Читать книгу A Long and Messy Business - Rowley Leigh - Страница 8

January

I enjoy cooking and writing in January. It comes as

a welcome relief after the pulled-back deadlines and

frenetic pace of December, but January has its own

problems. There are few fresh ingredients specific to

the month. The wild game season is still going, just, but

care is needed with what birds there are as they mature.

Apart from apples and pears available from store,

the only fruit are the citruses and the exotics. With

vegetables, there are roots and brassicas aplenty, and

Italy seems to produce a new member of the chicory

family almost every year. There is plenty of fish, if the

weather allows, and we live in an age where there is

no shortage of meat at any time of the year.

The other problem is that January is diet month.

Half the population – or certainly that section of the

population that might read the Financial Times – is

on a ‘dry’ January and a ‘detox’ diet. I prefer to defer

my attempts at detox until Lent, not for religious

reasons but because it seems more seasonally

appropriate. I do occasionally prescribe dishes

that are suitable for those trying to clean up their act,

but in the main I tread my usual path. While most

food pages are full of wellbeing and health, I reward

the remainder of the population who pine for more

substantial victuals. Nobody needs spiralised

courgettes in an English winter.