This is the Best post ever

Jul 15, 2025

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I sat on the edge of the bed, respite from the midday heat, with a bowl of still-warm apricot compote and cold yoghurt wondering could it get any better than this? The oozy depth of the rich bright orange fruit, sweet but elegant and the thick creamy sharpness of the yoghurt, surely this is the absolute best thing ever? The pleasant surprise is also welcome smugness, like when you slice a baguette at an angle, wow, instantly elevated, it’s special, fancy. Only moments ago the fruit flies were going to town on the smooshy bits of the apricots and if I’d left them any longer they’d be compost rather than compote. Now they are sleek, chic deliciousness.

These ‘best’ apricots will never again be recreated; an unknown amount of fruit at downward spiralling peak ripeness, a mix of two sugars of quantities unknown and half a vanilla pod; simmered for a time but how long? Ta dah, amazing. Shit, should’ve written it down.

We have a beehive tucked away in the back garden

Can it really be true that you have found or come up with the world’s best salad, or the best cake, the only recipe you’ll ever need- doesn’t this stifle creativity and exploration? I’ve never been comfortable with naming something the best, if we are given an award I sidestep and put the praise back onto the shoulders that have held us up and the community that buoys our success. Our beautiful diversity means that your best salad is not my best salad and my favourite dinner is almost certainly not yours. Thank goodness, how boring that would be, almost as boring as identical predictable menus. Let’s go with the beauty of possibility, of adaption and ingenuity, this freedom is what I love about food.

The heatwave weekend has been relentless and lunch must therefore be salad. I ordered a Green Earth Organics box and it included a massive bag of beautiful mixed leaves. I added capers, a chopped peach, a tablespoon of kimchi, fried Ballyhubbock cheese, toasted pistachios, sesame seeds and a simple dressing. Perfect, delicious, wait, maybe a wee bit extra olive oil. I eat ecstatically in the garden, congratulating myself, the sort of salad I dream of in a restaurant, not the limp rocket with swirls of balsamic glaze, or pale cold tomatoes with random sweetcorn and browning iceberg lettuce. Dress my leaves, dress them well, zingy, slurpy!

The salad was perfect to me in that moment and yet as I took the last bites I wondered how dare I have the audacity to claim it the best? It could be adapted and improved countless ways; add a veg, beans or lentils, tinned fish, add crunchy croutons, swap the cheese for tahini dressing, add a hard-boiled egg and of course, how obvious, add herbs!

I feel a bit confused like the dumbfounded drivers at a total standstill at the mini roundabout in town. Surely recipes must always have suggestions for add ins or swap outs, they are a guide but not overly prescriptive? But then this could be an endless list of possibilities of methods and ingredients and becomes an un-writing of the recipe which isn’t helpful to anyone. I’m getting in a pickle (pickles would be great in the salad too) feeling bewildered like when I see the burnt deadness of weed killed greenery bordering the swings and slides in the playpark.

Despite the glorious heat controversially I’m not really a summer girl at all, give me golden autumn and firelight, though my favourite food choices often are stuck in perpetual summer. I have to admit it is very nice to feel hot sun on my skin and to have the more than acceptable excuse to laze around, energy sapped, refreshments needed. A chance to pod peas in the cool kitchen with only the sound of the birds outside and the clock ticking or ice cold beers with friends and spraying the children with a hose in the garden.

At my parents I eat my first tomatoes of the season and they are sweet beauties, everything you want them to be. I butter some of mum’s wheaten bread and put them top, thinly sliced, with a generous pinch of salt and a few taps of the white pepper. Our friends are visiting from the Netherlands and have brought us a very special gift, aside from the beers, a first edition map of The Burren by Tim Robinson. I love maps and I love Tim’s work. I lay it out carefully to study the place names, the contouring lines of the limestone; I close my eyes and think of the stark beauty of that landscape. I trace my fingers along the coast from Doolin to Ballyvaughan; remembering picking our way carefully over the bare rock looking for orchids, the Green Spot in OLoclains and toes dipped in the waters by the Flaggy Shore. Isn’t it sad that now we trust people we don’t know to advise on the best places to see and use our phones for navigation removing the need for these maps? We may be eradicating the possibility of magic; the winding road to the mountain pass, the well with a fairy thorn, a sandy cove, the oak glade, a bend in the river for a picnic, you’ll miss them all.

In the morning I take my coffee out into the garden distracted by the wildness of the veg patch and consider what I should do today; weeding or writing, a swim or admin? By the end of the cup, three of the four are written off and I inevitably decide to escape for adventure.

At the top of the bay I point out the sheep resting on its forelegs to graze, it’s nonchalance makes us laugh. The views are stupendous here, this is paradise unmatched, everything is perfect, the best. Oh, the clegs are out. I’m bitten immediately, naturally. Over the cattle grid the oldest child has a nettle sting and I climb down the bank to get a dock where I am ironically stung by a nettle. At the beach we all get in knee high and jump over the waves grabbing long bits of kelp to swish around. I have a gorgeous swim in the crystal clear water. This is the best.

Then the tiniest falls over with the force of the incoming tide and the tears make it time to go, an unpopular decision with the boys. Off she goes and I grab our stuff, running to catch up. About fifty yards from the beach I see middle child has forgotten his flip flops, I roll my eyes, he runs back to get them (and his hat, the absence of which had gone unnoticed) we trudge along further, it’s close to lunch so the hunger complaints start. Suddenly and ridiculously I realise I’ve forgotten my shoes too; sheepishly I tell the children to stay where they are so I can run back for them. Cue jokes with the people on the beach, ‘ha, how silly, oops.’

Just as we are about to turn the corner to the car a tearful tiniest sobs ‘where is my hat’ and off she runs again, I throw my phone and bag in the ditch and run after her; she won’t stop because despite everything she’s a very independent/stubborn four-year-old. Later when I felt the need for a cold drink to unwind in the garden, she brings me a frog before dramatically falling in the pond when trying to release it to freedom. Not the best day but still great.