HB&B Blog — Claire Bullen

I don’t remember when I first fell in love with fig trees. I just gradually became aware of a sweet scent that would occasionally overpower me on my walks around London. It was intoxicating, both musky and powdery, pungent like tropical fruit and sweet like coconut. Eventually, I discovered its source: fig trees – not the fruits, but the leaves themselves. Since then, I’ve become fig-obsessed. All my favourite perfumes smell like green, sappy fig leaves; I dose glasses of sparkling wine with Parafante Liqueur; I have a mental map of all the most fragrant fig trees in the city. Yet...

In his book Summer’s Lease, chef and writer Thom Eagle waxes lyrical about the food of summer, about gluts of peaches and raspberries giving way to cherries. This season is for “chunks of ripe and dripping tomatoes, eaten just with salt, leaves crisp from iced water... dishes that are more arrangements than recipes, of fish or meat or cheese or vegetables, which might be cured or pickled, sliced or whole, but are by and large cooked: that is to say, they have not been transformed by heat – but that is not to say they are untransformed.” I love this...

This month, I was reminded that cheeseburger dumplings exist. I was spending an evening aimlessly browsing Instagram’s hollow wares, and suddenly, there they were: making an appearance in a post shared by J Kenji López-Alt, a cross-section photo revealing their bellies full of melting cheese and beef fat. It was enough to arrest me mid-scroll. Cheeseburger dumplings have actually been on my to-cook list for several years, ever since I read about the ones at Mimi Cheng’s in New York City. As others noted in the comments under López-Alt’s post, Chinese restaurants in the US have long made them as a way to appease picky customers....

Seasonal transitions are my favourite time of year, and I love it as spring slowly and inexorably flows like warm syrup into the humid and fecund days of June. The still-cool nights are punctuated by washes of sun, and everywhere I go I’m overwhelmed by musky elderflowers and the pollen that collects in the back of my throat. All I want to eat is dribbling peaches over the sink and buy punnets of cherries to pick at, but seasonally I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s just that when summer arrives, I just want to unhinge my jaw and take it...

Recently, I visited a greengrocer to pick up some basics. I found myself lingering over the vegetables, feeling covetous: the ruby bunches of radishes, the broad beans swelling in their pods, the fat leaves of lemony sorrel, the unfurling buds of purple-sprouting broccoli… It had been a while since I’d felt so lusty over a bunch of veg, but this time of year has a way of reminding you how exciting all things new and green and crunchy can be. I’ll give part of the credit as well to a recent meal I enjoyed at 40 Maltby Street (shared with friends, including fellow...