This weekend a brilliant new exhibition opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London – Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990. I’ve written before about the challenges of teaching English literature undergraduates about postmodernism. Ask them what it is and they’re more likely to say what it isn’t. The V and A’s entrancing exhibition […]
Month: September 2011
Review: The Good Table by Valentine Warner
Published 12th September (Mitchell Beazley, £20.00) Photographs: Jonathan Lovekin In the dreary sea of food writing cliche, where tomatoes ‘smell of sunshine’, chocolate is ‘scrummy’ and cakes are ‘moist’, Valentine Warner is a perky, plucky lifeboat. I want to eat what he’s cooked but more than that, I want to read what he’s written. […]
Remembered But Not Witnessed… Pan-Roasted Chicken With Pears, Hazelnuts And Apple Brandy
If I was to choose a flower that perfectly evokes the past, I would pick the mocked and reviled dahlia. It’s so ridiculously, frothily retro and has been out of fashion for so long. And yet doggedly and resiliently it’s hung on in the shadows, waiting for its chance to creep back onto the stage. […]
Triumphs Of Gluttony And A Melody In Major: Plum Creams With Almonds And Amaretti
Scorning the table of drinks, glittering with crystal and silver on the right, he moved left towards that of the sweetmeats. Huge sorrel babas, Mont Blancs snowy with whipped cream, cakes speckled with white almonds and green pistachio nuts, hillocks of chocolate-covered pastry… a melody in major of crystallised cherries, acid notes of yellow pineapple, […]
Postcard From France
Mes Chers Amis As a child, family holidays were so rare as to be an endangered species. We had precisely two – one in Wales and the other in France. The French holiday near Albi was a revelation. I discovered Francoise Sagan, Toulouse Lautrec, grenadine, espadrilles, file paper with grids instead of lines, flat peaches, […]