Category: Writing
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The 4 Best Toast Toppings
The easiest snack in the world. It’s a piece of cake, or should I say, toast. And the great thing about this snack is the fact there is such a thing as toast toppings. If there is a snack that can withstand all weathers, it is toast. From Welsh rarebit dripping with cheese in the…
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How to Make Easy Crumpets
I haven’t inherited much in terms of features from my dad, but using all the kitchen equipment for one meal seems to be genetic trait. Gaylord will be the first to tell you that I am a messy cook. According to him, when he’s faced with the washing up which I always insist ‘really isn’t…
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French recipe: Creamy Leek and Potato Soup
To quote Elizabeth Gilbert, since living in France, “I’ve been doing rude things to my body.” However, it seems unlikely that this leek and potato soup will help. While Liz made sweet love to pizza and pasta and gelato in Rome over the course of four months in her book ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, I have…
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Classic Lasagne with Three Cheeses
Before you immediately click away from this recipe because of course you know how to make lasagne, or you may be apologetically shrugging as if to say ‘so sorry Ally but my mum’s recipe for lasagne is unbeatable’, I’m just going to quickly say – you haven’t tried this lasagne. And I’m also going to…
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How to Build a French Charcuterie Board
It was during my first visit to see Gaylord in France that I realised how seriously the French take charcuterie. While it took me another year to eat snails, then a whole year after that I finally encountered frogs legs, charcuterie has been a weekly snack since my plane touched down in 2020. As you…
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Sign up to my newsletter!
We all have full inboxes – once upon a time, I signed up to two separate language-learning email lists to teach me French, have I ever read their updates? No. How’s my French going? Terribly. However, what if I could offer you a newsletter that, unlike these emails sitting in my inbox, doesn’t require any…
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Moist Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
Unlike many bakers, I didn’t grow up baking at my grandmother’s knee. In fact, my most regular activity in my granny’s kitchen was drying the dishes (can you even qualify that as a skill? – ‘oh her baking is delicious’ ‘you haven’t seen anything, just watch her dry up’). My granny was of the generation…
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The Best BLT
There’s been a change of plan. The essential guide to making your own French charcuterie board – taking us all one step closer to living with joie de vivre no matter where we are in the world – never got off the ground. Instead of cheese and cured meats, there came a vicious cold and…
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Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci – Book Review
Stanley Tucci is a chameleon. Turn on any film from a range of genres and his face is bound to pop up. Regardless of these artistic capabilities though, ask anyone whose age falls within the millennial generation and Mr Tucci is famous for just one film and one film alone. Gaylord’s memory for names is…
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Cheat’s Prawn Ceviche with Avocado
Our evening binge-TV is Modern Family. There are 11 seasons so it looks like we’re covered until next summer (who am I kidding, we’ll be finished within a month). In an episode we watched the other night, a character lamented, ‘Do you remember when summer meant fireflies, cut-off shorts and ice cream trucks?’ Do I…