April 24th was my birthday. Armed with a picnic lunch and intent on cycling to the Holy Isle, P and I caught the train to Berwick upon Tweed. Unfortunately, I sprained my ankle running for the train at Haymarket. By the time we reached Berwick, each malleaous ankle bump had transformed into a dent in the swollen purple grapefruit that now joined my foot to my leg. The cycle to Lindisfarne was replaced by a slow hobble around the city walls and lunch looking out to sea over the golf course. Walking back to the train station, we passed Berrydin Books, a second hand and remaindered bookseller. I limped through the door and soon spotted the cookery section.
Cookery sections in second hand bookstores and charity shops are rarely inspiring places, being generally stocked with encyclopedias of microwave gourmet that encourage the creation of entire Sunday lunches using only electromagnetic radiation. However, at Berrydin books I found a new set of titles from the Penguin Cookery Library. As a present to myself, I purchased the volumes Summer Cooking by Elizabeth David, English Food by Jane Grigson and A Celebration of Soup by Lindsey Bareham.
I've read the introduction to English Food and, while still a sceptic, I'm prepared to be convinced of the "wonderful inheritance" of English cooks. I've also read the introduction to the Bareham book, along with the first few sections on Stock-Making, Stock Recipes and Stock-pot Information. This book has so inspired me that I included a soup resolution in the usual list that I write on my birthday.
This year I will abandon stock-cubes and learn how to make quick and easy vegetable, poultry, red meat and fish stocks.
I think I might have to move to a flat with space for a fridge-freezer that is larger than a bread box.
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