‘Dahl. Daal. Dal. Spicy stuff made using lentils. The charming lady at the Indian High Commission assured us it’s ‘dal’. Our local curry house (The Kathmandu) reckon it’s ‘daal’. Our Aslam is adamant you spell it ‘dahl’. Who’s right? We have no idea.’
January always brings with it a sense of regeneration, and this year at 4th Estate that sense was heightened as the date of our office move drew near. We spent December in a state of flux, archiving hundreds of books and packing up our things, in doing so unearthing a wunderkammer’s worth of bizarre items including a giraffe jawbone, a piñata, an artillery shell, and a cut-out of Dolly Parton. We were admittedly nervous about moving from our cosy Hammersmith home, and reticent about moving to the open-plan, glass-walled heights of London Bridge. After all, T.S. Eliot compared the commuters of London Bridge to the lost souls of Dante’s limbo in The Wasteland:
This month, ‘Fresh’ gives us a chance to bring you the amazing new content that we’ve got planned for the year. Not only do we want to focus on our fresh new authors, our fresh food, or our upcoming books for 2015, but we want to take a look at our new covers. For ‘Fresh Look’, we’ll be asking about the old covers that are being given new life. We spoke to cover designer Jo Walker about the re-issue of ‘By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept’ by Elizabeth Smart.
‘It was suggested by the editor that we concentrate on the classic photos of Grand Central Station that are so iconic. The beauty of these images is the light and scale of the station, the people look so tiny and the station so impressive. I found some of these images and tried a few different approaches. Read more…
‘This is one of my favourite salads,’ says chef John Hardwick, ‘really fresh and light with a good kick from the dressing. It has evolved in the farm kitchens over many years, and it is the one that people most request the recipe for. It was first introduced by Kuttiya, our Thai chef, based on the classic noodle dish, pad thai, but without the noodles, and it has been endlessly played around with, changed and added to, according to what is best from the market garden. Because the whole idea is that the strips of vegetables should resemble noodles, this is one of the few dishes on the kitchen’s menu that is quite showy, since we used a Japanese turning mandolin to shred the carrots and beetroot into curls.’
