I nearly came to blows over chard today. My colleague insisting it was disgusting and that you might as well “eat mud”; me waxing lyrical about the virtues of chard stalks (“the worst bit!”) fried in sage butter.
In a way she was right; for me the beauty of chard is that it does remind me of mud – earthy, minerally, nourishing loveliness. And every bite of the vibrant stalks is a mouthful of sunshine. Argh, how can she not like it?

Plot No. 85 has been producing a lot of the stuff recently, we can’t pick it fast enough, so there’s been a lot of chardy-dinners lately; barbecued marinated stalks at the big lunch on Sunday; pizza Fiorentina yesterday, and tonight, eggah!

Eggah is a middle-eastern solid omlette/tortilla, perfect for the mezze table, and eaten for hundreds of years to sustain pilgrims on their way to Mecca.

For my eggah, I added the blanched stalks and wilted leaves to some whisked eggs, with a pinch each of salt, pepper, and turmeric, and a sprinkling of chervil, and cooked the whole lot over a low heat in a frying pan for 20 mins – delicious!!! Made with eggs from our hens, and served with sugar snap peas from the lotti, it was virtually a free dinner too.