History and tradition 2/14

Welcome to my blog/journal/whatever

This is the real guts of this website. The old website and its archived posts is still available at its old url. Newcomers might like to dip into it every now and then.

Welcome to you all. Amazingly I still don't seem to be running out of ideas on what to write - well occasionally - but I have my writer's block strategies to turn to - see the text on the right. Check this page for the latest posts and if something interests you just click on it. It's easy to leave a comment and I love to read them. And now you can subscribe to the blog and get emailed notifications of new posts. And sorry I just don't understand Facebook.

"We are not here for long. So let's at least make ourselves something good to eat."

Nigel Slater

"I was born hungry, not a cook."

Julia Child

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well"

Virginia Woolf

Writer's block

Every now and then I can't think of a suitable topic and so I have devised a few strategies to get around this.

Lucky dip

The first strategy I devised is to go to one of my three cook book bookshelves, close my eyes and pick a book. Close my eyes again and pick a page. It's really quite an enlightening method of getting over writer's block.

'A word from'

My second strategy is to devote a post to the thoughts of one of my favourite cooks. Hopefully it will introduce them to you

Or

I shall choose a picture I have come across and extemporise on that.

A second kind of lucky dip

I have been thinking about first recipes in cook books - so I shall choose a book not quite randomly and then look at the first recipe for inspiration.

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enjoy

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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

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

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

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, 2025

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, 2025

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, 2025

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, 2025