share together food and thoughts from my (!) latest cookbook: Seasoning - How to Cook & Celebrate the Seasons
Wednesday 9th October, 6.30pm - 8.45pm BST
at Divertimenti Cookery School in central London
Waiting list only now - but the waiting list is well worth signing up to as places often come free
Our current Cookbook Club theme for The Kitchen Bookshelf is seasonal cookbooks. And given it is the 6 month anniversary of my own contribution to the genre, I thought that for this IRL meet-up I’d ask you to share with me in a celebration of its recipes.
Tickets are £25 per person (plus Eventbrite’s fees) and only available to paid subscribers to The Kitchen Bookshelf. A glass (maybe two) of wine is included in the ticket.
About the event
The idea is that everyone attending the event chooses a recipe from the selected book to cook in advance and bring along on the night to share. We'll then talk together about what we all think of the books and the recipes. (This is clearly quite terrifying for me as it is my book we’re doing…)
We all eat and discuss each others' food through the course of the event but this is in no way a competition! Please just come willing to talk about what you made and what you think of the book.
About the book
Seasoning resounds with the rhythms of how our seasons meld and flow into each other. At its heart it is a book about why seasonality matters now - even / especially when we all know so much produce can be available year-round. It's about the value of reconnecting with the arc of the seasons for the good of the land and also our own delight.
It is my third cookbook and without a doubt the biggest, most ambitious and most personal I have done. It is structured by the conventional four seasons and features across them over 50 vegetables and fruits, each with a short feature about its heritage and seasonality, and that’s then followed by guides to how to shop and store, ways to cook and use, flavour partners and tips on preserving. Plus around 75 recipes that seek to make the most of the wonderful produce featured.
I hope so much that with Seasoning on the kitchen side no-one need ever be bored by what to do with the umpteenth showing of celeriac, beetroot, parsnips, potatoes, tomatoes….. (I should stress it very much isn’t a vegetarian book. Packed with vegetables, yes. And woven through is the seasonality of meat, fish and dairy that is so often forgotten but really matters too.)
A few of my favourite autumn recipes, just to give you the idea:
Autumn Salad: Beetroot, Fig, Blackberry, Radicchio and Hazelnut
Leek and Bean Broth with Grilled Hake
Zarzuela (Fennel and Fish Stew)
Celery and Hazelnut Gratin
Fig, Chocolate and Pecan Frangipane Tart
Pears in Red Wine with Bay and Thyme
