

First recipe, first impressions and a Belgian salad
"we all know how first impressions linger the longest." Robert Carrier I'm not particularly uninspired today, but I'm in a clearing out,...
Apr 9, 2022


Confit - from duck to garlic and everything in between
"oil diffuses heat better than air, which is why meat confined and cooked under oil is so tender and almost velvet-like, rich but,...
Mar 29, 2022


Hasselbacking - variations on a theme
"My favorite thing about the humble, mighty potato is that just when you think you’ve tried all the ways to prepare it, you learn about...
Mar 27, 2022


When politics creeps into cooking - Maqluba and Yotam Ottolenghi
"Thanks to Ottolenghi’s best-selling books, we now have 'Ottolenghi hummus' and — believe it or not — 'Ottolenghi maqluba.' The latter...
Mar 15, 2022


A rubbish soup
"Now, don’t go thinking you’re gonna throw everything in a pot, Pippi Longstocking-style. There’s a method here." Good Cheap Eats It's...
Mar 14, 2022


Another lemon tart trauma
"Things taste so much better once you've forgotten the effort of baking them." Lucy Ellmann, Ducks Newburyport During conversation over...
Mar 13, 2022


In praise of tarts - the savoury ones
"The differences between a tart, a pie and a quiche are a blur." Yotam Ottolenghi "There is never enough crust. The layer of puff,...
Mar 9, 2022


Does anyone make soufflé anymore?
"It feels more like magic than cooking." Nigel Slater I'm attempting a bit of a tidy up of my desktop pile of books of potential...
Mar 1, 2022


A new kind of cauliflower cheese
"Cheese lava in filo form." Ever since I got Ottolenghi's latest book Shelf Love I have been dying to make this. Well virtually...
Feb 28, 2022


Terrine de campagne
"Remember that it will taste better the next day" Jane Grigson A busy week is looming so it's possible there will not be many posts this...
Feb 14, 2022


Now which plum cake shall I make?
"Plums are rather the forgotten member of the stone fruit member. Not as sexy as peaches, as expensive as cherries, or as tartly exotic...
Feb 10, 2022


Make this - and whatever happened to smoked mackerel?
I'm on a bit of a Nigel Slater roll at the moment. Most of tonight's family dinner is going to be Nigel Slater, with a bit of Curtis...
Feb 7, 2022


Salad days - not my thing
"I must acknowledge my true nature. I am a winter cook currently forced to endure the summer months." Jay Rayner - The Guardian I...
Jan 31, 2022


I do like to be beside the seaside
Such is my lack of inspiration at the moment I am today combining two of my writer's block stimuli - a moment in time and a lucky dip. I...
Jan 30, 2022


So simple but so delicious - potted fish
"There are restaurateurs and cookery journalists who like to call confections such as haddock and kipper paste by the name of pâté. I...
Jan 29, 2022


Did consommé die?
"Consommé shows skill and panache without shouting, like a Savile Row shirt: crisp, understated, but oozing style and class. Consommé is...
Jan 28, 2022


A chicken breast on a hot day
"don’t subscribe to the fatalistic notion that people simply “run out of ideas.” There are infinitely more ideas than you could ever use...
Jan 26, 2022


On magic, perfection, mystery, Elizabeth David and Mère Poulard's omelette
"one of life's simplest, quickest and most pleasant dishes." Delia Smith "Once upon a time" begins Elizabeth David's classic essay An...
Jan 24, 2022


An unlikely mild disappointment
"These impressive looking peppers are deceptively easy to put together" Shelf Love On the left Ottolenghi, on the right mine. It was a...
Jan 21, 2022


From the sublime to the slightly ridiculous - lamingtons
"essentially, plain cakes with frills". Felicity Cloake It seems almost insulting to turn to Lamingtons - a supremely ordinary if...
Jan 20, 2022

