The exercise is simple: spend Saturday morning at the farmers’ market without a list, buy only what looks exceptional, and build the week’s meals from that. This is how people cooked before supply chains made every ingredient available everywhere at all times — and it turns out to produce some of the most satisfying cooking of the year.
What June Looks Like
In early June, a well-stocked market in Britain will typically have: the first broad beans and peas, early courgettes (often with their flowers attached), new potatoes, radishes, spring onions, the last asparagus, baby fennel, strawberries, and possibly the first gooseberries. This is an almost embarrassingly good lineup. The cook’s job is to get out of the way.
Monday: Simplicity
Start the week simply. New potatoes boiled in heavily salted water, dressed warm with butter and chives. Alongside, courgettes halved lengthwise and grilled until charred, finished with lemon and good oil. If you found courgette flowers, stuff them with a little ricotta mixed with lemon zest and pan-fry them until golden. This is dinner in thirty minutes.
Wednesday: The Legumes Have It
Double pod the broad beans — the inner skin is worth removing when the beans are young, revealing a vivid jade-green interior. Crush roughly with olive oil, mint, and salt for a bruschetta that tastes more of summer than almost anything else. Add the first peas, raw, to a risotto made with chicken stock and finished with parmesan and butter.
Friday: The Strawberry Meal
When strawberries are at their peak — small, fragrant, slightly warm from the sun — they need almost nothing. Hull them and leave them at room temperature for an hour. Serve with very cold thick cream and a tiny pinch of black pepper if you’re feeling bold. This is not a recipe. It’s a reminder that some things don’t need improving.
Cooking seasonally isn’t deprivation. It’s the opposite: it’s the experience of eating things when they taste best, built around a rhythm that makes meal planning feel less like a chore and more like a practice.