A medley
Medley: "a varied mixture of people or things." Oxford Languages In a post-Christmas lazy lull, and on a hot day, I am resorting to little bits and pieces. I feel a bit like this quote I found in the Smitten Kitchen newsletter: "confused, full of cheese and unsure of the day of the week." So oddments from here and there ... 'Medley' implies some sort of organisational process behind the combination of this and that to me. A selection has been made with an overriding t
Dec 31, 2025
Feast of the seven fishes and the Italian/Americans
"The best part of the Feast of the Seven Fishes is that anyone with an appetite for seafood can make the tradition their own. You don’t have to be Italian or Italian American. You don’t even have to celebrate Christmas! You just have to cook way too much food for the people you care about." Emily Saladino/Bon Appétit I'm a little bit late with this one because the Feast of the Seven Fishes is a Christmas Eve feast. Well it is Christmas and time is at a premium for indulgent
Dec 27, 2025
Christmas done and dusted. Now you can play
"We can now all admit that the thing we really love about the festivities is the time after the day itself" Yotam Ottolenghi And the leftovers. For my son this is turkey sandwiches and - well - me too. And yesterday, that was what Christmas Day was almost all about. Well apart from being with family, the presents - not such a big deal now that there are no small children involved - the big thing was the leftovers and the opportunity to make sandwiches such as this one - m
Dec 26, 2025
Semillon and Brachetto - unloved and unknown
"I find Semillon to be one of a few dry white wines that can age for decades" Dan Berger/Napa Valley Features Last night was our annual trek to our local fine diner Mercer's for 'diner à deux' but I have talked about Mercer's before, and yes the food was gorgeous - this is dessert - a kind of pavlova, but the thing that struck me most perhaps about the meal were two of the wines. We had decided to go with the wine matching options and they were all really, really nice - whi
Dec 21, 2025
Who is Bo on the road?
"food as authentic as it gets" Bo on the Road This is a young lady who calls herself Bo on the Road, and who writes a website, for which she makes videos and writes articles, called Authentic World Food . I'm not at all sure how I came across it now - probably because I was researching one of the recipes she has posted. Something in the particular post I found must have appealed to me and so I put it on my list of websites to investigate. Some of those have proved to be v
Dec 20, 2025
"Worth a write-up" said David
"Little joys illuminating an increasingly darkening world. They feed the soul and nourish the spirit." Nigel Slater A somewhat overblown, even, pretentious some would say, quote from Nigel, and although it probably overstates how I felt about last night's dinner, the dinner itself and David's comment did indeed induce a feeling of quiet satisfaction and maybe even pride that at least keeps me going. So here is my not very good photograph of a meal that I suppose could be ca
Dec 19, 2025
I'm not quite sure about this book
"No matter what food I make, or where or what I eat, taste is everything." Sabrina Ghayour I was aware of Sabrina Ghayour because of her first book Persiana , references to which I come across now and again. I look out for it every now and then, but it has disappeared from the bookshops - just like NIgel Slater's earlier books. They don't stock old books unless they are huge sellers because there is always something new. So when I saw this one on a Readings bargain table
Dec 18, 2025
Coq au sauvignon blanc
“This popular dish may be called coq au Chambertin, coq au Riesling, or coq au whatever wine you use for its cooking.” Julia Child Based on, based on, probably ad infinitum is the story of tonight's proposed dinner. And for want of a better description I'm calling it Coq au sauvignon blanc - or 'sav blonk' as some would say.. But of course it's not coq at all, so let's begin there on this tiny ramble around a classic french dish. For every group of chickens that actually ha
Dec 17, 2025
Wasabi with tahini?
"Embrace the wasabi and think of it as a hot mustard." Sue Li/New York Times The above photograph of Chicken and celery salad with Wasabi-tahini dressing by Sue Li comes from one of my desktop calendar pages, the recipe for which and a longer introduction, can be found on the Seattle Times website. As you probably know by now I'm not really into salads, but this one looks like a possibility - but wasabi and tahini? My first reaction was 'weird'. Why would you do that?
Dec 16, 2025
Healing rice
"I had forgotten the pleasures of cooking rice properly ... In the rush to get something on the table, it is all too easy to forget that there is something infinitely calming about cooking rice." Nigel Slater And healing too. On Friday I was not feeling too well - a mildly upset stomach - which is why there was no blog that day - and yesterday we had guests. I didn't eat much, tried to drink more water, and basically just lay around feeling somewhat drained, and needing to
Dec 15, 2025
Capsicum stuffed with tomatoes
"an Italian idea that has been put into words well by Elizabeth David, Simon Hopkinson and Nigel Slater among many others. And no wonder – it is such a good idea" Rachel Roddy I spent another happy almost hour with Nigel today, checking out his book Tender volume 1 for my lunch party on Sunday. If you remember I had forgotten to check this volume out. And of course there were heaps of other possibilities in addition to what I wrote about the other day, but I think I will
Dec 12, 2025
Egyptian musaqa'a a lucky dip
Today I was completely devoid of inspiration - I suspect it's something that creeps up on me at this time of the year, so I sent David to my bookshelves and he came back with Lugma - Noor Murad's first solo book - which I have raved to you about a while ago in a post I called How to begin a cookbook . So I did my thing and just opened it at random to this rather gorgeous looking eggplant dish which she calls Musaq'a: Aubergines in spicy tomato sauce with fried potatoes -
Dec 11, 2025
Guilt from browsing cookbooks
Don't be fooled by this photograph. This is not another Nigel homage, although he will get a mention or two - well more, but it's not really about him or his recipes. I also don't think I shall have much to say but I did want to say something arising from my attempt to decide what to cook for our friends coming to lunch on Sunday. And yes, I ended up with these three books and some bookmarks, but let me tell you how I came to this, and why I ended up feeling guilty. I wasn
Dec 10, 2025
With or without? - speculaas/speculoos
"Loos in old Dutch means without. Speculaas is with a lot of spices, speculoos is speculaas without most of those spices." reddit As I often do I started with a random, well a few, in this case, random recipes from somewhere, and you travel the world in time and space, learning a few fairly trivial and mildly interesting things along the way. Mind you I have sort of done this one before with my Biscoff for a rainy day post - and apologies for the missing pictures - I accid
Dec 8, 2025
Living the dream requires money - lots
"For mum, who taught me how to dream, and Pete, who makes my dreams come true." This is the Chateau de Bosguet in Normandy - otherwise known as The French Table - a gourmet getaway in a tiny village in Normandy where you can take cooking classes, or just simply relax. It is run by a Melburnian couple who, in 2003 began to dream of a life in France and a new business venture - a residential cooking and French village life focussed stay. And so in 2005 they bought this somewh
Dec 7, 2025
A recipe years in the making
"pushing the boundaries of Italian cuisine, to highlight the power food, drink and travel has on memory" Rob Hobart/Peroni Nastro Azzurro I started out today researching piña colada inspired desserts - it was a topic in my Ideas list. Somehow or other during those rambles around a couple of Google pages, I came across this Cherry and strawberry crostata with black sesame praline a dish that Ixta Belfrage had presented in her Substack newsletter, telling us that it was a re
Dec 4, 2025
Beetroot mezze - well small things?
"For me, a mezze dish has to be completely self-contained - fully flavoured and ready to go without needing anything else to make sense." Yotam Ottolenghi Ok - this is not really a small thing. It's Beetroot and red onion tarte tatin by Elena Silcock on the BBC Good Food website and I'm in the process of making it - or something like it now. Why? Well it's our last local book group meeting tonight, for which we all bring a plate. I'm hosting, and my particular challeng
Dec 3, 2025