Techniques and Methods

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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A kataifi template or two

"a bit like shredded wheat, only 10 times tastier" Yotam Ottolenghi Today's Guardian Feast newsletter featured this Kataifi pie with feta. tomatoes and warm oregano honey from Alice Zaslavsky. I was a bit taken by it, thinking that this might be the next thing I will make for a vegetarian. I mean it looks wonderful, has all the trendy things like the drizzled honey thing, pistachios and feta and all things I like inside - tomatoes, cheese, onions. And no chilli. But se

7 hours ago

If you're a dedicated cook ...

"I’ll admit it's a labour of love, but so very worth it." Ixta Belfrage This will be a quickie I think. It's inspired by this recipe for A curry leaf, cherry, coconut & hibiscus crudo on a red millet tostada which turned up in Ixta Belfrage's substack newsletter. (I think the link will work - if it doesn't just do a Google search.) It arrived in my email this morning. As you know I am a huge fan of Ixta. Her food is truly exciting, and generally only a tiny bit difficu

3 days ago

Thickening with eggs

"Stir an egg yolk into any dish that begs for an element of thickness or creaminess. That's it." Daniel Skurnik, pastry chef/Food and Wine You may remember that I was going to have a series on how to thicken things. And I started with bread , but then the idea sort of disappeared. Well today I remembered that and decided to do eggs. It's a vast subject, so I decided to ignore some of the obvious things like custard, and everything you can make from custard like icecream an

Nov 19

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

It starts with the plate

"I am so obsessed with my serving platters that before I decide on what to cook, I first select the platters I want to serve it on ." ...

Oct 10

Old-fashioned asparagus

"No good will come from matching asparagus with anything that might overshadow its gentle nature. Any accompaniment needs to know its...

Oct 2

Contrasts and a bit about layers

"Sweet meat must have a sour sauce" Ben Jonson (1572-1637) Opposites attract they say, although I'm not at all sure that this is true...

Sep 17

Thinking about self-publishing

I mentioned this book in passing a little while ago, It was a present from my son - a self-published book by a friend of his. As he...

Sep 9

First day of spring - time to think about salad?

"Choose one hero ingredient and let it lead the way." Ottolenghi I'm really not a salad person. There I've said it, as my son would say....

Sep 1

Thickening with bread - a ramble

"Where there is stale bread there is home." Juls' Kitchen This was going to be a blog about the different ways you can thicken things. ...

Aug 29

Un mélange

Mélange: a mixture, or a group of different things or people" Cambridge English Dictionary time for some oddments, and it's amazing how...

Aug 25

A lot of fuss - but maybe worth it

"as I'm a pastry cook at heart, I've been making all sorts of herb-laden tarts, including this lovely tomato one. It's very simple." ...

Aug 21

Nuggets

" nugget - a small piece or lump, especially of gold in its natural state" or "something small but valuable or excellent" Cambridge...

Aug 5

Poaching chicken in vinegar

I have this pile of books on my desk which I have recently purchased, or which are first recipe or lucky dip books. So on a rainy day...

Jul 10

"Light heart, light baking" - crumble

This post is probably going nowhere. It's just based on a couple of lengthy quotes from Nigel. Here's the last part of it, and I hope...

Jul 8

A tangle of roots

"sometimes we need to fill our lives with a little more whimsy than a rich, rotting mound of compost" One Green Planet This post has...

Jul 7

Unloved fusilli and its friends

"three small wings elegantly twisted on themselves, in a spiral movement." Barilla I had a feeling that fusilli, those short spiralised...

Jun 4

Upping my sandwich game

"No offence, but I find sandwich recipes pointless. Who needs a recipe for making a sandwich? It’s like looking up a manual before taking...

Jun 2

Genteel eggs

Coddled, baked, shirred, en cocotte, moulded eggs, egg-in-a-cup - not poached - but I'm confused This all began with this rather lovely...

May 27

Angel hair

“Angel hair just lands on your chin like the strands of a wet mop.” Bon Appétit "The thin strands absorb sauce like few other pastas...

May 23

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RAMBLINGS

daily musings on food