Search


Rambling - a moment in time
"One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy." Jane Austen You must be able...
Feb 21, 2021


New is old, old is new
and sometimes old is old and new is new and what do old and new mean anyway? I was very struck by Elizabeth David's quote about food...
Feb 7, 2021


La cuisine pour tous - coincidence again
"I was instantly transported back to the years I lived in France and devoured everything, especially the food. And the years that...
Feb 2, 2021


Coincidence, postscripts and lucky dips
"Very few cookbooks contain recipes for guinea fowl. Most chicken or pheasant recipes can be interchanged with guinea fowl". Maggie Beer...
Jan 31, 2021


A book group gathering
"What's the point of having a book club if you don't get to eat brownies and drink wine?" Jami Attenberg I am actually in two bookclubs...
Jan 21, 2021


Inventing dinner - a journey
I think I'm aiming to cook something that will look a little like this for dinner tonight, but then again maybe not. There are...
Jan 15, 2021


Who makes toast for you?
"It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you .... Once the warm, salty butter has hit your tongue, you are smitten....
Jan 8, 2021


20 to 21 - coming of age
"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the...
Jan 1, 2021


A table
"When I moved into my first home, before I did anything else, I bought a table, a table not just to eat at, but to live around." Nigella...
Dec 30, 2020


Happy Christmas
This is the last picture from my 2020 Charley Harper diary - a rather cute Christmassy picture of somewhat bemused looking cats. Or are...
Dec 25, 2020


Christmas overkill panic
This is just a quickie because - guess what - it's just over a day to Christmas and I am in my usual Christmas panic even though I am not...
Dec 23, 2020


Brave new world or the end of days?
"Come to the edge, He said. They said, We are afraid. Come to the edge, He said. They came. He pushed them... and they flew." Guillaume...
Dec 16, 2020


Memory + imagination = dinner
“It needs to have whatever it was that you were reaching for as a kid: This is my after school memory, or this is the thing we always...
Dec 6, 2020


Indecision and macaroni cheese
"simplicity is the key to macaroni cheese ... nothing should leap out at you except a clumsy, gooey richness" Tom Norrington-Davies...
Nov 29, 2020


Salade Niçoise and breaking rules
"Call me old-fashioned, but surely the whole point of a classic recipe is that the punter knows, within an olive or two, what they are...
Nov 24, 2020


A moment in time - language and jargon
“I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me.” Matt Groening It's a while since I've done one of my 'moment in time'...
Nov 21, 2020


Almost freedom
Last night we celebrated my grandson's 10th birthday with a family get together - in an Italian restaurant - it's always an Italian...
Nov 9, 2020


On the brink
It's a Monday, the second of November and it is very warm and sunny, indicating that summer is on the way. Which simultaneously means...
Nov 2, 2020


The joyful anarchy of home cooking
I saw that quote in Rachel Roddy's article on Pollo con peporino, so I stored it away in my head because it was so good. And then my son...
Oct 25, 2020


I've been doing it all wrong
I think my very first inspiration, as for many bloggers I suspect, was that film about Julia Child - Julie and Julia - in which Julie...
Oct 23, 2020