Rootfire Glaze
A dark winter glaze shaped from lacto-fermented jalapeño, birch syrup, burnt honey, grain, smoke, and black garlic – fire-warmed, earthy, and slow-moving, made for hearth food and deep nourishment.
 
Rootfire Glaze is drawn from what remains – the concentrated liquid left behind after lacto-fermented birch-syrup jalapeños have given up their heat, sweetness, and time. It is a glaze already shaped by fermentation, patience, and microbial work, dark as bog water and thick with memory.
 
To this base are added burnt honey, roasted barley, fermented black garlic, and smoked salt. Birch syrup lends a wood-sweet depth rather than brightness – sap held long in bark, not spring sweetness. Burnt honey brings bitterness and warmth, barley adds malt and grain, and black garlic folds umami into the body of the glaze. Smoke runs through it quietly, binding the elements rather than dominating them.
 
On the palate, the movement is slow and deliberate. Sweetness arrives first, dark and restrained, followed by smoke, malt, and grain. Umami gathers underneath, and only then does a gentle fermented heat appear at the back of the mouth – warming rather than flaring. The finish is long, earthy, and fire-lit, like embers held beneath turf ash.
 
This is not a bright glaze or a pouring sauce. It is winter sweetness held in check – a finishing element shaped for restraint. Each spoonful is an offering placed on the altar of the mouth, taken into the body as the earthly temple. Crafted from what would otherwise be overlooked, Rootfire carries preserved heat and nourishment into the dark months, feeding depth, digestion, and warmth rather than appetite alone.
 
Flavour pairings
Roasted root vegetables – squash, parsnip, celeriac
Mushrooms and aubergine
Winter cabbage and Brussels sprouts
Venison, lamb, or duck
Slow-cooked beans, lentils, and grains
Chestnuts and walnuts
Gravies, stews, and pan sauces
 
Serving suggestions
Use sparingly as a finishing glaze. Brush onto vegetables or meats in the final minutes of cooking, or stir a spoon through gravies and sauces for depth. A little goes a long way – this glaze is designed to deepen and anchor, not to coat.
 
Storage
Store in a cool, dark place. Once opened, keep refrigerated and use within several weeks. Natural separation may occur – warm gently and shake before use.
 
Winter Hearth Soulfoods – Mother Tongue of the Cailleach Country
The Winter Soulfoods collection is an immersive body of work set in Cailleach country – the boglands of Béarra – approached as ecosystem, archive, threshold, and kitchen. It imagines what it might mean to work from within the Cailleach’s own domain, drawing flavour, nourishment, and craft from deep ground, slow water, turf fire, and time.
 
The bog is not treated as symbol or backdrop. It is a keeper of strata – layers of matter and memory held intact. A place where time is thickened rather than spent. A preservative ground where fermentation, storage, and patience are not techniques, but ways of living in relationship with the land around you, and the land within you.
 
Within this terrain, food is ceremony and commitment. Ingredients are gathered as the year unfolds, worked slowly, and held back for winter – not for spectacle, but for sustenance.
 
Fermentation, sap-sweetness, mineral depth, bitterness, and gentle heat shape flavours meant to be met with attention, feeding the body deeply, strengthening bones, warming, soothing, and replenishing marrow through the dark months.
 
These soulfoods are acts of natural pace and continuity – ways of staying in relationship with place, season, and deep time. Crafted through hand, hearth, and long devotion, they carry the quiet authority of a path walked faithfully, day after day, in preparation for the dark.