A very ordinary Saturday morning that couldn't be more beautiful. Rain was predicted again for the afternoon so I harvested ingredients for tonight's dinner (recipe below) in time and picked fresh flowers. Absolute beauty in the backyard.

I've always wanted to write about the gherkin. Is it just a small, early-harvested cucumber? Why the spiky skin? Now that I have so many growing in our greenhouse - I can harvest almost daily - I thought it was time look into it. Why are the ‘cornichons’ I eat in France so much more sour than here at home in the Netherlands? If you've also been walking around with these questions for ages, and I am almost certain you have, read on.

Herbal tea for chickens? Is just a handful of grain not enough? I think it's time to admit that as an author of award winning cookbooks I have more talent for feeding animals than cooking for people. And if you own chickens, it's high time you adopt this idea: your chickens will thank you forever for it and as a cook, you can't fail.

If you've ever travelled to East Africa, you've most probably tried mandazi (fried donuts) with bharazi often found in smaller restaurants or sold by street vendors. We loved it! Traditionally bharazi is made with pigeon peas.

We have a huge harvest of leeks. Great, of course, but how do you process all these members of the Allium family? At that moment in autumn, I always open the book 'De Geur van Witte Rijst' (‘the fragrance of white rice’) , and cook my aunt Bep's 'sambal goreng leek'.

UGANDA ~ Ever since we visited Uganda, we enjoy making mandazi now and then: light fluffy doughnuts. They are a great snack on their own but we love them paired with bharazi, an East African dish of pigeon peas simmered in coconut milk.

Did I ever tell you my favorite color is green? I often use the color in my designs, my most worn sweater is green, I like to wander for hours in the woods among trees in all shades of green, I prepare a lot of this color on my daily plate and it will not surprise you that I am not very disappointed if not all my tomatoes turn red or orange. Because yes, then I just make .... Indian green tomato chutney!

This bok choy (paksoi) dish can be prepared in less than 10 minutes and is among the easiest, most tasty preparations of cruciferous greens imaginable. It pairs beautifully with almost any Asian dish, but I prefer it on its own, with a bowl of rice.