A gourmet Saturday

The day began with a market and ended with a stroll through Notting hill and an expected find.

Nottinghill Farmer’s Market is in full swing despite the inclement weather and the early hour. It’s bustling. Dogs, children and parents armed with baskets and bags compete for space in the narrow aisles that separate the store holders. The fare is mostly organic – breads, game, meats, fruits and vegetables, and with most of the storeholders being regulars, its easy to get to know these local producers. Twelve Green Acres farm offers some of the best pork pies and organic and gluten free sausages. Pigeon breasts and mallards as well as pheasant pies can be brought from Manor House Farm. From the Muck and Magic Farm you can buy Suffock potatoes still covered in soil – the perfect companion with their Tamworth Pork or Norfolk Horn Lamb. You’ll also find Dave and Rose’s Hurdlebrook yogurt made from Guernsey A2 milk. This is slow food at its best – low food miles, local producers.

The organic fruit and vegetable store reveals a rare sight - boxes of organic Cox and Braeburn apples. Much has been made in the media of declining number of English orchards. You’ll be hard pressed to find British apples in local stores despite talk of supermarket campaigns to buy British. Local producers can’t compete with imported ones. Looking around the market, it’s clear that the seasons are changing. Most of the berries have gone, although there are a few punnets of raspberries and strawberries to be had, but it’s the new season’s vegetables like kale and leeks that everyone seems to be buying.

Baked goods seem the perfect choice on a day that has a crisp bite in the air. Celtic Bakeries offers traditional soda breads and I overhear that the Californian sourdough is today’s bread of choice. By 11.00 am only a few loaves are left. Dark Sugar Cakes with its sweet indulgences of blueberry and almond tarts, sacher tort and lemon and almond polenta cake are an favourite. The popular mushroom man is the only local missing from the market today. His mushroom baguettes filled with oyster mushrooms cooked as you wait with garlic, parsley and parmesan cheese are wonderfully good.

Being so close to Portobello Road, I can’t resist the temptation of do some antique shopping. It’s easy to be tempted. I feel oddly inclined to buy a silver teapot and partake of the English tradition of elevens. It’s the memory of Brasso (and elbow-grease) that stops me from buying one.

Feeling the need to escape the crowds, I disappear down Westbourne Crescent and into a Still Too Few- a curious antiques store. From the outside, it appears to specialise in glass but at the back is a woman who specialises in kitchenware. I pick up some old editions of Elizabeth David. It’s an odd synchronicity as at the far end of the store is David’s kitchen dresser brought at auction after her death. The dresser is solid and imposing and I can imagine it stacked with books, china, wooden spoon and utensils. In a newspaper article displayed to the left of the dresser is David photographed, the dresser behind her.

With David in mind, I head for Books for Cooks, the famed specialist bookstore. The sky decides to open and so I opt for a simple lunch inside – minestrone served with pesto and courgette and pesto bread. It’s a warming lunch, perfect on this now rainy day.