On oat flour and elephant garlic
While not coeliac, I am wheat-/gluten-sensitive, yet I can tolerate porridge oats. Having lived in Australia for many years, I enjoyed oat bread, but can’t…
Making fresh pasta is a rite of passage
Leo Tolstoy thought it was good for the soul to make your own shoes. As a result he spent his later years hobbling around with…
Do ‘superfoods’ really exist?
In the early 1990s, a cookbook called Superfoods appeared in the bookshops. It was co-written by the alternative medicine practitioner, Michael Van Straten, who is…
A well-done steak isn’t a food choice: it’s a crime
Ido so love animals, especially dead, sliced up and roasted ones, their very life blood oozing out of them to the rim of my plate;…
The secret of the Mediterranean diet? There is no secret
Whoop-de-doo, researchers at King’s College London and the University of California claim to have identified the “secret” underpinning the oft-quoted healthfulness of the Mediterranean diet….
Eat more anchovies, herring and sardines to save the ocean’s fish stocks
Cut back on tuna and salmon and load your plate instead with herring and sardines if you want to help save the world’s fish. So…
Summer prawn salad
This is a lovely fresh, crunchy salad with a hint of spice. You can substitute the prawns with crayfish meat, which is delicious and sweet,…
Make your own bacon
Buying bacon’s a lottery. There’s no telling the quality of pork that went into it, or the quantity of water added to bulk it out….
How to eat a persimmon
Our fruit bowls are becoming more adventurous. Having embraced the kiwi, the mango and the pomegranate we are now, it seems, passionate about persimmons. Supermarkets…
Cornish blue: the greatest of cheese
General de Gaulle is famously said to have remarked of France “How can you govern a country that produces 246 varieties of cheeses?” The same…
Homemade yoghurt: something for the live-culture vultures
Yoghurt. We get through masses of it in our house. In fact, most things I cook for my children go well with yoghurt – breakfast,…