don't forget to share your vegetarian dishes with me as part of vegetables, beautiful vegetables! the deadline for posting them on your blog is 25 may.

as part of my ongoing efforts to find out more about different food-related careers, and how they affect thE way that people eat and cook, let me introduce you to alan rosenthal.

alan is setting up a new food business called stewed! which creates wholesome stews and slow cooked dishes inspired by flavours from around the world, using seasonal and when possible, local, ingredients. it is now LESS THAN TWO MONTHS SINCE alan'S FIRST FARMERS' MARKET (PICTURED ABOVE) AT WHICH HE WAS SELLING HIS PRODUCTS RATHER THAN JUST ANOTHER PUNTER.

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london has been full of sunshine and warmth over the past week and this weekend i was in the mood to celebrate with a cake. i fancied something citrussy to use up the orange that has been sitting forlornly in the fruit bowl for a little longer than it should.

a quick rummage through various cookbooks led me to a nigel slater recipe for a pistachio cake which is scented with orange and rosewater and then topped with a lemon icing – absolutely perfect!

i decided to up the rosewater content and added it to the icing as well which worked incredibly well – the icing has a strong lemon flavour which is softened by the floral rosewater. a sprinkling of pretty-in-pink sugar crystals and i had a lovely moist cake which i’m sharing with tartlette helen, and domestic goddess jennifer, for this month’s sugar high friday which has a citrus theme.

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i bought these the other day thinking they were fresh almonds but not knowing any more than that. it turns out they are fresh green almonds which are only available for a few weeks each year.

apparently they are eaten raw. and whole. that’s right, give them a wash and then bite in through that soft fuzzy green skin and into the nut. the centre of each, which will form the almond itself, is at this young stage a slightly bitter flavoured gel. the flesh around it reminded me of the unripe (or only just ripe) slightly sour peaches which used to grown in our garden in malawi. interesting to try...

if anyone knows of other ways to eat/use them i'd love to know. and if you're in london and fancy trying them, i bought mine at the wonderful green valley on upper berkeley street, w1h 5qe.

having made a few batches of my mum's easy vanilla ice cream i decided to vary things a little and make a fruit ripple version.

400g of mixed berries were warmed through until they started to burst. i then pushed them through a seive to remove any seeds, and swirled this through the latest batch of ice cream. easy as pie and much more suited to this sunny weather that we're finally getting to enjoy!