When life is turned upside down

From demanding career to a breakdown, followed by the slow easing back to better times, Kathy Slack's story is one of hope with a simple cure: time and nature.

Kathy in her happy place: the veg patch she’s nurtured into lush fruitfulness. That nurturing has done a whole lot more than produce an Instagram-worthy trugful of carrots, runner beans and courgettes

Kathy Slack is an award-winning food writer who lives in the countryside and is never happier than when breathing in sweet country air and tending her veg patch. How idyllic that sounds… Yet life hasn’t always been that way. She once had a job that sounded like an advertising version of The Devil Wears Prada, and was more at home on 6am commuter trains, red-eye flights and in high-pressure meetings than muddy fields. Work pressure was the filling in her hastily grabbed life sandwich.

Then Kathy had a breakdown. It was major and took a long while to recover from.

The relentless, hamster-on-wheel, if-only-you-could-work-a-bit-harder/faster/be more ‘nimble’, take-on-forever-more approach to work is so often today’s expected norm, yet it’s rarely conducive to happiness. Maybe for a while but not longterm, however much you love the job. And if the moment comes when it all suddenly gets too much, it’s a shock.

I always had demanding jobs – and the stamina to go with them. I could get by on minuscule amounts of sleep (nothing to be proud of, by the way - I now know how health-damaging that is). So it was deeply unsettling when, in 2021, I hit a psychological brick wall and had to take a few weeks off work. There was no choice in the matter. It was a stop-everything moment; the type that causes you to rethink who you are, rethink what you do, rethink how hard you work (and why), think about what is undermining your belief in your abilities, reassess your capabilities, strengths and weaknesses… In short, it changes everything.

Kathy’s experience was far more extreme than mine, and the raw honesty in her recently published book, Rough Patch (could there be a more perfect title?), is so helpful – and hopeful.

The secret to restoring her equilibrium lay in slow, steady, daily rituals: getting in touch with nature, running fingers through soil, sowing seeds, nurturing and learning the art of growing green things, appreciating the satisfaction of harvesting your own produce, then cooking it, eating it – and, eventually, writing about it. Kathy’s recipes are so good they make you want to eat 10 a day, not five.

Rough Patch deserves to win awards as there’s so much wisdom between its covers. Whether or not you’ve battled work burnout or depression, you’ll find calm in the reading. It’s a moving and compelling book. In Kathy’s words:

‘Growing vegetables is, for me, a powerful antidote to the pressures of reality. A way to re-wild my mind, reconnect with nature and lift myself out of the barrel of treacle that is life.'

Below is the cover (the book’s illustrations are by my wonderful former colleague, Rosie Ramsden, who’s an artist, food stylist and cook extraordinaire).

Not surprisingly, Kathy has a new appreciation of Joyous Things.

I asked if she’d be happy to share them.

Here are her highlights…

What brings you joy?
A perfectly grown, just picked, savoy cabbage.

Can you name a few favourite restaurants in the UK that we can all put on our visit lists?
There are so many! Here are a few:

• Coombeshead Farm

• Chloe’s in Charlbury

• Prawn on the Lawn

• Jikoni

• OMA

• The Ethicurean, in north Somerset, was my all-time favourite. I had my 40^th there and I still can’t get over it closing.

Do you have a favourite farmer’s market?
Not really, but I view my weekly Riverford delivery as a sort of farmers’ market.

Favourite bakery?
The croissants at MOR in Chipping Norton are insane.

Favourite place to escape to in the UK… a place with great food?
I did an internship at River Cottage yonks ago and I love all the food around that area – High Grange, River Cottage Canteen (now the café), Soulshine and so on. Also, a bit further down the coast towards Totnes, Sharpham Trust. I go there on silent retreat and they serve amazing food from the walled garden. I love Riverford Field Kitchen and The Bull Inn at Totnes, too. And there are some amazing producers in that area.

What would your desert island meal be – and why?
Christmas lunch. I love Christmas. As a meal it has everything – sweet, umami, crunchy, creamy – perfect. But mainly it’s for the sprouts soaked in gravy and the pigs in blankets.

Do you cook to music? If so, what’s on your playlist?
Nope. It’s BBC Radio 4 all the way for me. It’s a running joke in our house that I begin every sentence with, “I heard this really interesting thing on Radio 4….”

What book is on your bedside table?
Currently it’s Nigel Slater’s A Thousand Feasts, which is made for bedtime reading – very atmospheric little episodes you can dip into.

Favourite film with some kind of food moment in it?
The last scene in Big Night where Stanley Tucci makes an omelette – it’s a really, really long take with almost no script but really touching.

If someone doesn’t cook, what would you say to encourage them to give it a try? Ignore all the MasterChef nonsense that makes you feel like cooking has to be technically complicated to be good. Get great, fresh, seasonal ingredients and do very little to them.

Are you a tidy cook?
God no! The kitchen’s a bombsite after a day of recipe testing and photography.

Gadget(s) you wouldn’t be without – for the kitchen or garden?
A Niwaki hori hori knife. The only garden tool you’ll ever need.

I know you found solace in hard times through gardening, food and cooking, but before that did you have a secret yearning to jack it all in and get your hands in the soil?
I did. I was obsessed with the TV programme The Good Life as a kid and River Cottage when it started in the 2000s. It’s daft really, because I grew up in small town middle England and wasn’t especially outdoorsy. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s always been there.

And what is it about gardening that makes it such a gentle and natural healer, do you think?
Well, any gardening will connect you with the earth – the sense of awe and wonder you feel when you see a seed germinate is a great therapy. But growing food specifically will give you agency and empowerment, a little bit of self-sufficiency too. Both remind me that all the things I worry about are, in The Grand Scheme of Things, not really that big a deal – it gives me perspective. I write a lot about that in Rough Patch, it’s key for me.

Who’s been your biggest inspiration?
Gosh that’s a tough question. I know it sounds sentimental, but my Mum and Dad are incredible. And from a culinary perspective the ideal combination too – Dad’s a very instinctive open-the-fridge-and-make-it-up cook and Mum is a brilliant, precise baker and maker of legendary quiches. I was lucky to get both ends of the cooking spectrum.

As a child, what was your favourite thing to eat? And was there anything you disliked intensely that you’ve come to love?
I was never a fussy eater. I loved all food from the get-go. In fact, it was a bit of a party trick that my Dad revelled in presenting this toddler who would eat anything: “Behold, see my four-year-old eating mussels.”

What do you cook when you need a comfort fix?
Dad’s chicken broth. The recipe and explanation of why are in Rough Patch.

Name three fantasy dinner guests you’d like to have round your table at home?

• Jane Austen

• Flora Post (from Stella Gibbons’ novel Cold Comfort Farm)

• Elizabeth David (legendary food writer)

What would your food manifesto be?
Just grow it and put it on a plate.

Thanks to Kathy for her Joyous Things. You can buy her book Rough Patch here, here or a signed copy here. And find her excellent Substack, Tales from the Veg Patch, here.

Coming soon… I’m in Cornwall this week visiting a few more places to add to my almost complete Cornwall guide: restaurants, cafés, bakeries, beaches… so much good stuff, mainly from me, plus some input from a few well known chefs and food writers. Honestly, the gestation period of this thing has been ridiculous! Look out for that newsletter in your inbox – it’s one for paid subscribers.

Thank you, as always, to everyone who supports this newsletter.