16.10.23

in the soil

A brief frost has knocked over the borage, the dahlias and the cosmos, the once-jolly sunflowers, the cold has cooked the last stunted cucumbers into skin-held jelly and seen off finally the tomato plants, it is a good ten degrees colder than last week, not cold for the time of year but cold at least for this year. I worry always in October that I have not done enough to prepare for the winter, there is such a short leap between summer’s bursting fruit and the need to get the ground ready for your brassicas, your alliums, your bitter leaves but this year at least I feel ready; little onions poke out from fine soil, beds are prepared for over-wintering beans, at the other end of the allotment out of the shade flowers sit tall in the waning light.

in the kitchen

This week we have been making cannoli, our kitchen porter was keen to learn and I was happy to oblige. There is a moral lesson of sorts in making cannoli dough in that to make it well you must work hard, it is a very low hydration and you need almost to force it together, the temptation is always to add more water but when it finally comes together through the pasta machine it is smooth and skin-dry, you have perfect little discs that will not stick to each other or to the countertop while you work which they would have done if you had added enough water to make a comfortable dough at the start; a hard dough is lightest in the end.

on the page

In vittles there is an interesting piece about the media panic around so-called ultra-processed foods, a term which nobody when pressed seems capable of defining. Read the article, if you haven’t. I have nothing to add except to note that sometimes it seems we as a society – as a species – are incapable of learning anything about anything.