From Season to Season: A Year in Recipes. Sophie Dahl

       Tzatziki

       Radishes with truffle salt and mint and olive oil

       Ceviche with prawns/shrimp and avocado

       Grilled octopus with potatoes and fagiolini bean pesto

       Kebabs

       Raw golden beetroot/beets with cayenne and lime

       SUPPERS

       Ricotta tarts with creamy pecorino sauce and shavings of black truffle

       Chicken summer stew

       Roasted tomato mascarpone soup with basil oil

       Courgette/zucchhini flower risotto

       Miso black Colin

       Hangman’s Suppers

       Rowley Leigh’s Parmesan custard with anchovy toast and a herb salad (all mine)

       Broad bean/fava risotto

       Puddings

       Roses

       Marbled rose petal ice cream

       Chocolate meringue biscuits

       Pineapple and mint granita

       Poached winter fruits with crème anglaise

       Uncle’s chocolate soufflé with brandied cherries

       Earl Grey and lavender ice cream

       Rice pudding cake

       Almost mother-in-law cake

       Panettone bread-and-butter pudding

       Coconut sorbet

       Ruby Frais strawberry semifreddo

       The Nutcracker

       Armagnac apricot pannacotta

       Christmas sugar plum syllabubby mess

       Index

       Suppliers

       Acknowledgements and resounding thanks

       About the Author

      Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Cook’s notes

      All pepper is freshly ground black pepper. I also like to use a coarse sea salt like Maldon.

      I’m a big believer in free-range, cruelty-free produce. To that end, try and buy dairy and meat from a supplier you trust, one who treats their animals with respect.

      We are overfishing our painfully understocked oceans. To get a list of what fish are sustainable and plentiful, please go to the Marine Stewardship Council website (the MSC) www.msc.org.

      Stock: I use fresh or, if being lazy, Marigold Vegetable Bouillon or Kallo’s Organic Free-range Chicken Stock.

      Good usefuls to have in the larder and fridge, in no particular order and given in haphazard fashion:

      Belazu Balsamic Vinegar (really thick and syrupy)

      Miso paste (for dressings and marinades)

      Rice vinegar

      Tahini

      Pomegranate molasses

      A good, strong mustard

      Tamari

      Mirin

      Marsala

      Horseradish root

      A bunch of fresh herbs

      Tarragon

      Parsley

      Coriander

      Chives

      Argan oil

      Pumpkin seed oil

      Some good-quality dark chocolate

      Some cheap chocolate for eating on the spur of the moment or when miserable

      Lemons for zesting

      Chickpeas

      Lentils (both Puy and yellow)

      A good home-made garam masala

      Star anise

      Cardamom

      Arborio rice

      An onion

      Some garlic

      Pearl barley for soups and stews

      Arrowroot for thickening gravies or sauces for the gluten-free

      Spelt flour

      Good vanilla extract

      Runny honey

      Fresh coffee

      Stock in ice-cube trays in the freezer

      Sunflower seeds to toast and add to salads and bread

       Introduction

      ‘It’s a question of discipline,’ The Little Prince told me later on. ‘When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend to your planet.’ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

      In my last book, Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights, I began with writing that many of our grandparents ate healthfully and seasonally before there was a name for it, eating with an innate common sense and practicality that somehow, along the way, many of us have forgotten. This doesn’t stand for everyone’s grandparents, as I discovered on a book tour to Denmark. A journalist there asked me if I knew what her grandparents were eating fifty years ago. I knew from her smile I was on treacherous ground and took a deep breath of preparation.

      ‘No,’ I demurred politely. ‘What did they eat?’

      ‘LARD!’ She said. ‘They lived on lard and potatoes! I eat far better than they would have ever dreamed! What do you think of that Miss home-grown-seasonal-vegetable-garden-have-a-walk-every-day?’

      I immediately morphed into a filmic parody of Hugh Grant and said something very English and vague like, ‘Well, yes, I don’t know what everyone’s grandparents ate, hmm, easy to generalize, mutter, ho hum.’ And blushed.

      Under the gaze of watchful Danes, I stand corrected then, and speak only for my own grandparents, who grew fruit and vegetables in their garden, buying fish from the local fishmonger, meat from the local butcher and dairy from their local farmer. Every meal on their table came to fruition with an unspoken nod to seasonality and availability.

      I am keenly aware that if you are a busy working parent, or if you live somewhere isolated, sometimes all that is on offer (or is bearable) is a one-stop shop. I am sometimes guilty of it myself. But I also believe that if each one of us makes a concession towards being a conscious consumer, we are in turn making an active contribution to looking after our lovely planet, which has enough exterior torment going on in it without us adding to it.

      We are blessed in England to have our very definite seasons. Sometimes they feel never ending, dragging winter in particular, but the reward is tangible, both in the garden and on the plate. There is a finite certainty to the seasons that I, as a neurotic