25.2.25

in the soil

The first visit in a couple of weeks and I am expecting the plot to look worse, ravaged by neglect and bad weather; the broad beans are not doing well at all and the winter lettuces which never quite got going have died back completely but otherwise it is not too bad, not too bad – at this time of year you can look at the soil and think about what will be there rather than the failures of last year, victims of the slugs and the winds. The garlic which I thought had died in the soil has all finally sprouted – perhaps I sowed the cloves too deep – and my first leaves of wild garlic are poking through their lazy mulch of comfrey and torn-up fennel twigs, spring is on the way; at the top of the plot, on the other hand, the rhubarb has done nothing underneath its forcing bucket, perhaps applied too early, and so I move it over to the healthier-looking plant to its right. With spring comes choking weeds, I should look after the raspberries but not this week, I pour a layer of wood-chip around the fruit bushes to keep down the grass and the dandelion which I want to grow but not right there.

in the kitchen

After a week of cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen and then a weekend back at work I am not inclined to do much for myself and so we live off takeaways and restaurant meals, pizza and rotisserie chicken and stir-fry and some American-style pancakes, bacon and eggs and sausages until we both I think feel the lack of vitamins and make together (I chop, she cooks) leek and potato soup with veg-bag veg and chicken stock from the takeaway and I think about a restaurant that only serves leek and potato soup with bread and butter and cheese to follow and tumblers of red wine and how nice that would be. Today I am boiling a pan of the Sicilian beans I can never remember the name of which look like little orcas and I will make them into something wholesome and filling, I am working two doubles this weekend and I do not think there will be many vitamins.

on the page

I do not have much time to read, either, and I find it hard to focus on the books I do pick up, I slowly begin to enjoy Her Side of the Story and am faintly disappointed by the ending of The Fortress of Solitude (most absurdly by its assertion that John Cale is a cellist), mainly I read on trains and over morning coffees the latest Tribune which is focused on food and its politics with a lyrical essay on the progressive restaurant, a heartbreaking editorial from Gaza, a piece on Polish milk-bars, all of which demand more thought than I am able to give them. Instead I think about a piece I wrote for Vittles on the meaning of hospitality, about Jason Atherton's idiotic remarks and the lack of dignity given to hospitality and other food workers, especially to those who are not white males.