What’s cooking?

Our kitchen is full of sourdough oat porridge – I made up 3 batches in order to film the videos I’m hoping to get up on my website later in the summer – so I thought I’d try putting some leftover porridge into my spelt sourdough.
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And it worked beautifully. Here’s the resulting loaf. It’s got the crunchy crust that I love, but the crumb is springy and soft.
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If you have leftover porridge and you want to give this a go, follow the recipe in my profile for the Sourdough Wholegrain Spelt Loaf and when you get to part where you make a ‘scald’ simply substitute the same weight of cooked porridge.
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Hidden in the resources tab of my site there are plenty of other recipes. And I’m in the process of setting up a mailing list – if you’d like to be on it, there’s a link to it in my profile too.

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Finally, I got to making ginger beer. I’ve had a sneaky taste and I think I’m going to *love* it.
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Do you make it?

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Do you remember these phones?! When I was 20, this Nokia was a fixture in my bag. And 25 years later, it is again. Because, a few years back, I gave away my iPhone.
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Today’s podcast episode is about technology. When my co-host, @farmandhearth found out that I am smartphone-free, that I use an eink book reader as my main computer, that we don’t have wifi in our house, and that I’m regulating my social media use (taking days off every week), she really wanted to talk to me about it.
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And this is our conversation.
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We talk about both the physical health effects of the devices and systems we use (the screens, the light, the emf) and the psychological health effects (on our state of mind, our relationships and our time). We also cover the alternatives – in terms of hardware and in terms of habits.
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If you have any doubts about your interaction with tech, or if you think that devices are affecting your health, have a listen. I started looking for alternatives nearly a decade ago and I’ve been able to take it further than most. I’m hoping they’ll be some sparks in the conversation that’ll work for you.

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Yesterday was a special day for us. August 1st is Lughnasadh, the Gaelic harvest celebration (which later became the Christian Lammas, or Loaf Mass Day). We started celebrating it when we lived on the south-west coast of Cornwall in the UK and have marked the day every year since.
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As part of the day, we think back over the past year and bring three things we are grateful for to the table. We share these and then say what we intend to do to honour these gifts in the year to come.
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It is beautiful process to go through personally and I love to hear both my husband Rob and our son Gabriel’s thoughts. In addition, for Rob (who loves being here in Italy but also misses Cornwall a lot) it is a way of keeping the Cornish energy alive in our home.
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And obviously, every year, there’s my food. This time it was sourdough spelt pizza with home-made walnut/basil pesto and lots of local onions and olive oil.
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Lots of good wishes from our home to yours.

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Slow-cooked cow’s heart is so easy and so tasty. It goes like this – wash the heart, plonk it in the crock pot, forget about it for 24 hours.
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For lunch I served it with:
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Rye sourdough made from home-ground grains which I slathered with the fat that previously dripped through a pork roast and some beets.
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Beet greens covered with a big handful of chives.
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A left-over roasted onion.
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Some sauerkraut and fermented garlic.
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The heart is from Flavio @valledelsasso, the onion was from @radiciumane and the beets and chives were from the garden.

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Sometimes I like my beet kvass with garlic and salt, other times, like here, I make it with ginger and some fizz!

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There is a lot of this in our house at the moment.
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It’s sourdough rye spice bread. I’ve got one in the freezer, one just cooked and one fermenting! On top of that, there’ll be another one being mixed up tomorrow.
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Tomorrow’s I’ll be mixing up live as part of the zoom cook-up I’m doing with @farmandhearth. The event is based on Nourishing Traditions, the cookbook we dedicated a recent podcast episode to and that we both *love*.
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In addition to my spice bread, we’ll be making, thanks to Andrea, lemon mousse and root beer. I think her kitchen is currently as stuffed with those as mine is with spiced sourdough!
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If you’re not following our podcast account yet, you can find it at @ancestralkitchenpodcast. All the details for the Patreon community are on the profile over there.
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In the meantime, if you happen to be near Florence and you want some spice bread, I’m in till our weekly #mercatointransizione trip at 4pm. This slice is yours 🙂

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I’m slowly working my way through the entire back catalogue of @fat_pig_farm’s Gourmet Farmer. Yesterday’s episode was set in France and at the end Matthew (the gourmet and farmer of the title) sat in a square and enjoyed some traditionally-processed local duck.
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He said: “You always need more duck fat in your life”.
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I agree.
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Here it is, with dripping, on my sourdough spelt.

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