Another post from the Good Life
The autumn season and the fact that the end of November marks six months of the ‘silly diet’ is making me feel reflective about what I have learnt so far in this year of local eating. The most important thing I have found is that narrative is important to me in many ways and when it comes to food, I like mine to have a story. I think that environmental concerns and a desire to challenge myself are what got me started on this project, but now what keeps me going is knowing the ‘backstory’ of where my food comes from, how it grew, who grew it. I’m still a sucker for stories.
I’ve learnt too that it’s not about denying yourself. When I started I was totally hardcore about the tiny ingredients that went into the food I ate and the drink I drank (yeast, sulphites, salt, rennet). I ended up making myself a little bit miserable and in the end developed the ‘booze clause’ so that I could drink local ales despite the yeast etc. Now guys, I have to admit, I have developed a salt and rennet clause meaning that I can have local cheeses too. I’m going to keep these to a minimum as I don’t think they’re good to eat all the time, but it’s nice to know they are there. I’ll also stick to goats and sheep cheeses. In fact, all of these rules are ones that Alisa and James had from the beginning. They also had an eating out with friends clause and a travelling clause. I’m not going to cave on the first one, my friends have dealt with me for six months and they can deal with me for another six. Plus I have found that the best meal I have had this year was with friends when they ate entirely local with me. It was joyful. The travelling clause might make an appearance if I take a new year’s trip mainly by train. I’ll try and keep it to the minimum though.
The snooziness of the season has also led me to give myself a time out from feeling guilty that I have not done anything to preserve any of the foods that flutter by. No jam, no canned tomatoes, no dried apples. I’m too sleepy to beat myself up about this so I have decided to count this as my training year. This is the year that I learn about seasons and micro-seasons, that I learn when there will be a glut of rhubarb and when there will be more strawberries than I can handle. Next year, when I know what’s coming, I can plan ahead and be ready for the bounty when it comes. Ah ha! Inspiration has just struck. The foraging group I set up clearly needs a preserving and fermenting group to work alongside it. I have a big kitchen, all I need now is people. Form an orderly queue!
One person who has been preserving is my friend Caroline. She came into some medlars from a friend of hers and spent the best part of the day turning them into medlar jelly. Before this gift, medlars had been a bit of a mythic fruit to my friends and I. They’re one of the few fruits that require you to wait until they are slightly rotten (bletted) before you can eat them. They’re also very rare and have gained the aura of antiquated Englishness because of this. Caroline’s medlar jelly rather overshot the jelly mark and turned itself into toffee. It was delicious medlar flavoured toffee though and it solved a problem I have been pondering for a while… Can you make toffee from honey? Yes you can is the answer. I have spent a good few days heating up said jar of jelly in a pan water and then spooning the slightly less hard jelly into my mouth. It is delicious and has the consistency of Turkish delight. I can inform you that half a jar of this substance will make you feel very sick though.
In other news, the allotment is coming together, at least in my head. Onions, garlic and broad beans are in and that’s more or less all you can grow at this time of year. I’m starting to really know what I’d like it to look like and what I’d like to grow on it. My aim for next year (and it’s an ambitious aim) is to cut down/cut out my veg box and get my veg largely from the allotment. Some very very hard work needs to go in before then though! Luckily, my friend Will and I have started doing reciprocal work at each other’s allotments. About every three weeks we go to one or other of our allotments and put in a day’s proper work. It’s amazing how much you can get done when there are two of you working hard. It’s also amazing how much nicer and less overwhelming it is to work with someone else rather than on your own. Last time we did this we went to Will’s allotment and built a deck. 
This time it’s my turn and we are going to tidy up my allotment. It’s a shit tip. And I’m not very good at tidying up on my own.
The other reason that I am starting to feel less stressed about what I need to do at the allotment is that I am up there three days a week. Since I moved, I am no longer close enough to home to go home at lunchtime so I go up to the allotment with my packed lunch. It is wonderful and as much as possible I get out in the sun to allow my body to make vitamin D. And I haven’t forgotten my lunch once! In a world where you can’t buy a sandwich, that would be miserable…