Category: Writing
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The 4 Best Pickles
There is something utterly charming about France beyond the bicycles, baguettes and éclairs, and that’s their love of jars. Chickpeas, crème fraiche, and my precious pâtés and rillettes all come in elegant glass jars, and it’s just so rustic and homely scraping crème fraiche out of a jar, why don’t we do it everywhere? Recycling…
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French recipe: Crab Soufflés
To conclude February, my food bucket list of 2022 begins, commencing with these light, creamy crab soufflés, an easy yet outrageously decadent lunch for you to treat yourself! In case you missed it, I’ve chosen 10 delicious recipes to make this year – a hopefully easy-to-achieve number, especially as I’ve waited until 27th February to…
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The Ultimate Tuna Melt
In my opinion, lunchtimes don’t get any better than a tuna melt, full of molten cheese. But can such perfection be improved? Nostalgia is a peculiar thing. Flavour is a major culprit. Just the smell of certain foods can transport us back to our childhoods – whether it’s a snack, drink or particular ice cream,…
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My Food Bucket List: 2022
January is month of philosophising. I live in my head as the year abruptly changes and I seem to think it’s like cleaning out the attic – shifting around boxes of to-do lists, piles of hopes and dreams, trying to gain some sense of order. This way, I think we all feel like we can…
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French recipe: Tartiflette
I’ve eaten an eye-watering amount of processed meat recently. They say a diet of processed meat is bad for you, but when push comes to shove, I bet whoever ‘they’ are would submit to that meat coma with the rest of us. I emerged from this pork-induced fog after eating four-days’ worth of rillettes, saucisson,…
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The 7 things I’ve learnt in France
Last October, I moved to France. In the grand scheme of things, it was incredibly low-key. It was a mere skip over the English Channel (the sea which I have since learnt – but it somehow didn’t make it onto this list – is not called le canal d’anglais, but La Manche which just reads…
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Apple, Maple and Thyme Porridge
Is there such a thing as a French breakfast? In many ways, France is considered to be THE country of sophistication – think long thin cigarettes (back when they were cool though), black turtlenecks (yesterday, at least three of us rocked one and, interestingly, I was the only female), and a glass of wine in…
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Fig and thyme jam
October seems to be the perfect month for me to make jam. Last year I filled some mini jars with bramble jam – mini purely because of the blackberry curse that haunts me – and although that is literally when the tradition started, I would like to it continue. This year it’s time to celebrate…
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How to make gyozas
When you move to France, gyozas aren’t the first foods which come to mind. I should be writing a diary about all the baguettes and eclairs I eat, not Japanese finger foods. For those who are interested, I eat a lot of baguettes, but we had one with lunch today and it was a BIG…
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What are the best pastries in Paris?
It sounds rather dreamy, doesn’t it? Paris and pastries! The picture-perfect image: sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower with a couple of eclairs. I’m going to have to abruptly halt this fantasy to say there were no visits to the Eiffel Tower this time *sob*. We did mooch around the eerily quiet city on…