

Just a thing?
"But, of course, a thing is just a thing." Amor Towles - A Gentleman in Moscow Yesterday I spoke about saying a sad goodbye to a friend,...
Nov 3, 2022


Another sad farewell
"The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude." Thornton Wilder Yesterday we received the very sad news that a friend from...
Nov 2, 2022


Cooking - the only thing unique to us
"Once fire was discovered, the instinct for improvement made men bring food to it. First to dry it, then to put it on the coals to cook."...
Oct 26, 2022


Boredom, ennui, la noia, langeweile?
“What is boredom? It is when there is simultaneously too much and not enough.” Jean-Paul Sartre On the Home page of this blog I proudly...
Oct 21, 2022


Still life
"simple, wholesome food standing on a sill or held in air by the hand of a geometer and poet adept at ordering a world of marvels: did he...
Oct 14, 2022


Why do we celebrate birthdays?
"There was a star danced, and under that was I born." William Shakespeare Birthdays are a time to celebrate, to party. Right? And here...
Oct 12, 2022


The kitchen dilemma
"Happiness is a small house, with a big kitchen." Alfred Hitchcock We are trying to find a new home. Our house is lovely and easy to...
Oct 4, 2022


Washing up
"until you turn them on, a dishwasher is just a cupboard you hide the mess in, it’s still a very handy cupboard." Jay Rayner The...
Sep 26, 2022


Now what?
“Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.” Eckhart Tolle Is this what holidays are...
Sep 23, 2022


Holiday's end
"Summer has slowly slipped away like honey falling from a spoon." Nigel Slater How I wish I could write such a sentence. Part one For the...
Sep 21, 2022


Spontaneity requires organisation
"Spontaneity has long been one of my favourite ingredients in the kitchen" Nigel Slater This is my older son, many, many years ago on the...
Sep 9, 2022


The guilty satisfaction of empty things
By things I mean jars, bottles, packets, tins ... all the things containing all the consumables you use in your lifetime. By...
Aug 29, 2022


Random thoughts on an ordinary day
“Whatever — the soup is getting cold." [Last sentence of a mathematical theorem in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, 1518]” Leonardo da...
Aug 26, 2022


So much to see, do, experience ... always
“It's never too late to have a happy childhood.” Tom Robbins Yes it's another painting from my desk diary. It's called...
Aug 23, 2022


Distant memories - cousins and food
“Ponder well on this point: the pleasant hours of our life are all connected by a more or less tangible link, with some memory of the...
Aug 7, 2022


A quickie on baskets
"A glass pitcher, a wicker basket, a tunic of coarse cloth. Their beauty is inseparable from their function. Handicrafts belong to a...
Aug 5, 2022


LOVE - the secret ingredient - really?
"spread love through cooking" Mary Frances This was going to be purely about a website - in my foodie website/blog occasional series. ...
Aug 3, 2022


Precious - in what sense?
A Simple Dish of Potato Cooked in the Earth In Which It Was Grown The photograph is of a dish devised by Ben Shewry in his Attica...
Jul 22, 2022


Renewal
"Astonish me in the morning!" Tyrone Guthrie As you know, as well as writing this blog, to entertain myself I take photographs as I...
Jul 10, 2022


When the background is the foreground
This is today's Impressionist desk diary picture from the Met. It is by Edouard Vuillard and is called MIsia at the piano. It was...
Jun 13, 2022

