Colatura di Alici

I was wandering around the stalls of Eataly not far from Bra, the capital of Slow Food. For those who don’t know, Eataly is a store – stores now – dedicated to selling the finest Italian edibles and drinks that have the Slow Food seal of approval. This particular Eataly wasn’t the huge one in […]

Shaken Oak Hot & Smooth Mustard

Classy, classic, English mustard. Urbane, pungent and properly piquant.There’s a nice tang from cider vinegar. The characteristic bitter edge of English mustard is softened by honey. Altogether, a finely balanced condiment, from Shaken Oak, a small, family producer in Oxfordshire. They do loads of more exotic mustards and other preserves, too. Shaken Oak Farm, Old […]

Days Cottage Apple Juice

Apples run through Gloucestershire in a crunchy, juicy, sweet and spicy seam. There are Gloucestershire apples for eating, like Ashmead’s Kernel, the apple of William Ashmead, a connoisseur’s apple, sweet, sharp, spicy, with a firm white flesh, and Berkley Pippin, and Flower of the West; and apples for cooking, such as Royal Turk and Transparent […]

The Toffee Shop

And then there is the Toffee Shop of Penrith, where Neil Boustead makes the finest fudge on Earth. It’s a modest, bright establishment on a street that slopes down a hill at the top end of town. There’s not much in the windows, and not much in the shop, come to that, just stacks of […]

Bacheldre Watermill

It’s an odd thing, but no one I seem to meet on my foraging expeditions ever seems to have started out doing what they ended up doing. Matt Scott is no different. After 15 years with the Post Office, he had had enough. In 2002 he and his wife Ann decided they needed a change […]

Emmett’s Stores

I had been in love with Emmett’s Store in Peasenhall at a distance for many years. I had never visited or even seen it, but I had a sort of image of what it should look like, unassuming but confidently old-fashioned, a long window fronting the street with white-painted frame and brightly lit and piled […]

Coffee

Markus Coffee Company, 13 Connaught Street, London W2