Toast Australia

  Clapham Common is the closest thing I have to a garden. As lovely as it is to have access to a large patch of grass in the midst of south London, the Common is no Richmond Park. When I first moved here I thought it would be enough for me but as time goes [...]

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Graze

  This morning I received something a little bit exciting in the post. Nestled amongst the usual bank statements and invoices that comprise my working day was a small box from a company called Graze. The idea is that you receive a box of nibbles to ‘graze’ on throughout the day, this can be done [...]

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America

  Yesterday morning I arrived at Heathrow at 7am. It had taken just 5 hours and 51 minutes to fly from Boston to London, a journey of over 3,300 miles. To get from the airport, through immigration and home to Clapham took almost 2 hours despite the distance being just 15 miles. I am going to [...]

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Lemon tart

  Yesterday was Father’s Day but having been awake for over 27 hours travelling I wasn’t up to cooking anything. I bought my father a bottle of the new Beefeater 24 gin infused with Japanese Sencha tea. Gin has had a bad rap over the years, getting the blame for all sorts of terrible behaviour. [...]

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Afternoon tea

  I am sitting in my kitchen eating lettuce from my father’s garden in a vain attempt to undo the excess of the weekend.    On Friday evening I ate at Ping Pong which I love even though it is possibly the Wimpy of dim sum.  On Saturday I dined at the Sofra in Shepherd [...]

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Chilled melon soup with Parma ham

  Years ago I went to Zurich with my father and I remember we had an amazing meal at an Italian restaurant which made quite an impression on me as a hopelessly unsophisticated teenager from Croydon. My memory is very hazy, I’m not even 100% sure it was Zurich, could have been Geneva. The point [...]

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Parma ham bundles

  Where did the sun go? Please dear Lord I hope that wasn’t the end of the British Summer.  I have been walking around telling anyone that will listen that we are about to experience a veritable scorcher of a summer, permanent French Riviera weather.  This is not based on any meteorological knowledge mind you, [...]

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Roasted aubergine and red peppers with mint yoghurt

  Just a quick mid-week supper using aubergine, possibly the greatest vegetable. I know this is a vegetarian dish again but it’s really hot so the only meat I can contemplate is barbequed steak or sausages however I don’t have a garden or a barbeque.    This is based on a suggestion for roasted aubergine [...]

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Tapas Brindisa

I always find ordering tapas a highly stressful experience with the level of tension increasing in direct proportion to the number of people dining.  Perhaps I am not comfortable with the idea of group ordering or maybe it’s because I am ridiculously English. I do seem to operate in a perennial state of mild embarrassment.  [...]

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Easy salad dressing

I keep a jam jar of this in the kitchen at all times so I can dress any salad, or just liven up some French beans or boiled potatoes.   Mix 1 part vinegar to 2 parts oil. Add honey and mustard. Lid on. Shake.  Taste.  Season.   I was trying to do this in [...]

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