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During the dark days of quarantine early last year, I found a bright spot: Living & Eating, the perfectly pared-back cookbook created by the British architect and designer John Pawson and the food writer Annie Bell in 2001. As it turns out, I wasn’t alone in relishing its comforting—not to mention fool-proof—butter-roasted herbed chicken, or dreaming my way out of my cramped Manhattan apartment thanks to crisp photos of Pawson’s strikingly simple (and sprawling at that) London abode: seemingly overnight, the long out-of-print minimalist manual, copies of which currently fetch for nearly $200 online, had become an Instagram sensation.
“I think it informs how to live and eat in a way that makes it all much less stressful, which is what we all need right now,” muses the stylist Beverly Nguyen, who adds that she was first drawn to the book as much for its refreshingly restrained palette as its catalogue of Pawson-approved kitchenware, which may have inspired the practical-chic home goods that currently line the shelves of her Lower East Side pop-up, Beverly’s. Care of Chan founder Sue Chan, the culinary force behind the new podcast “Eating In Isolation,” agrees: “It feels less like a cookbook and more of a guide on how to live a convivial, well-designed life.”
Now, 20 years after the release of Living & Eating, Pawson—along with his wife, Catherine, an interiors specialist, who refers to it as her own “cooking bible”—is expanding on his 360-degree vision of how food is meant to be enjoyed with a long-awaited follow-up. Trading the couple’s Notting Hill home for their bucolic 24-acre Cotswolds retreat and the bounty of its surrounding land, Home Farm Cooking will come as a welcome addition to the library of anyone who, like the Pawsons, has set up camp in the countryside since the onset of COVID-19—though urbanites, too, can share in its wide range of dishes and delightful musings on nature.
“More than being country cooking, it’s home cooking,” stresses Catherine, who first learned to cook from her mother and, over the course of the past year and a half, developed the book’s 100 seasonally-driven recipes—a handful of which she drew from her favorite chefs, including Yotam Ottolenghi, who breaks down a salty anchovy crostini snack, and Violet Bakery’s Claire Ptak, who offers a spin on strawberry clafoutis. Living & Eating devotees, meanwhile, will recognize the likes of a slightly tweaked Yorkshire pudding, and a fish pie to which Catherine has added prawns “to make it extra special,” she writes. As for the Pawsons’ own go-tos? Ricotta-stuffed courgette flowers; a grilled peach salad (the recipe for which is shared below, along with one for Ptak’s classic French dessert); and a nettle risotto that makes John roll back his eyes in mock ecstasy during our Zoom call.
“We don’t like to let a meal pass by without some significance, even if it’s just the two of us,” John adds, noting that Catherine has, only moments before, whipped up a light lunch of ripe cherry tomatoes with feta, basil, avocado, croutons, and walnuts. When I ask on which page it’s to be found, they both chuckle. “It’s not in the book,” Catherine says. “But it was quite delicious actually.” Perhaps it will find its way into the Pawsons’ third cookbook, should they embark on such an endeavor in the next two decades to come. Until then, Home Farm Cooking is sure to sustain you in more ways than one.
Grilled peach, mozzarella and rocket salad
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
4 ripe peaches, halved and stoned (pitted)
4 1/2 oz rocket (arugula) or watercress
2 large balls buffalo mozzarella, drained
Sea salt and black pepper
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Directions
Heat a griddle (grill) pan over a high heat. Lay the peach halves, cut-side down, on the hot griddle pan and grill them for about 5 minutes until the flesh is clearly marked with griddle lines.
Place a handful of rocket (arugula) on each plate. Tear the buffalo mozzarella into pieces and place next to the rocket along with the grilled peaches.
Mix the olive oil and lemon juice together, drizzle over the salad, season well and serve immediately.
Strawberry clafoutis with elderflower cream
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 40–45 minutes
Serves: 6
Ingredients
For the clafoutis
2 oz unsalted butter
1 lb 5 oz strawberries, hulled and halved
2 3/4 oz (1⁄2 cup plus 1 tablespoon) plain (all-purpose) flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
5 oz (3/4 cup) caster (superfine) sugar
3 eggs
10 fl oz (1 1/4 cups) milk
Icing (confectioners’) sugar, for dusting (optional)
For the elderflower cream
10 fl oz (1 1/4 cups) double (heavy) cream
2 tablespoons elderflower cordial
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375°F / Gas Mark 5.
Spread 1 oz (1 3/4 tablespoons) of the butter inside a 9-inch oval baking dish. Fill with the hulled and halved strawberries, arranged cut side down in a single layer.
Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, salt and 3 1/2 oz (1/2 cup) of the caster (superfine) sugar. Whisk in the eggs, one by one, followed by the milk, then pour this mixture over the strawberries.
Sprinkle with the remaining 50 g / 2 oz (1/4 cup) sugar. Cut the remaining 1 oz (1 3/4 tablespoons) of butter into tiny pieces and scatter on the top.
Bake in the oven for 40–45 minutes until puffed and lightly golden. Remove from the oven and let it cool completely before cutting, sprinkling with icing sugar if desired.
While you let the clafoutis cool, prepare the elderflower cream. Pour the cream into a bowl and stir in the elderflower cordial — don’t whip the cream completely, as you want it to be loose. Serve the cream alongside the warm clafoutis.