I brought several kilos of each home, I will be finding good places to include both over the next few weeks, I may even make some chestnut flour; for a dense divine Italian style cake. Iv’e spent a fair bit of today admiring, photographing, peeling and cracking, this is my kind of fun.

JUST PICKED OR STORE BOUGHT CHESTNUTS…Contain the chestnuts in a bag that breathes and place them in the fridge for up to six weeks. When you are ready to use them pierce the flat side with a small sharp knife and make a slit. Place on a roasting tray and roast at 200˚C until the skin splits and they are soft. Wrap in a cloth to allow them to steam and both skins to soften, peel and eat whilst warm. Or place on embers and turn frequently until cooked through, then do the cloth trick and peel. If you want the flesh intact to cook with, place the chestnuts in cold water and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes. Remove to cool water and peel the outer skin off whilst they are still warm. return to the water and simmer 5-8 minutes and then peel the inner pellicle  (brown inner skin) from the nut, which will leave you a wrinkly, crinkly chestnut; to use as you will. I like to cook these a bit more, add a little fat (duck fat or coconut fat work well, depends on your taste) then squash the chestnuts into mush and squish them into little balls, I then roll them in chopped roasted almonds, these are a treat after dinner or in the lunchbox of someone you adore- could be you?

If you are buying chestnuts from the markets or a shop look for deep, rich colour with lots of lustre, they should be heavy for their size and hard when lovingly squeezed.

JUST PICKED WALNUTS….spread them out in the sun or in a dry spot to air for a few days, the idea is to dry them out enough that they keep well for a few months. If you contain them damp you will end up with mouldering blacked nuts, these wont taste or do you any good; an old nut  or mouldy nut is never a good nut. When your ready crack the nuts and remove the walnut halves. You could skip the drying, crack the lot and store them in a bag in the freezer, that works well. A fresh nut is unlike anything you can buy, they are clean tasting and crisp as anything try a few this way. Due to being hard to digest its a great idea to soak all nuts overnight in salted filtered water, next day rinse well and drain. These can either be used as is or  you can dry them out at under 42˚C until they are very crisp, this will help retain their active enzymes and you can treat them as ‘raw’ food. Once dried store in an airtight glass jar, in the fridge. That recipe, the one I’m making as I type, has evolved, no brown rice at home so its become Millet and chestnut instead, the texture of millet gently toasted before boiling in chicken broth should go fabulously, well see….recipe coming later, once I’ve cooked and eaten it.

I recommend buying nuts in small amounts frequently and buying from a supplier who does a roaring trade. The organic food network supply excellent organic nuts in Brookvale and Nobby’s is a conventional supplier with a massive turnover, in Ramsgate I think. Consume them whilst they are fresh, rancid nuts will taste awful and be deleterious to your health.

Chestnuts and Walnuts resemble the brain, in macrobiotic philosophy a food that has a likeness to an organ is said to feed that organ, here’s hoping…