A return to Spain this week, and a cracking family dish. This one is great for a Saturday “let’s all eat together for once” lunch, but also great for a chaotic mid-week “god knows who is even home for supper today or at what time” affair.

For the latter, I make it at a time to suit me to eat quietly with my husband and a nice glass of wine, and then leave the pan on the hob for the tweenage or teenage hordes to re-heat at a time of their choosing. By the sixthteenth re-heat it’s a bit gloopy, but by that point it’s post-pub o’clock so no one will care.

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Start by finely chopping an onion and gently frying in olive oil until starting to turn translucent. You’ll want a nice, wide, heavy-based pan. A Le Creuset is perfect, but you can also get specialist paella pans. You probably bought one on holiday once in Valencia, if only you could find it under the dust and the old LPs at the back of the garage.

At this point add some finely chopped garlic and some chopped chicken breast pieces. Cook for 8-10 minutes or so, until the chicken is mostly cooked and very slightly browning. Add some chopped chorizo and some king prawns, stir well until the prawns are cooked. Deglaze with Vermouth or Marsala.

Remove everything from the pan, and put aside for later. Add some more olive oil to the pan and then add your rice - this does need to be bomba/paella rice for the right texture. Fry very gently in the oil for about a minute, then gradually start to add your stock. I use chicken stock infused with saffron, which gives a beautiful colour as well as flavour. Keep stirring and adding your stock until the rice is almost cooked but still al dente.

Then pop the chicken, chorizo and prawns back into the pan of rice and add some frozen peas. Season well with salt and black pepper and add a very generous amount of finely chopped flat leaf parsley and the freshly squeezed juice of a lemon.

Serve in individual tapas dishes if you have them and want to feel properly Spanish, with a lovely cold glass of Spanish white, or a jug of Sangria.

A tu salud! A la vida!

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I previously made a Paella that is even simpler (just chicken and chorizo) and also went a bit awry, so if you want that one, it’s here! (Im)Perfect Paella

Perfect for a weekend breakfast, or a Nigel Slater-esque “simple supper” (a parsimonious plate of food that leaves you needing a kebab later), this is simple yet delicious food at its finest.

Finely chop an onion and gently fry it in olive oil, with a clove or two of finely chopped garlic. Chop your mushrooms into quarters (keeps them nice and chunky) and add them to the pan. Stir regularly and cook until they are beginning to soften and very, very slightly brown.

Deglaze with a good splash of vermouth, and season with a little mushroom ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Drizzle in double cream, salt and pepper and add the juice of half a lemon. The lemon adds a pleasing zing and also thickens the cream.

Finely chop some flat leaf parsley and add to the shrooms. Serve on toast with a lovely mug of tea, the Sunday papers and bit of Desert Island Discs.

If you have leftovers, this also makes for a very pleasing pasta sauce atop penne or rigatoni, with some crumbled blue cheese and toasted walnuts.

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It’s been far too hot to eat anything substantial recently so this week it is the world’s simplest, sweetest snackette.

I bloody love cooking, but cannot bake to save my life. I am hopeless, largely because I can’t be arsed with the precision of measuring or the patience of cooling things, so generally whatever I touch in baking-land turns instantly to sh*t.

With two notable exceptions - both courtesy of baking goddess Mary Berry. Even I can’t f*ck up her gooey chocolate brownies, nor her fork biscuits. These take about ten minutes and are so simple even my dog could make them. If only she had opposable thumbs, and was tall enough to reach the flour in the larder cupboard.

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The delicious, bite-sized morsels are a fantastic accompaniment to a lemon posset or the like, and are equally wonderful eaten by the bucket-load with a cup of tea or an iced coffee.

Pre-heat your oven to 180c (in this year’s UK Summer it’s probably at that temperature already tbf) and either grease or greaseproof paper up a baking tray. Take 100g of softened butter in a bowl and soundly beat it (I used a electric whisk, but you can use a fork and elbow grease if you’re old skool or in the middle of a power cut), gradually beat in 50g of golden caster sugar and finally beat in 150g of self-raising flour.

That’s it! Ditch the beater or fork and gently use your hands to bring the mixture together into a golden, crumbly dough. Form the dough into small balls and place well apart on the baking tray. Dip a fork in water and use it to squidge and flatten the biscuits.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Sprinkle with a touch more caster sugar and leave to cool completely.

For some citrus zing, add the grated rind of an orange or a lemon to the recipe above when you add the sugar. For a chocolate version, reduce the flour to 120g and add 15g of cocoa.

Devastatingly simple. Moreish. #Unfuckupable. They probably keep in an airtight container for a week or so, but we have never experienced this in our house, so I’ve no idea. (a bit like when recipes ask you to use “leftover wine”. I mean, WTAF is that?!) For Mary’s equally brilliant chocolate brownies, head here to Chocolate Brownie Bliss

And it goes without saying that I absolutely have to ask for today’s comments to be filled to the rafters with nominations for your favourite and least favourite biscuits - off you go keyboard warriors!

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The last couple of weeks have had a Spanish theme, so this week we’re meandering slightly north to Germany for this divine chicken dish, served with yoghurt baked onions and smashed roasted potatoes.

Anja Dunk’s “Strudel, Noodles and Dumplings” book celebrates the new taste of German cooking and is crammed full of delicious recipes inspired by her grandparents, Omi and Opa, who would arrive in Wales from Germany in a car chock-full of foodie wonders.

Chicken with elderflower is other-worldly, beautifully fragrant and blissfully simple. As Anja writes “the crisp golden chicken isn’t so much flavoured by the elderflower as fragranced ever so slightly - you actually smell the elderflower more than you can taste it”.

I use thighs rather than wings, and marinate a bit, with more elderflower than Anja’s original recipe.

Take your chicken thighs and place in a large bowl with a tablespoon of plain oil (rapeseed or vegetable, or light but not virgin olive), 4 cloves of crushed garlic, 8 tablespoons of elderflower cordial and some salt and pepper. Leave to marinate for a couple of hours.

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Then cook in a large oven tray at 180c for about 45-50 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the skin is deliciously crisp and golden. The sticky dark juices at the bottom of the pan hold all the flavour, so baste regularly with these. If you have time, it is well worth the effort to strain the juices from the pan once cooked, into a smaller saucepan, add a touch mor cordial and reduce to an oozy jus.

To serve, chop spring onions and some fresh mint leaves over the chicken, and spoon over some of the unctuous elderflower juices.

The yoghurt baked onions are another amazing Anja recipe, and the sumac brings a touch of Turkey to Germany. Take four white onions and slice into wedges, pop into a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and scatter over a teaspoon of bashed (but not crushed) coriander seeds.

Bake for about 25 minutes, turning half-way. Remove the onions from the oven, season with sea salt and toss. Mix 150g of thick yoghurt with 100g or soured cream, spoon it around the onions and return to the oven for 5 minutes to warm through.* Drizzle with more olive oil and generously sprinkle with Sumac.

^{*Absolutely no longer than a few minutes or the yoghurt solidifies and the texture is ruined (as I managed on this occasion 🤦‍♀️) - but still tasted lovely!}

As a carb lover, I need something to soak up the juices, so add some smashed roasted new potatoes. These are dead simple. Boil some new potatoes until just about cooked. Drain, and once slightly cooled use a rolling pin or the bottom of a mug to smuush each individual potato until it’s flat. Chuck on an oven tray, season, drizzle with olive oil and roast in a medium-hot oven until golden.

For a stunning, dressed summer salad or BBQ version of this, head over to my earlier post Pats Preposterous Potato Perfection

Gemutlich ❤️ - roughly translates from the German as “cosy”, and that is exactly how this dish and Anja’s lovely book feel.

What’s the best German food you’ve eaten, or your favourite Germanic recipe? Let me know in the comments…

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Meantime, for more Germanic delights, grab a coy of Anja’s lovely book - I mean, even the colour and the typeface are completely gorgeous. ❤️Anja Dunk | Strudel, Noodles and Dumplings

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Inspired by my trip to Spain last week I resolved to make my own Gazpacho. I did, and it was a bloody triumph.*

_{*Unless you’re eleven and only like your tomato soup hot and out of a tin.}

Take 1kg of fresh tomatoes, a red pepper, half a cucumber, two onions , three cloves of garlic, a handful of flat leaf parsley, and hurl them all into the blender. Add the juice of a lemon, four tablespoons of olive oil and about the same of sherry vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. Continue blending until you’re happy with the consistency.

I don’t put breadcrumbs in mine, but most recipes do. Rick Stein’s version in “Spain” is a nice one.

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If you can be bothered, I do think it is worth passing the soup through a sieve and removing some of the tomato pulp to thin the texture a little. Pop it in the fridge overnight to let the flavours meld and to allow it to get very properly cold.

To serve, super-fine dice some tomato and cucumber and add some delicious serrano ham. You can also add an ice cube if you want to increase the chill factor.

For the photos I popped it into a tiny shot glass so it looked more glam. Works well as an amuse bouche, canape or a tiny pre-starter. Or if you’re on very high doses of the skinny jabs.

But if you’re a normal person with an appetite, for an actual meal, you’ll want a whole bowl of the stuff with some lovely sourdough, and then finish off the last of the serrano ham straight out of the packet with your hands. If you’re my eleven year old daughter you’ll just eat the ham.

A splodge of Andalusia via Glastonbury, what’s not to like. The weather here continues to be amazing - but I’m on hols from 3rd August at which point it is nailed on certainty it will rain for two weeks 🤣🤦‍♀️ Meantime, just feast your eyes on the colours of summer…

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Hola!

I promised a blog from Barcelona this week, and I don’t like to disappoint!

First, for clarity, I am on a work trip (to our sister company Brico Depot Iberia) not a holiday and therefore am in a dull bond-villain lair type corporate hotel at the end of the airport runway, with a lovely view of a motorway, a petrol station and a number of industrial estates. On the plus side, our work here has been both useful and fun, and there are deckchairs and a tiny pool, which I am enjoying writing next to this evening before my return flight in the morning.

The hotel food is a culinary disaster area in which my “crispy chicken salad” turned out to be limp lettuce smothered in ultra-processed mayo and topped with halved chicken nuggets. #Classy. And my colleague’s Prawn Brioche revealed itself to be an entire, charred loaf filled with precisely one and a half prawns. #Stingy.

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Anyway, to the rescue came today’s office lunch! Look at that for a plate of tiny, delicious morsels. I don’t understand a word of Spanish, so apart from the things I could obviously recognise, I’ve not a clue what it all was, but it was bloody lovely!

This, though, was the star of the show. Quite the most glorious Gazpacho. Fortunately it had Serrano ham in it, so was off limits to many of my colleagues, thus very pleasingly meant more for me. I could have eaten the entire tray, but limited myself to just three or four (honest).

I’d forgotten how much I love gazpacho. From memory it’s just fresh tomatoes, celery, red pepper, onion and cucumber blitzed with garlic, olive oil, sherry, sherry vinegar and a bit of stock. Serve chilled with some serrano ham and/or croutons. I shall be making this on Saturday and eating it on Sunday evening whilst watching Spain trash Argentina in the World Cup final. Vamos Espana 🙌⭐

And whilst, granted, there’s not the most spectacular of views, and it was a bit humid and overcast, what’s not to like about a rooftop terrace, to boot. ❤️ I shall be petitioning for one of these at our office when I get back. Our office is on an industrial estate in Yeovil so I feel the concept will translate very well indeed.

So hit me up with your favourite Gazpacho recipes and/or tapas treats in the comments. Adios until next time and Vamos Espana!❤️

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Global friends you may by now have realised that in the UK we are categorically not used to this kind of heat. Every retailer in the green and pleasant land has been sold out of fans and air con units for weeks (friends and family, please stop messaging - I might work for Screwfix but I don’t have special access to a secret personal supply chain of this stuff🤦‍♀️).

This country and its entire creaking infrastructure, as well as it’s prevailing mindset, is optimised for sixteen degrees, some light drizzle, and absolutely nothing else. So right now as I sit in the shade in my pants, melting, and glugging Pimms, I can barely be arsed to eat anything.

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Except, as a child of the 80s, the culinary wonder that is Funny Feet. I mean who wouldn’t want to eat a fake strawberry flavoured garishly pink ice cream in the shape of a foot? The big toe is my favourite, I always suck that first.

Now I’m thinking of Fergie (the ex royal, not the one from the Black Eye Peas) 🤮

Anyway. At some point, something marginally more nutritious does need to pass my lips, thus a simple small plate seems manageable, and this broccoli satay is one of my favourites. I think they used to do this at Wagamama’s but I’ve not seen it for ages, so I imagine it’s been replaced by an altogether more trendy organic sticky miso tofu bao bun or the like.

This plate lives or dies by the quality of the satay. Do not, I repeat, do not, buy some ultra-processed sh*t in a jar. Homemade satay sauce is both a revelation and a doddle. Unless you have a nut allergy in which case it’s a killer to steer well clear of (sorry).

For my version, I take a few large spoons of crunchy peanut butter to which I add a decent slug or three of dark soy sauce, some pineapple juice for sweetness and the juice of a lime for zing. If you want more flavour you can add finely minced garlic and some chilli flakes, and perhaps a teaspoon of sesame oil. Add a bit of water to loosen it if needed. Play about until the taste and texture are as you wish.

Do the splodgy swirl on a plate thing, top with lightly steamed purple-sprouting, some toasted sesame seeds and you’re done. Delicious, nutritious and instantaneous.

Stay cool people, until next week, when I shall be Substacking from Barcelona. 🪭

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Whilst by no means a culinary wasteland, our quiet corner of the world is known mostly for cider, cheese and waist-bustingly generous portions of traditional pub grub. Notwithstanding, scattered about the place are some absolute gems, and the Queen of Cups in Glastonbury is one. Slightly tucked away just off the main drag, the unprepossessing exterior hides an absolute multitude of joys.

As part of a cheeky mid-week day off work, we popped in and chose the Queens feast - a selection of dishes for the table chosen by the chef. I always love this option in a restaurant because the person in charge knows their food better than anyone, and it also avoids the mental load of any decision-making, or the ghastly “well if you’re having that one, shall I have this one” debate with your significant other(s).

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We began with bread and dips so exceptional that even referring to them as bread and dips, whilst factually correct, is completely unacceptable! We feasted on hummus with Bharat crispy chilli, harissa hogget, and a spiced date confiture. The hogget was spiced to perfection and melt in the mouth delicious and the date confiture sweet and unctuous, so much so that as soon as I got home I made my own. Divine.

Alongside came a rocket labneh with green shatta, katafi and white sesame with lovage vinegar. The home baked vesta frena bread, charred and drizzled with garlic oil was exceptional. Even the little bowl of beetroot-drenched pickles was stunning, and the overall presentation and colours were gorgeous.

The only problem with dips and bread this utterly incredible is that it is staggeringly difficult for the rest of the food to keep up! But what followed did a very, very good job.

First course was grilled Nabulsi, with Persian black lime honey and wild zaatar. A Palestinian cheese, similar to a halloumi in taste and texture, the Nabulsi swam in a lake of sweet and herb-infused honey that, having devoured all the bread (and indeed the extra bread) I scraped the last of off the plate with my fingers. Sticky delightfulness indeed.

Next up, we tried the Baharat chicken yakitori with pickled courgette and miso labneh. Another simply staggering combination both in visual appeal and in taste. I could have eaten plate after plate after plate of this.

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To follow, a bowl of Horaa Osbao - Syrian lentils with crispy shallots and pomegranate. This dish looked divine, but was the only thing on the menu that we were (very very slightly) disappointed by - a touch dry, and lacking in flavour relative to the other delicious morsels. But we’re splitting hairs here, tbf.

Just as we began to think we couldn’t eat another bite, along came a simply glorious confit duck leg with wet garlic puree, duck ham, merlot agridulce, sandy carrots, walnut and sorrel gremolata and pomegranate jus. The duck was cooked to perfection and the walnut and sorrel gremolata was inspired and definitely something I will try to replicate at home.

All in all, excellent food, a lovely spot, friendly service, good value for money. Kudos to Executive Chef and founder Ayesha Kalaji - an absolute delight to have on our doorstep and we’ll definitely be back.

If you’re ever in or around Glastonbury, book a table (in advance, especially if you want a Friday or Saturday evening). ❤️ Queen of Cups

This stunning Levantine creation is a lahmacun. I would pronounce this la-ma-schun, but who knows. Since I discovered it about ten years ago, it has become a Saturday night staple - with a nice glass of Rose and BGT - and perfect light but tasty supper fodder during a heat wave. You can also make mini ones which are fabulous for pre-dinner nibbles.

Its Arabic name is lahm bi ajin which translates as “meat with dough”. And it is exactly that - part pizza, part kebab - a dough base, slathered with spicy mince, topped with colourful and tasty accoutrements. And it is unspeakably glorious.

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The Dough

Sift 350g of plain flour into a bowl. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of easy-blend yeast. Make a well in the middle and add 250ml of warm water and 2 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and mix together to form a soft dough. Pop onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Transfer back into the bowl, cover and leave somewhere warm for about an hour until doubled in size.

Punch back the dough, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and kneed once again until smooth. Divide into pieces and roll each into a ball. Cover and leave to rise for 10 minutes.

Meat Topping

Roughly chop a white onion, half a red pepper, half a green pepper and pop into a food processor until finely chopped (but not to a pulp). Tip out into a muslin cloth, or a sieve over a bowl and squeeze out all the liquid. All of it! Skip this step at your peril as you will end up with a very very soggy mess. Pop into a large mixing bowl along with 600g of minced lamb (at room temperature), two crushed cloves of garlic, two teaspoons of Aleppo pepper, salt to taste and a good handful of finely chopped flat leaf parsley. Combine everything together into a soft paste using your hands.

Final Prep and Cook

Preheat your oven to 240 degrees (yes, hot!), and pop your pizza stone in if you have one.

Roll each piece of dough out into a thin oval and place on a baking sheet that has been lightly oiled and then dusted with semolina (both prevent sticking).

Using your fingertips, spread some of the lamb mixture thinly and evenly onto your base. Be sure to take it right up to the edges, as the meat shrinks as it cooks. Bake for about 8 minutes until the dough is lightly browned. Decorate with your accoutrements and serve immediately.

Accoutrements

Make up a cooling tzatziki, and toast some pine nuts. Lightly pickle some finely sliced red onions in red wine vinegar and sumac. Finely chop some flat leaf parsley, crumble some feta. Get your Nigella on and ostentatiously and extravagantly bejewel with fresh pomegranate seeds.

Pop it joyously atop your cooked lahmacun. Generously squeeze with lemon and season with sumac. Roll up and eat with your hands.

As a red-heatwave warning precaution, be sure to eat in the shade, remove your cardi and pop some ice cubes in your wine.

Job done.

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For as long as I can remember, I have dreamt of eating at Le Manoir. If you’re a foodie, and particularly if you have a slightly odd erotic penchant for Raymond Blanc, as I do, it is a place of true pilgrimage. Last October, I finally got round to going. And now I have eventually got round to writing about it. I’m not sure what’s taken me so long. I think it’s that the whole experience was so out of this world amazing, I am not sure my words, no matter how well-crafted, can ever do it justice. But I’ll give it a whirl.

Yes, you might need a French dictionary to understand the menu, and yes, you do need both a fat wallet and a decent grasp of cutlery. But having checked your privilege in at the front desk, anyone who slags this off as pretentious or over-priced nonsense is just wrong. I love a pasta bake or a kebab as much as the next person, but if you can’t also appreciate food of this quality then you’re a heathen.

Before the main tasting menu even begins, your bouche is amused by the arrival of quite the most delicious morsels. Foodie miniaturism at it’s very finest, each one is a work of art that you consume with your eyes and your soul before it even goes near your mouth. The craftsmanship is exquisite.

Tastebuds suitably tantalised, and after a stunning chicken liver parfait that I forgot to photograph, the first course was the most wonderous piece of salmon I have ever eaten. Confit to perfection, atop zingy apple puree offset by the deepest green of lemon verbena and the cool crispness of tiny buttermilk orbs. Indescribably beautiful.

Next up a single scallop that never looked, nor tasted so delicious. No further words required save that I could eat this over and over and over again.

Followed by Cornish Seabass so fresh I swear it swam into the kitchen, presented as delicately as any classical painting, with a creamy comte emulsion and caramelised onion. I am salivating remembering this one.

Onwards to the meaty main, I opted for the venison which was simply divine. And again, just look at how bloody beautiful the presentation is. Every tiny element perfectly placed. Swoon.

Knowing there were just two desserts and a plate of petits fours to come (plus a stonking continental and full English in the morning) we felt obliged to insert the optional cheese course at this juncture.

A trolley of heavenly joy rolled towards us, featuring the kinds of cheese that (a bit like a branch of Lush) you can smell long before you can see, with some French cheeses so delightfully oozy that they required not slicing but spooning onto the plate. The sign of a very, very good cheese board, imho.

Dessert one. Rice pudding, I kid you not! Michelin Star stylie glammed up just a little bit, of course. Ordinarily, I cannot abide rice pudding. Along with custard and crème caramel, it is one of very few edible things that I dislike. So I approached this course both stuffed full already and with a degree of healthy scepticism, but was delighted to be proved utterly, completely and devastatingly wrong. Rice pud never tasted so good.

Feeling by now a little Vicar of Dibley Christmas dinners, or perhaps a touch “wafer thin mint”, the smaller final dessert was an absolute delight of almondine, candied ginger, crunchy caramel and the thinnest slice of pear I have seen in my life. Magical.

And lo! Before you’re able to retire to the lounge for your digestif (and thence swiftly to bed for a very long and deep sleep) a final plate of sweet treats. I confess I can’t remember the details of these. Possibly because I forgot to tell you that we also had the full wine flight with every course, so had I been trying to write my review at the time, I would be now be utterly unable to spell or to type.

An evening of faultless food. A stunning location. The most adorable grounds that you’re free to wander. Orchards, owls, birds of prey, kitchen and formal gardens, the full-on classic English country house experience.

Sadly Le Manoir is currently closed for an enormous refurb, but when it re-opens, we will be first in the queue for a return visit. Next time we might stay in the local Premier Inn to make it slightly more affordable, as on balance the food is well worth the money but the accommodation, whilst convenient for crawling up the stairs to bed, slightly chintzy and less so.

Overall though a 10/10. Bravo Raymond, bravo!

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The NHS does some things brilliantly. Food is not one of them. But fear not, with a touch of M&S style food copywriting magic, even as you’re writhing in agony and hoping to go home soon, your bouche may still yet be amused!

Let’s kick off with this stunning Heritage confit tomato velouté. Unapologetically vibrant, flamed tones evoking the life-affirming joy of an early morning Mediterranean sunlight rising slowly above the caldera.

And who could fail to salivate with excitement at this delightful Torciglioni alla crema formaggio - tender spirals of durum wheat enveloped in a luxurious quattro formaggio velutatta, finished in the classical northern cafeteria cuisine tradition. Inspired by insipid ; hints of beige and Lowry.

To the main event. An organic, artisanal pomme de terre, rotie, with demi-sel Normandy butter emulsion. No further words needed for this culinary classic.

And for mid-afternoon rising into early tea-time sustenance, how about this staggering, epic beauty. Mature cloth-pressed farmhouse cheddar, with whisperingly apologetic suggestion of chutney, enrobed in heritage wholemeal crumb and carefully pressed for structural integrity. Joyously deconstructed.

More importantly, my friend Debs whose recent stay in hospital gifted the world these foodie genius gems, is now home and on the mend.

Next week, from the ridiculous to the sublime, I might review Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir. I kid you not. ❤️

I had a couple of sneaky days off this week, so enjoyed one of life’s greatest pleasures. Rather than my standard work-day breakfasts of (a) a cup of tea and nothing or (b) a hastily scoffed cereal bar in the car whilst stopped at a junction, I allowed the world to stop spinning around and within me for half an hour, and instead enjoyed a leisurely actual breakfast. Sitting at the table and everything.

Seeking comfort and restoration, I went dippy egg. Soft boiled for four minutes. Plenty of sea salt flakes and ground black pepper. Served in a Le Crueset egg cup and with bits of leftover asparagus from the previous night’s salad, because I am a middle class w*nker. I’d normally have it with toasted home-baked sourdough, because I am also pretentious as f*ck. My husband bakes not me, for I am additionally both incompetent and lazy.

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Also delicious with bog-standard toast. Speaking of toast, absolutely fabulous writing on toast and on food and life more generally, I highly recommend - smart, funny, interesting writing. Here he is on Why toast matters

Anyway, onwards. There is something simple and completely soulful about a dippy egg. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I think there is some physical stuff to begin with. It starts with the pleasing sound of the crack of the egg as you spank it with the back of the spoon. Then moves into the anticipation of slicing the egg-top off to see if your soft-boil has worked well or if you’re ruined your day already by over-cooking your yolk into a solid mass of orange magma. Assuming you haven’t, there is then the slightly erotic moment of the the first dunking that sees the yolk surge and ooze over the top of the egg, run down the sides and pool on your plate ready to be scraped off with toast or fingers. Then the excavation of the white, including the slight danger that you might consume tiny shards of shell. The satisfaction of the completely cleaned-out shell.

Beneath the sheer and beautiful physical sensations runs the emotional undercurrent. Right back to the days when a parent or grandparent lovingly cooked you the egg, sliced your toast into soldiers, popped it on a plate for you to eat while you sat on the sofa watching Going Live. When having cleaned out the shell, you’d turn it upside down in the egg cup and prank them to slice it open again. The smell of your childhood home, the feel of the sofas. The endless shades of brown and the backcombed hair. All this, from eating an egg. Blissful.

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A note about the eggs. They are always eggs from our local farm shop, for which I will never apologise. Proper eggs from a local free range chicken in a field are stunning, the same price as the supermarket, have zero food miles, keep for much longer (because they’re fresh), and because I’d rather give what’s left of my hard-earned cash after HMRC have pillaged it, to a small local business when I can. The chickens (well, their owners) also periodically run a bloody brilliant pop up pub on the farm, which is well worth a visit if you’re in or around Butleigh.

Support, shop, visit, follow if you can… Sourdown Farm, Butleigh, Somerset

This week I also cooked stunning new Moroccan recipes, and went for lunch at Queen of Cups, Glastonbury - of which more next week. Meantime, eat up and have a great weekend. Big ❤️

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It far is too hot for food right now, so this week it’s alcoholic inspiration instead.

I love an accidental discovery, and this has to be one of my finest. Last weekend I went to my first ever festival, where in the thirty degree heat by Sunday they’d started to run out of all the drinks. I gradually worked my way down the bar menu - sadly no Pimms, no Aperol Spritz, no Hugo Spritz.

Thence, at the bottom of the Spritzy section, I stumbled upon the Sarti.

Once you get over the slightly frightening vibrant pink colour, this is utterly delicious. The festival version came in a plastic cup and with a solitary ice cube (also running out), in a massive tent with a male voice choir.

Sarti’s core flavour is blood orange, complemented by mango and passion fruit. When you drink it the flavours reverse, so you first get the fresh sweetness of the tropics, and then this fabulous citrusy zing.

Making this drink couldn’t be simpler. Take a nice tumbler with plenty of ice. Couple of slices of lemon or orange and a few mint leaves. Add equal amounts of Sarti and of Prosecco, and a spritz of soda water to finish.

Then sit back in the sunshine and sip. In a moment, you will be magically transported to a piazza in Capri, overlooking water that glows a brilliant electric blue, the floral scent of gardens and lemon trees filling the air, and the history of the world since Roman times at your feet and in your heart.

So this week I celebrate accidentally brilliant discoveries from the bottom of the drinks menu. Saluti ❤️

A little while ago I treated myself to quite the nicest slice of cake I have ever eaten, and the most divine hot chocolate. Just look at that - have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

Fancy plates and cutlery, silver jugs and the works, which for some reason made me feel all a bit Jane Austen - as if I might need shortly to head home for a lie down and thence to practice the pianoforte and do some needlepoint, or fret about my dance card for the ball.

This moment came back to me this week as life, work and everything flew by at a breakneck velocity and completely drained my mental batteries.

Made me wish I could escape to the tranquillity and elegance of a bygone age and tea-room Laduree Dublin to experience this moment all over again.

Instead, I’m just going to sit here and meditatively salivate over the delicious strawberries and vanilla cream, and envelop myself in the silent depths of the darkest, thickest hot chocolate.

You can have your cake, and eat it.

And relax into the (if you’re in the UK) Bank Holiday weekend❤️

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This week I spent three days getting my nerd on at an industry conference. Fear not, I shall not speak a word of agentic commerce, the criticality of semantic layers in preventing metric drift, or the lower compute of vector versus graphical search. Also nothing about hallucinations, token optimisation or pre-parsing things for LLMs who prefer J-SON. And definitely nothing about Retrieval-Augmented Generation architecture. Whatever any of that means.

Instead, I shall give you the delights of conference snackage - the standard of which was high. Given the team at the ExCel were catering for over 5,000 attendees, that is going some I’d say.

The photo above was my favourite. Cauliflower and curcumin cornbread with cauliflower puree, charred leaf ash and pickled sultana. In case you were wondering, curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric. I can only assume that they chose curcumin (rather than the more pedestrian turmeric) for alliterative purposes. A veritable smorgasbord of copywriting pomposity and pretension, but notwithstanding, so delicious that I might even now pickle my own sultanas and char some leaves.

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Up next a rather lovely Tahitian vanilla and citrus infused muffin with white chocolate frosting and raspberry crumb. I ate about fifteen of these, only stopping when I could no longer fit any more of the wrappers discreetly into my coat pockets.

Plus a rather lovely tartlet with dill custard, smoked chalk farm trout, fennel pollen and citrus. And a black bean cornbread with sweetcorn, smoked cream cheese, crispy fried corn and chives. As you’re not allowed to smoke in real-life any more, it seems all your food has to be smoked instead. Fennel pollen no idea.

I did avoid the puffed rice bar with millet, medjool date, curcumin root, black pepper, soy butter and toasted coconut on the grounds that it looked like dust that had been glued together, and sounded like an un-necessary use of multiple quite random types of seasoning, but perhaps I missed out. Who’s to know.

Absolute unadulterated brilliance, I loved it. And the conference was ace too - loads of great ideas, inspiration and fantastic new people.

But I can’t leave you without this absolute gem. At said conference were 5,000 of the finest minds in data, analytics, tech and AI from across the UK and Europe (and me, no idea how I snuck in!). But someone somewhere thought this sign next to the tea and coffee machine was necessary…

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I’m no nerdy professional forager. I don’t (yet) go about identifying mushrooms, scavenging berries or making nettle soup. But I do love the natural bloody wonder that is wild garlic.

Walking through a carpet of it in the nearby woods, the colour and the scent is just incredible, and I would always rather that our dog came home smelling sweetly of garlic and Parisienne kitchens instead of sh*t-filled bog.

The freezer is already chock-full of wild garlic butter from my first trip a few weeks ago, so this time round I went all a bit National Trust and made savoury scones. If you’re very virtuous you’d likely eat these with some kind of farty lentil-based soup. I eschew this in favour of simply slathering them in salty butter, with flakes of extra sea-salt* and shovel them, still warm from the oven, into my open mouth.

*No one tell the British Heart Foundation.

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For this glorious field to fork transformation, you will need 300g of self-raising flour, 1 tsp of baking powder, 80g of diced salted butter (cold), 150g of grated cheddar (the stronger the better), 1 egg, 150ml of milk and 50g of wild garlic (washed and finely chopped).

Pop the flour and baking powder into a bowl and then add the diced butter. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, like making a crumble, or massaging a tiny hamster. When it resembles fine breadcrumbs you’re all good. Then add most of the cheese, all of the chopped wild garlic and combine. Whisk the egg and milk together in a jug and add most of it to the bowl (save a bit for egg-washing). Mould into a lovely dough and flatten out until it’s a few centimetres thick - no need for a rolling pin, squidging by hand works perfectly well.

Cut into rounds, brush a bit of the egg/milk mixture onto the top and add a sprinkle of cheese to each one. Bake in a pre-heated over (about 190 degrees) for around 12-15 minutes until they have risen a bit and are lovely and golden. For a final flourish, add a single wild garlic flower to the top of each - using special cheffy tweezers if you’re feeling particularly pretentious.

There you have it. Pop your slippers on and your feet up and stuff your face!

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My last post about Marathoning, I promise! In this handy guide, here is absolutely everything you need to know about how not to fuel before, during and after the big day.🤣🤦‍♀️

Taper

In the last few days before the race, it is wise to attend a large awards dinner and stay up late drinking wine, then try to compensate with a last-minute single evening of childishly lame pasta bake and wild garlic bread.

Marathon Eve

Best bet is a couple of glasses of fizz, and a nice Viognier. French onion soup, escargot and steak tartare. Carbs almost zero. But taste, Parisian chic and relaxation a-plenty.

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The Breakfast of Champions

Normally I don’t eat anything at all before I run, but I managed to force myself to eat a grotty bowl of yoghurt with half a banana and some bits of broken up Deliciously Ella peanut something or other. I did mix some creatine and collagen powders into the yoghurt though because I am a total pro at the supplements aka I will buy any old shit off Instagram that Davina McCall tells me to. Hydrate with three cups of tea.

Race Fuelling

Don’t bother with the fancy gels. They’re like someone has sucked the jelly out of a hundred pork pies, mixed it with equal parts human mucus and melted haribos, popped it into an impenetrable plastic sachet and charged you a tenner.

Mars Bars are where it’s at. #OldSkool. You’ll need a running vest big enough to fit in four full sized bars (and an extra one in your kit bag for at the end). Start nibbling the first one at mile three, realise that you can’t chew or swallow properly and leave them all to melt, untouched, in the sweltering heat. Chuck them into a bin at the finish. Leave the course at mile eleven to find an ice-cream van, purchase a lemonade sparkle and triumphantly suck it as you cross Tower Bridge.

Post Event Recovery

Vom over the barriers at the finish (no pics of this on the socials!). Get medal. Snaffle a bottle of champagne, half an M&S cheese sarnie and three crisps on a deckchair in Hyde Park. Nibble some sushi and tempura before bed. Wake ravenous at 5am and order emergency Uber Eats of bacon and sausage baps and croissants. Waddle down Threadneedle Street for a fancy lunch at Coq Argent. Eat pretzels and Percy pigs on the train home. Feast on late night chicken korma, rice and naan. Glass of wine and flowers from friends. #TimeForBed

There you have it. If I can finish a marathon, anyone can. Congratulations to everyone who made it round on Sunday, and to the thousands of volunteers, sponsors, charities, patient spouses, friends and family who made it all happen. I am a #Marathoner only thanks to all of you ❤️

If you enjoyed my writing, please like, share and subscribe!

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Recently I visited Root for the first time. As a committed omnivore I was slightly nervous about a veg-led menu, but I’d heard good things and I’m always open minded.

I wasn’t disappointed, what a super place 🙌

This was a long overdue catch up with my good, longstanding (I prefer this word to “old” as we are categorically not. Although of course we are) friend Emily. Over lots of beautiful sharing plates, we ate well and put the world to rights. We massively over ordered, so also took delicious morsels home for the teenagers.

Standout dishes for me were the sweet and sour beetroot, and the spiced cauliflower.

The beetroot sat upon horseradish crème fraiche and topped with a crown of dressed leaves, was divine. Earthy, zingy beets with both freshness and heat from the crème fraiche.

The spiced cauliflower was served with almond sauce, raisins and chimichurri and was also triumphant. Perfectly cooked, charred and presented. The kind of dish that nourishes both body and soul before you even start eating it.

No bog standard NZ Sav Blanc, so the staff recommended the Passatempo Vinho Verde - a Portuguese white with floral and citrus notes that was absolutely delicious.

As well as the food and the wine, there’s an open kitchen/pass so you can see the food come to life, fresh under-stated vibe, lovely informal feel, friendly and expert service - hence I highly recommend. The food was so fabulous that I bought a copy of the book so that I could re-create things at home.

If you’re near, or visiting, Wells in Somerset (also the home of Hot Fuzz if that’s your thang) I would recommend a visit. If not, get the book and bring a bit of Root to your own table at home instead.

A few weeks ago I spent a fantastic Saturday morning at my first food festival of the season, which being Somerset heavied on both cider and dairy and thus included the biggest room of cheese I have ever seen in my life. I kid you not, there must have been six hundred or more different types of cheese, waiting to be judged in a mahoosive shed at the Royal Bath and West showground. I ran around like a small child in a sweet cheese shop, eyes on stalks, excitedly shouting “crikey, look at this one” or “oh my god, look at that ENORMOUS cheese”. Even the smell was incredible. If you like cheese.

With apologies to anyone who is lactose intolerant or otherwise not a fan of cheese, but I bloody love the stuff. I find it both fascinating and incredible that a single ingredient (milk) can through the magic of regional variation, terroir and process tinkering, create such amazing and vast variety. The bots reliably informs me that there are well over 1400 (possibly up to 1800) different types of cheese in the world. 1800. Just mind blowing. 🤯🤯🤯 For some FULL ON CHEESE PORN head here and knock yourself out. Taste Atlas AKA Cheese Porn

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Minor tangent, but here was my breakfast the other week on a work trip to France - no less than six different local cheeses and it was only 6am.

And this was my cheeseboard for our Easter Sunday lunch recently (sadly mostly sourced from Sainsbury’s because even I get tired of being a virtuous food wanker sometimes).

And look at this lovely little goaty morsel that won Best in Show at the festival…

The other joy of the festival was that I stumbled across the most fabulous Dorset based specialist cookery book shop, and their mobile version that attends events like this. I absolutely loved this idea, and could have spent hours and hours in there…

Terrible blurry photo, sorry, but you get the gist. Sarah the founder left her “proper job” in London to set up this gem of a a shop in Shaftesbury, and her husband Jon was manning the van at the Bath and West. What they don’t know or love about food isn’t worth knowing. Thenceforth, I am never buying a cookery book from Amazon ever again, instead I shall be making pilgrimage to Shaftesbury to lovingly browse. They also sell cooking experiences, ingredients and accessories so I’ll need to talk to my boss about a pay rise to afford it all. If North Dorset is inconvenient for you, fear not, Sarah and Jon’s passion and goodies are available to every corner of the country thanks to the magic of the internet! The FABULOUS Kitchen Table (Shaftesbury

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Obviously I couldn’t leave the van without buying a book entirely about cheese, so I did. Along with your standard food festival “three chutneys for a tenner” staple, some fabulous English wine, wonderful artisan bowls and some other goodies.

And my final flourish today is a spectacularly low-fi version of cheese - a Tesco finest cheese fondue with some crudites and some slightly over-toasted bread, that I had one evening this week when I couldn’t be arsed to cook, or even to oven, anything more complicated.

Also why do people who make toasters always make them such that whatever setting or combination of settings and timings you use, you always end up with slightly (or very) under or over toasted toast. We’ve just sent people to the dark side of the moon (and they had phone reception almost the whole way!) so why can we not solve for this one? And why can’t AI sort out real world problems like this instead of creating fancy new algorithms that put the entire global banking system at risk. Answers on a postcard please….

Or just tell me about your favourite cheese.

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With apologies for a Saturday instead of a Friday, but it’s been a bit bananas! Anyway, when Summer appeared for a day or two earlier this week I got very excited. Then in an instant I’ve had to put the heating back on and get my big coat and scarf out. So for when you’d like to imagine that you’re in a taverna on an island beach, this trio of Greek/Cypriot loveliness is just perfect.

Patates Antinahtes (pan fried new potatoes with red wine and coriander)

Caramelised slightly smashed potato beauty, these really are delicious. Take a kilo of new potatoes and crack each one - use a pestle and mortar and hit just hard enough that each potato cracks once, as this allows the delicious cooking liquor to be absorbed. Pop them into a large pan and cover them with olive oil (yes, this does sound a lot, but panic not!) - gently fry them for 10-15 minutes, turning occasionally, until they are golden. Then pour away most of the oil, leaving just enough to lightly coat the spuds.

Roughly crush 2 teaspoons of coriander seeds with 1/2 teaspoon of cumin seeds, add a teaspoon of sea salt and stir through the potatoes. Add 150ml of red wine, bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes until the wine has been absorbed. Remove from the heat, chop over some flat leaf parsley or coriander and serve. Also utterly divine cold from the fridge the next morning.

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Whole Grilled Halloumi with Apricots

All you need is a whole block of Halloumi (or two, as I used here), some fresh apricots, honey, olive oil and a smattering fresh thyme or oregano.

Pre-heat your grill to medium. Score your halloumi with criss-crosses (not too deep) and massage it all over with unctuous olive oil. Remove the stones from six fresh apricots, and cut them into quarters. Place the cheese in a metal dish, surrounded by the apricots, drizzle with honey and olive oil.

Pop under the grill until the Halloumi is beautifully browned, and the apricots are soft and squishy. To serve, drizzle with a little more honey and scatter with thyme or oregano leaves. If you like heat, add some dried chilli flakes.

Chicken Kebab

Unbelievably simple and very delicious. Chop fresh chicken breasts into medium sized chunks. Marinade in a bowl for as long as you can with some ground cumin, coriander, paprika, dried oregano, dried mint, olive oil and the juice of a lemon (adjust all the quantities for the flavour that you prefer). Soak your wooden kebab sticks in water, so they won’t burn, then thread the chicken pieces on. Fry on a hot griddle until cooked. Leave to rest until you’re ready to serve.

Pile all three onto your plate along with some flatbread and some tzatziki or garlic yoghurt and you’ll be transported to warmer, sun-kissed climes in an instant.

The potato and halloumi recipes are from the fantastic “Greekish” cookbook by Georgina Hayden. The chicken one I just kind of made up, but if you search online for chicken souvlaki, chicken kebab or chicken gyros you’ll find loads of inspiration.

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