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What's in season: August
I love this time of year. It needs just a few hot days to remind me of being back in Bangkok and Singapore, Marrakesh and Colombo, making me want to get out the spices and chillies. For me, spicy food with a chilli-bite is even more refreshing in hot weather than plates of salad and chilled soups, pleasant though they are. I even like chillies for breakfast, sliced and gently fried with some spring onions and then folded into creamy scrambled eggs, around which I wrap a warm tortilla. I came to appreciate these staying at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, where chef Dean Fearing knows a thing or two about chillies.
This weather also makes me think of one late summer we spent in Paris, and most evenings would find us sitting over a platter of couscous royale somewhere on the Left Bank, alternating mouthfuls of grilled merguez with warm bread dipped into the vegetable juices mingled with fiery harissa, the red chilli sauce of Tunisia.
Local seasonal stars
But if your thoughts are turning to home produce, then now is the time to make the most of wild salmon and sea trout, as it finishes at the end of this month. Red mullet and sea bass, too, from Cornish waters, are still plentiful and plump. Small red mullet are lovely on the barbecue and the larger ones, along with the sea bass, can be wrapped in foil and baked in the oven; put a handful of herbs, some lemon zest and a splash of Noilly Prat or other dry vermouth in the parcel before it goes into the oven.
Pick-your-own farms are working overtime, and if you like to freeze fruit for the winter or make jams and jellies, this is as good a time as any to do it, with raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries and black and redcurrants all plentiful. Or you might make one or two extra summer puddings in plastic pudding basins to store in the freezer for a winter treat.
Home-grown cucumbers and tomatoes are full of flavour and make delicious uncooked chilled soups. I make one with cucumber, blending it with mint, a little salt and buttermilk and floating a few peeled prawns on top before serving. Use tomatoes, cucumber, garlic and green peppers, together with bread and sherry vinegar in one of the most summery soups imaginable: a chunky, refreshing gazpacho.
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