“I think that if you say Cheddar is one of our most generous gifts to humanity, people might consider you a bit odd –” Ned Palmer We started the day with a family breakfast of waffles at Mary’s. Then we set off under London on the tube Tate Modern our destination. We emerged next to…
Category: food
Travel : Penalty – Chiang Mai Day 3
“Over the next two days, Mrs. Smegma persecuted me mercilessly, while the others, I suspected, scouted evidence for her. She reproached me for not turning the light off in my room when I went out, for not putting the lid down in the toilet when I’d finished, for taking the colonel’s hot water – I’d…
Travel : Whanau – Chiang Mai Day 2
“Khrxbkhrạw pĕn h̄nụ̀ng nı p̄hl ngān chînxek k̄hxng ṭhrrmchāti” ~The family is one of nature’s masterpieces~ Thai proverb I started the day heading out in search of coffee from the place I went to the day before. When I got there it was closed and curiously the hours said it should have been closed the…
Travel : Luddite – Chiang Mai Day 1
“The true test of any hotel, as you well know, Diane, is that morning cup of coffee”Agent Cooper Twin Peaks The new day started with a fresh , if not entirely new experience. Despite growing up on instant coffee I haven’t had any in over 20 years. When traveling I will always opt for the…
Travel : Departures
“It’s the fear of what comes after the doing that makes the doing hard to do” Tony Kushner – Angels in America I am sitting in bed writing this in a hotel just outside the moat and fortified wall of the old city of Chiang Mai. Walled cities are going to be a reoccurring theme on…
Life : Sacred Order of the Roast
Sundays are spent in the vapors of the roast.Once this ritual fed a family of six souls .Now there is only me and the dog.Salivating in this heady state of nostalgia.A joint from a beast,fattened high up on the hill above,gives up its gravy , with OXO and love,flour and friction make an appearance too.I…
Food : Fermented Gallows Beans
These fermented spiced beans are inspired by both Suān jiāngdòu , the Chinese lacto fermented bean dish and Fansi Nu Shaak, the Gujarati green bean curry. The name comes from using google translate to find an English version of Fansi Nu Shaak. Are beans really referred to as a ‘Plant of Gallows’ in Gujarati ?…
Food : Grandma Win’s Bread and Butter Pickles
My maternal grandmother Win was a great cook. My paternal grandmother Joan probably was too but by the time I came along dementia had rendered her an absence in my existence so I never got to experience that. Win made amazing roasts , fantastic picnics and the baking tin was never empty. One of my…
Food : Scrumper’s Apple Cake
To scrump is to liberate apples that are otherwise going to waste, or from some points of view to steal them. However let us not get weighed down in the vagaries of the law. I make it my business to know where the apple trees are in the village and collect the windfalls for cider…
Food : Savoury Summer Pudding
Dishes like this are seriously out of favour . There are whole social media accounts dedicated to mocking savoury dishes set in gelatine. Naturally they are right up my ally , in fact “If it’s worth eating it’s worth setting in aspic” has become a bit of a motto for me.So with a glut of…
Raise the Dawn 