The last of England

My first model in the kitchen was, unsurprisingly, my mother. I grew up with the smell of warm bread drifting through the house, ready to be cut into slices and smeared thick with butter and lemon curd. There were the apple pies made with the fruit from our garden, neither too sweet nor too sharp, baked in the lightest, crispest pastry which everyone except me preferred warm with ice cream, whereas I would hang around for some served cold with a generous amount of single cream poured over. Cheese souffles came out of the oven tall and golden, stacks of mince pies awaited hungry Christmas visitors and there was even an English twist on a pizza, made with a pitta bread type dough and finished off under a hot grill. Yet ours was not a household centred around cooking; the things listed above were more for special occasions and weekends. Most of the time meals were made with frozen or packet foods, like fishfingers, vegetarian sausages and petits pois, alongside large portions of fresh fruit and vegetables. If today I prefer to cook differently, that's not to say I disapprove of what we had: reading Nigel Slater's wonderful Eating for England made me realise how fond I am of many staples of British cuisine. Dark chocolate digestives, custard creams, bread and butter pudding, steamed treacle pudding, fish and chips laced with salt and vinegar, large packs of the strongest cheddar and the crumbliest Wensleydale, sticks of rcok bought at the seaside which shatter into thousands of sugary splinters and rot your teeth, baked beans on toast and boiled eggs with soldiers.

Aside from some disastrous home economics courses at school, the idea never came to me of cooking anything myself. I can still recall the look of absolute horror on the teacher's face when she asked if anyone knew how to make hollandaise sauce and I described the process of pouring water over some powder. Then came the day when I opened the Chocolate Book and baked my first real cake with honey. Overcome by fascination at the endless possible variations with just a few ingredients and how each time you ended up with different results, the cake became my passion.

The first ever kitchen to myself was a coin cuisine in the corner of a one room studio on the top floor of a house in Annecy. The landlady lived directly underneath and spent her days worrying about my excessive water consumption, listening every time I had a shower or flushed the toilet to calculate. My cooking skills remained pretty basic though, endless meals of steamed vegetables with cottage cheese followed by a yoghurt and some fruit. In the shared flat in Lyon one day, my French flatmate E. burst out laughing while watching me boil some broccoli. "Alors ca, c'est le cliché anglais! Nous, les français on ne prépare pas des légumes de cette façon mais avec des épices ou avec une sauce." (We French would never cook vegetables like that, but with spices or a sauce). In most ways, he was pretty horrible but I have to admit that he had a good point here.

Quite a few years have gone by since then, my vegetables are no longer boiled or steamed and I cook for myself pretty much on a daily basis, taking the time to enjoy fresh, seasonal flavours. I would never claim to be a great cook; I have the tendency to fall into ruts, living off almost nothing but potatoes a few years back and until recently, a daily diet of pasta, I lack the courage and spontaneity to try different things out. Yet it's also a reflection of the cuisine I grew up with and the fact that I value simplicity. As much as I greatly admire those who have mastered the tricky art of macaroons or eclairs, I have no desire to follow in their footsteps because for me, life is too short for piping bags, spun sugar, homemade croissants and millefeuilles. I think back to the King Rollo books I read as a child, how he was offered the finest kinds of food in exchange for his humble loaf of bread but refused them all. I think I would have done the same.

A walk by Cromford Canal

Last week when I returned, I made Elise's wonderful cherry pie with a lattice crust in true Agent Cooper spirit. You can find the recipe here.

To finish, some more photos from my stay in Derbyshire and a favourite dessert. The recipe for Eton Mess below is one the easiest and best for summer. If you like you can make the meringues yourself but I prefer to buy a small pack to crumble.

Eton Mess (from Nigella Express)

For 4 people

500g strawberries (raspberries also work well)

2 teaspoons caster or vanilla sugar

500ml double cream

4 small meringue nests from a packet

1. Wash, hull and halve the strawberries and then put them into a large bowl.

2. Whip the double cream until it starts to thicken then add the sugar and conitnue whipping until very thick but not too stiff (it should still be soft and a little runny). Spoon over the strawberries.

3. Crush the meringues with your fingers until you have small pieces as well as a little dust then sprinkle over the fruit and cream. With a large serving spoon, gently stir everything together. It doesn't have to be perfectly mixed though, that's the charm of it. Serve immediately.

Summer things

I wore a summer dress and no tights for my flight to Birmingham, knowing that the sky would probably be heavy with rain clouds when I arrived but it always feels good to find cooler days, even if it means slipping on a cardigan in the evenings. Yet in a strange twist, there was a week of pure English sunshine while a rainy autumn descended upon Berlin. I rediscovered the pleasures of early mornings with the patterns of the sunlight dancing on the kitchen floor and the cats getting up to all kinds of nonsense. The garden smells so fresh walking barefoot over the lawn covered in clover. There were a few lazy afternoons watching Wimbledon, cheering on Federer and Nadal, even if it didn't do much good and walks along winding country lanes where you might find fresh berries if you're lucky.

In a week's time, I'll turn my back on them once more to fly back over the roofs of the German capital, picking out the sights in miniature, wishing someone was there to meet me at the airport to make the transition just a little easier.

Mingus

Jasper

Jacob

Do you hear what I hear Oscar?

Lunch at the bottle kiln

In the Japanese garden

A walk around the reservoir

Returning to Hardwick Hall on a perfect summer's day

A wedding was held in the old Hall

The father of the bride can't watch

A Derbyshire cream tea in the cafe later on

Julie from Booktravellers asked me for more strawberry recipes last time. This was the first cake I made here, simple and very British, all the lightness of a classic victoria sponge with a delicate nuttiness.

Strawberry and almond sponge

For the sponge

125g soft butter
100g caster sugar
3 large eggs
100g ground almonds

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

200g plain flour

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

2-3 tablespoons milk

To decorate

250ml double or heavy cream

some strawberries, halved

1 teaspoon sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time until completely incorporated. Stir in the vanilla extract followed by the ground almonds.

2. In another bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder and gently add to the wet ingredients, alternating with the milk until you have a smooth mixture that's neither too dry nor too runny.

3. Divide the mixture in between two 9 inch greased and lined sandwich tins and bake in the oven for around 30-40 minutes. Remove and leave the cakes a little in their tins before turning them out onto a cooling rack.

4. When the cakes are completely cool, whip the cream until it starts to become frothy then add the teaspoon of sugar and continue whipping until the cream starts to become very thick but before it turns stiff.

5. Sandwich the cakes together with the cream and some halved strawberries. Repeat for the top layer. The cake is best eaten on the day it's made but you can store it in the fridge if you cover it to stop the it drying out and cream setting too much.