Category: Food

I was standing in the aisle of the supermarket last Tuesday, staring at a pile of pale, watery tomatoes that looked like they’d been harvested in a different hemisphere entirely, and I couldn’t help but huff. It’s a bit of a joke, isn’t it? We’re told we can have anything, anytime, but most of what […]

I was sitting in the kitchen last Tuesday, looking at a packet of those expensive, store-bought liquid stocks, and I couldn’t help but scoff. They’ve got more salt and stabilizers in them than a coastal road in mid-winter, and they certainly don’t taste of anything real. People seem to think that learning how to make […]

I was clearing out the bottom drawer of the chest freezer in the old cottage last Tuesday—the one built in 1890, which, mind you, has a much better seal than any of these modern plastic rubbish bins—when I found a bag of peas that had turned into a solid, frost-covered brick of nothingness. It’s a […]

You don’t need a fancy stand mixer or a degree from a culinary school to figure out how to make scones; in fact, I’d argue those expensive gadgets are often the very thing that ruins them. I spent years watching people fuss over their dough, kneading it with a heavy hand as if they were […]

I saw a lad in the village shop last Tuesday fumbling with a little silver gadget, trying to measure the exact temperature of his water as if he were conducting a chemistry experiment in a laboratory. Honestly, if you need a thermometer and a degree in thermodynamics to figure out how to make a proper […]

I spent thirty years valuing properties from the old flint cottages in the Test Valley to the newer builds in Salisbury, and if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a kitchen is only as good as its utility. I see these glossy magazines claiming that learning how to cook for one requires a […]

I saw a recipe in the Sunday supplement last week that suggested you needed “hand-harvested organic shallots” and a specific type of aged balsamic to truly understand how to make chutney. Honestly, it made my blood boil. If you tell me I need a specialist importer just to balance a bit of vinegar and sugar, […]

I was standing in the larder of a lovely mid-Victorian detached in Chawton last Tuesday, looking at a pile of limp, greyish carrots that had clearly been forgotten in a plastic bag, and I couldn’t help but shake my head. There is a certain amount of nonsense being peddled these days—all these expensive, airtight gadgets […]

I remember standing in my kitchen back in ’84, trying to follow one of those fancy, overblown recipe books that insisted you needed a chilled marble slab and a specific type of imported flour just to get a decent crust. It was a load of nonsense, if you ask me. I spent forty minutes wrestling […]

You don’t need a dozen sprigs of rosemary or a kitchen full of expensive gadgets to master the art of the Sunday dinner. I spent thirty years looking at the structural integrity of Victorian terraces, and I can tell you that most of the advice you find online about how to roast a chicken is […]