An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
There are few things as good as soup for comfort and warmth. Though, with the very notable exception of Heinz tomato, I find ready-made soups invariably dull. The fresh counter ones are even worse than the tinned: bland, gloopy, surprisingly calorific and expensive for what is, after all, liquid food. When it comes to soup, I
What is it about retro food? I don’t mean nostalgic food, from school dinner favourites to your grandmother’s signature dishes. I mean food you’ve probably never even tried. Thoroughly old-fashioned dishes that nevertheless light up your culinary imagination — or at least mine. I’m talking devilled eggs. Prawn cocktail. Beef stroganoff. Perhaps it’s because many
Getting a takeaway doesn’t quite mean what it used to. The choice used to be between a pizza, ‘an Indian’ or ‘a Chinese’, and was reserved as a Friday night treat, to be eaten out the box while flopped on the sofa watching Cilla Black’s Blind Date. Nowadays one is as likely to order a
According to recent reports, we might be looking down the sharp end of a turkey-less Christmas. Kate Martin of the Traditional Farm Fresh Turkey Association has warned that a lack of European farmhands means that Britain could be facing a turkey shortage this December. Turkeys have been synonymous with British Christmas dinners since the Victorian
It’s not terribly surprising that the apple Charlotte is often mistakenly attributed to French chef Marie Antoine Carême; the so-called first celebrity chef is credited with inventing everything from the chef’s tall toque hat to the taxonomic arrangement of sauces, via creating an entirely new system of dining and service. Some of these have more
The last 18 months saw the closure of many old favourites from the London dining scene, which makes the efforts of those willing to roll the dice on a new opening all the more admirable. Here’s where you should snap up a table in the coming months: Kudu Grill – Nunhead Kudu Collective, the small group
I have always been a bit of a stew-pusher; it tends to be my answer to any of life’s dilemmas, culinary or otherwise. Friends coming round? Stew. Cold and dark outside? Stew. Feeling sad? Stew. To be honest, it doesn’t matter whether or not the weather demands it, I am always in the mood for
African politicians often have a playful turn of phrase. The former president of Zambia, Levy Mwanawasa, was dubbed ‘the cabbage’ by his political opponents. There is nothing to suggest that the founding president of Malawi, Hastings Banda, was called ‘the kidney bean’ by the political opposition but he could’ve been. For banda/bhanda is the word
When I was young, I watched a television show about a man who, possessed of the spirit of greed, ate gold and died. I recognised hubris then, and I recognise it now. In a country filled with foodbanks people are hungry to eat gold, which is, in food standard circles at least, called something less
‘Casseroles,’ Julia Child wrote to her long-term penpal Avi DeVotos, ‘I even hate the name, as it always implies to me some god awful mess.’ On this, Julia and I are in full agreement: I have a real problem with the word ‘casserole’. And ‘stew’ for that matter. Both of them sound so unappetising, so
If you only read restaurant reviews, you might be forgiven for thinking that the North is a culinary wasteland: despite a few intrepid reviewers venturing further than the Watford gap, restaurant reviewing remains firmly London-centric. But there is life (and culinary prowess) beyond the outer zones of the London underground. Last month Moor Hall in
Hackney’s rise in the 2000s from dangerous and affordable to cool, cooler and coolest eventually made it a kind of Chelsea of east London, with the expensive housing – house prices have grown 281 per cent between 2001 – and glamorous dining establishments to match. It may have become a magnet for Fullham exiles but
There are some fruits which, while lovely cooked, are probably at their best fresh: nectarines and peaches, raspberries, mango. But blackberries, as delightful as they are eaten fresh from the bush mid-forage, come alive when cooked. As you heat blackberries, and they break down and give up their juices, begin to smell like violets and wine.
The UK has something of a reputation for butchering those classic European dishes on which entire cultures seem to be founded. Think spaghetti carbonara creamy enough to make an Italian weep or the kind of rubbery, watery beef bourguignon that is the culinary equivalent of our grizzly, grey weather to any self-respecting Frenchman or woman.
How do you help the environment and improve your quality of life? Why, buy milk in bottles. Some of us can remember them – foil topped, left outside the door, washed, then returned…a virtuous cycle which worked because it made practical sense. Life went downhill when the milk industry was deregulated in the 1990s and
A funny thing happened in lockdown. Bars shut but they seeded a growing crop of bottle shops that, since freedom has been declared have either turned back into, or become, bars in their own right. And now that we can, there is pure pleasure in twisting bottles around in the light, mulling labels and wine
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but somehow, eggy bread just doesn’t hold the same appeal as French toast, does it? The latter has become a bougie brunch dish, while the former languishes in second-hand student cookbooks. At heart, they’re the same thing: slightly stale bread soaked in an egg-based custard,
Two of the misconceptions surrounding curry that it consistently struggles to shrug off are one, that it is unhealthy, and two, that it is difficult to make at home. I’ve always found both perplexing. Turks and Persians must be similarly bemused given the reputation of their archetypal food, the kebab. Yes the late night version,
More than new pencil cases, name tapes, and the smell of school halls, back to school season always makes me think of proper puddings. There’s a category of pudding that seems reserved for properly old cookbooks, a handful of old-fashioned pubs, and dinner ladies. Spotted dick, cornflake tart, and jam roly poly. Perhaps its ubiquity
Any avid gin drinker will know that botanicals are all the rage at the moment. From juniper to orange peel to lavender, the ingredients list on the backs of bottles are getting more elaborate by the day, and seemingly more exotic. But what may come as a surprise is the growing number of distillers who are sourcing all
Ten years ago, the United Kingdom was largely unaware of the Spritz and its bittersweet charms. The Negroni was gaining popularity in our bars, a European import that dovetailed nicely with a general levelling-up of our national cocktail programme. But most of the Aperol in these parts was gathering dust in last generation’s Italian restaurants.
My daydreams at the moment follow a predictable theme. I am on holiday somewhere balmy, with a carafe of cold white wine in front of me. Someone handsome has just brought me a large bowl of salted crisps, unbidden but very welcome, and the greatest responsibility I have is finishing the book that I’m reading.
What do you picture when you hear the term Art Deco? Fantastical ideas of Baz Lehrman’s Great Gatsby, gilded brasseries and de facto extravagance fail to capture the pastiche of styles making up this early 20thcentury movement. Somehow, what was once a collective word for the artistic expressions that followed Art Nouveau has morphed into a dizzying,
I’m not sure that many people would choose the unassuming garibaldi as their favourite biscuit. Garibaldis aren’t flashy: there’s no luxury chocolate, no pretty, brightly-coloured icing, no fancy-pants shapes. They aren’t squidgy, trendy cookies, or wholesome buttery shortbread. In fact, they’re often called squashed-fly biscuits because the currants baked into the dough resemble, well, squashed
Being deeply unchic and uncosmopolitan, for a long time I assumed that croquetas were the same as the croquettes of my childhood: potato-based, probably a bit bland, and almost certainly coming from a bag that lives in the freezer. We’d often have them served with roast ham and cider sauce and green beans, as part
There is surely no better way of passing the time than by doing nothing at all, fuelled by a large well-chilled drink. Nothing beats hanging out with a couple of similarly empty-headed chums in a warm patch of sun, glass in hand, watching the world go by. It turns out that those past-masters of taking it easy,
When I was first playing about with the recipe, the sun was shining. Every day was hotter than the last, and I found myself seeking out dishes that were cooling, that were fresh, and made me feel like I was on holiday. Looking ahead to when this recipe might go out I was fairly confident
When a dear friend recently was clearing out her dad’s house following his death, she uncovered a tin of ancient Harrods’ Madras Curry Powder – several decades old and emblazoned for some reason with the name ‘Ameer’ on the front. This sort of attic find is considered an offending item nowadays, if the recent ‘curry is racist’
I confess, the idea of a tres leches cake did not initially appeal to me. A dry sponge soaked in a variety of tinned milks sounds, at best, like bland nursery food and, at worst, tooth-achingly saccharine. ‘Milky’ has never been one of the words that I hope to see in connection with anything other
