We lost our beloved Minx Cat last week.  When I say lost, obviously I don't mean misplaced. She wasn't the kind of cat to blend into the surroundings. Nor was she very good at hiding (always a tail or a paw poking out to give her away). And I suppose the phrase is, we had her put to sleep. Or Put to Sleep, with respectful capitalisation. But I'm not sure I like that either because, however hard I keep wishing, she isn't going to wake up and come wandering down the stairs for a cuddle and some treats. She featured a lot in this blog over the years, so I felt it only right that she got o ..read more

We've had a spate of holidays recently, which has been lovely, although the diary now stretches empty ahead of us until the back end of October. Sigh. Still, my digestion, liver and credit card all definitely need a bit of a rest, so I am hoping for some decent weather over the next few months so I can take up residence on our new outdoor decking and dedicate myself wholeheartedly to drinking tea and catching up with my Goodreads Reading Challenge. The two "big" meals I will cover in a separate post, but in between the Michelin star, high-end deliciousness we still managed some excellent eati ..read more

It's been a good few weeks since we got back from Rome and we still find ourselves talking frequently about the trip, which is probably a sign that a) it was a good holiday and b) we need to get ourselves back there as soon as ever we can. Which, unless someone wins the lottery, is unlikely to be this year. So, in the meantime, we console ourselves with glorious Italian food. This weekend, I made maritozzi, which are light, sweet buns split and filled with whipped cream. One restaurant we went to also served a savoury version wherein the buns were split and filled with whipped anchovy butter ..read more

Of COURSE it was the case that on one of the hottest days of the year I should have planned an evening meal that required a lot of time spent cooking. Just as on a similarly warm day a few weeks ago, I went to a pastry making class (at Betty’s Cookery School and it was tremendous fun, albeit attempting flaky pastry in 20 degree plus heat is rather messy). My sense of timing has always been admirable.  Anyway, last Saturday night we had sort-of mezze. I say sort of because the dishes and flavours were taken from a range of cuisines and thrown together in what I would like to think was a f ..read more

Although every meal we had in Rome was memorable, our dinner at All'Oro will linger in the memory for a long time to come, and is quite possible that, come the end of the year, one of our best dishes will have been taken here.  Whenever we go to a new place, we always want to eat as locally and typically as possible, and the trouble is that a lot of high end restaurants, particularly when situated within hotels, tend to be the kind of mishmash "modern European" cuisine which, no doubt, is fabulously delicious, but not of its place. Which is why we were delighted that All'Oro offered a "C ..read more

We've just got back from a lovely few days in Rome. Despite forecasts to the contrary, we basked in glorious sunshine, walked our feet off and ate. Oh my word, how we ate. We ate so much that for two days after we got back we consumed little more than toast which we nibbled at like Victorian consumptives. Roman food is RICH. We went with an Italian friend, A, who lived in the city for five years while studying. We asked him to show us "typical" Roman food and he did us absolutely proud, taking his mission extremely seriously. And so as well as an abundance of typically Roman restaurant dishes ..read more

As I mentioned in my last but one post, we recently had some major construction work done on the back of our house, which included completely reinventing our formerly tiny kitchen. Previously, we had a fairly large (for a bog-standard 1930s semi) dining room which had a LOT of dead space, partly due to a very small and rather pointless back extension. At the same time, the kitchen was a small galley, with limited storage and limited surface space. It certainly wasn't comfortable for two people to cook in at the same time. The oven was ancient, and one of the five gas hobs hadn't worked in a de ..read more

A quick trip up to Scotland to blow out some cobwebs this weekend. A brief sojourn in Carlisle (not a place I would recommend as a foodie destination, but it does boast the most splendiforous secondhand bookshop) on the way to a night at our beloved Inver, a fabulous restaurant with rooms cum sanctuary that looks out over Loch Fyne. I'm sure I've written about it before, and if I haven't then mea culpa indeed because it is one of our very favourite places to eat. The chef there has done stages in all manner of high-end places, including a (practically obligatory nowadays) stint at Noma. And t ..read more

It has been so long since I last posted that I’m not even going to bother commenting. Onwards! The big news chez nous is that we have recently replaced our kitchen. Gone is the poky little galley with the slightly yellowish walls. In its place a big, bright room with a huge island and a statement radiator. I’ll share some before and after pictures at some point. Easter Sunday lunch, then, was a chance to flex some cooking muscles which we haven’t been able to do in a while. And it was delicious. Duck and black pudding bonbons with sweet and sour roasted plums. We often make these bonbons at ..read more

Happy Easter to all who celebrate it - and Happy Chocolate Day to those who don’t. This is a big year for us; my Mum finally fulfilled one of D’s longest standing ambitions by buying us an Hotel Chocolat Ostrich Egg. It is gargantuan. We will be eating it until Christmas. The thing with us and chocolate: we both love it and have a number of sweet teeth but don’t tend to eat it in massive quantities. I have friends who tell me they can’t have sweet stuff in the house without it being consumed; we have an overflowing stash drawer and generally just have a small treat after dinner. One of the fe ..read more