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Mon 3 May
Team meeting was short and sweet, a few housemates leaving and some new arrivals means a period of change. Has been so wonderful to get to know everyone, spending time cooking, chatting, karaokeing with them. It’s been very liberating for me to opt-in and work towards being a more authentic version of myself, I’m grateful for these people! I’m grateful also for podgecakes, pnut butter and jam. We cleaned the whole gaff to within an inch of its life.
the weather was bleak so everyone stayed in; I got out all my wild food books and put together my last thoughts for the Foresta workshop tomorrow. Took a break and processed some herbs I picked over the weekend – loaded the dehydrator and bottled my marmalade tepache so it would carbonate by the evening. Made myself pancakes for lunch and loaded them with garlic mustard stems and mangetout cooked in pickled beet liquor. Huge dollop of my plain hummus, Speck gomashio and some nice oil.
There was a massive double rainbow and the tops of the trees became illuminated in a strange way! It was a late burst of the sun which was sliding down behind the hill so the branches looked like they’d been dipped in gold paint. Shared a v cheesy, v tasty veggie & gluten free lasagne, then Andy opened prosecco with a swing of a knife and we listened to a lot of Britney. Drank my weird tepache, (mixed reviews) then nibbled on the remaining shards of my clementine sorbet (unanimously delicious!)
Tues 4th May
Get up and do my stretches, answer some emails and firm up some summer plans for exciting commissions tba. Broad beans that Anna sent me are poking their heads thru the soil, and nigella and harebell are beginning to sprout – I’m going to transplant into some pots that will add to my micro garden under the kitchen window. It’s a collage of hectic containers I’ve scavenged from around the property, v on-brand. Weirdo pancakes this morn: ginger jam, mustard leaves, parmesan. Needed a little seasoning to hit the sweet/savoury balance but honestly, 8.5/10
Therapy is going well, I’m making some brilliant (and painful) breakthroughs while celebrating two years of the most generous thing I’ve ever done for myself. That’s enough of that.
This afternoon I lead an online study group. I’m well prepped and feeling confident, after all it’s my fav subject; wild food as post-capitalist nourishment praxis. I share a video essay about foraging and invite a discussion around decarbonisation of foods, diversification of diet, and decolonisation of language. It feels healing to share how I process my eco-trauma as an environmental illness. Feeling buoyant after this, so I listen to this and make foul madammas with air-fried chips and curried pickles. Weekly chat with Hugh is boss, we crack a beer to some good news and lay down plans for a visit. I do a heck load of washing up and catch up with Novara Media before bed.
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Wed 5 May
Read my book and misted all my plants, ate pancakes again and made a packed lunch of millet & lentils w chopped dates, pickled melon rind, toasted seeds, windowsill herbs and edible flowers, honey mustard dressing. Had a planning phonecall w a farmer in Norfolk who I’ll be visiting for a week-long project. We spoke later than planned so I took the meeting while speed-walking to Langley Mill. Jumped on the train to Sheffield with my bike and read some depressing tweets about Voting As Self-Care and almost threw myself out the window. Totally forgot to re-register and the date came out of nowhere, plus I’ve really cut myself off from reality in some ways.
Caught up with pals who all treated me with wonderful, delicious consumables; Peter bought me a coffee and we sat in Pinball Park; Ross gave me some Social Pickle acv and bananamel (banana-caramel!!); Louis bought us injera and lentil dips at his local Ethiopian joint. Took a canal-side cycle towards Rotherham and returned on the parallel canal’s towpath to break the day up. Jumped back on the train feeling full of love and ideas, daydreaming. Missed my station then took an extra-long way home to hit the glade at sundown and videocalled my poorly nan.
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Thurs 6 May
Weather has truly been wild – slutty sunrises then hailstones the size of pebbles, double rainbows, 2 minute-long downpours, dense grey, and still only 1 degree at night. Very scary stuff, unprecedented, apocalyptic. My gardening plans were put on hold, thrashed some admin instead. Felt like I spent the whole day on the laptop, which is less than ideal, but it’s likely I won’t need to go back on until Monday. Have shored up a few lush projects that are manageable, fairly-paid, and challenging. This is in all honesty a great outcome – supporting myself through commissions has been a personal goal of mine for a decade – but I can’t help feeling a little concerned. Not about the work, that seems legit. However, the creation of conditions where my self-esteem is managed by the value my labour has attached to it is worrying. I wanted to leave London to sleep lots, eat pickles and walk around parks. I haven’t done so much of that because I’m constantly busying myself in case I stop feeling useful or receiving external validation.
I resent the negative thought processes that distract me from appreciating opportunities and celebrating achievements. The paradigmatic shift from scarcity to abundance is so clear, I can type / think / say / act it out more frequently now. Engendering and embodying the trajectory towards psychological and social liberation it is another whole story.
Ella Y, Ilana and I cooked dinner together: iron-rich pasta bakes with a chunky sauce made from surplus broccoli and a medley of new-growth greens from the veg patch, with a hard cheese, pumpkin seed and breadcrumb crispy lid. Harvesting and eating volunteer plants is quite simply the most effective weed control.
Stinging nettle
Dead nettle
Cleavers
Curly dock
Garlic Mustard
Hawthorn
They went to collect waste food from coop and started stressing out when they unpacked it on the kitchen table, the reality of the issue hit them (I saw the exact moment). Receiving a glut of raw materials or cooked goods is pretty overwhelming. I think the most pressing skill-set we need to learn is processing waste foods. How do we break down veg for cooking, storage, fermentation? What can we do with 20 baguettes? Who can we share the abundance with? I went through this problem-solving monologue when receiving 65kg of deliveries every week at Brixton Pound, and it’s profoundly shaped my approach to decommodifying this precious resource.
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Fri 7 May
We met for breakfast using some of the surplus; guacamole on toast with salad leaves, blueberry smoothies, pecan pastries and coffee. Lush! I had to scoff and scoot off to the farm, tbh just weeded for 4 hours which hurt my back and was less than stimulating. I mentioned to the gardener and asked to try different tasks next time, which (despite sounding minor) was quite an accomplishment – in the past I would have kept it bottled up and harboured resentment or other amorphous negative feelings.
ate some buff cheesy leek and mushroom linguine that chef Sam cooked, read a little, then cycled home. Had a post-ride snack of three (3) sausage rolls, an apple and a satsuma, then left my phone at home and took Braiding Sweetgrass to a big hill for sundown. Pleased with myself for persevering and working towards finishing books. Changing my relationship with reading to an ever-evolving practice, rather than something I’m just good or bad at, means I am reducing the amount of pressure I put on myself and increasing both the enjoyment of the action and (often) the content.
Made a hummus by blitzing some leftover millet, lentils and chickpeas with the usual suspects / dressed a salad of dandelion, bittercress and rape flowers / smeared black garlic mayu over some bread / added some sour cauli pickles. Watched hilarious Novara coverage of the depressing local elections, spoke to mum and now drinking a huge hot toddy typing this up!
Sat 8 may
Spent the morning horizontal with my book; ate avocados again as if i was brunching back in Peckham. Braved the miserable day and finally planted out my first ever crops – broad beans from Anna, lettuce, rocket, baby leaf mustard, parsley, chard and nasturtiums from Bryony for pest control. Watched Ella Y and Ilana process like 5kg of red onions, then made caramelised chutney with half and classic pickles with the other. They cooked daal and cauliflower steaks, with salad and pickles. Planning a cheeseboard and wine tomorrow, divine.
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Sun 9 May
Nothing much happened. Long walk, sniffed aaaaall the apple blossom, almost got stuck in a bog, found a rope swing and firepit that I’ll return to in better weather. Cheeseboard and wine by our very own fire. Appreciating the warmer eves and chaotic night-time bird activity. Spending a little too much slow time alone in my head, need either more structure or more distractions. Not thinking totally straight, and keep losing my balance. Naturally, I’m internalising this and trying to find something to blame myself for. I feel so fortunate that I’m finally becoming more observational of my own behaviours without judgment; things happen to me and every tiny event has a knock-on effect. I am gonna keep an eye on the lack of balance though. Could have just been good old dehydration?
This is like an hour later, I totally forgot the best bit of my day: listening to Robin Wall Kimmerer read The Serviceberry in my headphones trudging through wet alleyways and streetlings and bawling my eyes out. Her words resonate on a deep frequency with me and hit a depth of feeling that I don't reach regularly.
No recipe this week, enjoy some photos