The moss was spongy and damp beneath my feet. Ruby red haws hung on bare branches and soft, plump drips of water plopped from wet leaves overhead. I put my hand on the trunk of the hawthorn tree. I gave an offering of wholemeal Irish flour and a few calendula flowers, and I thanked the land for its bounty this Summer.

When I lived in London and commuted to and from work, I’d routinely get through a couple of books a week. It’s much less now that I have small children and no longer use public transport, but I still manage to carve out a bit of time to read everyday. I read a lot of fiction – but this isn’t a list of my favourite novels of 2021. Instead it’s the books that Jo and I read this year that helped us see the world a little bit differently – the ones that opened our eyes to hidden worlds, helped us understand a topic better or offered a vision for a better world.

I was asked by Adam at Seedhead Arts if I wanted to do a talk for this year’s Out To Lunch festival (part of Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival). He suggested ‘Preserving for the Apocalypse’ might be an amusing and timely title. With over-buying during the early (and some of the later) stages of lockdown and Brexit bumps (or almighty earthquakes) causing custom hold ups it definitely feels like an appropriate time to rediscover some of the forgotten skills of food preservation. I can’t promise you will be able to live off jam and chutney should the apocalypse actually come – but a really good jar of chutney might make those bugs we’ll be eating a bit more palatable!

Last year Erin worked with a group of young teenage girls teaching them some basic meals to cook at home. It’s fair to say a lot of the girls were pretty sceptical about cooking and eating vegetables, but then they met Erin!

We think about food pretty much constantly. Jo and I both love cooking, eating, growing, learning and talking about food – and our business makes sure we do that every day, whether we want to or not! We’ve had numerous beer-fuelled conversations about where our business is going, where it fits in the world, where food is going, where it should be going, what we’d change about the world of food if we could. The Edible Flower is basically an excuse to spend our time exploring all of these issues. Now, it’s time to include you in the conversation.

We went to Maine for the wedding of two of our favourite people, Alexis & Andrew. I met Alexis a couple of years ago when we shared a cottage and a life-changing cooking adventure at Ballymaloe Cookery School. We’ve both changed our lives and careers a lot since then, mostly for the better I think.