a fine Sun­day soaking

Have you ever heard of a John­nie? That is, a Petit­Jean from Brit­tany who comes to Britain in the win­ter months to sell his pink onions and pink gar­lic? Well, nei­ther had I, until today. That is, I had bought his onions and gar­lic but had nev­er know that he had a Nation­al Iden­ti­ty. But he has.

Appar­ent­ly a French gen­tle­man in 1828 decid­ed that there might be a bet­ter mar­ket for his love­ly smelly veg, and head­ed across the Chan­nel. And ever since (although in less­er num­bers today than in 1828) French men in berets on bicy­cles have sold their wares through­out Britain. And one just hap­pens to park his bicy­cle adja­cent to the Maryle­bone Farmer’s Mar­ket, where I spend near­ly every Sun­day of my life.

Includ­ing today, although I was sore­ly tempt­ed to stay home. We had just dropped Avery off at the sta­ble (the threat of all-day rain is no deter­rent to her, even though she’ll have the hat­ed job of scoop­ing wet poo from the streets), and the skies sim­ply opened. I had an umbrel­la, but it was large and cum­ber­some and off-putting. “Sure you don’t want to give up?” John offered, but no, I was deter­mined that if the mar­ket peo­ple were there, I could be there. And in fact it rained heav­i­ly only for ten min­utes or so and then sub­sided into the desul­to­ry but still drench­ing lit­tle driz­zle that char­ac­teris­es so much of Eng­lish life. And occa­sion­al­ly a stall awning that I was stand­ing under chose that moment to invert itself and dump the hour or so’s accu­mu­lat­ed water on me. Ah, the devo­tion I feel to the market.

And it was worth the rain. I picked up two logs and one round of goats cheese from Nut Knowle Farm, my absolute hands-down favorite for goats cheese. Whether it’s the logs cov­ered in chives or hot chill­ies, or the round cov­ered in gar­lic and herbs (“Lit­tle Gar­lic,” it’s called), you will not go wrong. Strong­ly flavoured, creamy, crumbly. Per­fect with the rose­mary bread from the Ital­ian stall. And the lemon cake lady! I don’t know the name of her bak­ery, but Avery is pas­sion­ate­ly devot­ed to the lemon cake, for break­fast. Her stall is sim­ply piled with cakes, casu­al­ly cut into slices right there for you, and I always wish I had a sweet tooth so as to enjoy the sam­ples of coconut cake and Vic­to­ria sponge.

The Christ­mas pud­dings are back! Order one now, and some car­rot cake to go with it. And then there was the butch­er chant­i­ng, “We’ve got all your wild game needs: pheas­ant, quail, your Sun­day lunch, our plea­sure…” But I did­n’t suc­cumb. A pork ten­der­loin from Down­land Pro­duce, sim­ply the most ten­der bite of meat you will ever taste.

Pork Ten­der­loin with Sesame, Gar­lic and Lime
(serves 4 with left­overs for the sand­wich of your life)

1 pork tenderloin
4 cloves garlic
3 tbsps sesame oil
juice of two limes, save the limes
1 white onion, sliced thick
dash of Mal­don Salt

Put the ten­der­loin in a ziplock plas­tic bag and throw all the oth­er ingre­di­ents in. Close tight­ly and mas­sage the ten­der­loin around, then put in the fridge and leave it there while you do every­thing else for your dinner.

Spray a glass dish with non­stick spray and place the ten­der­loin in it, along with every­thing in the plas­tic bag. Roast at 400 degrees until done but still pink, about 35–40 min­utes. Let rest five min­utes before slicing.

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And a new veg­etable! Jerusalem arti­chokes: new to me, that is. Prob­a­bly the rest of you cook with it all the time, and lord knows I’ve seen it on loads of restau­rant menus and have occa­sion­al­ly ordered some­thing con­tain­ing it. But until today I have nev­er bought one. I think I was lured by the burlap sack filled to the brim and accom­pa­nied by the charm­ing sign: “Raised on pure mush­room com­post.” Yum yum. Seri­ous­ly, though, the lit­tle mush­room pur­vey­or looked so cold and wet that I felt I owed it to him to buy some­thing, and there were the lit­tle guys, hud­dling togeth­er as if to gain courage in num­bers. The sell­er assured me that they are very nutri­tious (some­thing com­pli­cat­ed about being use­ful for dia­bet­ics because of the way their starch is processed?), so I scooped up a hand­ful of the nasty lit­tle tuber­ous things and man­aged to get my freez­ing hands to find some coins.

Then it was home with my bur­den and to find a sug­ges­tion about how to cook them. My instinct said, “Soup, dear lady, and puree it,” so I obeyed. First, though, a quick inter­net search led me to this adorable blog, and a recipe not unlike what I was plan­ning myself. And can I just kvell a bit? This was the best soup EVER. And a sim­pler recipe you will not find.

Veloute of Jerusalem Artichoke
(serves four as a starter, or two as lunch)

3 tbsps butter
1 pound Jerusalem artichokes
1 clove gar­lic, rough­ly chopped
1 large shal­lot or small rose onion, chopped
chick­en stock to cov­er, per­haps 3 cups?
salt
dash white wine
1 cup whole milk

Now, I must first say that if you can get raw milk, do so. I am a firm sup­port­er of unpas­teurised milk from rep­utable sources. SO deli­cious, and since it’s not homogenised either, the cream stays at the top. If you car­ry it home care­ful­ly, ths milk at the top of the bot­tle will be real­ly rich and per­fect for your soup. Hur­dle­brook are bril­liant. You could eas­i­ly use cream, creme fraiche or sour cream, too, what­ev­er you have.

To pre­pare the arti­chokes, wash them well and peel them com­plete­ly. You’ll be amazed by the tex­ture. Not an arti­choke leaf or heart to be seen. More like a radish, only taste­less. Com­plete­ly taste­less raw. I was seri­ous­ly dis­turbed at this point and won­der­ing at my wis­dom in pro­vid­ing noth­ing more for lunch.

Melt the but­ter and saute the arti­chokes, gar­lic and shal­lot until the gar­lic is soft. Then cov­er with chick­en stock, add salt to taste, the white wine, and cook at high sim­mer for about 24 min­utes or until the arti­chokes are eas­i­ly pierced with a fork. Puree with a hand blender, add milk and… you’re in HEAVEN.

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Well, I’ve dried off now, and am think­ing of tack­ling the Christ­mas tree lights. Avery is most anx­ious that the annoy­ing work all be accom­plished when she comes home, so that after scrap­ing the pony poo off her in a quick bath, she can hang orna­ments. Here’s the per­fect present, by the way, for any­one who loves Lon­don, espe­cial­ly my lit­tle cor­ner, Maryle­bone. “Between the Lines: The Howard de Walden Estate in 2006.” I have bought so many copies as presents that my wal­let is suf­fer­ing. But you’ll have to ring up Daunt Books to get it. Gor­geous and evoca­tive pho­tog­ra­phy, real­ly infor­ma­tive his­tor­i­cal com­men­tary, and if you look close­ly, prob­a­bly lots of peo­ple you know, if you live here.

Now as for those lights…