The Summer of Good Intentions: Part 2

'Hang on a minute' I suspect you're saying, 'We're now in January and you promised us more in August.  We'd given up on you and thought you may have come to a sticky end lying in a strawberry wine jam of your own making.'  What more can I say than life got in the way and other things seemed to be more pressing but what excitement and acts of derring do.  So what follows is an edited version of posts I half wrote and I hope you enjoy it but read fast.  There will be more.

It's been a while, and for that I apologise profusely.  Promises of daily updates have been broken, getting lots done has somehow not gone entirely to plan, the new me is still pretty much the old me but with many loose ends, islands of chaos/creativity, and more ideas than I can keep up with.  So, how did the Summer of Good Intentions go? Well...

Pockets of lovely weather this summer gave me great pleasure and an abundance of lovely food.  A fair few posts have been about food because I love it.  Finding it, buying it, growing it, looking at it, reading about it, making, eating, and contentedly digesting it.  It's also a great comforter and way of procrastinating.

I received a lot of home grown stuff from William and Julia at the Walled Garden, from which many meals were made along with chutney, jam, wine and so many other things.  I don't even like jam, I just enjoy making it.  My jam and wine cupboard is full to bursting.  If you know me and receive gifts on auspicious occasions, much of this will be coming your way.

Unfortunately last year, I didn't pay as much attention to my own garden.  As a result the potatoes you see below were the only ones I got from three grow bags!  Enough for two meals. Tossed in a cob nut pesto and served with flower salad - all from my garden and the canal side - they were delicious but it's hardly self sufficiency.

My parents, as usual, had grown enough to fill  greengrocers and one day in the middle of the holidays they gave me some beautiful artichokes.  

I love artichokes.  There's something almost prehistoric about their spiky, sculptural leaves.  These are flowers with survival instincts.  No man or beast will get to their heart easily and once consumed may not sit easily either. These were steamed and served with a herby vinaigrette, homemade bread and flowery salad.  It was delicious and messy and tasted like a tableful of summer.

The purple flower in the picture is one artichoke that flowered in my fridge when I was away for a bit.  How amazing is that?  Roll on next summer :-)