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Autumn is coming on but still some pickage. Herb beds look very happy. Still some courgettes coming - I picked some babies for dinner on Friday (cod with Serrano ham chippings, white wine, butter and various herbs, served with steamed sugar snaps (not from the garden), slow fried baby courgettes, and a baked potato) and paleo lasagne is again in the oven using up my last two whoppers. Today I picked yet more cornichons (I think I have figured out they like to start early, height and regular pickings) - I need to figure out how to pick small ones and store them until the pickle jar is full. Is it as simple as making a jar of pickling liquid and decant the liquid out as the jar fills up then repeat? What say you eGullet? The rest of the haul today was a LOT of parsley and some green coriander seeds. I think I need a recipe for mass parsley as this bag for the freezer barely made a dent. Pesto like thing I guess? I also picked the second flush of asters - on the right in the previous photo. Here they are in a vase / drinking glass, with a stray scabious and the last of the zinnia...

This looks really good -sadly behind a rights wall for me. Ah well. Here's everything from the beginning for those who can partake http://www.pbs.org/food/features/the-mind-of-a-chef-season-1/

I spent a good two hours at the weekend shelling the runner beans that had gotten away, and then had a fail as I tried placing them in the Aga lowest oven to dry out. They baked instead. Trying drying them the traditional way anyway. We shall see. No longer that glorious plum pinkness, but might make a winter stew.

Since I saw this got a like, the cornflowers are still going happily now. Meeting mum for lunch tomorrow and will do a huge pick for her. She loves cornflowers. Might even go till the first frosts!

a sushi filleting knife used gently works well on Serrano ham. Don't tell the guy we bought it from

No pictures because do you really want to look at a plate of brown, but Barnsley cut lamb chop, seared lightly then into the cooling Aga with red wine, garlic, marjoram and salt and pepper. Served with a riff on @ProfessionalHobbit's recent caper and anchovy zucchini dish - slowly pan fried onions, spring onions, a LARGE *cough* zucchini / courgette, all fried at high temperature (the Aga fry station is hot even when cooling down) until golden and glorious, then seasoned. Half a stray pot of decent quality passata, a glug of wine but also some water to get the extras out, 6 anchovy fillets, chopped, a few teaspoons of home made nasturtium seed peppers in lieu of capers, then more simmering down. It ate well! Would make again! Thanks @ProfessionalHobbit!

Thanks for the blog, was super fun!

This sounds absolutely amazing!

What is also very funny is I found the grinder by searching coffee grinder spaceship

I am laughing my head off. He told me it cost about a half of its price. I so have an alibi for designer gear for the forseeable

I think that's a good analogy. I had a similar argument with my hubby - he is the coffee snob, I want something passable for the day or two a week I make a coffee. Apparently I compromised to an HG-1! http://lynweber.com/product/hg-1/ (in fairness it is a lovely grinder and makes a decent coffee and the feel of the thing when you use it is tremendous, but I am debating fighting a rear guard action for Nespresso when I just can't even and need coffee....)

Eaten one jar of cornichon, I am surprised, it's addictive! Two others available but I was trashy in the meantime and chopped up the other 6 inch cornichon I had rescued and crammed it back in the pickling liquor in the old jar. The pickling gods can smite me now!

@HungryChris I cannot like that enough. Loved Venice (although very cold) 2 years aqo for our New Year's break. Debating the same in another part of Italy this year. We shall see!

Word! I have a very select amount of quite sad green tomatoes this year. I reckon it might be a good cause. I can always have more decent tinned tomato paste / passata on board for sweetness?

No photos as I inhaled it! Sandwich made from breadmaker multigrain bread, waterbath 60 degree chicken breast, mayo, butter and a generous slather of my home made jack in the hedge pesto. With a side of home pickled cornichons.

I need to go forage for some damson and make Delia's damson chutney again. Do you think the famous tomato chutney would work with green tomatoes?

Snap! I picked one of those up a few months back. Still haven't tried it, lol. Will be interested to see your experiments

Ate in a few hole in the wall Nepalese restaurants in my time in Tokyo that were simply wonderful. All in out of the way areas not frequented by gaijin. Japanese food loving friends were, thankfully, not in short supply. The culture recognises good food when it sees it.

I've seen a few menus without prices in Japan in some of the fancier French places, but it's not gender specific - it's more that the person making the booking gets the priced menu, and the guests don't. So sometimes I've got the priced menu and sometimes my husband has depending on which of us made the booking.

I uploaded a ton of photos and just realised it was too much, so have a status report instead. The herb border is progressing fine - everything looks like it will overwinter, my ailing rescue bay tree is back to normal, the swiss mint is very happy. Berry patch has not harvested apart from a few from the lingonberries, which look very happy. Everything was tiny though and the cranberry is clearly happy. Might move the aronia next year but a year establishing will not hurt them. Flower bed is going crazy, I have been cropping more cosmos and cornflower than I could ever use since June and they are still going. Scabious are not worth their slot. Nigella are if you don't consider other crops but crop at the same time and never got used. I am growing them on for winter interest in a seed pod display. Wouldn't bother again. Sweet pea are terrible. I suspect I need an earlier start and more organic matter. Asters are a surprisingly good value crop. Nasturtiums got ravaged by Cabbage White caterpillars but the seeds (which I was growing them for) are reclaimed and pickled. Next year I might use more leaves in salads. Sunflowers - I have 7, the size of a good sized dinner plate. The problem is how to harvest. Right now they are clearly not ready, the seed is not full. It is a F1 but it is supposed to be a seed friendly F1 (little dorrit) and the current wisdom is to encase the heads in cheesecloth and let them drop naturally. A couple of the heads have mould so I am worried about this but I might as well try it as instructed this time. I am just sad if it doesn't work, I could have had an epic Van Gogh bouquet. We planted 6 runner beans this year and need at most 3 - I think we have gotten one meal out of them fresh and everything else has gone in the freezer. Less next year and probably I need to research recipes. I also need to pick them again, arggh. Courgette are the same - next year plant fewer plants but probably in neat manure / compost. Check more frequently and don't be shy to harvest small ones, the 2 foot marrow that got away (and is the basis for at least 10 meal portions) will appear regardless. Cornichon are just too random to be useful. I've just pickled a 6 inch long example with 10 2cm long examples. I think, for the times that I really want a Viron style baguette with pate de Campagne, cornichons, leaves and salad (it used to be a Saturday morning pick from an amazing baker in Tokyo, with their Coppa - I can still taste it) I should just find a supplier for decent cornichons. Drying beans got used just off dry in a slow cooked lamb dish that was essentially 8 hour locavore organic hogget (excluding the abattoir trip, it's from 400 yards away). It was tasty enough but not mindblowing. I'd rather give the room to something else. I need to feed the fruit cage - the imported soil is stone free but a bit too sharp. Top dressing with manure and probably some pellet plugs. £5 fruit trees were never going to crop this year. Cox apple is looking happiest, morello cherry the least happy, pears and plums in between. It was £30. We can see. Need to pick 2 figs off the tree in the Mediterranean garden. Oka is doing well, lovage has perked up and I think will establish. Rhubarb crowns are wildly happy at being out of the pot. To do: expand the strawberry crop and buy a mini cage as runners are going everywhere! Spares will go in the steep bank besides the stream because why not

Wow. Some of the local people she learns from are utterly delightful and remind me a lot of Shropshire folk.

Interesting. PBS have very generously put up the episodes for free, which is great, and not just for the US as I'm watching them happily. http://www.pbs.org/food/features/a-chefs-life-episodes/#season1 - and away!

Cool! Did you figure out what the issue was?

I usually make enough for 6 pizzas and freeze 4 in balls. Wrap them in clingfilm then into a ziploc bag. I used to just use clingfilm but since moving to biodegradable stuff that doesn't keep as well. Just take out the night before you use it.

[Host's note: The original Yard Sale, Thrift Store, Junk Heap Shopping topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Yard Sale, Thrift Store, Junk Heap Shopping (Part 2)] I am a sucker for charity shop cookbooks. I've gotten most of my Nigella cookbooks this way (doesn't surprise me as she writes beautifully about food but I remain skeptical that she actually tests most of her recipes! The last one was Nigella Express which I haven't opened yet, brand new for £6, along with Heston Blumenthal's In Search Of Perfection, Heston's Fabulous Feasts and a Gordon Ramsay pub food cook book. All pristine, not bad for £20, and Save the Children were very happy too! Given the cheaper ones are less money than a magazine I don't feel that guilty I picked up Delia Smith's How to Cook 1-3 a few months back as well - good as she actually DOES check her recipes and you can therefore trust her proportions.