9.9.25
in the soil
Each year I find myself fascinated by the way the cucumber dies from the root, death finding its way not in through the plant's spindly extremities but outwards, right from the heart. The leaves around the thick stems are curled and browning, still soft and green at the questing ends of the outermost tendrils; for a minute I think there is a stalk still living and flowering completely detached from the earth, suspended in the lowest branches of the hazel, but then I see the connecting stem running through the grass. I pick off all the fruit I can find and immediately feel bad, thinking that I should leave one at least to swell to maturity and save the ripe seed within, to sow again next year of course but more just in thanks to the plant, in return for all of the fruit it has given me to let it know – somehow – that it will continue once this version of itself is dead, as is its purpose I think although who knows what a plant intends. There is still hot sun on the days when it is sunny and the rain between has made lush the still-growing green, the agretti I left to go to seed still plump and edible, leaves multiplying on the fig and on the cucuzze, grass growing everywhere. A surprise! The raspberries which never did much of anything are covered in green fruit, must all along have been an autumn variety, never given the chance to flourish in their old home next to the brambles, now come into their own.
in the kitchen
Still high summer in the kitchen, at the market are sweetcorn and peppers and aubergines and ripe tomatoes, greengages and little mirabelles, raspberries and even late cherries colliding with the first autumn squash that I cannot believe are really ripe and certainly have not been cured in storage, a few pointed cabbages and some broccoli gesturing towards the months to come; I have yet to be offered any wild mushrooms, from here or elsewhere. At this time of year I like to eat dinner the way my father-in-law likes to eat dinner, one (smallish) piece of protein (smoked herring, a pork steak, scrambled eggs, a little salami or prosciutto, a chunk of cheese, a single large meatball) with one generous side of well-cooked vegetables (braised artichokes, sautéed radicchio, green beans stewed with garlic and rosemary, I draw the line at boiled courgettes) or if appropriate with soft white polenta, not rich with butter and milk and cheese but austere, tasting of grain. Last night we broke the rules and had smoked herring (A Whitby kipper procured by my brother's partner) with soft white polenta and some sautéed courgette, tonight I think a pork chop and good tomatoes, heavily salted and dressed in oil.
on the page
Having mired myself (see last week) in several works of non-fiction and a few novels of the austere and minimal kind as well as something I am supposed to be reading for work it is a relief to jump into Alan Moore's The Great When which I had read about a while ago and then somehow completely forgotten. Although a big fan of his comics (his author bio at the start of this book describes him as the best and most influential writer in the history of comics) I had struggled with the only one of his novels I had previously attempted, Voice of the Fire, unwilling to engage with its deranged dialect; whether Moore has changed or I have changed I don't know. I suppose I have read much more around him now, his work and friendship with Iain Sinclair, his interest in alchemy and the occult, and I am more ready to enter this world of bookselling and psychogeography and the sinister ghosts of post-war London.