Category: Writing
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Chocolate Rocky Road & Salted Caramel Filled Chocolate Cupcakes
It was Calum’s birthday (or as he liked to remind me, his ‘special day’). Presents, cards, birthday activities were incidental; my focus was, of course, his cake. Last year I made a large Victoria sponge with white fondant icing, bursting with jam and cream, and neatly decorated with Smarties. We polished off a couple of…
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Wedding bells
I lived with my friend, Nnamdi, in my second year of university. We lived together with seven others in, essentially, a three-bedroom house with a large thinly-walled extension haphazardly attached with next to no heating. The kitchen was a corridor, the sitting room could just about fit a sofa, my desk was on a hinge…
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Spring clean
Spring is here and along with it steady downpours, heavy clouds which drift lethargically carrying their immense weight across the sky, beautiful sunsets, and the ongoing roar of cars around and around the roundabout (christened ‘The Roundabout of Death’) on which I live. In a hotblooded display of manliness Calum ripped down the bent and dusty metal…
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The food of love
Earlier, I stumbled in from a trek in the rain, sans umbrella, to find the nearest post box (which, I will add, was about a half hour trip – do we just not need post boxes anymore these days? I bought a packet of stamps back in March and have only used two of them.…
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Bread and cake
I love these kind of days. The great bowl of sky is bright peacock blue and clear all the way across from one sky scrapper to the other. Only thin white streaks scud across as planes drift soundlessly from one destination to another. It is warm, not uncanny for this time of year but maybe…
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Brioche: The benefits of butter
It’s always an unfortunate discovery, when sitting down for lunch or dinner, to see your whole plate is covered in different shades of brown. Even though so many delicious foods are brown; chocolate, caramelised onions, the holy deity that is pastry, a plate of varied tones of beige does not scream, ‘Eat me now!’ We…
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Hispi: The life of a chef
I’ve seen a selection of interesting jobs in my adult life. After working at a cookware shop I interned at StudioCanal and was a bit too open revealing my love for Benedict Cumberbatch to a room full of laughing office workers, before I moved on to become a personal assistant to a film director. I…
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Europe 2011: An inter-railing adventure
It was a ‘Gap Year’ style holiday unlike all others. Look no further for sun-kissed beach bodies, drunken out-of-focus photographs of the Full Moon party, fluorescent face paint and sky diving. You won’t find them here. This holiday, my dear reader, took me to Europe for a tour of gastronomy. I think holidays reflect our personalities…
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One-pot meals: Seabass en papillote
One of my favourite things is to sit down to a spread of a meal, especially at Christmas, help myself to all the dishes, load my plate, drown it in some gravy or sauce and enjoy the meal and company. It produces something close to euphoria. Then, after the last mouthful and everyone reclines in…
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Food on the go
I think everyone must know someone who can eat anything. They wear it as self-righteous armour and enjoy a not-too-subtle roll of the eyes when you say you don’t like something. I’m afraid to say, I am that person. That is, until the tuna pasta incident. Work lunches, or food on the go, has been an…