The Farm Table: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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From there, growing produce, keeping chickens, nursing goats, and lambing came in quick succession, and then? You cook down some pears in caramel, chuck them in the bottom of your cake tin and then put the cake batter on top which is bursting with walnuts, so it’s quite savoury and not too sweet. Above: Roberts has enlisted his brother to help on the farm, particularly with the veg growing operation. After a few months at his parents’ Suffolk home, time spent adjusting to regular waking hours and catering to make ends meet, a seed was planted.

It’s quite special when you have this intense time frame to finish something and you can capture that moment when you’re in it. Julius Roberts is a first-generation farmer and restaurant trained chef, who lives and runs his own family smallholding in Dorset.Think stewed plums with whipped yoghurt in autumn, poached quince with ginger cake in winter, asparagus and ricotta tart in spring and courgette frittata in the summertime. You want to gently and slowly cook this down, not looking for any colour or caramelisation, just rendering the fat out of the bacon and infusing it with the garlic and thyme. The frustration of crops that don’t take, the grief observing a goat mourning her stillborn kid, the pressing knowledge that this world, this ecosystem you’ve assembled, relies on you and you alone. It is here that Julius found a respect for quality ingredients and how they can completely transform any dishes when used.

Remove the rind from the bacon, cut into jaunty chunks, place in a wide heavy-based pan, drizzle in some olive oil and turn the heat to medium. If you make a mashed potato with good potatoes it will taste great, but if you add a decent butter it’ll be unreal.His debut cook book The Farm Table is a beautifully written story of a young man following his dream from cheffing to farming, with goats who think they’re dogs, pigs begging for a tummy tickle and an idyllic walk through the seasons.