Belleau Kitchen Random Recipe #18...Something a Little Different

I've been away from the Random Recipe Scene for the last couple of months.  I have no excuse, I have just plum forgot...twice! I vowed to get back into the game for July when Dom tweeted the June round up...and so here it is: 

This month we have been challenged with something a little different...to show each other our cookbooks. Despite having a gorgeously huge kitchen (please don't hate me) there are no shelves for my cookbooks...grrrrrrrrrr (we rent so this is not easily remedied). Because of this my cookbooks are split between trolly sideboard thing...and a space I have claimed on the countertop.  

There is no strict cataloguing system...things just go where they go.  If I pull a bunch of books out there is a good chance they won't go back to the stack they came from...but because I don't have all that many books I can usually find what I am looking for.  I have way too many Jamie Oliver books, not enough Nigella and (sadly) no Hugh.  Ottolenghi has to go on the wooden unit cause he is too big to sit on the countertop, and the newest requisitions are always near the top of the counter pile.  

I love cookbooks but have to stop myself from buying them (or taking them to bed to read...I was crushed by 365 Good Reasons to Sit Down and Eat last year) unless I really really NEED it.  I've been taking out loads from the library recently and copying out the recipes I want to try...and I've actually found that there is really only a handful of recipes in most books that I want to try. Of course there are some exceptions, like Short and Sweet and my recent gift Nordic Bakery Cookbook, but for the most part I'm beginning to question to cost of some books.  I'm also bookmarking a lot of recipes from the internet (many from books I think I'd like to buy) and slowly working my way through. 

Saying all that I do have a cookbook wish list...I can't help it. 

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Digging for Victory

This week the BBC is screening a number of programmes dedicated to remembering "The Week We Went to War". It is hard to believe that it is 70 years ago this week that the UK entered into war with Hitler's Germany. In memorial Welsh songstress Katherine Jenkins is presenting a programme exploring what life was like on the home front during the war. It has been poignant and touching, and I wonder why it couldn't be broadcast at a time when those who work are at home. It is a reminder that we are very fortunate to live in a world where the corner store stocks foods and goods from all corners of the globe.

Every afternoon this week they are also broadcasting a new 5 part series called Land Girls, which follows the stories of a mixed bag of girls who have joined the Women's Land Army to work the land and provide food for the nation. Two episodes in there is less emphasis on the work and more on the social lives of the girls, but it is nice to have a more human element on a scheme that you could easily find statistics for in the library or on the Internet.

In anticipation of this mini-series I have started to re-read The Lost Garden, a beautiful and touching novel by Canadian author and poet Helen Humphreys. Taking place in 1941, it is the story of loner Gwen Jones who is sent from her post at the Royal Horticultural Society in London to an estate in Devon to be warden for a section of the Women's Land Army. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Land Girls history or just gardening in general.

In connection to this I am also reminded that the allotment site where I grow my own vegetables was developed during the same time period to grow for the local community and, I assume, the nation. It makes me happy to think that the need to feed the people of Chelmsford created an ordered system that continues to support the community 70 years on.