Travel tips-Restaurant reviews-Recipes
I hadn’t planned to cook. Well, not cook from scratch. I had to work over the weekend; a job I’d taken on just before Christmas turned out to be much longer than expected so I had no choice. Taking a portion of the turkey curry I had in the freezer seemed like an easy option […]
Read MorePizza is an early street food. Street food is all the rage at the moment with markets popping up all over London, even well-established restaurants taking a stall, and offering the kind of wonderful food that’s only been seen before in places flung very wide of London. Street food when I was a kid was […]
Read MoreI was a voracious reader as a child. I remember when, aged 8, I was ill in bed with mumps, my mother was severely challenged by my relentless demand for books. I would get through two or three a day: books like The Secret Garden, the Heidi books, the Jennings series and What Katy Did. Books I came […]
Read MoreAbout this time last year I wrote a post about the 10 bucket list new destinations I’d like to go to over the next couple of years or so. Well, I’ve only managed to tick off one this year – to Istanbul – but I’ve still had a fantastic year of travel and eating, and […]
Read MoreHow special occasions are celebrated in our family is closely linked to food and thus a discussion may be started weeks before the actual event. Where shall we go? What will be cooked? Last year I took my daughter Nicola to the Cinnamon Kitchen to celebrate her birthday and its proximity to Christmas meant we […]
Read MoreI wrote yesterday about making Imam Bayildi and how I’d wanted to recreate the lunch I had in Istanbul three weeks ago on my first day there. I’d chosen to have just a couple of meze – appetisers – with some Turkish pide bread for a light lunch. The spinach was wrapped in lots of […]
Read MoreIt’s three weeks since I was in wonderful Istanbul, walking through markets full of gorgeous ripe and perfect fruits and vegetables; spices piled high, their aroma hanging in the air, singing of the exotic; fresh pomegranate juice squeezed to order and sold on stalls on the edge of roads. Fisherman hanging over the edge of […]
Read MoreOne of the nicest meals we had in Istanbul last week was at Amedros after we’d seen the Whirling Dervishes. The meal was fabulous, beginning with a wonderful selection of meze. My main course was Ottoman Chicken served with a fresh pomegranate juice, walnuts, cinnamon and red onion sauce. It was so good I decided […]
Read MoreWe awoke to beautiful sunny weather for our final day in Istanbul. It was our first day without a guide and now that Istanbul was becoming familiar, we decided to set off across the Bosphorus for a day in Asia. We’d had recommendations to take a trip to Kadikoy and it’s also where a restaurant […]
Read MoreOur guide for a tour of Istanbul’s food culture was Hasan. We were lucky when he arrived at our hotel to learn we were his only travellers for the day. A mini bus would take the four of us – including Hasan – across the Galata Bridge to the Asian side of Istanbul and our […]
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