Nov/Dec 2023

24
South Woodford Village Gazette
SEASONAL VEG
Local resident Red Willow reflects on her ambition to encourage variety
in cooking and eating, a seven-year adventure which has led to the
publication of her vegetarian cookbook, inspired by the seasons
May I introduce A Year of Veggie
Adventures? Four scrumptious
seasons of palate-pleasing
pleasures. She is peppered with poetry,
tall tales, handy hints, elegant scenes, and
spans 17 countries of truly delicious dishes.
My intention was simply to encourage variety
in cooking and eating. Although the tide is
now turning, cookbooks, magazines and TV
shows previously put a lot of emphasis on
meaty cooking.
Ever since I first began eating out in the mid-
90s, I noticed restaurants and pubs always
lacked any decent vegetarian food, often
offering just one ‘option’, and that was usually
mushroom risotto or vegetable penne pasta.
Unbelievably, I still sometimes see those on
the menu!
Being a chef, and a curious traveller, I knew
there were so many more ingredients that
were being ignored. In conversation, I found
many people were unwilling to widen their
food choices due to having no knowledge
of how to use grains, beans, vegetables,
spices and herbs. I also noted that cookbooks
had become more about the photographic
styling than the food. The current fashion
is bold, bright and blocky, with top-down
messy Instagram-style photos. There’s also
the puzzling phenomenon of that antiquelooking
spoon that seems to make its way into
every photo, sitting in a strategic smudge of
the relevant sauce.
Well, I’ve never been one to follow the crowd.
My goal was to craft a work of art, something
beautiful and inspirational. I intended to
express the energetic quality of the seasons
and highlight the intrinsic bond between our
lives, our food and Mother Nature’s cycles.
It has certainly been an adventure bringing
her to life. I began in 2016 and first compiled
four separate e-books to sell online before
reformatting them all into one file, creating
the cover and getting the whole thing printready.
The cover is just one of the things that
make Veggie Adventures so unique. It is a
lovely, hand-painted watercolour, with prints
and collage, using items found in our garden.
This delicate, circular entwining of nature’s
gifts spans both sides of the cover. If you open
it out, you can see the full glory of the year.
Unusually, the adventure begins in autumn,
nature’s most abundant harvest, and cycles
through to summer. Every page is seasonally
themed with vibes of nostalgia and good
times. Also, there are no photos of the
completed dishes in the book itself. Instead,
I put photos in a gallery on my website, and
saved page space for the all-important recipes,
over 150 of them inspired by my global travels.
For now, I’m feeling accomplished, but
pretty soon, it’s likely I’ll embark on the next
adventure.
A Year of Veggie Adventures by Red Willow
is available in hardback (£30). For more
information, visit swvg.co.uk/ayova
To advertise, call 020 8819 0595 or visit swvg.co.uk