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A Thousand Feasts is a collection of stories and insights from the Observer’s food writer. Here, he reflects on simple joys that can arrive anywhere, from a beach half a world away to his own kitchenThere is so much to feast on. The sight of a wave of snowdrops under the gnarled branches of an oak tree; the crisp pages of a new diary; a battered wicker basket of dumplings fresh from the steamer. I feast on the pleasure of packing for a trip away from home; tucking into an impromptu picnic of bread and cheese; the scent of a bunch of home-grown sweet peas and the satisfaction of a neat pile of fresh ironing. Tiny feasts, but as enriching to me as a laden table with a gathering of boisterous and much-loved friends. These diminutive pleasures are there if we care to look for them, little joys illuminating an increasingly darkening world. They feed the soul and nourish the spirit. Or at least they do mine. As well as kitchen diaries – the written record of what I cook and eat – I keep notebooks. Details of a life lived mostly in the kitchen, but which also tell of time spent in the garden, on trains and planes, of life at home and away. Between their timeworn covers are recipes and shopping lists, receipts and plans, illegible words and, very occasionally, passages of flowing calligraphy. Many moments are preserved only in a single sentence. Each note is a memory, written down so I wouldn’t forget it. These are not detailed accounts of major events but recordings of something altogether more ephemeral. The sort of moments likely to become misty with time, a jumble of curiosities and wonderings penned at my kitchen table, whilst soaked to the skin in a fisherman’s hut in Reykjavík, sitting calmly in a moss garden in Japan or sheltering from a blizzard in the warmth of a chocolate-box Konditorei in Vienna. Continue reading...