The fruits of Holloway

Holloway gets a pretty bad rap.  Admittedly, its charms are not always immediately apparent; the main shopping area is named the "Nags Head" and its restaurants are largely comprised of eating establishments like the High Class Fish Bar (I can only think the name is intended to be ironic).

Its parks also do nothing to endear a casual visitor the area.

Indeed, my friend R could almost be forgiven for proclaiming (when I told him we'd bought a flat in the area) "Holloway - but that area's minging!".  What R did not realise is that Holloway does have is charms, they just take a little while to discover. 

The primary attraction of Holloway is its proximity to much nicer areas, areas in which we could never afford to live.  But Holloway itself is not without its charms, one of which has to be the large Waitrose (complete with Ostrich eggs, for when ordinary x-large chicken's eggs won't do).  But  even aside from the Waitrose, in recent days we've discovered that Holloway is a veritable paradise of fresh produce.

Summer is truly upon us, and over the course of the weekend we discovered that within 300 metres of our flat grows a cherry tree, fig tree, blackberry bush, mulberry tree and that our own front verge even boasts its own plum tree. 

The weekend was therefore spent collecting the fruits of Holloway. Thankfully our neighbours didn't bat an eyelid when they saw us scaling the fences to reach the overhanging branches laden with fruit.  They didn't even look twice when we were wandering the streets splattered in red blood-like berry juice and with the juice running from our hands. 

I suppose that, considering the sorts of things one sees in Holloway, we didn't look out of place.  In fact, the only person who did speak to us did so to tell us about a really good mulberry tree groaning with fruit just around the corner. 

This is a portion of our haul (we ate the cherries too quickly to include them in the photo).

And here are a couple of the delicious meals we've had thanks to our local Holloway produce and chef G.

Low-fat mixed berry and plum crumble

Grilled fig, pecorino & rocket salad with a balsamic dressing

Holloway: minging?  I don't think so.