A SHORT MEDITATION ON BREAKFAST

‘He that would eat a good dinner, let him eat a good breakfast’. English Proverbs, John Ray What is life without breakfast? It is the civilized ritual by which we slide down the slipway into the whirling maelstrom of life. Breakfast gives us hope and nourishment. On the rare occasions I am forced […]

THE COACH

16.5/20. Tom Kerridge country. Bountiful, lively, informal. Not your average pub grub. Top tucker, with the familiar Kerridge ingredients – rippling, muscular flavours with exquisite delicacy of touch. My brother, James, and I went for a walk yesterday along the Kennet & Avon Canal. Reading to Aldermaston. 32,523 steps. 20 km, give or take. […]

BLOODY GOOD BLOODY MARY

I knew it was a good idea as soon as I saw it: adding a dash or two of Angostura bitters to a Bloody Mary. I was leafing through my mother’s red file box of recipes, and there, after Beetroot Soup (Armenian), Bent Biscuit and Biscuit Tortoni, was Blood Mary. My mother belonged to a […]

THE ICE CREAM MAKER COMETH

The sun is shining. The air is warm. It seems that summer is upon us in spring. It’s ice cream time. An ice cream is, or should be, a source of joy in a tricky world. Cool, downy, soothing, a billowing cloud of creamy delight, carrying a bold blast of strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, coffee, […]

BRAT

17/20 Brat? Bratwurst? Brat pan? Brat pack? Rank inbratitude? Who cares? Pure fire cooking. Pure inspired eating. Brat in Shoreditch is the playground of Tomos Parry, formerly of Kitty Fisher’s, a fabulously successful and tiny joint in Mayfair. I can remember a time when you only went to Shoreditch in an armed convoy. It’s […]

RUNNING TO SEED

It’s early days yet, but I’m quietly confident that this is going to be a bumper growing season. Mind you, I thought the same last year, and things didn’t quite go as I’d expected. There was the usual war with nature as wave after wave of slugs and snails ravaged the tender leaves of […]

IN A PICKLE

Ah, rhubarb, another immigrant that made its tortuous way from Siberia, Mongolia or Northern China, or some such far-flung spot, no one seems to know, to Britain, where it was first registered 1578 by one Henry Lyte, translator and adapter of Rembert Dodoen’s perennial bestseller, Niewe Herball. Enough of history. I suspect we love […]