Features & Stories

Newsletter: 🌿 Fresh spring foraging + cooking across Spain with Hemingway 🇪🇸

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Springtime foraging on Skye

For Scottish chef Clare Coghill, spring is when the landscape around her on the Isle of Skye bursts with new life, and is the perfect time for foraging. As she puts it:

‘We call Spring ‘an t-earrach’ which literally means for plants to spring forth from the ground. And the ground is exactly where I look when I start foraging for the year.’

Growing up on the Isle of Skye, and now back running her seasonally-focused restaurant Café Cùil on the island, Clare’s food is all about the ingredients and heritage of her home terrain. In her new feature article for us the Scottish Gaelic-speaking Clare talks us through some of her favorite foraged ingredients—such as wild garlic and wild gorse—sharing what she loves about them, from their scent, to their culinary use.

Along the way she points us at a tempting selection of recipes in which to showcase them.

Find her Wild Garlic Pesto, Wild Garlic Chimichurri (pictured above with Tattie Scone Taco and Pork Shoulder), an intriguing recipe for Wild Gorse Flapjacks that makes the most of the plant’s coconut-y scent, and other tempting recipes from her flavor-packed Café Cùil Cookbook.

For more recipes in celebration of all the joys of spring browse our Vegetables bookshelf.

Read Clare Coghill’s Spring on the Isle of Skye
Pictured above: Tattie Scones from Cafe Cùil Cookbook by Clare Coghill

Let's toast 250 years

‘In celebration of America’s semiquincentennial—the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—we invite you to raise a glass to the spirit, history, and diversity that define the United States. This special cocktail collection features 102 inspired recipes from all 50 states and Washington, DC, each one capturing the unique character of its origin. As we approach this historic milestone, let us reflect on where we’ve been, honor the people who shaped our journey, and toast to the future we are building together.’ Kim Laidlaw

In her brand new book, Spirits of ’76: Celebrating 250 Years with Cocktails from Every State, award-winning cookbook editor, producer and author, Kim Laidlaw compiles a drinks party fit for an epic celebration. The book is divided by state, with a classic and a modern cocktail from each place. So you can search for the recipes that have most resonance for you, or buckle in and take the party bus around the whole USA.

Try a Watermelon-Lime Shandy from Delaware, a Snake River Sour from Idaho, or a classic Manhattan from New York.

Spain in Hemingway’s wake

When cookbook author Howie Southworth found out he was moving to Spain in 2017 he was not particularly excited. At least not until he found a compelling culinary path to follow. That path was legendary American writer Ernest Hemingway:

‘Hemingway, I found, understood Spain differently. He saw its food not as a parade of dishes, but as a language. A way to access its passions, rituals, and truths. In The Sun Also Rises, his characters dine with purpose and drink with pleasure. In Death in the Afternoon, he explores the country through bullfights and the interstitial meals. In For Whom the Bell Tolls, food is life. Even when he doesn’t title the dishes, you feel the plates on the table: the garlic, the broth, the heat, the pride.’

In his new book Hemingway’s Spanish Table: A Culinary Journey in 60+ Recipes, Howie brings us with him on that journey, cooking and eating our way through some highlights and delicious diversions of Spanish cuisine—including the infamous Ham Croquettes (Croquetas de Jamon) pictured above. All accompanied by quotations from the great man, and put in context with his work and his travels.
 
Find Tarta de Santiago, the almond flour cake famous for its association with the pilgrimage route Camino de Santiago de Compostela, and this recipe for Patatas Bravas—a dish of roasted potatoes with a bold sauce; for which read fiery.
Find all 70 recipes on Hemingway’s Spanish Table

Ingredient focus: cauliflower

Cauliflower is a brassica, or form of cabbage, the head of which is made up of flower buds that have begun, but remained at the bud stage. The same is true of broccoli. The stems or stalk are rich in nutrients that would have fed the flowers, hence the vegetable’s high nutritional value.

Cauliflower can be a variety of colours, including a carroty orange, but most familiar is a creamy white. Picked and eaten fresh, the florets can be eaten raw, and are the mainstay of a crudité platter—the mild-tasting flesh is particularly good with strong dips such as a garlic and anchovy-rich Bagna Cauda.

Cheese is another classic flavor pairing, hence the universally loved Cauliflower Cheese. While cauliflower can be cooked by most methods—steaming, stir-frying, incorporated into soups and summer vegetable braises—roasting intensifies the sweet, nutty flavors beautifully. Just divide the head up into florets, drizzle with olive oil, add a dusting of sea salt and a crack of black pepper, and roast in a medium-hot oven for about 30 minutes—simple and very delicious!

Explore our collection of 12 Ways with Cauliflower, and find Cauliflower and Olive Salad, Indian Spiced Cauli Steak with Coconut Coriander Relish (pictured above), and more.

6 of the best citrus recipes

March 31 is Oranges & Lemons Day. Oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clements... Those most familiar citrus fruits, that we sometimes take for granted, are flavor bombs in the sweet and savory kitchen, bringing bright acidity to a huge range of dishes.

Marco Pierre White’s Harvey’s Lemon Tart

from World's Best Cakes by Roger Pizey

Bengali Lemon Chicken

from No Worries, Just Chicken Curries: 70 Incredible Indian Chicken Recipes by Suki Pantal

Very Lemony Meringue Cake

from The Birthday Cake Book by Fiona Cairns

Blood Orange & Red Onion Salad

from Italian Comfort Food by The Editors of Saveur

Seville Orange Marmalade

from Gloagburn: Recipes from a Scottish Farm by Alison Niven

Orange Upside-Down Cake **

from French Pastries and Desserts by Lenôtre: More than 200 Classic Recipes by Chefs at Lenôtre