Get away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. When the rays of the sun begin to make themselves felt and the light of day enhances the warm mornings, we begin to dream of escapades that allow us to be in contact with ourselves while living with nature. No hurries. The rituals that revolve around food are also transformed, being lighter, cooked in the open air and always wanting to share them. Spring calls to the family and, summer, consolidates it around the table between appetizers, picnics under the breeze of a tree or eternal snacks.
In an Oxfordshire farmhouse, John and Catherine Pawson found a way to do it, moving away from their home in London and realizing their architectural dream that now gives way to a recipe book Next to the Editorial Phaidon: Home Farm Cooking
Spring brunch menu: ham, cheese, leek scones and bean crostini.
The marriage bought the property -occupied for 70 years by the same family and with an agrarian and domestic structure that spans the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries – with the idea of being the meeting point with their relatives, establishing huge tables both inside and outside of the house as the nerve center of its culinary operations. Y three kitchens : one that makes its way into what was originally the house, another in the barn and one more in the place where the carriages were kept. There was work to be done because here there was not even electricity beyond a bakelite plug.
autumn pumpkin soup
And what do you eat in HomeFarm ? Doing a review of hundreds of recipes that Catherine has included in the book, much seasonal product , simple, comforting recipes capable of feeding a couple during the loneliness of a weekday dinner and even dozens of people for a special celebration.
Not everything has come out of Catherine's personal kitchen, because this compilation also focuses on her creations that her of her, friends, more intimate, recognized chefs or books of recipes that she usually resorts to: such as roast chicken and salad of three rice Yotam Ottolenghi ; Moko Hirayama's blueberry, rye and chocolate cookies, she owns with her husband the Parisian restaurant Mokonuts ; the meringue and hazelnut cake that her mother cooked in the 70s or the goat cheese and thyme soufflé from the London chef sally clarke . All of them cooked by Catherine (and not for the first time) and photographed for the occasion with the same presentation with which she serves these dishes at her own table.
The kitchen inside the barn
Each chapter focuses on one season , opening with a particular proposal, such as a spring brunch, a summer picnic, a fall barbecue or a festive winter meal. "I learned to cook from my mother," says Catherine in the book. "Everything I cooked for myself and my five siblings was nutritious and done effortlessly. John instead was born in Yorkshire to parents who were the perfect hosts, generous and committed. It was rare that someone was not invited to eat at his house, as Martha Stewart , who once asked her mother for the recipe for his yorkshire pudding.
Summer Jelly
If during the winter and autumn you give way to dishes like toast with anchovies, lamb pear roast or tatin; as well as fig tart, vegetable curry or soup pumpkin . is the spring in which she is animated with a pasta that is bathed in the pesto that Catherine makes with the garlic that grow on her property, or a risotto with nettles, as well as salads that depend on the different leaves found in the surroundings. His flower bed is still in its second season, but there is always something to decorate and scent the house, like peonies, lavender, cornflowers and sweet peas, which Pawson mixes in copious amounts of green chervil picked from the roadsides to fill the house from his fragrance . And although the kitchen in the garden is still in the process of being completed, he has also taken the opportunity to grow his favorite vegetable, broad beans, along with a multitude of herbs, such as chives, verbena, thyme, rosemary, dill, chervil and orgégan.
Summer is the time of the year when their routines begin to slow down and when banquets are served in the huge white marble and stone table designed by the couple and located next to the pond, like their pudding summer –With raspberries or currants–, one of Catherine's favorite recipes and a sweet and annual ritual that she shares with her family. "
It is not the first time that the architect John Pawson has explored the literary world, having achieved a cult book together with the gastronomic writer Annie Bell , now being sold second-hand for £1,000: living and eating . Being Home Farm Cooking the book that has the most intimate details of his family recipe book, poured with the heart of his wife Catherine to be replicated all over the world, we doubt that the saying that sequels have never been good applies to this new Project. .
Gilbert McCarragh
Home Farm Cooking Phaidon Gastronomy Book
Cover of the book Home Farm Cooking, by Catherine & John Pawson (Phaidon)