The Sustainable Food Story

07/04/2026

Spring forages: picked some garlic mustard/Jack by the hedge to saute to have as bitter greens alongside pizza for dinner. They worked perfectly - kind of like cime di rapa or puntarelle.

Also picked some ramson (wild garlic) buds to pickle. And leaves to top pizza.

And some flowering blackcurrant for tea.

15/05/2025

04/05/2025

F***ING banging mushroom marinade ready for the bank holiday BBQ.

I usually go veg-ful (rather than meat-less 😂) at BBQs () so thought you might want some before the BBQ inspiration! The dogs are stoked.

In varying quantities depending on how much gin you've had:
- balsamic vinegar
- olive oil
- soy sauce
- smoked paprika
- garlic
- black pepper
- thyme
- smidge of salt

Then get a bunch of rosemary and tie it together. Then when the Shrooms are on the BBQ baste them (stroke them with the rosemary wand)

Results to follow.

Happy holidays!

06/04/2025

Spring climbing 🧗🏽‍♂️ and forage 🌱 season are here, and some our fave adventures are when we get to do both at the same time! ☀️

Found some beautiful mint at the crag at North Berwick Law this weekend, amongst some new nettles. And there’s still lots of old sea buckthorn on the trees nearby for the birds that’s overwintered. The hillsides here in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 smell of coconutty gorse flowers. And halfway up a solo slab scramble there was a happy wee tree mallow plant.

Love how climbing 🧗🏽‍♂️ literally brings us closer to nature, and allows us time to appreciate our surroundings; the geology of our landscape, the flora, fauna and funga in the area, as well as getting some exercise and challenging ourselves.

Took a bunch of mint home to dehydrate. It made a most refreshing and tasty tissane! Not doing but appreciating all the foragers we admire who are. Amazing efforts!

26/12/2024

Hoping you’re all having a restful break at this solstice time of year, when the days start to get slighting longer and we eat and spend time with loved ones, if we’re lucky, to warm the cockles of our hearts, as the old sustainable foodie saying goes.

One highlight of our Christmas Day: we found a couple of beautiful (and edible) scarlet elf cup mushrooms under a Norway spruce that we were nabbing some table decoration cones off on a tree climbing forage walk, whilst dressed in elf hats! And then came home to open a thoughtful prezzie of none other than a mushroom inspired mug and mushroom design socks!

12/12/2024

Sustainable gift wrapping ideas? Or looking for ways to wrap homemade foodie gifts? Look no further than this lovely article we were interviewed for alongside in .

It might be last year’s news, but it’s still 💯 relevant, AND if you have an old copy of a paper lying around, why not use it for gift wrapping? Jazz it up with some reused ribbon or hedge trimming.

We’ll be rummaging through the recycling to wrap all our handmade and second hand prezzies this weekend 😝

11/12/2024

🍕 Does anyone else get inspired by seasonal ingredients and how they can become a winning winter pizza combo?

This is our old fave from pizza chef years gone by at - inspired by early days recipes, and that time Rich from came and worked the pizza oven with us, before they were a roaring success in east London!

Every season is pizza season 🤷🏻‍♀️

29/11/2024

Today is BUY NOTHING DAY! Some of our favourite low consumption activities this week have been:

• a foraged seasonal wreath making workshop we ran, using all biodegradable materials that will rot back into the natural environment then come from 👏

•collecting free preserving jars from our neighbour from Facebook marketplace for getting our preserving and picklery going in our new place in Edinburgh 👏

DID YOU KNOW?

Buy Nothing Day was initiated by artist Ted Dave and .magazine in the late 90s/early 00s. It is a day of protest against consumerism, a celebration of doing the opposite of what Black Friday marketing manipulates us to do, and an opportunity to feel empowered and proud of our efforts to resist a norm of capitalism.

Adbusters are the same activists and environmentalists responsible for initiating the call for Occupy Wall Street 👏

This direct action helped to highlight the fact that the 1% (the world’s highest net worth individuals) bear the greatest responsibility for inequality and environmental harm while wielding disproportionate influence over governments. A popular phrase you may remember from this movement is “we are the 99%”.

11/11/2024

Let’s get ready to crumble!

Found a cooking apple tree while out on a walk up Craiglockhart hill in Edinburgh. Climbed it, shook it, gathered apples, and convinced some perplexed onlookers to take some apples home with them.

Then carried apples all around town because this was at the start of a 4 hour walk 😅 before getting back to the flat to make a deeeelish scrumped apple crumble, complete with vanilla custard and Scottish blackberries! 🌳 🍂 🍎 🍁 🍏

06/11/2024

21/10/2024

Wild Arctic thyme and yarrow tea/tisane was a warming herbal infusion that kept us cosy on long, cool Icelandic summer evenings in the mess tent on Basecamp manager duties on expedition.

‘s story of a lovely mug of herbs to infuse reminded us of our local forage - love a wee forage to connect with the land around us on exped.

In Kerry, Ireland, this autumn I’ve been making rosehip, blackberry and hawthorn berry/ hawberry tisanes, and wild mint tisanes.

What are you favourite wild or homemade herbal teas or tisanes?

Did you know that some people say that it’s only a true “tea” if it contains the caffeine containing camellia sinensis leaves that we know as “tea” usually. Otherwise it’s a tisane or infusion or decoction 💁🏻‍♀️

11/10/2024

We LOVE second hand shopping and we love how amazingly jazzy this is in the beautiful Hay-on-wye!

Hay-on-wye is a super special place, such a hub of independent shops, lovely people and a town you really want to spend time in.

Did you know we did a special edition of the book for Oxfam? You can find it on the Oxfam eBay shop. We do love a bargain :)