iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

this is next week's forecast here. please please please make it so

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

🍽️ classics are classic for a reason and I can't think of a better hot-weather lunch dish than a salade niçoise when the tomatoes are in season...🍽️

A salade niçoise with olives, hard-boiled eggs, green beans, tuna, potatoes and gorgeous fresh ripe tomatoes

2161

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Each hen lays a different colour so we know how each of them is doing

A selection of different coloured eggs, white, pale blue, 3 different browns, olive green

130

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

At this time of year the colours of the crops in the landscape change rapidly. The garish rape is over and ephemerally blue flax looks soft against the pale sage green of the ripening wheat. There seems to be a lot more flax planted this year. It's grown for both fibre and oil.

A field of flowering flax in the background with ripening wheat in the foreground, and between them a field of drying oilseed rape.

000

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Trip to Arras to try to sort out wife's titre de séjour. Probably a waste of effort but an excellent lunch at le Tableau restaurant valait le voyage

A starter of cucumber spaghetti in a minted velouté topped with a frozen yuzu bavarois

Turbot topped with marigold petals on a bed of young courgettes a fennel velouté and the last asparagus of the year

Raspberries, white chocolate mousse and meringue

110

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Lots of these hawthorns with pink blossom as street trees in Lambeth, looking great right now. The white may is almost over though.

Two pink-blossomed hawthorn trees on a street in Brixton

030

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

It's not English, because we're in France, but it is green, fresh, local and delicious. Later in the season we may have hollandaise, but for the first ones, just melted butter...

A plate of green asparagus in melted butter

020

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

A big bunch of Communist Party flags at the Together march. FFS. Don't they remember anything? ofc not. far too young. Idiots.

Red Communist party flags and a BLM placard at the protest in London

030

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

🍽️ Pancake day is Shrove Tuesday in Britain, and Candlemas (Chandeleur) en France. So we've had crêpes Suzette twice in two weeks. Today, we first had chicken and mushroom stuffed crêpes au gratin, but ate them before taking a pic....🍽️

A plate of crêpes Suzette, topped with orange segments and zest, in a puddle of deep orangey-brown caramel sauce.

0142

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Not currently in a position to wander into town for a burger: grilled steak haché, one with Maroilles, endive, bacon and mushroom, one with mâche and tomato. Frites maison.

Two burgers and chips, with different garnishes

The burgers , halved, with red and yellow sauces

020

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

🍽️ And here's the piping hot result...

A dish of piping hot macaroni cheese just out of the oven

1191

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

🍽️ Cold wet windy day calls for comfort food: this is macaroni ch'teese, or Mac au Maroilles, ready for the oven... 🍽️ Maroilles is a super-stinky cheese popular here in N France 'chez les Ch'tis'.

A dish of macaroni cheese ready for the oven with slices of Maroilles on top.

2131

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

31st December 2025, M&S Brixton. Cherries. Does air-freighted from Chile count as in season?

110

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

The very last of this year's tomatoes. And basil from the pot on the kitchen doorstep.

A dish of orange tomato segments with a garnish of basil leaves

030

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

🍽️Leek Tatin🍽️ sections of leek, browned on their ends in butter, allowed to cool, topped with cheese and all-butter puff pastry from the supermarket, baked, inverted. Was very nice, all gone now...

020

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

As a ch'ti, it's got to be Vico en direct de Picardie

010

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

🍽️ Today's jam: red gooseberries picked this morning, cooked to 104°C with 70% sugar-raw fruit ratio, taste-test on fromage blanc. Colour great, beautifully sharp, refreshing dessert. 🍽️

a white porcelain bowl with some white fromage blanc topped with a red gooseberry jam

1230

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

A field of flax up our lane being cut. It will lie in the field for months before being collected to be processed into fibre for linen. 75% of the world's linen is grown in Northern France. Love that my favourite summer fabric is so local to me.

130

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

A self-sown wild cherry tree in the garden is making decent sized cherries, and it's close enough to the house to deter the birds from taking them all

020

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

@stuartbourne.bsky.social operation recover the secret rose-garden from two years of neglect continues. Still waiting for some of the bower roses to bloom. The hedge at the back needs serious surgery to give more light, but that will have to wait until nesting is over.

A rustic rose bower made of wood with a crown of white roses in bloom

A rustic rose bower with some red and yellow rose in front of it

130

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

🍽️ and considerably more lime peel achar than we need: time to find something else to do with squeezed limes.... 🍽️

Four preserving jars with home-made lime peel pickle.

070

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

🍽️Restocking the larder with almost-instant desserts for the winter (just add custard, fromage blanc or crème fraîche): gooseberries and rhubarb the start of the season that will end in November with the last of the apples. 🍽️

6 small preserving jars, some with gooseberries, some with rhubarb

2211

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

🍽️ Garden produce for lunch today: new potatoes, broad beans, a tiny courgette, garlic greens, tomatoes and basil. All picked this morning - a hopeful harbinger of many more summer lunches. Butter, salt and pepper not home-grown. 🍽️

a plate of fresh spring vegetables from the garden

3452

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

@realseeds.co.uk First tomato of the year - and outdoors too! (ten days after planting out). I'm sure you can guess the variety! (Walnut for scale)

A small tomato and a walnut, the same sort of size

000

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Like this "Wild Edric", which beat every other rose into flower this year, even 2//n

A picture of a top-heavy rose bush in a hedge, with lots of deep pink flowers. The variety is Wild Edric

010

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

I know they're now considered an invasive weed - but R.rugosa hedges are unbeatable. Everything you want in a rose: a scent so powerful and the ephemeral beauty of the flowers all summer long. Its genes are in many commercial roses, 1/ #gardening #roses

130

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

🍽️Neighbour gave us two goose eggs. Can confirm that one goose egg is the same as three small hen's eggs. We had them scrambled for breakfast.🍽️

A set of old-fashioned kitchen scales with a goose egg on one side and 3 small white hen's eggs on the other side

000

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

🍽️ Practice makes perfect, and there are some things I only get to practise once a year, like hot cross buns - but these seem to have come out pretty well. 🍽️

Some freshly-baked home-made hot cross buns cooling on a rack

3845

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Mine is much more of a mess after a year of total neglect but I did rebuild the rustic rose bower. Prickly work. It should look, smell and sound much better in a couple of months.

a wonky structure of cherry and hazel sticks supporting climbing roses not yet in flower

110

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

🍽️ Lunch today is leek and chicken pie with mash. Leeks were €3 for a huge 3kg bunch in the market yesterday. 🍽️

A golden crusted pie next to a bowl of mashed potato.

040

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

🍽️ The last pancake of the day, by which time I get most of them right. Once a year is not enough practice! Plenty of melted butter stirred into the batter makes them extra good. And nothing beats old-fashioned sugar and lemon juice on them 🍽️

a pancake (not a drop scone) on a cast-iron pan

3452

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

🍽️ When there's sleet outside and the oven says 'bake' it would be churlish not to. So I baked a dozen hazel and chocolate bakewell tartlets, freestyle recipe... I use a gluten-pastry for this sort of thing, it is much more forgiving and equally delicious 🍽️

A wood-burning Rayburn stove with the oven thermometer indicating 'bake'

a cooling-wire with a dozen just-baked tartlets

one of the just-baked tartlets from the previous photo cut in half to show the chocolate and hazelnut filling

1180

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

🍽️I tend not to use recipes, even when baking. And this is a freestyled success: a chocolate cake made with ground hazelnuts. The other half is in the freezer; with this cold weather the Rayburn oven invites more baking than is healthy for two retired folk to be eating 🍽️

A loaf-shaped chocolate cake with a chopped hazelnut topping on a blue-green plate

4350

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

🍽️ Lunch today will be a hot bean stew - garlicky gigantes swimming in oil and chopped chard leaves, beans and chard both from our garden via the cupboard and freezer. To be served with baked potatoes.... 🍽️

A dish of big white beans swimming in garlicky oil

4481

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

🍽️ Eggy bread - Poor Knights, pain perdu, French Toast - is usually sweet. But this is masala eggy bread: stale sourdough soaked in egg, milk, s&p and what ever spices take your fancy, fried and served with grilled tomatoes - a quick, easy and delicious supper.🍽️

A pan of savoury eggy bread shallow-frying next to a smaller pan of orange tomatoes grilling

2404

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Poor Tom had a misadventure last night. Probably missed his footing while in next door's farmyard and fell in some cowdung. We have been cleaning him up all day.

240

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

🍽️ We've been saving the skins of all the limes we squeeze, and have made a significant batch of lime pickle from them. (H/T a throwaway remark from Nadiya Hussain on The Kitchen Cabinet)

A white plastic bowl on a terracotta worktop; the bowl has a wooden spoon stirring a kilo or so of home-made lime pickle

010

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Saw these on sale at Aldi in Auxi-le-Château. I'm guessing It doesn't have quite the same connotations in France as it would to old UK ravers...

A picture of a packet of children's biscuits covered with chocolate, caramel and Smarties, branded 'Biscuits Disco'

010

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 31/07/2024

When it's too close and sticky even to consider cooking, this stuff is perfect.

010

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 25/06/2024

Claudine waiting for it to get dark in broody gaol

110

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 13/06/2024

I really quite need to use this saw in the barn. I was surprised when the wren sitting on those eggs flew off....

an electric mitre saw with a wren's nest underneath it

000

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 14/05/2024

Liberated four of these beauties from our bedroom-in-renovation over the last couple of days. Vespa crabro, the European Hornet. We also sometimes see the invasive V.velutina, so glad the native species is doing OK..

000

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 11/05/2024

The first strawberries from our local market. Mara des Bois, sweet and fragrant, cream or sugar an unnecessary distraction...

010

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 01/05/2024

All other brown sauces really want to taste as good as this one though

000

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 30/04/2024

This is our particular weakness. We always have a pot or two of it in the fridge. The higher fat content makes it somewhat safer than the milk from which it is skimmed and the lactobacilli are given a head start over the nasties.

An opened tub of raw cream labelled "Créme fraîche crue - produite par nos soins avec le lait de nos vaches"

010

Edward Barrow @ejoftheweb.bsky.social · 15/04/2024

A friend just brought us this jar of a root vegetable preserved in syrup made by her mother in Iran. She can't remember the name in Farsi or English. We can't identify the flavour but our Gujarati friend says it reminds her of something in paan.

A jar of an anonymous yellowish root vegetable in syrup

000