nigel slater | Ramblingrose

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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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I changed my mind

"When in doubt, choose." Lily Leung I'm a bit late for this post because it's about a dinner at home with friends on Saturday. Not so much about what we actually ate, in terms of what it was like - besides I, of course, took no photographs, but more about the selection process. And I know I have written this kind of thing before, but never mind. At least it's a way of introducing a few dishes you might like to try. So - steps one and two which were simultaneous. Two of m

1 day ago

A detour to broad beans and Nigel

"Grey food tends not to win a child over." Nigel Slater This was going to be a blog called 'You don't need a recipe' which partly came from thoughts gained from the Guardian Feast newsletter, from the next website on my list, and also a look at the next yellow sticker pointing out of Nigel's book Tender Volume 1. All three very tempting in themselves and also as a kind of amalgamation of ideas about recipes. However, I soon realised that that was too big a task and decided

May 2

Does disappointment trump joy?

"I see no point in putting pen to paper to preserve anything negative, sad or painful." Nigel Slater Well so says Nigel. To be fair he did go on to say that there was more than enough misery around, and probably in his life too. I doubt there is anyone happy all the time. He was simply saying he did not want to write about the bad things. The things that go wrong. However, I want to consider this in writing after my Sunday birthday party which was overall a joyous experi

Mar 24

Why am I doing this?

"These diminutive pleasures are there if we care to look for them, little joys illuminating an increasingly darkening world. They feed the soul and nourish the spirit. Or at least they do mine." Nigel Slater Every now and then, I go through a phase of wondering why I keep writing this blog, particularly at the times when I am somewhat uninspired - like now, and so I was interested to read an article highlighted by Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman, in The New Yorker. The wr

Mar 20

The last day of summer

“Summer is a state of mind." Unknown As I sat down to write this post after a somewhat dismal day, I realised that it is indeed the last day of summer. Technically that is. Of course it isn't actually. And in fact we shan't know when it is. There is not even an astronomical date for the end of summer - maybe the autumnal equinox? But then a large part of the world, doesn't even have a season that could be called summer. On the equator you could say it's summer all the ti

Feb 28

Nigel's fruit

"And then there was fruit" Nigel Slater And flowers and nuts too. On the cover of this book - a Christmas present that I requested and received from my son and his ex?partner - is - I think - a blurry fig. Inside the cover is a rather beautiful red flower - also in soft romantic focus, but then all of the photographs in this companion volume to Nigel's book on the vegetables in his garden Tender Volume 1 , are taken by his friend and favourite food photographer of the Brit

Jan 8

Fruit fools

"Savlon for the tongue" Nigel Slater That's a somewhat weird, maybe even repulsive or at least unattractive way of describing, what to me and many other English people is the most sublime of desserts - particularly the gooseberry version. ‘Soft, pale, creamy, untroubled, the English fruit fool is the most frail and insubstantial of English summer dishes’ says Elizabeth David and even Claudia Roden - doyenne of Middle-Eastern food describes them as "one of the delights of s

Jan 3

Capsicum stuffed with tomatoes

"an Italian idea that has been put into words well by Elizabeth David, Simon Hopkinson and Nigel Slater among many others. And no wonder – it is such a good idea" Rachel Roddy I spent another happy almost hour with Nigel today, checking out his book Tender volume 1 for my lunch party on Sunday. If you remember I had forgotten to check this volume out. And of course there were heaps of other possibilities in addition to what I wrote about the other day, but I think I will

Dec 12, 2025

Letters to Nigel Slater - a blog

"If you accept what IS, then you can simply relax and appreciate it for its specialness" Hilary Chambers I haven't written about other bloggers for a while now, so it's time, and the next one is one I have been sort of looking forward to for a while - Letters to Nigel Slater . I mean how could I resist? Having now read a few posts it leaves me a little sad and with lots of questions. It's a very plain and unfancy looking website which began back in November 2011 and eded w

Nov 19, 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