Isabella King, Coriander Queen, in Memorium
The thing, I think that has surprised me most about blogging over the years is the strong sense of community and support that I’ve found with and from other bloggers. Reading each others blogs, sharing each others work on our social media streams, meeting up at events, and also learning from and being inspired so much from each and every bloggers own personal experiences and knowledge. So when something happens to someone from our blogging family, as a community and personally we feel it deeply.
It’s with great sadness I am writing today about Isabella King writer of Coriander Queen, who passed away last month, devastatingly young at 29. I had never met Isabella, but knew her on-line and had always been touched by her warm generous tone.
As a blogging community, we all felt we wanted to do something positive to honour Izzie and her love of food and cooking, so today, at 11am, a group of us are sharing our favourite recipes from her blog on our own. I think we all found it an emotional experience working on this together, but also found comfort in the power of the collective energy and love that went into all our posts. I hope that Izzie would have loved this. You will find links to all of the recipes at the end of this post.
In choosing my recipe to cook from her wonderful archive, I asked myself what I could learn or be inspired by from her, so I picked a recipe using an ingredient I hadn’t cooked before (aside from watching a demo at cooking school), something that has always felt a bit overwhelming, and whilst beautiful, was an awkward shape and tricky to photograph. I chose Globe Artichokes with Balsamic Dip, and you can read Izzie’s original post here.
This is the simplest of recipes, but for a first timer, a little tricky. I would definitley encourage you to read up on how to prepare the artichokes before cooking as well as read any new recipe through thoroughly before cooking (my own advice!). I didn’t, and missed out on Isabella’s vital instructions of adding lemon juice to the steaming water to preserve the colour; my purple artichokes faded more than I’d have liked as a result. I was gutted that I hadn’t done the recipe justice.
We’re actually a bit early for artichoke season I gather, (usually best from June to November according to the BBC), however I’ve seen them at Borough Market and the local grocers I bought them from, for a few weeks now. I suspect these lovely purple ones were harvested in France. Such a stunning colour. Not as huge as some green ones you might find, but carrying more weight than the baby ones.
This makes the perfect dinner party starter or canapé. Reserve the hearts when you get to them, for a future salad, as I did.
Thank you Isabella for the inspiration to get into the kitchen and try something new. May your soul rest in peace.
- Two to three medium globe artichokes (green or purple your choice)
- 1-2 lemons, juiced
- 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
- 1.5 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Pinch of flakey sea salt
- Rinse the artichokes, and slice off the tough stalk and remove any dry or tough outer leaves.
- Place a large saucepan of water to boil, add a small squeeze of lemon juice (a couple of teaspoons) to the water.
- Add a steaming basket to the saucepan, place in the artichokes, then cover and cook for 35-40 minutes, or until the base is tender and an outer leaf can be easily pulled out.
- Turn the artichokes upside down to drain, allow them to cool.
- Meanwhile make your dressing by whisking the olive oil with the vinegar, a tablespoon of lemon juice, lots of black pepper and a pinch of salt. Taste, it should be fairly sharp, sharper than a standard salad dressing.
- Pull off the leaves, dip in the vinaigrette and nibble off the fleshy base of each one, discarding the rest of the leaf.
- Once you get closer to the heart the leaves aren't edible, so scrape them away until you get to the heart which you can eat or reserve for a salad.
You can read all of the other blogger posts here:
Easy 5 ingredient pesto tomato tart on Amuse Your Bouche (vegetarian)
Globe artichoke with balsamic dip on Natural Kitchen Adventures (vegan)
Cider, apple and sausage casserole on Farmersgirl Kitchen
Chocolate orange oat bars on Veggie Desserts (vegan)
Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies on Tin and Thyme (vegetarian)
Arancini (risotto balls) on Coffee & Vanilla (vegetarian)
Rich coffee cupcakes on BakingQueen74 (vegetarian)
Gingerbread cupcakes with orange buttercream on The Veg Space (vegan)
Marmalade and ginger loaf cake on The Crafty Larder (vegetarian)
Ginger and oat cookies on Kavey Eats (vegetarian)
Amatriciana pasta on Kitchen Sanctuary
Treacle tart on Patisserie Makes Perfect (vegetarian)
Crispy fried halloumi on Supper In The Suburbs (vegetarian)
Chocolate fridge cake on Jo’s Kitchen (vegetarian)
Chocolate almond butter cookies on Rough Measures (vegetarian)
Eggless chocolate chip cookies on Simply Sensational Food (vegetarian)
Boozy decadent hot chocolate on Fab Food 4 All (vegetarian)
Easy no bake blackberry cheesecakes on Casa Costello (vegetarian)
Best coriander / cilantro recipes on Fuss Free Flavours (some vegetarian)
Easy gingerbread popcorn snack on Celery & Cupcakes (vegetarian)
Elderflower and vodka cocktail slush on The Hedgecombers (vegetarian)
Fruit flapjacks on The Petite Cook (vegan)
Tomato Garlic and Prawn Spaghetti on Hungry Healthy Happy
Lemon drizzle loaf cake on Penne For Your Thoughts (vegetarian)
Chicken ramen on It’s Not Easy Being Greedy
Stuffed Nutella cookies on Munchies And Munchkins (vegetarian)
Easy Berry Compote on Eats Amazing (vegetarian)
Caipirinha on Lovely Appetite (vegetarian)
*Isabella’s friends are running the Race for life this June in her memory, if you would like to donate.
Ceri this is a beautiful post, I am sure she’d have loved this xxx
Thanks Sus, was so hard to do her recipe justice xx
Artichoke, is such pretty vegetable the recipe looks great and what a lovely tribute to Isabella.
I could have a bouquet of artichokes over flowers any day, thank you Nayna
This is delicious recipe and a beautiful tribute to Isabella!
It really was so beautiful, fitting, thanks Margot
A lovely tribute to a lovely person. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Tracy, I am looking forward to reading through everyone elses posts too x
A beautiful post, and love the recipe you chose and your gorgeous photos.
Thank you Kavey, the artichokes immediately called out to me as a thing that felt right for me to do. I hope she would have liked them too
It looks just gorgeous and what a lovely tribute to Izzie
Thanks Lucy x
Oh those artichokes look incredible, beautiful photographs and a fitting tribute to Izzie.
Thanks Janice, they were such a stunning thing to photograph, just felt right.
Just stunning and I love that you chose something that you could learn from Izzie too.
Thanks Jemma, I think there is SO much we can learn from each other, that’s what I love about being part of such an amazing on-line community 🙂
Beautiful photos and such a wonderfully written tribute – perfect for Izzie xx
THank you Emma, was so hard to put the right words down on paper, look forward to reading yours later x
I have never cooked an artichoke either Ceri but I remember my mum cooking them a couple of times. A lovely tribute and I’ll remember about the lemon if I ever cook artichoke!
Thanks Camilla, gosh I wish I’d read about the lemon first! Now I’ll never forget.
What a wonderful post. Your photos are beautiful and it’s so good that you chose something you’ve never made before. I think I’ve only ever done it once as it’s a bit faffy, but it does taste delicious. I think Izzie would have been really pleased.
Thank you Choclette, I love what our community can teach us, so for me that was an important part of this post – plus of course the subject is so beautiful to photograph. I do hope Izzie would have liked my version 🙂