A cauliflower as big as the Ritz

This is Tim who brings fruit and vegetables to our farmers' market the whole year round. He and his partner work from dawn to dusk supplying their farm shop as well as this weekly stall. Today, even at this traditionally lean time of the year there were lettuces and cabbages still glistening with dew, sturdy carrots and mandrake-rooted parsnips, neatly tied bunches of purple broccoli, knobbly Jerusalem artichokes, bundles of rhubarb, ridged blue pumpkins, firm potatoes and these incredible cauliflowers, each of which alone could feed half a dozen people.

Tim is a modest, self-effacing guy who adds up the (low!) prices on a paper bag and often has a queue forming before he has even unloaded his goods. Having put all their savings and energies into building up their business for the past 15 years, the two of them are at last recognized as high quality growers. They are 'semi-organic' since they cannot afford the cost of full organic status but they use the minimum of pesticides and you only have to taste the produce to know it is the genuine article. You can find an excellent tribute to their enterprise here.

My favourite cauliflower recipe is Jane Grigson's Red Hot Cauliflower, which goes like this:

1 large head cauliflower
2 dried red chillies
1/2 sweet red pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
3 to 4 tablespoons fruity olive oil or walnut oil

1.Trim the cauliflower of leaves and stringy or tough stalk. Separate into florets and cut the stalk into thick strips. Boil in salted water until just cooked, about 10 minutes, drain and run under the cold tap.
2.Meanwhile, chop up the chillies and put with their seeds and the red pepper into a large frying pan. Add the oil. Heat gently for about 10 minutes to extract some of the pepper flavours into the oil.
3.Raise heat to moderate and put in the cauliflower. Stir to reheat; the vegetable should stew rather than fry; it must not colour. Transfer the vegetable to a hot dish with the pepper and chilli bits leaving behind any surplus oil. Serve immediately.
(Enough for 6 but you can of course adapt to a smaller quantity.)

Jane Grigson described the largest cauliflower she had ever seen a great curdled depth of white cupped in green leaves, about 45 cm across. It was so large that the elderly Turk who was carrying it, in the outskirts of Nicosia, could not get his arm right round. Only enough to clamp it to his side, as he shuffled along in his droopy black clothes.
I think Tim's cauliflower may well rival it.