Tag: cooking
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Desmond’s mince pies
For many years, I’ve had a quiet obsession with riciarelli, which I first came across, flavoured with orange flower water, in Betty’s tea rooms in York. Betty’s only seem to sell these wee macaroon-y treats in Spring for some reason, so I had to persuade Tom (who does not need much persuading where baking is…
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domestic incidents
Tom was out cycling. However many mysterious gels and powders he consumes, he is always ravenous when he gets back. So I decided to “surprise” him with some tasty home baking. I don’t bake very often. Tom poetically described them as “little piles of cat sick”. At least my peppers are doing well.
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piccalilli
While Tom made piccalilli, I thought about pickles in Rushdie and Arundhati Roy, and then spent a happy couple of hours investigating the condiment’s eighteenth-century origins. The earliest instance I could find of a recipe resembling what we now know as piccalilli, was in the 1768 edition of Hannah Glasse’s Art of Cookery, where it…
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as you were
It feels as if things are returning to ‘normal’. The physios are very pleased with Tom’s progress. He must now punish the healed-up hand with constant exercise to regain maximum mobility, and is also allowed to do everyday things again. Today we both went for a run in the hills. Time to fire up my…
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always a fresh egg a’piece
Let me start with a disclaimer. I do not work for Yorkshire Tea. I do not know anyone who works for Yorkshire Tea. I apologise for any unseemly brand promotion. But I heart Yorkshire Tea. There are many anachronistic elements to my Yorkshire Tea obsession. The first is that I originally hail from Lancashire. In…
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place
There are two places in the world I miss when I’m not there. One is Philadelphia. I love Philly. Present location excepted, it is my all-time favourite city, and a truly great place to live. Part of the reason I am preoccupied with it it is because I’m writing a book about it. (Well, I’m…
