If J. Alfred Prufrock measured out his life in coffee spoons, I could measure mine out in apples. For those fussy nursery years, the inoffensive blandness of the Golden Delicious, which I wanted pre-chopped in my lunchbox but would refuse to let my mother put lemon juice on to stop it turning brown, because the idea of something as exotic as lemon juice seemed, to my picky infant self, a truly atrocious adulteration of my lunchtime snack. During my pre-pubescent years, having figured out that the Golden Delicious was in fact anything but, I craved the juicy sweetness of the ubiquitous Pink Lady, soothed by the succulent flavour of homogeneity. The perfect apple for a child who just wants to blend in. For my teenage years, I favoured the Granny Smith. Hard, speckled and slightly sour, I think this apple is a fitting metaphor for my experience of adolescence.
Read moreQuince baked in spiced clementine mulled cider
I enjoy recipes that begin with the gentle infusing of a liquid. I make that most restorative of broths, Thai tom kha gai, on a regular basis, and it is the initial steps of the recipe I find most soothing. Using the sturdy little cleaver I picked up in a market in Chiang Mai, I slice fat, pale-pink knobs of galangal into coin-sized discs, split shiny red chillies down their centre and bruise the papery outer stalks of lemongrass before throwing the lot into a pan of simmering water and coconut milk. It only needs a few minutes before the powerful aromas of Thailand have permeated the broth, promising the ultimate in sinus-clearing comfort. I also enjoy the sweet side of infusion: throwing a huge, fragrant handful of lemon verbena leaves into warm milk and cream, for example, to be churned later into an incredibly aromatic ice cream, or spiking a sugar syrup with cinnamon sticks, glistening vanilla pods, bruised green cardamom and maybe a furl or two of orange or lemon peel. I love the idea of capturing flavours in liquid, turning up the heat until their gentle perfume permeates and is locked inside, like an insect in amber.
Read moreFestive apple jelly
The word ‘jelly’ fills me with a little bit of horror. Firstly, it conjures up images of lurid children’s birthday party food, weirdly fluorescent transparent goo in odd shapes that wobbles under the pressure of a spoon or a fat youthful finger. I’ve never liked jelly or even tried it, as I recall; I think I’m afraid of the strange way it would feel in my mouth, not solid but not quite liquid either, trampolining oddly against the teeth. I have an irrational aversion to the stuff.
Read moreApple, cinnamon and sultana hazelnut crumble cake
Baking, in our culture, is so often inextricably connected with love. Family memories and relations are shaped around food; some of our fondest recollections of our mothers and grandmothers are perfumed by the heady scent of a baking pie or cake. Missing the closeness of home and the familiarity of domesticity is frequently couched in terms of our longing for a particular dish, and even parental ineptitude in the kitchen is usually recalled with wry affection. Childhood friendships are formed and dissolved over the sharing of cake and other baked goods: I still remember once refusing to speak to my best friend for a week because she stole my lunchtime flapjack and ate it. We bake cakes, bread, brownies to cheer up our loved ones or as a token of our affection; the humble combination of flour, butter and sugar has become fetishized in our culture to such an extent that we apparently believe there are few gifts more redolent of love than a homemade baked good.
Read morePumpkin crêpes with caramelised apples and pecans
Everything turns orange in the world of food media around this time of year. You can’t look at a recipe without finding that pumpkin has been sneaked in there somewhere. Sweet or savoury, breakfast or dinner, between the months of September and December it’s almost guaranteed to contain the golden vegetable, especially if it’s come from anywhere near America (in which case it will almost definitely also include cinnamon).
Read moreCrab apples roasted in sweet chai tea
There are some fruits that just provoke a standard, knee-jerk response in the kitchen. Glut of apples? Make apple pie. Lots of bananas? Banana bread. Been too enthusiastic with the pick-your-own strawberries? Jam, of course. Oranges mean marmalade, and blueberries pancakes. Rhubarb equals crumble. When my supervisor told me she had a surplus of crab apples, and needed recipe suggestions, her only stipulation was “Don’t say jelly.”
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