Wild Garlic

As foraging goes, wild garlic has got to be one of the most desirable finds out there; it's plentiful, it's versatile, it's easy to recognise, it's garlicky... I particularly like the garlicky part... But in two springs of looking I've never found any in St Albans, so, except for a taster or two at Wild Food Nights, I had yet to experience wild garlic for myself - until recently.

Yep, we finally found some a short drive away, thanks to an 'insider' tip off! I thought he was having us on for a while - we scoured the area for ages and had nearly given up. And then we found it. Loads of it!

We picked a bagful, taking no more than one or two leaves per plant, and ended up with enough for several dishes!

Wild garlic is, obviously, similar to garlic in flavour, but with a grassy, fresh kinda feel. It's mild enough that you can almost use it as a leaf vegetable and throw loads in. And it keeps in the fridge for days!

First we used it to make chicken kievs - we pureed it with butter and seasoning, stuffed chicken breasts with it, coated in flour, egg and breadcrumbs (must be in that order!) and baked. They didn't stay together too well... but they were delish. I was afraid the wild garlic would lose its flavour with the longish cooking time, but it didn't.

Next, a quick wild garlic pasta, with mushrooms, butter and a splash of wine and cream. I used 6-8 large leaves per person, chopped finely. Gorgeous!

And finally a feast of curry dishes: wild garlic rice, wild garlic pakoras from here (I recommend pre-cooking the potato!), wild garlic and chickpea salan - a buttery south-Asian curry - with some added green beans, and a cashew nut curry which I improvised with coconut milk and a little tomato puree - rich and filling and lovely! I made the rice by crackling a few mustard seeds in a little oil, stirring in the rinsed basmati rice, adding twice the volume of boiling water, cooking for just a few minutes, stirring in the chopped wild garlic, then covering tightly and leaving to stand off the heat until we were ready to eat - about 15 more minutes. I was a little concerned the whole dish would be too garlicky, but it wasn't - it was wonderful!

Wild garlic is flowering now (the flowers are edible too!) and the season will be over before long. I'm very tempted to buy some seeds and scatter them somewhere nearby (or maybe under the trees at the bottom of the garden) so I don't have so far to go next year! It's a little invasive but... that just means I have to eat more, right?

If you go down to the woods today...

Well okay, it's hardly a picnic, but with everything springing back to life after winter there is a lot of free food to be had out there right now.

We went out looking for edible greens earlier this week and brought home this lovely lot - all from within a short walk of home; a mix of stinging nettles, garlic mustard, goosegrass, chickweed, hogweed, dead nettles and ground elder! I'm pretty proud of how my foraging is coming along!

Everyone who was ever a child recognises stinging nettles, the most commonly-used wild green.

Dead nettles look very similar but don't sting - they look sort of softer and less hairy, are generally smaller, and have either white or purple flowers. The leaves are best picked, I'm told, while the plant is flowering.

Goosegrass is that fuzzy stuff you used to stick all over classmates' backs in the playground, otherwise known as cleavers, and abundant around here.

Chickweed is a very common garden weed with teardrop-shaped leaves, pretty little white flowers and a low branching habit, which I am always pulling out of my pots!

Garlic mustard grows tall upright stems in the summer, but now you can already spot its first clumps of leaves appearing. Crush a leaf and it will smell subtly of garlic.

Hogweed is lauded by some as the tastiest wild green. Its large leaves are quite distinctive, and its furled new shoots are apparently delightful lightly steamed and served simply, like asparagus. Must put this on my to-try list...

While many gardeners are plenty familiar with ground elder, you do need to be sure it's ground elder, as water hemlock can look fairly similar (though it only grows in wet places) and that's not a mistake anyone wants to make! Pick the leaves before the plant flowers. (And do, of course, be sure you know what you're doing picking any wild food - not all weeds are edible and some will give you a nasty stomach upset or even kill you. If you're not already familiar with these plants, this page may not be good enough for identification purposes! Try to forage away from roads where plants might be polluted, and be careful where people walk their dogs. Eww.)

So, what to do with a bagful of greens? Like spinach and other leafy veg - kale, chard, collards - all these leaves are pretty versatile and can go in virtually anything you like. Pastas, risottos, pies, stews, egg dishes, cheese dishes, sides, soups, salads (well, don't try eating nettles raw...)

But being the sort of person for whom one challenge at a time is just not enough, I decided to attempt my first-ever souffle. Frugal meets fancy. And here it is!

It sunk a little while I was getting my camera out - it was higher than that when it first came out the oven, honest! It was light and tasty. You could serve it just with toast and/or salad, or with salty meats like sausages or bacon. We had it with sausages and a simple tomato sauce, which was lovely. For a posh starter, make it in ramekins and reduce the cooking time to 10-13 minutes.

Wild Greens Souffle
(serves 4)

• Butter a one litre souffle dish thoroughly. Preheat the oven to 200C, and in it place a large roasting dish with an inch or so of water.
• Wash 150-250g foraged greens, and place in a large saucepan with an inch of water and a pinch of salt. Steam until all the greens are well wilted, stirring occasionally to turn things over. Drain them and squeeze out as much water as you can, then chop them quite finely.

• Melt 25g butter in a pan, and stir in 2 tbsps plain flour to make a roux. Cook, stirring, for a minute or two, then gradually add 150ml milk, whisking all the time, until you get a smooth sauce, and simmer gently for a couple of minutes.
• Remove from the heat and stir in 80g mature cheddar. Then add the chopped greens, 2 or 3 teaspoons Dijon mustard, a pinch of cayenne pepper and a generous grating of nutmeg, and season well. Stir in 2 large egg yolks.
• In a separate bowl, whisk 4 large egg whites with a pinch of salt until they form stiff peaks.
• Fold the egg whites into the cheese and greens mixture, gently and a little at a time. When it's all well combined, spoon into the buttered dish.
• Place in the preheated roasting dish and water, and bake for 20-25 minutes until the souffle is golden brown and nicely risen.
• Handle gently and serve immediately!

The Foragers

You may have noticed there was no Wild Food Night post in February - the evening was unfortunately cancelled due to the illness of the chef. So it seemed the perfect opportunity to check out a more local 'wild food' restaurant which has popped up right here in St Albans - The Foragers @ The Verulam Arms. Unlike the Country Bumpkin's once-a-month set-menu event, The Foragers serves a full menu featuring wild foods every day.

The Verulam Arms is a familiar pub to us - we were quite fond of it a couple of years ago when we used to live just around the corner. It first opened in 1853, so it's been part of St Albans for a long time! But it's outside the centre of town, in a quiet area, and increasing competition and changing culture have caused it to struggle time and time again over the last few years. During the five years we lived nearby it closed down and opened again more than a couple of times! And it had just closed down again when 'the Foragers', George and Gerald, met the landlord and told him they were looking for a place to set up a wild food business... The Verulam Arms is still a pub (now with their own beer on tap, and occasional homemade wines and flavoured spirits) but offers a restaurant-style foodservice as well. And I can't believe it's taken me this long to get round to trying it!

Eddie and I started with home-smoked whiskey-cured trout with nettle salsa verde and crispy lardons of homemade chorizo, garnished with crispy fried fish skin and beautiful trout eggs (how's that for making the most of a catch?), and a sprig of goosegrass!

This was a wonderful combination, very rich and flavourful - in fact I would have liked a little more of the lovely nettle salsa verde to temper the richness.

Dave had this pig’s head and rabbit white pudding terrine with tomato chutney, pickled baby carrots and toasted sourdough. He said it was really good, and he particularly enjoyed the pickled carrots!

For Eddie's main course, he chose braised ox cheek with a stilton, wild garlic, roasted shallot and mushroom ragout, and toasted spaetzle pasta. The slow-cooked ox cheek was amazingly soft and tender, and really tasty.

Dave chose battered skate wing with pea purée, goose grass, parmentier potatoes and crispy capers. It looked lovely!

I read once that goosegrass should be cooked to get rid of the hairiness, but actually, served raw like this, the hairiness doesn't really matter, and of course it disappears as soon as you chew anyway. Goosegrass tastes pretty good, and I have added it to my 'to forage' list...

I had venison wellington (the last piece - sorry guys!) - venison wrapped in mushroom duxelle and flaky puff pastry, served with nettle sauce, pommes dauphine and home-grown blackcurrant game jus.

Wow.

Again, this was wonderfully rich and full of flavour. The blackcurrants complemented the rich wellington really well, the mushroom duxelle was delicious, and the meat was just perfect. I'm always a bit nervous about rare meat, as it can be chewy and I'm not a fan of that, but this was incredibly tender and lovely.

For dessert, we picked chocolate fondants with a white chocolate and hazelnut sauce. There's not a lot you can say about a chocolate fondant, is there...? (Except maybe 'more please'!) But yes, it was just right, and the hazelnuts were a very nice complement.

All in all, a really great meal and a great evening. You can see how much love and care goes into both the sourcing of the ingredients and the preparation of the dishes, and flavours are brought together perfectly on every plate. The atmosphere was pretty busy (and I'm so glad they're busy!) but service was quick and very friendly, and the barman even recognised my name and answered in person a question I had asked on facebook - how's that for service?! Unfortunately it's a bit pricey for us to go regularly, so it won't be replacing wild food night, but I do hope we can go again. And while at our regular wild food nights there's a sense of 'this is what's available this month', seeing the full menu at the Foragers brings home what a huge variety of wild and local seasonal foods (including, of course, stored and preserved foods) are, in fact, available at any time of the year!

Thank you, Foragers!

Wild Food Night - January

Wild Food Night on Wednesday was really excellent - one of the best yet (I think I've said that three times now). I have to admit I arrived a little apprehensive - as well as pheasant being on the menu, which I hadn't really enjoyed previously, we'd been promised squirrel - not the most popular of wild meats - and haggis!

Canapes were a rich game liver pate, horseradish houmous - which obviously used traditional houmous as a base, with an added hit of horseradish which complemented it surprisingly well - and shredded confit squirrel... which was really tasty, with strong similarities to my other favourite; rabbit. More please!

The starter was wild haggis on a little bed of clapshot ('neeps and tatties') - perfect for Burns' night! - and a venison kofta roll. Haggis is traditionally sheep's heart, liver and lungs, minced with oats, onion, suet and spices and cooked in a casing - traditionally the sheep's stomach. I didn't ask what animal or animals) this was from but it came 'uncased' (can't say I wasn't a little relieved!), like a little mound of stuffing, and it was delicious. The venison kofta roll, with greens and sour cream, was a winner too - venison certainly lends itself well to spice.

Next, we had pheasant and mushroom pie with wild chive potatoes and buttered savoy cabbage. As I said, I haven't got on very well with pheasant in the past, but in this rich creamy pie filling it was lovely, and the potatoes and cabbage were really good too.

I don't think any of us really needed dessert after all that, but we could hardly resist tangy sloe gin ice-cream and chocolate truffles!

A fabulous menu!

Wild Food Night - Christmas!

Winter may be a hard time for foragers, with few plants producing fresh growth, but there's still plenty to enjoy, and a few days before Christmas we were treated to a Wild Food Night Christmas special, with a clear emphasis on meats and dried fruits. Oh, and a few local-grown veg ; )

Our canapes were a coarse game and cranberry pate, wild goose mousse, and duck confit - all very tasty, and I do especially love duck.

The starter was cream of pheasant soup, and a loin of hare chop with crabapple jelly. I was quite surprised at the size of the chop!

For the main event, we enjoyed duck breast, chestnut stuffing, 'game pigs' in blankets, goose-fat roasted potatoes plus some seasonal veggies. Delicious!

And dessert, too, was quite traditional, with homemade mince pies and Christmas pudding ice cream, filled with fruit. I'm afraid I'm not a fan of dried fruit and these traditional festive puds, but I'm told they were lovely!

Finally, because it's Christmas, we were served an extra course of British cheeses and crackers, and some really good sloe and damson chocolate-covered fondants, similar to those we had in November. I ate them so quick I didn't get a picture, sorry!

We took the family along on this occasion as well and, well, I think they all enjoyed themselves... Some of them might even be back in future...

Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!

Two Lovely Chestnut Recipes

I promised I'd cook more with our native chestnuts this year while they're in season, and in the last week I've made not just one, but two spectacular chestnut dishes.

First up, we enjoyed this beef and chestnut stew as a welcome-home dinner for my parents last week when they returned from their narrowboat for the winter, with roast potatoes, parsnips and sprouts. I confess I read a few chestnut/meat stew recipes and decided it was fair play just to use my signature beef-stew-and-dumplings recipe, which always goes down a storm, and simply throw in chestnuts too - they're a lovely seasonal addition that add rich, earthy nuttiness and succulence. It's great hearty winter food, and a nice alternative to a Sunday roast. The dumplings use oil instead of the traditional suet and are really tasty!

Beef, Guinness and Chestnut Stew with Dumplings
(serves 6)

• Dice 600g or so beef and sear in hot oil in small batches in an ovenproof pan until sealed and browning on all sides. (I usually use quite a high quality lean steak, but you can use cheaper stewing beef and simmer it for longer if you prefer.)
• Remove beef from the pan and throw in 6-8 rashers chopped bacon and a handful of whole, peeled shallots. When the bacon's cooked, add the beef back in and stir in 3 tbsps plain flour.
• Add a bottle and a half of Original Guinness or other stout. That's... let's see... 750ml. You can sip the rest ; )
• Add a generous sprinkle of mixed herbs, half a teaspoon of mustard powder, a beef stock cube and some white pepper. Stir and simmer a few minutes.
• Add two or three large carrots and a small swede, diced. Add around 200g roasted chestnuts (optional).
• Now cover and let that simmer gently for half an hour or so - no need to be precise - while you prep veggies and make the dumplings...
• In a bowl, mix 250g plain flour, 1 tsp salt and 2 tsps baking powder. (You can also add a pinch of dried thyme or other herb if you like.)
• Gradually add 150ml milk and 2 tbsps olive or rapeseed oil, bringing the dough together with a fork. You might not quite need all of the milk - stop when the dough comes together (if you add too much your dough will be too sticky to manage and you'll end up with crazy-shaped dumplings like mine above - whoops!) Knead briefly, roll into walnut-sized balls, and arrange on top of your stew.
• Put the lid back on the stew and place in an oven at 180C for 35-40 minutes. Remove the lid for the last ten minutes of cooking, to let the tops of the dumplings turn golden-brown.
• Serve with your choice of winter veggies. Yum!

Chestnut Cookies

These are a delicious and wonderfully Christmassy treat, dusted with icing sugar on the outside, moist and buttery in the middle, with a hint of spice. They're perfect with tea - or a tot of something stronger - and certain to please at parties, I reckon.

I used Smitten Kitchen's recipe here so I won't reproduce it, but I will heartily recommend it! The cookies needed a slighter cooler temperature in my oven - I had better results at 200C for 14 minutes. I also experimented (can't help myself) by taking half the dough and adding 2 tbsps cocoa powder and 2 tbsps brandy, and they were really good too (probably even better with rum - and best served cold, while the plain ones are awesome served warm), but you know, I don't think this recipe can really be improved upon - the flavour of the chestnuts shines through and really doesn't need any more help than the touch of cinnamon and nutmeg provided. Delicious.

Wild Food Night - November

A bit late again, but I can't miss it out - here's what we enjoyed at Wild Food Night a couple of weeks back.

Canapes were a mixed bag; a sloe shot - far too dry for my taste! - a spicy venison kofta bite with black pepper mayo, and a chocolate-dipped 'bramble candy' - a really lovely confection, soft inside like an after-dinner mint, but berry-flavoured of course.

The starter was wild mushroom soup, made with oyster, field and dried penny bun mushrooms, and pheasant and port pate - both delicious, and I could eat that soup again and again. (I've been eyeing the mushrooms popping up all over my lawn all autumn - I think they're edible blewitts but I just can't quite be sure... I'd love to get into mushroom identification but it seems such a tricky business. Maybe one day...)

The main was a venison pie, made with local fallow deer and red wine, topped with shortcrust pastry and served with locally-grown veg; sweet potato, cauliflower puree and buttered cabbage. Tasty and very filling! Venison is such a lovely meat and seems to suit pies, stews and curries really well - we should all use more of it!

Dessert was a triumph. I was a bit apprehensive when I read 'crab apple cheesecake' on the menu, but of course the crab apples were sweetened to a rich syrup and it was a delight, served with more of that lovely wild plum ice cream we've had before. Delicious!

A great meal and a great night!

Chestnut Ravioli

For years I've been a bit put off by chestnuts - when I was a kid and Dad roasted them in the fire at Christmas time, I always thought they smelled weirdly of methylated spirits. (Maybe Dad just wasn't telling us something about how he got the fire going...) But yet, Mum makes a wicked chestnut stuffing every Christmas, while my mother-in-law serves them roasted with sprouts and shallots - lovely. And they add a gorgeous richness to cakes and desserts too - the chestnut chocolate torte we sampled last Wild Food Night was awesome. Chestnuts are a huge British winter tradition, and quite rightly so - they're indigenous, freely and widely available, tasty, and their high starch content (twice that of potatoes!) makes them massively versatile - in fact, (though they taste great in themselves) they'll happily soak up other flavours and you can use them in many ways you'd use potatoes; adding them to stews and soups, using them as a flour, as a puree, as a side dish... They're low fat and high fibre, and full of complex carbs and high quality proteins, with as much vitamin C as lemons by weight, and lots of vitamins E and B6, thiamin, potassium, folate and magnesium. So I've made it my aim - nay, my duty - this year, to use them in my own cooking...

Sadly, my attempts at foraging for chestnuts have so far all failed - it turns out they drop around here much earlier than all the books say - so all the chestnuts you'll be seeing here are bought from markets or supermarkets (probably ready-roasted and vacuum-packed). But it's not going to stop me making the best of this great British ingredient.

The first thing that sprang to mind, especially when I was given a large patty-pan-type squash last week and asked to do something fun with it, was Monica Shaw's mouthwatering picture of chestnut pasta ravioli which I'd seen on Twitter a few weeks back, and she kindly linked me to the chestnut pasta recipe here and the pumpkin ravioli recipe here. Granted, I've never tried my hand at any kind of pasta before, but I'm not one to be put off by mere cluelessness...

Actually, I've made this twice in the last few days. The first attempt, while perfectly edible, was not really what I aspired to...

 ...but I learnt a lot of lessons from the process:

Lesson No. 1: Chestnut flour (required for the pasta dough) is not widely available. I've checked all my local supermarkets and health food shops and there's none of this stuff in the whole city. But a couple of websites said I could make my own by milling roasted chestnuts, so that's what I did. It's moister than flour should be (though it could - and probably should - be dried out in a low oven or dehydrator) and gives a more wholemealy look and texture. (Lesson No. 1a: Use less egg in the dough to make up for this extra moisture!)

Lesson No. 2: Lock the cat out when chestnuts are around. From the moment I opened the packet he was miaowing round my feet and trying to get on the table. I couldn't understand it - you'd have thought we were making some kind of sushi-meets-catnip treat! Then he dived in the bin, dragged the chestnut packet out and started licking the crumbs out like a mad thing! Bad kitty! He doesn't normally go for non-meat/dairy foods - I wonder what on earth it is about chestnuts he likes so much! Does anyone else's cat go crazy for them?

Lesson No. 3: Rest the dough half an hour before rolling out. I realised we'd forgotten to do this the first time, and when I did it the second time it made the whole process much easier.

Lesson No. 4: The pasta must be THIN. Reeeeally thin. Like, nearly-see-through thin. Resting helps this, as the dough is much more willing to stretch, but it's a rather sticky dough and too often it stuck to the table or fell apart as I tried to roll it out as thin as I possibly could! It paid off in the end; my first batch of ravioli were way too thick, tricky to fill well, took ages to cook, and the pasta/filling ratio was all wrong. The second batch were much more delicate and allowed for more filling. Of course, none of this would have been an issue if I had a pasta machine...

Lesson No. 5: Patty-pan squash isn't the ideal squash for a recipe like this. Its flavour is very mild and sadly just got a bit lost. Pumpkin, butternut or onion squash are more robust flavourwise and far more suitable. (The other half of that patty-pan will go great in a stew or a curry later this week.)

I experimented a bit with fillings too on the first attempt, and made spiced squash (good, but could have done without the cream which diluted the flavour), squash with rosemary, cheese and tomato (good, but could have done with more cheese), squash with chopped chestnuts (good, but ground or pureed chestnuts would have been better), squash with truffle oil (good, but it's punchy stuff and I made it a touch too strong!) and mushroom, with shallot, fresh parsley and a splash of brandy (delicious! must make again!). The second time I kept it simple and used just roasted pumpkin with a knob of butter, seasoning and a touch of sage and nutmeg.

Here's my second attempt at ravioli:

 

Not too bad, huh? I suspect the pasta could still be thinner, but I'm pretty pleased. The chestnut adds a rich new dimension to the pasta, the pumpkin is fragrant and delicious, and the crispy shallot and sage butter topping (from the recipe above) is the perfect accompaniment (I replaced the pine nut garnish in the recipe with toasted almonds to keep in the spirit of all things local and homegrown).

I think, though, that my next chestnut recipe will have to be something a bit more simple. Ravioli takes aaaages!

EDIT: See Carl Legge's lovely chestnut pasta post and recipe here too!

Wild Food Night - October

Numbers have been dwindling for Wild Food Night over the past few months - a real shame if you ask me. If you know anyone foraging- or homegrowing-minded in the Hertfordshire area, let them know what they're missing! We were still there on Wednesday night to see what October had to offer...

Canapes were all things we'd had before, but new and improved! First was a wild garlic crispbread, made with the bulbs rather than the more commonly picked leaves. I didn't know that the bulbs could be harvested too - they're quite small, sort of similar to the white shafts of spring onions, and they take up to three years to develop; internet sources say they're only worth harvesting when the patch needs thinning out (and remember, kids, it's illegal to uproot any plant without the permission of the landowner). Next, a pigeon mousse with a red onion and truffle oil vinaigrette - delicious. And finally a haw berry shot, which tasted nice and syrupy, but I still couldn't tell you what haws taste like. I'm quite curious about these as I'm seeing loads in our area at the moment - I'll have to look them up and see what can be done with them.

The starter was a lovely rich wild duck and "not-so-wild" orange pate, served with crispbreads, and a peppery nettle soup. I love nettle soup - I must make it more often! Apparently new growth nettles in autumn have a deeper, richer flavour. The nettles I pass on my walks seem to be dying off slowly now or even still showing their flowers or seeds, with no signs of new shoots, but I've noticed a few new ones popping up on the allotment so that's where I'll go...

The main was named 'Peasant Pheasant'; pheasant breast cooked with garlic, onion, lemon juice and rosemary, served with creamy mash, buttery carrot puree and some tasty green beans. Sadly I'm not so keen on the taste of pheasant - it has a livery flavour much like the pigeon we sampled some months ago - but everyone else at the table enjoyed it, and the vegetable accompaniments were lovely.

For dessert, this fabulously rich chestnut chocolate torte and very creamy wild berry ice cream (made with bramble, haw and damson syrups) were incredible! More please!

I was very glad there were chestnuts on October's menu, especially since my own chestnut-gathering attempts were frustrated last week when I found I'd missed them all already! 'Food for Free' clearly says they start to ripen around the end of October, but by mid-October every single one had gone from the trees near me! And I was even more shocked to see them going for £4 per small bag in the supermarket yesterday (twice the price of the prepared chestnuts sold by Merchant Gourmet all year round - it's amazing how much Christmas packaging can cost...) I haven't really cooked with chestnuts before but I do like them. Foraged or not, I am determined to use them more this winter...

Wild Food Night - September

Last Wednesday was September's Wild Food Night, and I struggled out despite still not really being well, and with my tastebuds certainly not on top form! I even indulged in my first glass of wine for weeks... though I regretted it by bedtime, when I'd developed a splitting headache. Doh.

I can't help but feeling there's a bit of a lack of variety in the foods offered at the moment, and there's still a real lack of wild greens which is a shame. Perhaps it's just not a good year for greens - I know mine have struggled. Or perhaps I'm just feeling the inertia between seasons - that time when summer's kind of over but autumn hasn't really begun yet.

Our canapes were all crayfish; crayfish caviar on a blini, a whole crayfish (bit messy and fiddly for a canape if you ask me!), and crayfish tempura with chilli jam - delicious!

The starter was a real treat - two filo parcels filled with shredded rabbit - one with fennel and other warming spices, and one with tomato, garlic and herbs. I do love rabbit, and these were fab.

The main course was a curry; a pathia, with tomato, fennel and coriander, and very slow-cooked venison that really melted in the mouth. Delicious, and just the thing for a cold! I'm not convinced that naan was homemade though...!

Dessert was an elderberry panna cotta, with hazelnut biscuits. I didn't really think much of the panna cotta - just personal taste I think. Despite the lurid purple colour, the flavour seemed a bit lost, to me. (My elderberry ice cream was way better!) The biscuits were lovely though!

I'm really looking forward to seeing what autumn and winter bring...