Category Words & Pictures
Tiles, carbs and custard tarts in Portugal
What kind of idiot doesn’t properly read an Airbnb listing before they book their holiday? Fools like us. We had chosen what we considered to be a ‘characterful’ Airbnb in Porto for the first leg of our two week trip to Portugal at Easter, with our two rascal children in tow. We found somewhere central […]
Deal Beach Parlour
I have a massive predilection for old fashioned Kentish ice cream parlours with their sweeps of retro chrome and mirrored tiling. It doesn’t matter at all that it’s February and I can’t feel my hands, there’s nothing like a strong cup of tea and a marshmallow-y vanilla oyster (Mr Whippy ice cream wafer sandwich) consumed […]
Where to eat out in Liverpool
All my adult life I’ve been obsessed with going to Liverpool. No idea why, exactly. I never liked the Beatles, I have fuck-all interest in football and I have zero links with the area. Maybe it’s because I’m a huge fan of Northern cities, and it felt odd to have never been to Liverpool, despite […]
Paris, Brexit
When we’re all punching each other for the last croissant or getting into headlocks over the final packet of Camenbert after the supposed 2019 Brexit deadline of March 29th, doing a daytrip to Paris will seem like a faraway folly. As queues at customs and border control snake out of the Eurostar terminal at St […]
Dungeness Snack Shack
If you enjoy strange, melancholy dreamlike landscapes, derelict spaces and are fascinated by nuclear power stations, you’ve got to visit Dungeness*. I’d always known about it in the back of my mind, but had never made it over to this stretch of coastline, which is a stone’s throw from Rye and situated on the Kentish […]
Olio, the food sharing app
I absolutely loathe wasting food. I’d rather shoehorn an extra slab of toast into my mouth, or someone else’s mouth, than see it go in the bin. The idea of discarding anything edible is like a stab to the heart. I’ll often eat pieces of my kids’ discarded fish fingers that have dropped onto the […]
Saladin Epicerie du Monde, Marseille
I hadn’t been to Marseille for over 12 years. I have family there, but for one reason or another our orbits haven’t aligned for a long time. In mid-January, I finally went down for a 48-hour visit to see my aunt and cousins. The Marseille I remember from my summers there as a child was […]
Food banks need YOUR help
Food banks shouldn’t exist in this affluent country. But they have done since 2004, after years of bonkers governmental austerity policies, recession fallout and wage freezes. Not to mention the myriad of administrative complications people experience when waiting six weeks for their Universal Credit benefits to kick in. There are so many people in desperate […]
Stockholm and buns
Aha there Sweden. Home of the cardamom bun. There is no nobler or more exciting afternoon treat in my greedy mind’s eye. Anyone who knows me well will have been subjected to my endless droning on regarding these noble, sticky spiced pastries. Cinnamon buns, you’re perfectly nice and all that, but take a hike. Cardamom […]
Toast & Butter 