Sunflowers, Soup Weather and the First Fire
The light across the kitchen table this morning is a soft gold, broken gently by the drooping petals of a few enormous sunflowers brought home from last weekend’s market. Their shadows stretch across the room in slow, autumnal patterns while the birds outside conduct a cheerful, slightly overzealous morning chorus. It is one of the first mornings this year when I lingered in bed longer than usual, reluctant to surrender warm sheets for cold floorboards and the inevitable shock of toes meeting the day beyond the doona.
Over the past week the mornings have sharpened. Autumn has arrived with a certain briskness, leaving us wary of the winter waiting in the wings, yet quietly pleased by the return of familiar comforts. This is the season for green minestrone, for lentilles du Puy with crisp croutons (seen below), for soups in all their reassuring forms — my favourite sort of cooking.
Last weekend unfolded gently. There was reading, pottering, neighbourly catch-ups and the sort of grazing that seems perfectly acceptable when the days are mild and unhurried. Late in the afternoon we gathered beneath the unruly grapevine: a wedge of Petit Agour chèvre (thank you, Mulberry’s Deli, for the recommendation), a glass of Minim rosé, my daughter painting flowers at the table while Grant tapped away on our barn renovation. I leafed through old coffee-table books — Paris, Provence, interiors — enjoying the quiet pleasure of inspiration that is tangible, considered and refreshingly un-curated.
Today there is Stephanie Alexander’s banana cake tucked into lunchboxes and a garlicky anchovy spaghetti planned for dinner. I’m looking forward to lighting the first fire of the season this evening, then settling into my latest post-work indulgence: revisiting — and, if I’m honest, cheerfully bingeing — the entire The Cook and the Chef series with Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant. It is hard to believe the program is twenty years old. The Barossa meets Y2K fashion and seasonal menus remain as appealing as ever — a quiet reminder that good cooking never goes out of style…
Photograph: Kirsty Davey