I very much hope to return to Wheelers Oyster Bar in Whitstable one evening in the future with several bottles of BYO tucked under my arm and cast-iron babysitting in place. For as lovely as it was having our wedding anniversary lunch here recently with our three-year-old daughter E, it wasn’t half nerve-wracking trying to […]
Update: Sadly, this wonderful cafe closed its doors on 17 July 2016. A huge loss! Dear lorrrrrd in heaven, I have found a little slice of paradise in Crystal Palace – a cafe called Boyce da Roca. It serves up THE most heavenly cakes, toasties and brunches known to all SE Londoners. Its coffees are […]
So there appears to have formed a tradition whereby every year for my daughter’s birthday I now try to fashion some kind of recognisable animal from sponge cake, with not much of a clue how I am going to do it until the night before. Last year I made a penguin, the year before that […]
Some of you might know that I am a total whore for ice cream. I just went on holiday to Kent where one of my main objectives was to eat as much of it as possible. I had long dreamt of eating ice cream in an old chrome-countered seaside parlour, but until now had […]
It’s not often I go out to a restaurant and end up with wine in my armpit. But it did happen at a recent meal at Brawn, on Colombia Road in Hackney. The very nice waitress was opening a bottle of pink plonk at our table and the cork shot out. She exclaimed ‘Oh!’ in a […]
Drat, our UK summer looks like it has well and truly buggered off. Which means that all those summery herbs need using up before the frost gets them in the garden. I’m not ready yet to change my diet into a stream of Autumnal stews, and I still want to eat vibrant summery flavours. By […]
I’m a bit loopy for blackberries at the moment. Partly because I’ve got a wild and crazy bramble in my garden that is heavy with inky fruit, but also because these British berries are up for grabs for FREE all over the hedgerows in the UK right this instant! Get out there with a carrier bag […]
I wanted to make a delicious birthday cake for the longsuffering man that chooses to live with me – which, believe me is not much fun for him at the moment as I’m incredibly tired and moody, waddling around (pregnant) and doing a lot of COMPLAINING. The other day I cried because of […]
Summer fruits – I just can’t stop gorging on them. Peaches, nectarines, strawbs, gooseberries – and in particular, cherries. I have become a total Pac-Man, gobbling fruit like I’m chasing those ghosts round the arcade game. My mates S and C tipped up the other weekend with a kilo of cherries from the tree that […]
When my friend P invited me to stay for a few days in his holiday rental cottage in Whitby, a North Yorkshire seaside town famous for its fish ‘n chips, I jumped at the chance. Bram Stoker set part of his ‘Dracula’ novel here. The town is flanked by an imposing ruined Gothic abbey on […]
Toast & Butter 