Peak Summer

a chilli hot, sea salty, plum heavy, hair disaster of a week

I have cut my own hair. Don’t try this at home, kids! Pamela Anderson is partly to blame, although in fairness she didn’t come at me with the nail scissors or hack at my plaits. I saw a glorious photo of her - all pistachio green bonnet, flawless cream palazzo pants and chin grazing blonde bob – and I immediately went in search of the sharp scissors we use to trim the dog’s tail. Unfortunately, I found them.

The good news is that I stopped before attempting to cut in a fringe, so all is not lost. And as great timing would have it, after I realised half way through that the old ‘chop off your ponytail’ trick was harder to do solo, I shouted to Hebe for assistance. On seeing me, she threw her hands up to her face in what I thought was mock horror, but turned out to be genuine shock. I started to feel a bit silly. Not helped by Raff coming to take a look and the two of them discussing my foolhardiness as if I wasn’t there, while Hebe cautiously snipped my locks into some sort of evenness. I was grateful although would have preferred her not to keep reminding me that she wasn’t a hairdresser.

This is a pattern of behaviour which I never learn from, and I am going to be 55 in a week. In the past, when my long mop has turned from surfer chic shaggy to cave dwelling witch and I can’t get a brush through it, I get an overwhelming urge to cut it all off, forgetting the coiffeur disasters that have previously befallen me. And then I spend several weeks/months scraping it into a hair band until I go to a hairdresser and admit I may have tinkered.

It’s not Pammy’s fault, this is what a hot summer does to me. It casts its intoxicating spell, and I yearn to look like someone different, someone with shorter hair who can feel a cool breeze on her neck. Someone who knows how to cope when it’s scorchio degrees. From sunglasses, beach bags and sarongs to salads and different types of vermouth, I ogle new ways to be until I reach my safe ground of autumn and early winter. NB. Nobody likes late winter. If you live in a town or city, you can almost shuffle straight into spring at this point, but in rural parts there’s still a mountain to climb and it’s called February (and some of March).

So quick, back to August before the heatwave disappears in a steamy mirage of meadow haze, garden breakfasts and hazelnut ice cream. The swallows are already gathering on the telephone wire in the village, the blackberries are ripening fast, and I am grabbing all the sunny opportunities. Early evening sea swims with kids and dog. Supper at my pal’s chalet, the doors wide open to the ebbing tide and dipping light. Beach café fish and chips with sandy feet and happy family. Orchard picnic and swim at a friend’s farm. These memories and their photos will keep me warm in February.

And then there’s been the food. Nothing encapsulated summer more than my Bridport market bounty at the weekend.

I arrived at the Springtail Farm stand just before it opened. Behind the scenes, growers Tomas and Lally, bustled about unpacking their produce and putting out full buckets of cut flowers - the season has seamlessly moved from sweet peas and snapdragons to sunflowers and zinnias - while the queue snaked patiently past the Town Hall, waiting for its clock to chime 9 times. This signalled curtain up on a show of horticultural delight.

There were baskets of orchard fruits (such a good year for them) with apples, deep purple Czar plums and rosy grape-sized Mirabelles, alongside overflowing punnets of mixed varieties of tomato. Generous fistfuls of herbs, green frondy bunches of carrots straight from the soil, bags of just picked salad leaves and piles of flat beans, celery, kale, chard, courgettes and onions. Everything either grown on their acre of rented West Dorset land, on neighbouring Fivepenny Farm or down the road at the equally brilliant Trill Farm Garden, all prioritising soil health and led by organic principles. I filled my bag.

Here are a few of their ingredients and other things that have brightened my summer kitchen this month;

Three kinds of plums – the deep purple, sour skinned, sweet flesh melting kind, weighed out like sweets at the market or found on my neighbour’s tree. Full confession, I have eaten two on the way back from the evening dog walk and am ready to go to jail if needs be, they were that good. How could I resist when they were still warm from the sun, your honour?! A crime of passion.

Also Mirabelles (which I paid actual money for) and turned into a compote with the juice and zest of an orange and a shake of soft brown sugar.

Finally, plum tomatoes, roasted on the vine with garlic and blitzed into yet another passata to eat later in the week with linguine and a helping of Springtail’s beans.

Oak Smoked Salt – the big tubs are currently on offer in some supermarkets, and I have liberally scattered flakes over almost everything. It tastes subtler than it smells.

Peaches – I have not yet found the perfect peach this season so, after an inspiring dish at Soulshine Café where they roasted them with honey and served them on a bed of whipped ricotta, decorated with pickled red onions, almonds and mint, I have been bunging them in the oven. How do you like them peaches? For breakfast, lunch and dinner. Savoury or sweet.

Smoky chilli oil – like the salt, this can be used wherever you like your heat, and I am currently hooked on this NY Times recipe as recommended by my friend Lexi, who had been told about it by a friend of hers. Like the recipe equivalent of chain mail. It’s a basic tomato and basil salad with a quick dressing of rice vinegar, soy and crispy chilli oil, tossed with gyoza, which are cooked straight from the freezer. A quick prep affordable dish that tastes like you went to a smart restaurant.

Basil – nothing new here, but I realise how much I use it in August compared to any other month. Chucking it into every tomato dish, adding it to a salsa verde, tearing it into mayonnaise and layering it with mozzarella and roasted peppers in baguettes to name a few.

Toma Montanara – semi-soft Italian cheese studded with coriander seeds and fennel, from Mercato Italiano in Bridport. Slivers of this on top of chopped celery (the leaves too) and a vinaigrette, along with a small (ahem) Campari and soda and I am in Umbria, rather than in the shade of a washing line of synthetic football t-shirts. Which I guess still gives an Italian vibe.

Jelly babies – but they have to be kept in the freezer and then popped straight into my mouth. Cold, chewy and just the thing for writer’s procrastination.

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I don’t write about politics and global horrors because there are other people who do it a million times better and understand so much more than I do. Instead, I try to read as much as I can so, if you haven’t already seen these, please head to Ella Risbridger and Sue Quinn, whose recent posts talk about hunger and hope.

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If you are heading to Cornwall before the summer is out, you will need Karen Barnes and her services to excellent recommendations. This is a fantastically researched piece to tuck in your crabbing net.

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I have had a sneak peak of Abundance, the latest and, let’s just say it, best cookbook by Mark Diacono (so far). He is off on tour before he joins me, Felicity Cloake, Charlotte Bland and Molly Wizenberg for our food writing retreat in October. He may be coming to a bookshop near you.

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Do share any summery recipes or recommendations you may have! And thank you to those who are new here and the rest of you who have been hanging around for some time. So lovely to be part of this growing Substack community of writers and readers. Right, I am off to see if my hair looks better in a straw hat.