September 29

Harriet the plastic hawk has done her job. She ensured the pigeons kept their distance, terrified, presumably, by her fearsome swaying in the breeze. We produced a good tomato crop, watered and cherished for the first time by “The Writer, and the plants are now looking sadly dishevelled and brown. The remaining fruits are green and hard and unlikely to ripen, so that signals it’s time for one of my favourite activities: Gleaming lass jars are sterilising in the oven. (When I first made chutney, I was baffled by the debate on line as to whether it was more hygienic to bake jars in the oven or pour boiling water into them. Taking no chances with the lives of the friends who will receive them, I decided to do both).

One great thing about Lockdown is that I have the time to really look and appreciate things in a way I never used to. BL(before Lockdown), each task had to be completed in a rush in order to move on to the next. Lockdown days seem twice the length so I can actually pause to enjoy the jewel-like tomatoes glowing in the colander.

Every time I chop or peel onions, I think of our beautiful Stephen Jacobson painting of onions arranged on their plinths like a platoon awaiting inspection. Today, I actually pause before chopping to go and look at the painting, admire the weight and heft and calm of the onions, the coolness of their skins and their unruly tops neatly bandaged so as not to draw the eye of the competition judge or the painting’s viewer from the voluptuousness of their curves.

The recipe I use is by Nigel Slater, the only cookery writer I can follow. He tells the reader what the texture of a dish should be, what colour, how hard or soft, what he likes about its flavour. You can taste the dish in his prose before you make it His recipes are worth reading for the sumptuous writing and his memoir, Toast, is a treat. The only cavil I have about this chutney recipe is the huge amount of work involved for the minuscule outcome:

Yes. folks, that’s it!

And I’ve always found that simply doubling the recipe doesn’t work. I will have to make time to cook another batch before I can get to the most fun part of this project – designing the labels.