Good afternoon everybody,
Good afternoon everyone,Thank you for a galvanising start to 2026. This week we have a special newsletter for you, written by our prodigal baker Auriol who recently returned from the trip of a lifetime, with a beaten-up carrier bag containing a kilo of precious vanilla pods, direct from the farm in Madagascar on which they were grown. As per the farmer's instructions, we've stored them in sugar, and we will be celebrating them this week in several products. They will of course be used in our whole vanilla bun, plus we shall be making rice pudding (to Anna Higham's recipe). Then we will finely chop the pods and incorporate them in a hazelnut and chocolate cake, a riff on the River Cafe walnut cake recipe.
On the subject of spices, our other spice connection, Muhamed, who brings us organic produce from Sri Lanka, has recently returned with a top up. We'll be using some tea he bought us to soak the currants for the saffron teacakes, and nutmeg (still in its delicate shell when we receive it), in weekend apple pies and in the Grasmere-style gingerbread which will be on the counter all week. We're calling it Grasmere-style because we can't resist including candied peel and marmalade, as is our want.
Now over to Auriol, for her spice dispatch.
A spicy trip
In the autumn of 2025 I went travelling in East Africa. After two years of pining and calculating and planning, Kate and Hugo kindly set me free to spend two glorious months zipping through Kenya, Zanzibar, Madagascar and Mauritius. This was, I realised, far too much ground to try and cover in such a short space of time, but that meant the experience became a sort of technicolour rollercoaster for the senses. From landscape, to climate and vegetation, and from language to customs and even tribe, the diversity of what I saw blew my mind. There were constants of course; banana trees and coconut trees, tropical rainstorms and turquoise waters, but really I was stunned by the breadth of experience that I had across those four countries and their varied regions. I spent time in Nairobi and Maasai Mara with friends, trekking through the rainforest in Madagascar and snorkelling and hiking in Mauritius, but these incredible experiences were framed by time spent volunteering on organic farms. I stayed in each place around a week, and tried to remain as rural as possible, wanting to get to know village life and local attitudes towards growing and eating food.
My first stop was a smallholding in a tiny village in Migori County in western Kenya, called Dala Maler, meaning Clean Home in Swahili. The property is run by two women who plan to create a space for people to come and live in harmony with nature. There I planted papaya, passionfruit, neem trees and acacia trees among others. I helped to build and repair their ‘living walls’ made out of earth, and I weeded the area around their self-made pond, making space for the vetiver and lemongrass they had planted. At Dala Maler I witnessed exceptional kindness and generosity, not just towards me but between local people there, many of whom lead very modest lives. A visit to a friend always began with the gifting of food from their land - in October it was bananas, papayas or avocados - and ended in reciprocity, each leaving the other slightly richer for the meeting.
My second farm stay was at Zanzibar Spice and Heritage Centre, an organic spice farm on the tropical Tanzanian island. Here I completed a one week internship, spending my days learning
how to care for and harvest some of the many different spices and fruits they grew. I particularly enjoyed tending to the cardamom plants, which involved roaming the farm and neighbouring farms for felled banana trees (one tree gives just one big bunch of bananas, after which the tree is chopped down and reroots to grow new trees). The trunks are full of water, so we chopped them up and placed them at the base of each cardamom plant to keep the soil moist in hot temperatures. I enjoyed the abundance of this regenerative farm, like a forest full of treasure, and I have vivid memories of our break times spent eating fresh jackfruit and coconuts under the canopy of nutmeg, black pepper, allspice and clove trees. I also loved the day we harvested cinnamon, which was effectively just cutting down a tree. Cinnamon is just the under-layer of bark of a cinnamon tree, and it was very impressive learning how people make quills (otherwise known as cinnamon sticks) - very difficult!
My time in Madagascar was focussed on exploring the rainforest and trekking, but I chose the region because it is the home of vanilla production. And so while we trekked from village to village along the coast of the Masoala peninsula, we passed through many small vanilla plantations, ending in Antalaha where the smell of vanilla coming from the processing plants wafted across the town in a heady breeze which took my breath away. I was told by my guide that vanilla is purchased from the local people at
around €30 per kilo, which comes as quite a shock considering I buy them in the supermarket for £3 per pod. I spent my final few days in Madagascar on Nosy Komba, a small volcanic island off the north-west coast, covered in rainforest as well as small plantations of vanilla, cocoa and ylang ylang (the key ingredient in Chanel No. 5). Here I visited a wonderful association called Akiba, where they make their own chocolate as well as vanilla products, liqueurs and essential oils. Having moved further north, where the vanilla plants had been just blooming during my trekk, here I saw real pods hanging from their vines, plump and green and beautiful. I also managed to secure a hasty kilo for Kate and the team at Hamblin which my host sourced ‘straight off the mountain!’
In the final chapter of my East African adventure I stayed on a relatively new, organic smallholding in the centre of Mauritius. Here I spent the week creating a new veg patch, turning the soil, designing its layout, composting, planting and mulching; a very satisfying project. I relished the luxuries of hot showers and washing machines and supermarkets, but writing it all down now I think I feel most nostalgic for the moments where I was totally immersed in and surrounded by nature (and thereby surrounded by food). It was moving to see exotic plants which we know and love so well growing wild and free in harmony with nature, as well as to visit places where the cultivation of these exceptional plants is not just a business but a way of life; a rich and integral part of people’s cultural identity. It was truly magical to visit the places where these things really grow and experience the living sensations of them. The greatest honour was to come home and use the vanilla I bought in Madagascar in Hamblin’s Christmas fudge and rice pudding; two delicious ways of making the spice really sing. Look out for the mountain vanilla-based products at the bakery this week!
Thank you for reading.
Auriol