Interviews with restaurateurs, food writers, fellow bloggers, food and drink producers and others.
It was some time ago that I went to visit the Divine office near Tower Bridge to find out more about Fair Trade in general and what I dubbed Extra Fair Trade – how Divine do business. In a nutshell, whereas most Fair Trade chocolate producers pay the FT premium for the cocoa, but then ... Read more »
The Scarlet Hotel‘s restaurant is in the very capable hands of Ben Tunnicliffe, formerly of The Abbey in Penzance, where he earned a Michelin star for his cooking. Ben gives a frank, informative and sometimes amusing account of his cooking career on the hotel’s website. He also reveals his food philosophy which boils down to ... Read more »
Back in May, we spent a lovely long weekend in Dorset for Pete’s birthday. As the visit was all about great local food, I was keen to visit local producers and learn about their products, their history, their processes and not least, the people. Truckles George and Amanda Streatfeild of Denhay Farm were kind enough ... Read more »
Books on growing your own fruit and vegetables seem to be ten a penny at the moment, as publishers leap onto the latest bandwagon, keen to milk the home farming phenomenon. Often dull and weighty tomes, they add little to the existing excellent literature already available. Celia Brook Brown’s New Urban Farmer makes a refreshing change, ... Read more »
Fair Trade. We’ve all come across it but how many of us have much of an understanding, beyond a short soundbite, of what it actually means in practice? “Fair Trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of ... Read more »
Despite the inconsistency of the judging, the clearly unrepresentative editing (even before I read accounts from contestants), the nauseating sexualisation of desserts by one of the judges and the bizaare nature of some of the tests, I rather enjoyed Masterchef 2009. There’s much I’d love to change about the format, mind, but I enjoyed it ... Read more »
Way back in May I asked readers of my blog (plus foodie friends elsewhere) to pose questions for me to answer as part of an introductory post for my newbie blog’s 2 month anniversary. I didn’t meet my deadline and managed to post the first set of responses back in June, focusing on those relating ... Read more »
A few weeks ago I asked readers and friends to pose those questions they most wanted me to answer in an self-introductory blog entry. I was overwhelmed by the number and variety of questions and it’s taken me quite a while to pen my (sometimes long and rambling) answers. This first set of questions takes ... Read more »
The Place of Onions, in old Lille. After last night’s rainstorm the intense sticky heat has broken and today is cool, breezy, fresh… I love it! A drop of… [more]
We went to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The Void this morning, an amazing VR experience where we got to be Rebel Alliance members going undercover as… [more]