As some of you know already, I recently switched from continuing to write tbis blog to sharing a newsletter on Substack (see here). I have been on WordPress for over a decade but recently fell out of love with the platform – editing posts became increasingly cumbersome and I also felt a bit lost in the myriad of plug-ins you could (should?) install on your page. By contrast, the simplicity of the Substack interface feels positively soothing and opening the Substack app to catch up on unread newsletters from folks I have admired for a long time (be it David Lebovitz, Sarah Lemanski, Nicola Lam ..read more

Corona notwithstanding, the last few weeks I found myself on multiple worktrips. After 2 years of working from home, it took me a moment to get back into the groove of work travel. But I also remembered that provided I am organised enough, even early morning flights don’t need to be particularly taxing – by making sure that my bags are packed way before (an early) bedtime and waiting for me in the kitchen are my reusable water bottle, keep cup, a piece of fruit and something for breakfast like a slice of banana bread or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Alas, I am only human, so sometimes I ..read more

Let’s talk about whipped creme fraiche, labneh whipped cream, whipped coconut cream and anything else that can be whipped into a billowing, creamy and cloud-like topping and served alongside dessert!  One of my most enduring memories about my paternal grandmother is just how good her whipped cream tasted. I have no idea how she did it but somewhere between her decades old and slightly cracked brick red bakelite mixing jug (and equally old handheld mixer), ice cold cream, a generous amount of sugar and, for serving, a crystal bowl she would place in the freezer in advance, my grandmother ..read more

If you ask me, Labneh must be the best possible thing you can make with a pot of yoghurt. A bold statement for sure, but hopefully one you agree with once I share my tip for making the tastiest possible Labneh and show you all the wonderful things you can make with Labneh, both sweet and savoury. If you are not familiar with Labneh, Labneh is technically a type of cheese and it is what you end up with if you strain your yoghurt so that the whey drips out of it. (So in a way, Greek yoghurt is already a form of Labneh since it gets its rich texture from straining out some of the whey). Labneh i ..read more

Unsurprisingly, over the course of the past year, my boyfriend and I have been watching a lot of Netflix, HBO, Youtube etc. Including, of course, a lot of cooking shows – at times we were quite literally “Binging with Babish”! The other day we were following Alex (the guy behind “French guy cooking”) as he was (first researching and then) cooking his way through French mother sauces.  If you are somewhat familiar with French cooking you may have already come across the concept of “mother sauces” (sauces mères). A term most often attributed to chef Auguste Escoffier, it is used to describ ..read more

I know I am not the only one who has been using the various lockdowns over the past year to either start baking sourdough bread, indulge in having more time to bake sourdough bread or try to up their sourdough game. So it is unsurprising that my first post on tips and tricks and common mistakes to avoid when baking sourdough bread is continuing to prove (huh!) extremely popular.  Thanks to Covid-19 I have been working from home exclusively since mid-March. That in turn has given me the time to bake sourdough bread 2-3 times a week – in short, I have had ample opportunity this last year t ..read more

Sitting in a cafe with a cup of coffee while reading a book or working on a blog post, maybe nibbling on a pain aux raisins or a slice of banana bread, is one of my favourite things to do. And with spending so much time at home since I started WFH back in March, once cafes were open again, heading to a cafe also represented a small escape from the seemingly endless and also never-ending days at home. Alas, as Belgium is back into a quasi-lockdown cafes are back to offering take-away coffee only.  But thankfully this little ritual can easily be recreated at home. I stocked up on my favour ..read more

I tested and photographed this Tarte Tatin a week ago when it looked like autumn was clearly on its way and I had a sudden craving for comfort food and warming spices. Yet, writing this post today, I am wearing a T-shirt and impatiently waiting for some water to turn into ice cubes so I can make some iced coffee. As it turns out, temperatures in Brussels are due to go back up to around 34 degrees Celsius next week. But colder temperatures are on their way, so you should bookmark this recipe for a Plum Tarte Tatin because it is both easy and delicious and the perfect thing to snuggle up with o ..read more

It’s difficult to put into a short sentence just how large an impact the Covid-19 crisis is having on our lives. But one thing seems to be certain, it has given a lot of us more time, including more time to think. Which, in my case, almost inevitably involves thinking about food. More specifically, I have been thinking a lot about the impact the Covid-19 crisis has had on what we cook and eat.  Much of the narrative around Covid-19 and home-cooking seems focused on the comfort to be found in the daily ritual of preparing our own food, how baking a loaf of sourdough bread can give us back ..read more