The English seaside
"salt air, seagulls and unpredictable weather" Georgina Hayden Somewhat ironically this picture which headed up a piece by Georgina Hayden on a trip around some of Britain's beaches, in The Guardian newsletter, may not be England at all. And Georgina Hayden mostly talks about Greek food, but the picture and the words that followed, about British seaside foodie treats, induced such a feeling of nostalgia, that I started thinking about how I could use the photo for a blog. In
1 day ago
Invasion or evolution?
"A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows." Doug Larson Nature is reasserting itself in our garden. This is our back 'lawn' - and as you can see it is very lush and green. But it's not grass - we have struggled for literally decades to grow grass here - battling drought, dogs, rabbits and just rotten soil. But now it is almost covered with oxalis which seems to love growing here - and everywhere else at the moment. N
3 days ago
Anna's potatoes - who was Anna and are you up to this?
"the supreme potato dish of all time" Julia Child and Simone Beck I have no idea now how Potatoes Anna, crept into my Ideas list. I thought it might have been a Felicity Cloake 'perfect' dish but no. Never mind I decided I really had to tackle some of these long ago 'Ideas' so here I am with Pommes - or more correctly Pommes de terre - Anna. The picture is from my rather wonderful, but basically ignored by the internet The Cooking of France - published by Bay Books with r
5 days ago
The joy of the galette
"flat, round and quintessentially French." Great British Chefs This not terribly prepossessing photograph is the remains of last night's dinner - cold from the fridge. I should have taken a photograph last night but didn't. Anyway it was a dish that gave me great joy and satisfaction for a number of different reasons. Perhaps the main reason, was because in complete contrast to my previous night's dinner - the very disappointing pasta and romanesco dish - this was really,
Aug 22
à la barigoule
"One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy." Jane Austen This is my 'natural production' the Saffron milk cap mushroom - botanically known as Lactarius deliciosus - or the red pine mushroom. But in this case although it is the beginning of the food story here, it is not really the beginning of my ramble today. For this has indeed been a ramble - but it didn't begin with Lactarius deliciosus - no matter how delici
Aug 17
Lees
"lees: the substance that is left at the bottom of a container of liquid, especially a container of wine or beer" Cambridge English Dictionary I think this is going to be one of those bits and pieces posts - in this case the little things that have been lurking in my various ideas list waiting to be turned into gold. However, since lees is a food - well drink related thing - maybe it will turn into a mini treatise on lees. We'll see. This is a photograph of champagne restin
Jul 27
From the big bang to apple pie
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” Carl Sagan Somewhere on this website there is the above quote with a note from me - "which is intriguing but I'm not quite sure I understand it." Well today I found the answer and castigated myself for being so dense and not seeing what was meant. I mean it's pretty obvious if you think about it. The answer came from Yotam Ottolenghi of all people - well he does have a degree in philosoph
Jul 5
A postscript - the view from India
"an 'elsewhereness' that is aspirational but not imitative." Sharanya Deepak/Vittles When looking for ideas for today I found a reference to a Vittles Magazine article by Sharanya Deepak - A brown people's version of white people's lives - it's long but worth reading if you are at all interested in the fusion of cuisines in general, and the fusion of South Asian and Italian cuisines in particular. She is Indian and so writes from the inside as it were and quite puts to sha
Jul 4
Lardy cakes
Lardy cake isn’t lardy cake if you hold back." Kimberley Killebrew/Daring Gourmet The lardy cake above is my inspiration today - it's Tom Hunt's version of this traditional British cake from The Guardian - and now having searched the net for variants - one of the best I think. It came from a link in Felicity Cloake's Guardian Feast newsletter, in which she was bemoaning the loss, or at least scarcity of traditional British bakery treats such as this. Potentially unhealthy,
Jun 12
Chasing culinary white whales
"It’s not until you come to make it yourself that you see what’s not written down.” Felicity Cloake This is my culinary white whale - and I apologise for it not being one of my mother's dishes. Which is not to say that I don't make things that my mother did, and that I don't remember those dishes with all those warm and cuddly feelings the cooking world would like us to have when we think of mum's cooking - or even better - grandma's cooking. And I will come to mum and gra
May 4
Making a mark
I have a folder on my computer desktop supposedly full of ideas for blog posts, which I look at occasionally. Uninspired again - today is one of those days - I opened the folder marked 'moments in time' and found this - a patch of cacti, somewhere near St. Tropez I seem to recall, on which people have engraved their names or initials, mostly representing a moment of love. Whether those moments endured into the future of their making is, of course, unknown. It reminded me of
Apr 26
Spanakorizo - Greek comfort food
“a little rice for a mountain of spinach” Tessa Kiros Having now investigated this Greek bit of home cooking, I have come to the realisation that when one explores a dish like this, and finds lots of variations of course, one ends up by thinking that the very first one that inspired you to write the post is of course the correct way to do it. Never mind everybody else doing it differently to a greater or lesser degree - the first is the truly authentic one. In this case it
Apr 23
Everything bagel
"a doughnut with rigor mortis (alias chewy and dense and just a bit hard)" Claudia Roden/Nami-Nami I thought I was just going to be writing about a particular spice mix sold in Coles, but find, that I am indeed going to dip into 'everything bagel'. I emphasise dip. There are many more learned articles out there from Wikipedia's bagel page to J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats' The good bagel manifesto . The picture here is of one website's - Tasting Table - pick of the b
Apr 17
Torta Pasqualina - an Easter tradition
"The quintessential spring dish." Stefano Arturi I have now been trawling the net for examples of this Italian - no - Ligurian - Easter dish - a pie filled with cheese and greens and eggs. I now have a large number of examples and a few things to say about it but didn't know which example to use as my header picture - so in the end I decided to go for the very first one I looked at from a website called Marcella in Cucina - after all, she's Italian and it looks pretty goo
Apr 10
From pirates to tax haven - the Caymans
"There are twice as many companies as people." Jacques Peretti/The Guardian The Caymans are mere specs in the ocean - the tips of an undersea mountain range between Honduras and Cuba - the large piece of land to the north on this map. The smaller chunk of land at the bottom of the map is Jamaica, to which it once belonged as part of the great British Empire. In fact it still is part of the British Empire - if you can call it that these days. It's now an independent Britis
Mar 30
Provençal garlic soup
"[one of the] most delicious meals ... eaten by the poorest people in the world." Jamie Oliver And then turned into food for the rich: "Soups made with chick-pea water or chestnut water, or even garlic and sage water, are found in country kitchens today, or are translated into glamorous clear consommés complete with saffron or rose petals in the leading hotels of the region." Robert Carrier This is my lucky dip of the moment. Garlic soup in Robert Carrier's wonderful ode
Mar 17
Toblerone
" Finally, the recipe is quite simple, but paradoxically will never be equaled ... obvious ingredients, inimitable mixture" Eugénie Rousak/Now Village You may or may not remember, but quite a long time ago now, on one of my walks I decided to photograph everything with a link to food. I think so far I have tackled one, maybe two of those. Today I'm on to this one - Toblerone. A wrapper tossed away by a walker or from a car, on a semi busy road. I don't think that's a bit
Feb 11
Just too simple? - walnut sandwiches
"These sandwiches are very good with ices, instead of the usual biscuits or wafers." Elizabeth David This is a lucky dip - from Elizabeth David's Summer Food , a book that is full of simple - and sometimes not so simple food for summer. I've used it a lot in the past, and there are lots of really wonderful things in there. This was a lucky dip however, and the page that I randomly selected did not fill me with joy and the excitement of exploring something with maybe a few s
Feb 9
Vadouvan - will 2026 be its time?
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness." [not] Oscar Wilde I'll begin with an aside - the quote above. First I just used the first half of it which I had a feeling was by Oscar Wilde, then I found Terence Eden's Blog which first reminded me that there was a second part of it and then told me in great detail why it wasn't Oscar Wilde who said it - the conclusion being it might have been a now defunct magazine - My Family Magazine
Jan 30
Cumin
"little striped torpedoes of flavour" Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall I'm pretty sure that I first encountered cumin in what this family calls simply - Kebabs - and probably the close second favourite dish of the Dearmans. I know I have written about the dish before - and sadly the recipe is not online. So just as a reminder - it's the marinade that is the thing - for beef cut in strips and threaded on to skewers to cook. The marinade for around 500g beef is 6 tbsp olive oil
Jan 23