What is A Kitchen Notebook?

Based on the original kitchen notebook, an antique French ledger we use to make notes of recipes and moments in the kitchen through the seasons.

Those words, recipes, drawings and thoughts have expanded, grown and spilled out onto here. Imagine it as the kind of conversations had, stories we tell and occasional recipes shared around the kitchen table:

• What it is like to live in a small, verdant Yorkshire valley, in the small (fairly liberal) town of Hebden Bridge, in a narrow terraced house full of dried flowers, dusty books, two kids, two adults, a cat and many spiders.

• Frank and honest essays on identity, creativity, mental health, parenting, friendship and love. I write what I see and feel, whilst attempting not too flinch too often.

• An archive of recipes from our kitchen. We eat mainly plant based foods, with occasional fish and meat, made with simple ingredients from the kitchen cupboard, all entirely adaptable to taste.

  I grew up in Spain, and despite Jon doing most of the cooking, our meals are strongly influenced by the Mediterranean style of eating.

  We are not chefs, but we are cooks who spend a lot of time thinking about food, eating food, styling food, photographing food and talking about food.

• Moments from my days: walks through the fields, outdoor swims, evenings with friends, and the dark and early morning hours drawing or writing at the kitchen table.

• A behind the scenes of how I style our home, guided by the seasons and the array of objects we have inherited and collected over the years. If you love old stuff that looks like it’s seen the land before time and several generations of drama, we’ll probably be friends.

• Extra episodes from my podcast On the Irregular. These will include recordings and musings from my morning walks through the fields and woods above our house.

• A collection of stories from my life called Eating Love. How the important relationships in my life have often been intertwined with eating food and rituals around food.

• A free monthly newsletter with a round up of what I’ve been watching, reading, eating, listening to and pondering on.

• Photos, lots of photos, and drawings, of how I see this little house and the days and nights we move through.

I’d love you to join me.

Java x