Haringey Green Fair and a yearning for lamb

Today's serious business was going to the Haringey Green Fair to help man the Friends of the Earth stall, but I woke with a serious yearning for roast lamb. Is this the after-effects of a holiday in Greece? Maybe not - I was delighted to see Hugh F-W is also in lamb mood in today's Guardian magazine. So I hot-bussed it down to Stoke Newington Farmers' Market and a swift visit to Muck and Magic furnished me with a small leg joint.
Spring has leapt into summer at the market - there was so much great green produce around today, from salad leaves to my first broad beans of the summer from the lovely Sarah Green. Sarah sowed her bean seeds in January, so she's way ahead of me on the fruiting front. I love the way early broad beans are like over-protected babies, huddling in their duvet jackets of zippered and fur-lined pods. Sarah was also selling sweet williams, complementing my home-grown Ferdinand Pichard rose.
A quick trip to Wholefoods (previously known as Fresh and Wild) furnished me with cheese and a jar of za'atar from Zaytoun in...what should one call it? Palestine or occupied land? I don't know, but it's a herbal mix with a tang of the middle east.
On to the lamb recipe:

Roast lamb with potatoes

First make your marinade. Chop four or five garlic cloves and combine with oregano, thyme, black pepper, salt and olive oil. Give it a good bash with a pestle. Pour over your joint and leave for the lamb to soak up the herby goodness for a few hours.

When you're ready to get roasting, pre-heat the oven to gas mark 8. In the meantime, slice potatoes thinly and, if you like, slice an onion too. Layer the onion and potato on the base of your oven tray and put the lamb on top. Combine the juice of two lemons with a small glass of white wine and pour over the lamb and veggies.

Slide into the oven, which you've knocked back to gas mark 5. Await the heavenly aroma - about an hour. Now you'll need to judge the done-ness of the lamb and the done-ness of the potatoes - the lamb gets there first. Remove the lamb to rest, and put the remaining veg on the top shelf of the oven to finish off.

Broad beans are my veg of choice and season. I'll serve them simply with a slavering of melted butter and chopped parsley.

Meanwhile, it turned into a lovely summer's day, and by 1430 I was at Duckett's Common, where fellow FoE friend Tamsin had been on duty.

Our big campaign at the moment is to persuade the council to go more green - we had a lot of support for signing postcards to councillors. I donned a tabard and helped out for an hour or so, while bumping into neighbourhood friends and contacts from Sustainable Haringey.

This year's fair was much better than last year's - a prime spot close to Wood Green was an excellent idea. This green dragon came floating past me, followed by an inspired kids' drum group.

All in all, a pretty good day.

Sunny sunday

What a glorious day. I was up early to sort out seedlings at home, then I cycled up to the allotment, where the broad beans are in full flower. The blackfly have descended en masse, and there were several ladybirds scuttling round hungrily.

The first strawberries are reddening - I must get some straw to protect the precious fruit.

I'm so proud of my garlic. I've never grown it before, and I'm glad it likes conditions on the plot. It's such a luxurious looking crop. The main tasks today were planting out the squash and more pea seedlings. The mega-weed of last week shows, but there was more to be done around the fruit patch. Q rang later as I was on my way to Walthamstow, and he's going to tackle cleaning the onion bed.

On my way out, I stopped to chat to my lovely lottie neighbour Laura. She's a non-hybrid woman, growing everything from last year's seed. She was busy watering her carrots. Her potatoes are already in flower - no flowers on mine yet.

After hurtling back home, I headed over to Walthamstow farmers' market. It's small but perfectly formed, and today was the day of the annual plant fair.

First stop was the Seriously Italian stall. I first discovered them last year and was completely wowed by their gnocchi and pesto. It's the only pesto in a jar I've ever tasted and liked. Today I got a jar of the five-herb pesto.

Bread was on my shopping list, and I got a loaf of olive sourdough at the Le Moulin stall. Butter was on the list too, and I spotted some at the Lincolnshire Poacher stall.

The chap manning the stall was very cheerful. The Poacher guys have been making cheese since 1992 and they've won numerous awards. The cheese is unpasteurised and organic, made with milk from Holsteins. The Poachers have invented a special brush that the cows can use to clean themselves - you can see it in action here. Oh, and the cheese tastes yummy.
Next up was the serious business of the day - the plants.

There were more plant stalls today than last year, which is a great sight.

I loved these Zwartkop aeoniums - and I wasn't the only one - they'd attracted quite a crowd. I bagged one to take home, thus gaining another reason to hope for a long, hot summer. At the next door herb stall and bought a pot of dill for the garden herbiary.

I was thrilled to see that Muck and Magic, purveyors of extremely fine meat, now have a stall, so I bought a small joint of smoked gammon. My favourite of all my mother's Sunday lunches was boiled bacon, parsley sauce, broad beans and potatoes. No beans yet, but I've got some in the freezer.
Getting the gammon was a good excuse to stop at the Millwhites stall. I tasted several but my favourite was the dry Dabinett. The stall guy said that he makes the cider in Hertfordshire with apples from Somerset. It's a lovely brew. Then it was home to think about lunch and moving some pots around in the garden.

Market time

Stoke Newington Farmers' Market was busy and blustery. My first stop was at the
Muck and Magic stall to buy some meat - it's lovely stuff. Nigel and Amanda's farm is in Suffolk, and I snaffled a pack of chipolatas before pondering pork or beef? (Tamworth or Red Poll?) In the end, I went for beef brisket - it's a lot less fatty than the brisket I remember my mother serving up. I suspect I'll end up doing a pot roast with some red wine.

At the entrance to the market, there's a chalk board highlighting the day's produce: the first strawberries were in, courtesy of the Apricot Centre. I bought a small punnet and gobbled one down on the bus home: it had that great spicy tang that home-grown berries have.

I wandered down the street to have a nose around in the garden centre - and spotted salad burnett among the herbs. I think I remember reading somewhere that this is a great herb with broad beans, so I bought a couple of plants.

My final purchase was a couple of Portuguese custard tarts from a cafe on the way back to the bus stop - one day, I'll get round to making them, but in the meantime...