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Ever since attending a ‘gourmet wild food weekend’ with Fat Hen near St Buryan last year, I’ve been full of the joys of wild garlic, or three-cornered leek (or Allium triquetrum if you really want to get serious).
This ubiquitous and pleasantly pungent plant (different to the UK’s native wild garlic, Ramsons, which we don’t really get in Penwith) is all over west Cornwall in spring – and is currently bullying its way into a hedgerow near you.
Those fretting about upsetting the ecological balance by foraging should take comfort in the fact that Cornwall Council considers wild garlic a problem species and is actually directing funds to clearing it in some areas.
Foraging for food is a nervy business for beginners – and clearly you need to ensure a positive identification before chowing down – but you can take it from this very twitchy forager that wild garlic is easy to identify. For one, it stinks!
When checking out the new café/tapas bar at Scarlet Wines in Lelant at the weekend (of which more to follow), on the Old Forge pottery site, I discovered a neat new branch of St Ives vintage design shop Beaten Green in the hut next door.
There’s all manner of shabby-chic furniture piled up (chests-of-drawers, shelves, armchairs) – some more shabby than chic, some more chic than shabby – but it’s the unconventional pieces that really demonstrate a designer’s eye for potential.
still from FLOW the film
After watching the excellent – if inevitably depressing – docu-film The End of the Line about the excesses of the global fishing industry a few weeks back, I remembered just how rewarding and effective a well-made documentary can be, and vowed to watch more. Read the rest of this entry »
mm, maybe i'll stop for a virtual pint at the sloop
I just took an enjoyable stroll along the front in St Ives on Google Street View, which as of today documents with freaky clarity, and 360-degree views, virtually all houses and streets in the British Isles – including Cornwall. Just whack in a postcode here, and comes up with a picture your house/street/recycling box/favourite restaurant.
The experience is as unnerving as it is thrilling – around every corner you can’t help but wonder if you’re going to pop up on a bad hair day or with a mouth full of pasty. Needless to say, privacy campaigners are less than amused. Faces are vaguely blurred out and car registrations aren’t visible but it’s no great barrier to recognition.
(They appear to have shot Penwith on the only sunny day of last summer – everyone’s in shorts and shades and there’s not a cloud in the sky.)
ismay atkins
pasties & cream cornwall blog 