A Day in Ludlow, Shropshire

June 1, 2024.Reading time 14 minutes.

There are lots of interesting places to visit near my daughter’s home in Worcestershire, but with the weather rather changeable and the possibility of rain, we decided to visit the town of Ludlow where if the weather turned bad, we could at least easily seek shelter. Happily, despite the grey clouds and cold wind, the […]

Astley Vineyard, Worcestershire

May 31, 2024.Reading time 9 minutes.

Visiting Astley Vineyard has been a long time in the plans. It began with sampling their delicious wine, courtesy of my daughter Nicola, who lives only a 10-minute drive from them. Then she bought me some of their wonderful vermouth when I got into drinking vermouth a lot after attending a vermouth workshop run by […]

A Spring Risotto

May 20, 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.

I’ve written about a spring risotto before – Risotto Primavera – but that was nine years ago and frankly, it’s such a gorgeous risotto it deserves a little more attention and this one is more simple (though I have to confess I’ve made it like this before on the blog, but again nine years ago). […]

Book Review: The Taste of Belgium by Ruth Van Waerebeek

May 12, 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.

The cooking of Belgium isn’t one of those cuisines that springs immediately to mind amongst the foodies of UK. We’ve been in love with the cooking of France and Italy for a long time; more recently Spanish food has become popular with great tapas bars appearing everywhere; and, of course, chefs like Ottolenghi have inspired […]

Aldeburgh in April

April 27, 2024.Reading time 22 minutes.

As you will have realised if you’re a regular reader of my blog, Aldeburgh in Suffolk has become one of my favourite places for a short break. I’m just back from my third visit and although April brought more than a few showers, and there were still lots of March winds blowing, it was still […]

A Day on the South Bank & Bankside, London

April 12, 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.

It started with Ben (6) coming back from school a couple of weeks’ ago and wanting to tell me they’d been learning about Roy Lichtenstein and David Hockney in school that day. As he started a drawing, reproducing for me the Lichtenstein painting they’d be studying, he recognised ‘The Splash’ on the front of a […]

Easter Lamb for One

March 31, 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.

I don’t mean this as a sad heading, but I live alone, and that means inevitably many solo meals. However, it is quite unusual for me to be home alone over an Easter weekend, but with my birthday weekend not far away in April, when all the family will be here, and a particularly large […]

Lamb Kofte with a Butter Bean Mash & Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

March 21, 2024.Reading time 10 minutes.

Ottolenghi’s Bulgur with Tomato, Aubergine & Preserved Lemon Yoghurt from his book Simple has become one of the family’s favourite dishes and we cook it often – to serve with lamb, chicken, sausages. I’ve been making it so often lately that the other day I thought I should take another look through Simple and see […]

Griddled Lamb Chops with a Melange of Summer Vegetables

March 11, 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.

I’ve greatly enjoyed watching Rick Stein’s new TV series, Rick Stein’s Food Stories, in which he travels around UK exploring food traditions and the country’s favourite foods. In each episode, he heads back to his kitchen in Padstow, Cornwall a couple of times to cook up something which reflects the foods he’s been looking at, […]

Organic Seville Orange Marmalade

February 5, 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.

This is my second batch of marmalade this year – and we’re only into week 6 of 2024. But actually, if I’m to be completely honest here, as I always try to be, today’s marmalade was really batch 3. Batch 1 was a complete disaster. I’ve been making marmalade for more decades than I’d like […]