The Kitchen Bookshelf - Newsletter #8
On mayonnaise, new potatoes, Vegetables, and events (then mayo again)
Last week I spent some time with my 10 year old niece as she was prepping to give a talk at school on her favourite subject: horse-riding. She asked me what I’d choose and my answer won me that particular look of contempt mixed with confusion that kids specialise in.
I’ll admit that mayonnaise was a surprising answer. Perhaps to me as much as her yet I meant it. Especially at this time of year when so many wonderful new season vegetables need barely any cooking to be fabulous, but will be taken to another level with a dollop of homemade mayo. It is an especially glorious partner for freshly cooked new potatoes - the subject of this week’s paid subscriber feature. Which also includes a recipe for my easy, never-fail basic mayo go-to. (You’ll never go back to a squeezy bottle.)
Speaking of vegetables - I’ve just written and posted a review for Mark Diacono’s joy of a new book, Vegetables.
I’m looking forward to seeing lots of you for coffee and cookbook conversation tomorrow morning. It’s not too late to sign up for that. All week long I’ve been putting into our chat just a few of the cookbooks to travel by that I love. From books by Sumayya Usmani to Elizabeth David and Keith Floyd and more. Do please continue to add yours too.
The in-person event that I announced last week sold out super-quickly which is just brilliant. (I think it is perhaps worth signing up to the waiting list as spaces inevitably come free.) And next week I’ll be announcing more plans here for July.
Merry weekends all,
Angela x
COOKBOOK CLUB - continuing our June theme: cookbooks to travel by.
Tomorrow morning (Sat 22nd, 8.30am BST) is our digital meet-up sharing ideas and recommendations with each other about books that through the way they feature food have that ability to take us to a different place or perhaps take us back somewhere. No need to cook something for it, no need to even prepare much. Just come along ready to listen / share the cookbook love. Drop me a message if you’d like to join for it:
The Pepperpot Diaries by Andi Oliver - Head here for my reading notes on The Pepperpot Diaries, to join the online discussion and find out what happened at its meet up.
Our next Cookbook Club events
Cookbook Club online event: Saturday 22nd June, 8.30 - 9.30am
More from Cookbook Club: The Kitchen Bookshelf reviews Vegetables by Mark Diacono
THIS WEEK’S PAID SUBSCRIBER NEWSLETTER FEATURE:
In Seasoning: new potatoes
More from In Seasoning: The elderflower is nearly but not quite all gone so here are Seasoning’s top tips for elderflower foraging and what to do with it; similarly there’s not long left for asparagus season now.
RECENTLY ELSEWHERE ON THE KITCHEN BOOKSHELF
MENTORING - Making Borough Market: The Knowledge - A podcast recorded for Borough Market, discussing with Kim Lightbody our photographer, Dave Brown our designer, and Liz Gough our publisher about the making of Borough Market: The Knowledge (my second book).
NEW WRITING / RECIPES - Why I think the best people poach chickens.
ODDS & ENDS
Odd scraps of cookbook news etc that don’t really fit elsewhere
I’ve seen on socials that this week is 10 years since the first books by Honey & Co and
came out. It’s also the 10th anniversary of Rachel Roddy’s debut, Five Quarters. What a summer of cookbooks it was in 2014! And not just wonderful books, but new voices that have sustained. I wonder what books and writers we’ll be looking back on like that in 2034?!This week I visited two very different farms and found them both inspiring in different ways: Firstly, Lacey’s in High Wycombe runs a herd of Guernsey dairy cows. I last visited this farm 8 years ago and clearly a lot - a lot - has happened since then for us all. It was interesting to reflect on the changes there and in the diary industry more broadly.
Then the next day I went to Sitopia Farm in Greenwich. They’re an urban farm trying to shape food system change. I am doing an event there next week and just can’t wait.
India Knight writes HOME which is one of my very favourite substacks and so I was chuffed beyond chuffed that she chose to write in it about Seasoning.
It ends
I now can’t stop thinking about mayonnaise and all the wonderful summertime meals - like this one, on holiday a few years back - where the simplicity of the rest of our lunch was elevated beyond imagining by it.
Ax