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How much for that turkey?
The annual task of sourcing the Christmas Day turkey normally falls to my brother, who being in the trade, knows what he’s looking for and where to get it. Sourcing the turkey and picking it up are...
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New Year, less booze?
It’s that time of year again….Christmas and New Year over and done with, and the miserable dreariness of January, work and general fatigue induced depression right back on top of us. I started writing...
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Getting the most out of game – Fur & Feathers, with Lishman’s, Ilkley
There’s a lot of mystery around game…hunting it, preparing it, cooking it. It’s all a little bit impenetrable for urban dwellers like me. Despite being essentially a city boy, I’ve cooked with game of...
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Turn it up/off…does music make or break restaurants?
We went out for dinner the other evening. The food was brilliant, all fusion noodles and tempura and big Thai curries. Proper South East Asian food that could maybe have had a slightly bigger chilli...
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Hey, that’s my picture! Copyright and the new Internet
A while ago, I had a run-in with a particularly nasty woman on a forum over attitudes to copyright issues. If I remember correctly, and of course, I do, because her attitude PISSED ME OFF, she ran a...
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On simplicity, or maple syrup & citrus marinated pork chops
I’ve been on my own this week. When that happens, I don’t cook a great deal, mainly because the routine disappears. When the routine goes, so does my will to cook anything much at all. I get too...
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How to catch, clean and cook garden snails
The first thing to say about my very small attempt to farm garden snails for culinary purposes is that its been controversial. “It’s worse than the live crabs in the sink incident“, Jenny said, “but...
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EL BULLI – Cooking in Progress
The process of cooking fascinates me, the way in which things change and transform under the eye and hand of a cook, how they become something more than they started out as. I realise the gulf in...
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Horse meat, and where your food comes from
The scandal of horse meat being surreptitiously sneaked into a variety of products that should have contained beef continues to dominate the news, with daily revelations about fraud and generally...
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What makes Skrei cod different?
Cod is very firmly on the endangered list, and we’ve come to accept that its consumption comes with a healthy dose of guilt. That’s no bad thing – trawling has decimated Atlantic cod stocks over the...
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Slow lunch, faster work
I’ve got a busy job. It involves a lot of meetings, a lot of running around doing things, sorting things out, making – and sometimes stopping – things from happening. Lately, work has stretched at the...
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Slow French patisserie at The Handmade Bakery, Slaithwaite
Have you ever had times where you’ve been challenged, where there’s been something that you know you can do much, much better if you just cracked a little piece of technique, if somebody simply showed...
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Is the food labelling traffic light scheme a hit or miss?
For years, food labelling has been confusing, inconsistent and, ultimately, not that helpful. There have been several different schemes in use, ranging from mind-boggling boxes filled with stats and...
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Memories, dreams, reflections, roasting trays
This tray must be at least 50 years old. It was my Grandma’s, & she used to line it with grease proof paper and bake shortbread biscuits on it, always with a mixture of butter and Stork margarine....
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5 reasons to bake your own bread
You know what’s in it – bread is only flour, water, yeast and salt. That’s it. That’s all you need to make a world-class loaf. Have a look at the ingredients listed on the side of a commercial loaf...
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The rise of the North’s newest brewery – Northern Monk Brew Co.
“It would be nice to be one of the people helping to put Bradford back on the map for positive reasons”, says Russell Bisset, founder, along with brewer David Bishop, of the Northern Monk Brew Co.,...
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How to order pintxos in San Sebastián, Spain
We spent some time in Donostia San Sebastián in northern Spain, a beautiful city renowned for its food, and held by many to be the culinary capital of the region, if not the whole of Spain. Why, then,...
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The Blog North Awards, 2013
It isn’t often that I win things, especially for writing about what I made for dinner, but that’s exactly what’s happened. I find myself in the unusual, strange and slightly intoxicating position of...
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A Love For Food, Daylesford
I read a lot of cookbooks. There are a couple of hundred on the shelves over there in the dining room, and I’m starting to get to the point where I don’t think many more will be, shall we say,...
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The Taste of America, by Colman Andrews
I once rode across America on a Greyhound bus, from the laid-back city of Portland, through the deserts of Utah and back up through the Wild West to the industrial heartland of Chicago and Detroit,...
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