Last time you went out for dinner, did you worry at all about whether your meal was sustainably sourced and whether the restaurant had any kind of ecological business practices? Chances are that you didn’t: the majority of us are usually too distracted choosing something good on the menu, gossiping and worrying about the price […]
I am so very excited. Why? Crystal Palace finally has a superb Vietnamese cafe/restaurant, just a stone’s throw from my house. Hurrah! And the whole neighbourhood seems thrilled to be able to say ‘welcome’ to Urban Orient, which has been packed to the rafters ever since it opened its doors. It houses a once-unloved site […]
Pork stew in clay pot is one of my favourite dishes from Vietnam. It takes a few hours to simmer away on the stove top, and has really aromatic and comforting flavours – star anise, ginger and chilli all combine with caramel to create a warming and savoury mixture that is great with greens and […]
Above: Vanilla biscuits with cinnamon and brown sugar Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day to write this blog. What with trying to leave the house on time in the morning suitably attired, somehow bluffing my way through another day at the office talking into phones and writing stuff (I’m amazed I haven’t […]
The fruit you can buy from small market stalls peppering London’s pavements might not be organic, or always sourced from UK farms, but I think it tastes so much better than what you can buy in the supermarket. These stalls aren’t flashy or posh – they’re just geezers selling fruit out of cartons at the […]
For years I hated mayonnaise. Well, let me rephrase that. I actually do hate all mayonnaise that comes in a jar. It makes me heave, tasting claggy and processed, leaving a margarine-like taste in the mouth. But about a year ago this old cookbook of my mum’s changed everything, after I learned how to make […]
Who is this man? And what is he doing? If you happened to be at a music festival in Norfolk last weekend, you may have caught sight of this intriguing gentleman popping up next to the Birdcage Stage serving delicious Indian street snacks. His name is Angus Denoon: man of mystery and very good hats. […]
Note: Lumen cafe is no more. Well, it’s not run by Charlotte Jarman any longer – she and the cafe parted ways two weeks ago, because the charity that managed the cafe were a bunch of awkward buggers who made her life hell. It’s their loss – Charlotte can now be found cooking part time […]
My husband N is a lapsed vegetarian, totally, utterly and slavishly committed to the cause of eating meat*. When Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s ‘Meat’ cookbook came out a year or two ago, it became N’s bedtime reading. Even though we live in a London flat, N obsesses about an idea to cure hams in our spare room. […]
Theatrically camp waitors: check. Belting house music: check. Randall & Aubin is a Soho institution – a seafood restaurant bursting at the seams with rowdy twenty-somethings all chucking back white wine, necking oysters and yakking away exuberantly. There is atmosphere in bucketloads, and did I mention that the food is also very good? The decor […]
Toast & Butter 