Alice Naylor is Oh Comely's resident culinary fusspot, but in the best way. She takes casual olive picking holidays in which she climbs trees to pick the best of the batch by hand, generously bakes the most incredible cardamon buns with a whole pound of butter and endless love, and once audibly groaned with disapproval while a team member ate tinned soup.
In short, she knows what she's talking about, and here she shares her year in food with you. Prepare to drool, you lucky things.
Bread Ahead Donuts, Borough Market, London
"These infamous Donuts had a recent 3,500 shares on Instagram. These are my attempts below. Yeasted dough, hot fat, digital thermometer, the works … I didn’t get any shares on Instagram but my friends got to share the real thing."
Rochelle Canteen, East London
"A BYO restaurant in East London. The restaurant has the atmosphere of a cool school canteen that doesn’t smell of cabbage. I ate a fine plate of lamb with grilled leeks and salsa Verde with my friend Paul."
Oh Comely’s 5th birthday cake, London
"We had a wonderful afternoon with Oh Comely readers. This was my favourite cake, baked by the gorgeous Tamara Vos. It was almost too beautiful to eat but we dived in."
Wild Asparagus frittata, Cortona, Italy
"The tall and gentle Lucco, a gardener who looks like a priest, showed us how to find wild asparagus. It’s hidden amongst prickly bushes, and forty minutes of scrabbling amongst the undergrowth yielded only a modest handful. Lunch was hard won but worth it."
New season olive oil, Cortona, October 2015
"I help a friend pick olives every year in Cortona. It’s backbreaking work, we pick the olives by hand. Your hair is full of dust, your arms covered in scratches and you’re so tired after eight hours in a tree, you can’t think. But we get to take the olives to the press and watch them pulverised by whirring blades to produce neon green, peppery olive oil. It’s good on the unsalted Tuscan bread with peppery salami and cheese."
All Images: Alice Naylor
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