Thom Eagle

@thomeagle.bsky.social

1114 Followers 135 Following

I write and I cook and I grow things

A green Dunlop .88 tortex, held in my hand
A screenshot from Duolingo with the gobsmacked owl congratulating me on “1 right answer in a row”
A bucket full of broad beans, a fistful of baby artichokes, and a few bushy stems of Sicilian fennel
A short review of the Allotment Diaries in Elisabeth Luard’s column in The Oldie, June 2026. Reads: Allotments are about to be in full-green overload. Thom Eagle's The Allotment Diaries, out in August, is doubly valuable. It's a record of the turning year on the outskirts of Canterbury. And it's a moving lament for a father, whose affection was never expressed in words but in the simple act of producing food. Thom is a paid-up member of a new band of philosopher-cooks. Many of them are escapees from the restaurant rat race. They read and write about food from direct experience in a professional kitchen, rather than as non-combatant observers. Thom has cooked with the best but the real attraction is his prodigious talent as a storyteller. His first book, First Catch Your..., won glittering prizes. Points of reference in the new book include Camus, Herzog and True Leveller Gerrard Winstanley. No recipes are included. Seasonal and local goes without saying.
Quiche. And a salad
A Google search result featuring my Instagram post advertising a writing workshop. In place of the actual caption it has some bullshit: “as a leader, I’m interested in containment and expansion etc etc”
A cyanotype print of a photograph of nettles.
The beginnings of a wattled raised bed for asparagus. Optimum drainage!
Sausages!
A slow worm still rather sleepy in the spring sun
Text reads “Grounding Your Words” on a ghostly B&W picture of an allotment plot
My hand holding a cassette tape the cover is the same as the book cover, saying The Allotment Diaries: A Year of Growing and Remembering by Thom Eagle, with a border of allotment illustrations, including a raincoat slung on a spade, wellies, a pumpkin, a robin, a jar of pickles, some tomatoes etc
Me holding a ridiculous chicken (live) with black and orange feathers and a big black pom-pom on her head
Text describes calculation that Santa travels at 4,705,882 kph
Text says that the max speed of SE highspeed trains is 140mph
Picture says “hop on board southeastern’s highspeed service (it’s faster than Santa’s sleigh!)
Chris Morris on The Day Today looking worried. The caption - “I tried Grok’s built-in anime companion and it called me a twat
A cyanotype taken of nettle tops forming shapes that could be bats, or insects, or souls in flight -
A jar of nettle miso!
A spear of purple asparagus poking about two inches out of the soil, which is sunlit and (almost!) weed-free. Given asparagus’ rate of growth by the time I return next week it will probably be too large to pick.
What it says up there, on a nice plate shaped like a cabbage leaf
Half a shoulder of mutton aged on the bone for three weeks, rubbed with salt and oregano and sat on a bed of garlic cloves, bay, chunks of red onion and lemon
Some glorious, sticky rum baba resting on a cooling rack so I can paint more syrup on them
A stack of artichoke-green paperbacks titled psychogastronomy by Thom Eagle. On the cover is a photograph of a pickled onion and a slice of salami on a little slice of bread, on a napkin, on a table in the old fish market in Burano, in the September sunshine.
Somebody has written “I love cooking” in the filth on the back of a van. A different, more childish hand has written “I ❤️ u daddy” above
Triangles of fried bread dough called “little pinches” in Italian.
A magnificent domed pie, called Pasticio Ferrarese. The filling is truffled macaroni cheese with a layer of beef ragu, and the pastry is sweet
A flyer, with images of two books: FREE FOOD: EARTH EATING by Andrew Barton and psychogastronomy by Thom Eagle, both from nickel dinner press. Reads “London Launch, 3/27, 7-9pm, Luncheon / The Yellow Bittern, 20 Caledonian Road, bring cash for wine”
Nettles in a blue plastic carrier bag
Dark chocolate, brown sugar & olive oil mousse on an incredibly heavy stone bowl
A bowl of cavatelli pasta with chunks of cod and a red pepper sauce, topped with pickled chillies
A plate of violently pink pickled vegetables