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A bite of London | Saturday in Stoke Newington

11 January 2014

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My sister told me about the Stoke Newington farmer’s market even before we moved to London, so I’m not sure how to explain that, though we’ve lived here for over four months and despite the fact that Stoke Newington is very close to where we live, I’d not yet been. Well, maybe I can explain. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just say we’ve had other things to do.

But as January sauntered in, magnificently nonchalant as it is wont to be, with no other plans last weekend we decided to finally visit the market. Oh but first, breakfast.

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There are many tempting cafés and restaurants in Stoke Newington. The Haberdashery had caught my internet perusing eye, so we strolled up Stoke Newington High Street in its direction, peering into other possible options on the way. None beckoned.

I admit I have an incorrigible penchant for the time worn, run down, and artfully decaying, and immediately loved the place, its battered tile walls and seventies crockery. Service was kind and the coffee was good, unfortunately the food wasn’t great.

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The English and vegetarian breakfasts were uneven. Free range eggs, nicely confit-ed tomatoes, amazing sausages. But the baked halloumi was hard and very salty, the bacon salty too and rubbery (I realize bacon preferences are highly personal. I like it crispy, but not burnt). French Toast was the most disappointing — weirdly drab, the bread too lightly battered and, somehow, dry.

But I would go back for something simpler. Maybe just a fried egg with those amazing sausages, and perhaps, like Balthasar, a side of perfectly sauteed spinach. Or just coffee.

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And so to the market.

The Stoke Newington farmer’s market is my type. It’s not very big but has just the right selection: meat, fish, vegetables, mushrooms; someone sells buffalo milk products — amazing yogurt!; another raw milk — oh, to be back in Europe… There are a couple of very good bread stalls. In the fall there are fruits stands. All of it organic and local.

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After this long overdue reconnaissance trip, the ice has been broken, and it’s sure to become a regular Saturday excursion.

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A walk up High Street and along lively Stoke Newington Church Street away lies Clissold Park, which is lovely as London parks know to be. For children there’s a brilliant playground, skateboard fun park, deer enclosures, and a butterfly house in the warmer months. For a more leisurely time or a ball game there are huge lawns and shady trees. Worth spending a few lazy afternoon hours.

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Stoke Newington farmer’s market
St Paul’s Church on Stoke Newington High Street
Saturdays from 10am to 2.30pm

The Haberdashery
170 Stoke Newington High Street
London N16 7JL
Tel: 020 3643 7123
Open Mon-Wed 9am-6pm; Thu-Sun 9am-9pm

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Buying local | Butter

24 June 2013

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For a while I practically gave up on butter. I wasn’t aware of it immediately, it was a few years later that I realized, with some puzzlement, how indifferent I’d become.

When I moved to New York 14 years ago, though I was already very keen on cooking as a means to gather friends around the table, I wasn’t yet too obsessed about daily ingredients. I was busy working and loving it and finding a life in this somewhat intimidating city.

I didn’t go out of my way to seek just the right product, except for friends when I would gladly trek to all corners of the city to find the elusive squid ink and fish bones for that black risotto. Day to day, without really noticing it, I just stopped eating certain foods, mistaking and too quickly dismissing industrial blandness for ‘different to what I was used to at home.’ In any case, we went out practically every night.

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So, among other things, I never bought chicken, and I stopped liking butter. When one day — I don’t remember who or when — someone commented on the transcendent quality of bread and butter, I realized I had stopped caring. How could this have happened?

I decided I must right the many years of neglect; I started buying butter from France. This didn’t strike me as terribly sensible, practical, or environmentally responsible, but it was tasty. Until I became attuned to real butter, good butter, made relatively close by in upstate New York, or the Northeast at the very least.

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At first there was essentially Ronnybrook. Now a number of other butters have become quite readily available, and more seem to appear at the market and in stores every day. Here is a small sampling of butters that are most easily found at markets and supermarkets in New York.

Kriemhield Meadow Butter — the best — is from grass-fed cows, with a high fat content (crucial). It is very tasty and assertively salty.

Ronnybrook — old habits die hard — is always in the fridge (we often have three, four, sometimes five different kinds of butter at a time. Ahem.). This one is mild in taste, even the salty version. Good for everyday.

Vermont European Style Cultured Butter from Vermont Creamery and Kate’s Homemade Butter are local-ish and definitely better than the average mega-brand, but not all that tasty.

Despite all its local-ish, organic, and grass-feddedness, I didn’t much like Natural by Nature’s Salted Whipped Sweet Cream Butter. It has much lower fat content than the other butters, and therein lies the rub.

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