Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries

Cookbooks consisting of nothing but page after page of recipes with no commentary, just commands, quickly lose my interest. The ones that really draw me in are the ones that seem to include recipes almost as an afterthought. The main focus is storytelling, and the story is about food and how we connect with it. Returning to Nigel Slater’s well-thumbed books reminds me exactly of what a cookbook should be - not really a “cookbook” at all, but a reminder of why, out of the many decisions we as humans are cursed to have to make on a daily basis, what we eat is one of the most important.
 
Picking up a Nigel Slater book offers a masterclass in the best of food writing - he is, indeed, a storyteller, and he is at his best when the stories he shares are about food, his relationship with food, the provenance and seasonality of the food he chooses. Sometimes, his descriptions of food and his enjoyment of it, his adjectives and enthusiasm, imbued with such a deep-rooted appreciation as they are, can verge on (and I can’t think of a less jarring word here) sensual. A sensuality that many might find funny, uncomfortable, embarrassing or over-dramatic. But, if you’ve ever watched an episode of his television programmes, I think (I hope) you would agree that this observation isn’t misplaced. He speaks as though food is the love of his life. And, maybe it is. One could do worse. Ultimately, the impetus behind Nigel’s enthusiasm is his unshakeable belief in the importance of nurturing a connection with the food we eat. The best way to do this, he advises, is getting to know what is in season, when and why. The Kitchen Diaries provides a roadmap for the reader to do just this.
 
“Right food, right place, right time” is the first line in the introduction of this love letter to seasonal eating, and there’s really no better sentence than this to encapsulate Nigel’s ethos. He goes on to remind us of how much joy we can get from food. From shopping, from preparing, from cooking, from sharing - if we allow ourselves to go with the flow of the seasons, to go with what the earth is ready to provide us in that moment, we are doing much more than eating just to fuel ourselves, just to not be hungry for another few hours. We can use every one of our three, maybe more (definitely more, if you’re like me), meals a day to remind ourselves that our relationship with food shouldn’t be so complicated. It should, and can, be a joy.
 
This joy can come from visiting a farmers’ market and chatting with the farmer about the journey your food has taken to set off from the farm and arrive here, in front of you. It can come from sitting at the table that evening, or maybe on a picnic blanket outside, and tucking into a meal where the genesis of every single ingredient on the plate is known to you. It can come from feeling grateful and lucky to have access to this food, to the farmer who nurtured it, to the sun and the soil that nourished it, to the hands that prepared it.
 
This is the thinking behind all the recipes and story-telling in The Kitchen Diaries. Nigel has, quite literally, kept a diary of what ingredients and meals he has prepared throughout the year. This book is him looking back over each month, incorporating memories and musings with ideas and tips of how to throw together a seasonal meal with as little fuss as possible.
 
This is something else I love about this book - his idea of “meal planning” mirrors my own. To me, most of the time, “meal planning” should consist of seeing what’s already lying about in the fridge or the cupboard, and then supplementing what you find with whatever you might be lucky enough to have growing yourself, or whatever seasonal foods you come across at the grocery store or farmers’ market. I find this way of preparing and eating turns out to be cheaper, more rewarding and generates less waste than meticulously listing out days and meals in some sort of spreadsheet a week before you even know what you might have access to or feel like eating on a given day.
 
As we’re in early summer at the time of writing this piece, here is a snapshot of some of the ingredients Nigel reminds us to relish at this time of year: early summer greens like pea shoots and chard; crunchy, fresh asparagus; vibrant edible flowers; bright, citrusy lemons and juicy, plump mangoes; baby new potatoes, the soil they were grown in still clinging to their skins.
 
I could go on.
 
Instead, I’ll stop here, and invite you to try and pick up even one of these ingredients on your next food shop. Then, try to think, on the spot, of the quickest and easiest way possible to prepare it. Now you’re thinking, cooking and feeling connected with your food like Nigel Slater!
 

Kelly Girardi