Month: February 2018
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The Beast from the East: Bread & butter pudding for 1
We Brits are not adept at change. Take this week, for instance. The fateful Beast from the East is looming above British towns and cities, terrifying people into their homes while icy winds as sharp as knives blast, and soft, light snow flutters down despite the blue sky and bright sunshine. Whenever it snows here […]
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Baking with Tony: treacle tart
Another day another tart. Tart cravings have broken the Richter scale this week, maybe due to rereading Tamasin Day-Lewis’s book ‘Smart Tart’. My salivary glands go haywire as I read her description of the crisp buttery pastry, the creamy, melt-in-the-mouth filling, the blob of clotted cream on the side. Treacle tart, in particular, has been […]
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To warm the heart
It’s half-term. The streets are silent. The only sign of life is the wind belligerently rattling the door to the bakery. Golden and crusty sourdough loaves sit in their wooden trays on the shelf waiting to be chosen like a nervous teenager at a school dance. The front of house staff stand by the till […]
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My cookbook heroines
By my bed are two piles of cookbooks and food memoirs, stacked precariously. They are within easy reach for when I write a blog post, think of a new dish to put on the specials board at the cafe, or to simply peruse and ear-mark (although most cookbooks now come with a ribbon book-marker! Ingenious!) […]
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The simple and sublime: scrambled eggs
The first lesson at Leiths School of Food and Wine taught us how to scramble eggs. Our tutor was meticulous, regularly repeating, ‘Now, this is VERY important’ which I would immediately scribble down in my notebook margin, ‘very important!’ with lots of aggressive capital letters, and, like the good pupils we were, we all leaned […]