Mickaël was a French chef. He probably still is, although we've long since lost touch. Many years ago, he ran the kitchen of a smart country hotel, just outside the beautiful Romano-French town of Saintes in Charente-Maritime. His food was spectacular and, over...
The Hungry Gap is over. Ella* and I know this because we were down on Stein’s farm on Wednesday. Growth was everywhere. Magnificent, glorious green growth, as far as the eye could see. Apple and pear trees blossoming, some already forming fruit. Salads and...
Big on flavour. Brilliant on the barbecue. Fabulous in a spag bol. Wild. Abundant. And available here. If you eat meat, it doesn’t get much better than this. Nick Eating venison is a positively good thing for the UK's environment.
Australians love lamb. Like, really, really love it. This was brought into very sharp focus for me one summer, years ago. My wife and I had invited some Aussie neighbours over for lunch. I’d decided to light the barbie and grill some lamb. A...
This is James. This time tomorrow he hopes to be 20 - 30 metres underwater. In fact, that’s true of every day next week. Because James is a scallop diver. At 0630, he meets his two colleagues in the harbour and then the three...
It’s gonna be May on Wednesday. I know. But there we are. We humans have long celebrated the arrival of May.Take Floralia, for example. Flora was a Roman goddess of flowers, vegetation and fertility. Spring, basically. The licentious festival held in her name at...
Gil Scott-Heron’s mellifluous music might well have been made for Sunday mornings. A nerdish raking over the recent AGMs of big corporations certainly wasn’t. And yet – bear with me here – there is, perhaps, a connection of sorts. Because on Thursday, Nestlé...
It's an odd name, isn't it? And, unlike many English dishes, it doesn't benefit from being translated into high-falutin' French.'Crapaud Dans Le Trou', if anything, is worse.No one really seems to know where the name came from. There's all sorts of...
There are many reasons to love Poland and the Polish. But pretty close to the top of that list must be pierogi – their fabulously satisfying dumplings. They’re delicious, can be vegetarian or meat filled, and they're really quite easy to make. I...
Rebirth. That has to be the central message of Easter, and most of the other religious - and non religious - festivals that take place around this time of year. And it’s interesting, isn’t it, that real food is having is something...
In Cork, Ireland, there’s a butter museum. It’s remarkably – and surprisingly – interesting. One of the reasons I enjoyed my visit there so much is that it demystifies butter. Because butter ain’t complicated. We could all make it ourselves. And so last weekend,...
Salsa verde sounds so much more appealing than ‘green sauce’. But that’s what it means, obvs. There are lots of different types of salsa verde. I’m big fan of the Mexican version made with fresh tomatilloes, but getting hold of those is...