For me, seasonal eating goes beyond just ingredients. It’s about more than just what’s at its best when. It’s about what I feel like cooking and eating when. It may be a steaming bowl of onion soup, complete with floating islands of gruyère toasts, to bolster weary soup slurpers on a dark winter evening. It may be a citrus salad to brighten up yet another grey day in February. It may be dragging the first spears of asparagus through a dollop of hollandaise to mark the start of spring. It may be daily peaches over the sink at the height of summer. It may be slicing good bread and tomatoes to eat outside for just one more evening before accepting (reluctantly in my case) that it is autumn proper. It may be fannying around for too long selecting *the chosen one* from the knobbly array of squash at the shops to roast then douse with the fiery apple and ginger dressing that has been percolating as a recipe idea in my head for the last few weeks.
Yes, the ingredients are important and provide inspiration. There are lots of fantastic books, resources, lists and calendars out there (more on this below in my recommendations segment) that discuss and/or illustrate the joy of ingredients on a month-by-month, season-by-season basis. But for me, more often than not, the ingredients slot into and around the seasonal meandering of what I fancy, rather than vice versa.
All of this is an explanation (a rather waffly one, sorry) for how today’s recipes made their way into your inbox. They are simply what I fancy cooking and eating at this moment in time and I hope you might too.
Brine braised fennel with olives and lemon
Serves 4