spring cook­ing from the market

The day dawned warm and sunny today, so after John dropped Avery off at the sta­ble for her day of glo­ri­ous muck­ing and pol­ish­ing and rid­ing, we headed off with, as you see, the dar­ling orange bas­ket given me by my friend Becky, for some shop­ping at the Maryle­bone Farmer’s Mar­ket. It has to be one of my favorite places in the world, among the top ten for sure. Some­times the direc­tion that the world seems to be headed gets me down: every­thing get­ting more and more like every­thing else, places get­ting larger and larger and more anony­mous, peo­ple less and less con­nected to any­thing but the inter­net (not that I’m anti-internet! but there is a limit). At times like that, when the inces­sant peo­ple traf­fic a block away in Oxford Street threat­ens to turn me com­pletely anti­so­cial and petu­lant, it’s time for a trip to the market.

What I love about it, even more than its exces­sively cool cousin Bor­ough Mar­ket, is its scale and inti­macy and famil­iar­ity. I could shop for a long time at Bor­ough Mar­ket and not know where every­thing is, or nec­es­sar­ily recog­nise the fel­low who sold me my mus­sels last week. But some­how, even though the loca­tion of the stalls often changes at Maryle­bone, the same faces appear to con­sole me. There’s Tim Nor­ris, of Har­vest Moon Organic Farms, there to sell us a gor­geous roast­ing chicken and, even more tan­ta­lis­ingly, three bunches of impos­si­bly fresh water­cress, plump and bright green. I came home to read of this farmer’s strug­gles to get per­mis­sion to build on his own land! Then the lovely folks at Grove Farm, Holles­ley, who pro­duce the most out­ra­geously rich and fresh raw milk you have ever had. Come to think of it, have you ever tasted raw milk? I had not until last year at the Food Fes­ti­val at the Royal Wind­sor Horse Show. It’s unpas­teurised, which means a lot of things, namely con­tro­versy. Of course the rea­son milk began to be pas­teurised to begin with (heated to 145 degrees Fahren­heit, or even higher to get the — to me — scary shelf life of dairy prod­ucts labelled “ultra-pasteurised”) was to elim­i­nate dairy-borne germs that make peo­ple sick. But the raw milk advo­cates (and like any advo­cates, they can get a lit­tle stri­dent) argue that along with killing germs, the process kills valu­able vit­a­mins and valu­able bac­te­ria. Of course foodie types like me skip all the argu­ments about health and move directly to the issue that mat­ters most: does it taste bet­ter? OF COURSE it does. It’s unbe­liev­ably fla­vor­ful com­pared to pas­teurised milk. Of course there are vari­ables here. The raw milk I buy is also organic. I sup­pose the proper taste test would have to remove the vari­ables and get down to com­par­ing raw organic milk and pas­teurised organic milk, and so far even I have not had suf­fi­cient time on my hands to do that. But I will, someday.

Any­way, since I have no soap­box on which to perch, I can say only that at my lit­tle farmer’s mar­ket there is really won­der­ful raw milk. It makes me realise that the milk I nor­mally drink is like water with a piece of chalk dis­solved in it to make it white. You have not lived until you’ve had a cafe au lait at the mar­ket (the dairy farmer is wise enough to have a cof­fee maker right there along­side the milk) with raw milk foamed into it. I don’t even like cof­fee; it makes me very jit­tery. But often I can­not resist and it’s always worth shak­ing like a leaf for a few hours after­ward. I can type faster, too.

We picked up some really lovely Estima pota­toes too, and had a nice chat with Potato Man (as Lord Peter Wim­sey would say, “I can­not lisp the ten­der syl­la­bles of his name because I do not know it”) about the proper vari­eties for this or that dish. You know why I love him? He’s not pre­tend­ing to care. It was heart­warm­ing to have him say, “Nice to see you all again, see you next week,” and know he means it. He likes to see who’s eat­ing his Nico­las and his King Edwards and his Claret Reds (which are white as the dri­ven snow, so go fig­ure). I bet he’s a mem­ber of the British Potato Coun­cil. I wish I were. Prob­a­bly there’s an Amer­i­can equiv­a­lent, but it won’t sound as charming.

Then there’s the lovely lady with the “iced lemon cake” that Avery adores for break­fast, and because I am a wicked mother with the wrong pri­or­i­ties I give it to her. So rich and hand­made. We were tempted by the car­rot cake, but Avery is not a nut girl (although she’s a pretty nutty girl) and no mat­ter how you chop a pecan, if you don’t like them, they’re not small enough. But lastly we came away with a loaf of onion bread for pas­trami sand­wiches for lunch, and were happy. I had had my dose of the kind of peo­ple I admire: peo­ple who devote their work­ing lives to doing some­thing unusual, old-fashioned and dif­fi­cult, and who are so charm­ing while they’re at it. It reas­sures me that while teem­ing city streets still exist, peo­pled (I use the term advis­edly) with really awful types at times, plugged into things so that they appear to be in another world, I still have my serene lit­tle mar­ket filled with things to bring home and cook.

So I did. Fancy a lit­tle healthy soup for your lunch?

Water­cress and Potato Soup with Creme Fraiche
(serves six)

3 tbsps but­ter
2 cloves gar­lic, roughly chopped
1 banana or 3 round shal­lots, roughly chopped
3 medium or 5 small pota­toes, peeled and quar­tered
4 cups chicken stock (or veg if you like)
2 large bunches water­cress, stems removed (ish) and care­fully washed
1/2 cup creme fraiche
salt and pep­per to taste

I really mean it, wash that water­cress. You don’t want sand or dirt or what­ever they grow it in to get in your teeth and ruin the fun.

Now, melt your but­ter and sweat the gar­lic and shal­lots till soft, then add the pota­toes and the stock and sim­mer for 45 min­utes. Add the water­cress and give it a good stir, then walk away for just a minute. Toast some onion bread, maybe. Now whizz the soup with your hand blender, stir in the creme fraiche and sea­son to taste. Isn’t that beau­ti­ful? So green you just know it’s good for you.

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The creme fraiche I used is to die for: spoon­ably thick in a beau­ti­ful glass jar, from Les Peu­pli­ers in Nor­mandy. They have a very sweet web site, but I also think you can get your­self over to the dairy pur­vey­ors (lots of French things in glass jars, but I don’t know their names) in Bor­ough Mar­ket and pick some up.

Well, enough ram­blings about food. Tomor­row I have to post about some­thing else or my father will stop read­ing the blog. And we don’t want that.