In an old farmhouse on the slopes of a mountain lying between Tregaron and Aberystwyth, Elisabeth Luard brings the produce of the land into her kitchen and turns it into delicious food. This book is her response to the changes she sees in her garden and the surrounding countryside throughout the seasons, with distinctive recipes at the end of each month’s chapter. It is the story of a year spent planting and picking in the garden, roaming the countryside with her grandchildren and introducing them to the pleasures of rural living.
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Elisabeth’s cooking is rooted in the culture of the Mediterranean where she once lived, as well as being inspired by traditional Welsh recipes and by her own garden. In winter she stirs up warming dishes like Spanish biscocho or Welsh winter cawl; in the spring she waits until the first mayflower comes to bloom before planting lettuces, mangetouts and broad beans in her garden. She relies on locally sourced meat for dishes like Partridges with baby onions and cinnamon in red wine, Rabbit with tagliatelle, cream and mustard or Ceps with potatoes and bacon, and rakes the countryside for ingredients like fruit for Hedgerow jelly, nettles for soup, elderflowers for cordial, cake or even fritters.
With full colour photography by Clare Richardson that perfectly captures the sense of life in the
Welsh countryside, this is a unique and beautiful book.
“A beautiful book that makes me want to read more 19 April 2012 By Mrs. M. Connolly
This was a wonderful Christmas present,a journey through the year with recipes and family life, by writer Elizabeth Luard. I had resolved to read it a month at a time. However, April led into May, and June looked interesting…. hence, I have just finished it in April!
I particularly enjoyed the introductory sections to each month, about what is happening in her garden and in the countryside around the old house of Brynmerheryn, in Wales.I loved hearing about her grandchildren, and liked the different sort of illustrations, the atmospheric photographs, the little water colours which adorn the pages.There are some attractive cookery photographs, but I would have liked some more, as I like each recipe to have a photograph with it. However, the cost of this would probably have been too much, together with the requirement to make the book longer as a result.The author’s friends and family, who she cooks for, must have a wonderful time when visiting her. I shall certainly be reading more books by this author. Thank you, Elizabeth Luard, for a lovely day.
PS And Yes, there are some great sounding recipes!”
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About the Author
Elisabeth Luard is an award-winning food-writer, journalist and broadcaster. Her cookbooks include European Peasant Cookery and European Festival Food. She has written three memoirs, Family Life, Still Life and My Life as a Wife. She is currently a contributing editor to Waitrose Food Illustrated, has a monthly column in the Oldie. She reviews regularly in the Daily Mail, the Jewish Chronicle, the Scotsman and the Literary Review.