For a long time we've wanted to get one of those veg boxes that gets delivered to you once a week, full of seasonal veg locally sourced from a nearby farm. The problem with the service provided by Abel & Cole and such companies, is that when you live in a block of flats in London, there is just nowhere for them to leave the box during the day, even if you trust your neighbours. A few years back, Tescos introduced one which we got a few times - but though it was convenient (delivered in the evenings alongside your weekly shopping), it was disappointing as most of the veg seemed to be flown or shipped in from somewhere far away, so was hardly supporting local farmers. We stopped that pretty quickly - and we can't have been the only ones, as I think they quietly adandoned it...
So imagine our delight when on a recent wander through Herne Hill we discovered a new local initiative called Local Greens, run by a small group of local ladies, supplying weekly bags of seasonal veg sourced from small and organic farms as close as possible to this part of London. Instead of delivering it to you at home, the bags are left at several local collection points and you go along on a Thursday evening after work to pick it up. And when we saw they were about to institute the Brockwell Lido Café as one of the collection points, which is at most a 10 minute walk from us through Brockwell Park, we signed up!
We're still getting into the swing of figuring out what to do with unusual vegetables (ideas for celeriac anyone?), mostly because this has been an unusually busy month for us - with me in Houston, back for a few days before going to Granada (see below), then back for a few days before K went off to Paris for a conference... But today I have been trying to catch up a bit. The clocks went back this morning so it has been the usual slightly odd, jetlaggy kind of day when it feels later than it is, so what better than to spend the afternoon cooking. I have made some stock out of a couple of chicken carcases that we had kept in the freezer, and have roasted the beetroot that came with the veg bag, and tomorrow night we will have borscht for supper. Since my cold-addled brain (I came down with a really nasty one this week and even took time off work, which I hardly ever do) mistook a freezer tub of egg whites for something else, and therefore defrosted it, I have made meringues too!!
Yes, I spent last weekend in Granada, attending the opening of the exhibition 'Owen Jones y la Alhambra', which I co-curated. The exhibition design looks fantastic, and it was just wonderful to think of Owen Jones and his work 'coming back' to the place that so inspired him in the 1830s... A really happy weekend.
So imagine our delight when on a recent wander through Herne Hill we discovered a new local initiative called Local Greens, run by a small group of local ladies, supplying weekly bags of seasonal veg sourced from small and organic farms as close as possible to this part of London. Instead of delivering it to you at home, the bags are left at several local collection points and you go along on a Thursday evening after work to pick it up. And when we saw they were about to institute the Brockwell Lido Café as one of the collection points, which is at most a 10 minute walk from us through Brockwell Park, we signed up!
We're still getting into the swing of figuring out what to do with unusual vegetables (ideas for celeriac anyone?), mostly because this has been an unusually busy month for us - with me in Houston, back for a few days before going to Granada (see below), then back for a few days before K went off to Paris for a conference... But today I have been trying to catch up a bit. The clocks went back this morning so it has been the usual slightly odd, jetlaggy kind of day when it feels later than it is, so what better than to spend the afternoon cooking. I have made some stock out of a couple of chicken carcases that we had kept in the freezer, and have roasted the beetroot that came with the veg bag, and tomorrow night we will have borscht for supper. Since my cold-addled brain (I came down with a really nasty one this week and even took time off work, which I hardly ever do) mistook a freezer tub of egg whites for something else, and therefore defrosted it, I have made meringues too!!
Yes, I spent last weekend in Granada, attending the opening of the exhibition 'Owen Jones y la Alhambra', which I co-curated. The exhibition design looks fantastic, and it was just wonderful to think of Owen Jones and his work 'coming back' to the place that so inspired him in the 1830s... A really happy weekend.
1 comment:
Hi Max, hmm, I have a lovely recipe for celeriac remoulade if you still want it. All this activity makes me tired! Xx bev
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