

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
1 day ago


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
5 days ago


Green bean casserole
"The word “gloopy” comes to mind" Alison Roman This is in no way 'gloopy' looking but I'm starting with Ottolenghi's Blistered green bean casserole with parmesan and rosemary because this was my starting point - a recipe in Ottolenghi's newsletter, which was sort of about Thanksgiving, one American festival that I don't think will make it to our shores because it's specific to a historical American event. I also saw that this looked like a really good thing to try some day
Nov 16


Beautiful words, beautiful food - Nigel
"Early spring, Kamakura, and a small basket appears at my table and a tiny dish of salt. In it, a single whisp of new season's bracken in tempura batter, the fern caught in the process of slowly unfurling." Nigel Slater Looking for inspiration again - it's an everyday thing. I couldn't get excited about the cuisine of El Salvador or smoked fish canapés (my next first recipe - maybe tomorrow), and so I decided to have another look at Nigel Slater's beautiful book of small w
Oct 29


Disappointing
"Disappointments are inevitable; discouragement is a choice . " Charles Stanley I like to have on my desk, a desk calendar - one of those things that stands on your desk waiting for you to tear off each day as it passes. I also have a diary - yes I use a paper diary. My excuse is age. Normally I have an art based one. I like to see paintings I don't know, discover beautiful pictures and new artists, even occasional blog inspiration. However, last year as the possibilitie
Oct 26


A ramble beginning with oxtail soup
"Rambling talk with an image of air." William Butler Yeats This particular ramble began today, with a question, to which I haven't really found an answer. Well maybe. Although really it began a few days ago with a vague idea for a blog. It wasn't going to be a ramble down highways and byways. It was just going to be a fairly simple exploration of oxtail soup - my ultimately chosen English soup in my very occasional world soup series. The usual thing - a few words about
Oct 20


Ciabatta
"The Mother's Pride of the middle classes" - The Guardian " a new bread posing as an old one that is new?" Robin Stummer - The Guardian...
Sep 22


Pizza cooked on a volcano - Guatemala
“Through the narrow streets of Antigua, the ghosts of Guatemala’s colonial past still wander” Francisco Goldman My family has a somewhat...
Sep 15


Krispy Kreme and doughnuts in general
"one of those deep, childish pleasures you never grow out of." Felicity Cloake You might have thought that I had forgotten those...
Sep 11


Scacce ragusana
"a bit like a lasagne crossed with a focaccia and pizza." Lorraine Elliott/Not Quite Nigella This is just one of those short posts,...
Sep 6


Can Civilisation happen without milk?
"A civilization is a large group of people who share certain advanced ways of living and working." Kids Britannica I gave up on Latin at...
Sep 3


A question about shepherd's pie
On Sunday we had shepherd's pie for dinner because I had leftover lamb from Friday. Whenever we have a roast and have leftovers we...
Aug 26


Mushrooms and Chinese costermongers
This is a first recipe post - one from Beverley Sutherland Smith in her book simply called Vegetables . In this case, however, I first...
Aug 12


Wild rice
I have been reading my chosen book for book group - The Sentence by Louise Erdrich a multi-award winning author - including the Pulitzer...
Aug 6


Wensleydale and cranberries - why?
"It's okay to like wensleydale and cranberries" reddit - Is it? Wensleydale cheese - the pure kind, is one of my favourite cheeses, but...
Jul 29


An earl, history and recipes
"Tea, Earl Grey, hot" Picard/StarTrek Well the above quote has nothing to do with this post really, but not being a Star Trek follower I...
Jul 23


'Vegetarian mushroom shawarma pitas' - boring
"Novelty, the most potent of all attractions, is also the most perishable." Andre Maurois Once again I'm repeating myself, and also...
Jul 20


Are we British ashamed of cream buns?
"The fisherman fishes as the urchin eats cream buns, from lust". T. H. White I actually started out with the idea of doing an oddments...
Jul 18


Rather wonderful but mostly unseen
" Language is a funny thing. Most of us know what good writing looks like, but few of us can actually write good." Ellie It's time for a...
Jul 16


Belize - do you know anything about it?
"Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints. Eat nothing but fry jacks!” Anon I'm continuing my world foodie tour and have...
Jul 12

