Travel tips-Restaurant reviews-Recipes
What I decide to cook is often more of an evolution than a decision. I spied a bunch of parsley in my fridge yesterday while seeking something else and thought, Hmmm, how about making a pesto with just parsley tomorrow to go with pasta? But then I thought, I don’t think I’ve made a classic […]
Read MoreWell, after that culinary excursion across the Atlantic at the weekend with my chowder recipe, it didn’t take long for The Single Gourmet Traveller to be hankering after some Italian again. In fact, I went so far as to book myself a little holiday – 3 nights – in Bologna at the end of April, […]
Read MoreI saw this combination in a Jacob Kenedy recipe in last Sunday’s Observer Magazine and liked the look of it. It’s chestnut season and I’m never quite sure what to do with them other than roast them and eat straight. I’ve combined them with Brussels sprouts for a Christmas side dish but generally they’re not […]
Read More‘A present,’ my son said on Saturday morning, handing me a bag, when we met for breakfast at Taylor St Baristas, Richmond. I looked inside. Four small black/deep purple vegetables. I was a bit confused. Were they baby aubergines? No, they were chillies he’d grown in his garden. I’d also tried to grow black chillies. […]
Read MoreMy daughter Nicola and I were talking about Sicily last night. A friend of hers is moving there and Nicola plans to visit next Spring. It got us talking about our own wonderful trip to Sicily 11 years ago and so, after supper, I suggested we watch my DVD of Sicily Unpacked – one of my […]
Read MoreI love broccoli and eat it a lot, and there is the added bonus that it is very, very good for you. It’s a rich source of Vitamin C and many other nutrients; the Food Doctor, Ian Marber, calls it ‘the perfect food’ in his book, Healing Foods for Mind and Body. As I said, the […]
Read MoreI had some things to use up in the fridge. Treats, not sad leftovers; things that required a loving treatment. There was the rest of the pistachio dressing from my supper last night and half of a gorgeous sunny yellow round courgette that my daughter, Nicola, brought with her at the weekend – grown by […]
Read MoreI’m off to France tomorrow (exciting prospect of Normandy food and cider and Calvados!) and so when I was thinking about supper this evening, my thought, more of the ‘being sensible’ kind of thought than ‘happy expectation’ thought, was, I’d better see what’s in the fridge and use up anything that will be off […]
Read MoreOK. This is just about the quickest and easiest salad imaginable. And it definitely doesn’t require full-blown ‘chef’ skills. It was inspired by two things: left-over pasta from last night – some lovely orechiette pasta that always reminds me of my holiday in Puglia with daughter Nicola about eighteen months ago, and a lunch that […]
Read MoreThis dish was inspired by a similar carbonara that my friend Annie had at the Pane Vino & San Daniele wine bar when we were in Venice last Wednesday. This supper was definitely a case of bringing a little of Venice and the sun home to a wet April in London – even though today has been […]
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