I'm trying to remember the last time I was in a shop - I think it was last Wednesday, when we went to the butcher's at the end of Hughenden Road for some sausages, eggs and cheese. We caught him cashing up at half day closing and, thankfully, he served us. Ah, no, that's wrong because on Thursday we were on the A370 and popped into Puxton Park Farm Shop for a loaf and a lavender plant for our patio area; I've always loved the smell of lavender and I hope make a body rub by grinding it together with that coarse sea salt we collectively bought so much of.
What I mean to say is that, since joining this food buying group, ordering in bulk from Essential, having milk and yoghurt delivered directly by the milkman and sharing a fruit and vegetable box, we have had very little need to spend time and too much money in supermarkets. I might have been spotted, on occasion, grabbing a pizza from Waitrose (about four times in four months), but sometimes you just fancy a little of something different and I make no apologies for it.
We always have more than enough food in our kitchen; healthy snacks, hearty soups, jacket potatoes aplenty (why are there so many spuds in these box schemes?) We've recently started going to home-educators play-dates, where we eat communally, each bringing something tasty to the table. It's been an education in recipes and almost-forgotten food pleasures - a brand new sort of learning. What to take? I've been rustling up vegetable cous-cous and fruit flapjacks - ingredients for these are always on hand. It feels good to have taken the effort to cook something from scratch to be enjoyed by so many people.
Today, we harvested some wild garlic by a stream, somewhere near Glastonbury. The younger leaves have already been turned into pesto with olive oil and sunflower seeds, ready for a very quick and yummy meal with pasta. Any edible leaf can make a decent pesto and it keeps for ages in the fridge. The older leaves will accompany a vegetable soup tomorrow and the flowers look ace on a salad, don't they?
And you can probably smell me coming a mile off :-)
