There’s a painting by the sixteenth-century artist Titian in Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery that seems to tell its entire story at a glance. Supper at Emmaus depicts the moment Jesus reveals his identity to his followers, after the Crucifixion and Resurrection. The disciple on the left of the painting looks suitably startled to discover who […]
Brilliant concepts are often described in risible ways: ‘push the envelope’, ‘wake up and smell the coffee’, ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’, ‘let’s make a plan going forward’ and ‘blue-sky-thinking’. I aim to do all of those things most of the time, but never, ever will you get me to use any of those phrases. […]
Researchers have been poring over not the front but the back of the Bayeux tapestry, to prove that it wasn’t woven by different teams of nuns in several separate pieces, but by the same group of people in one long length. After all, the back of a work of art says as much about its […]
In the galvanising spirit of New Year optimism, I set myself an arbitrary challenge. These are my invented rules: shut eyes, pull book from shelves – it turns out to be The Dictionary of Difficult Words – slap right index finger down somewhere on random page. Whichever word or phrase I land on will provide the material […]
This is an ode to simplicity – in part a tribute to fresh wasabi, and in part a war against the adverb. One is pure, intense and nothing but its own glorious self. The other is flouncy, florid and dilutes everything it attaches itself to. The adverbs I’ve got it in for go like this: […]
The Complete Nose to Tail: A Kind of British Cooking by Fergus Henderson and Justin Piers Gellatly Published by Bloomsbury – £30.00 Fergus Henderson writes about food in the way that Beatrix Potter wrote about rabbits; his ingredients have their own perky, slightly wilful personalities. His quirkily anthropomorphic approach means that the ‘disciplining of vegetables […]
This is a story of triumph against the odds; an account of a modest recipe and a tale of towering talent. Both the recipe and the person made infinitely less fuss than most, and yet achieved so much more. The recipe is Pumpkin Spelt Risotto, the perfect food for Autumn days. The person is Sophie […]
Salt Sugar Smoke by Diana Henry Published by Mitchell Beazley September 2012 – £20.00 The worst party invitation I’ve ever been sent said: ‘Come to a Pimm’s Party in Regent’s Park. Please bring Pimm’s, cucumber and lemonade. We will provide ice and paper cups.’ It was alien in every way to the invitation I’ve just received […]
The late summer heat in Virginia is densely, oppressively humid. I wore the weather like a set of heavy, unfamiliar clothes and, unused to such brutal temperatures, rose at dawn in search of a calming, soothing breeze. Walking along the river bank before the sun appeared, Norman Maclean’s beautifully evocative words in A River Runs […]
The Food of Morocco by Paula Wolfert Published by Bloomsbury September 2012 – Price £35.00 When Paula Wolfert states unashamedly that her book is full of ‘previously uncollected’ recipes rather than brand new ones, you know you’re in the hands of an expert. The Food of Morocco is the result of Paula’s fifty years […]
I’ve just got back from a fascinating trip to Scotland. Amongst other things, it involved stumbling around in a forest in the rain with a woolly scarf tied round my eyes so that I could learn how to describe the texture and scent of sodden trees without turning to tired old visual metaphors. I was […]
It’s easier to see how brilliant Charles Dickens is by reading a lesser rival. Just as it’s simpler to appreciate home by going away, silence by listening to Sir Paul McCartney and freshly caught fish by eating tinned tuna. For that reason here are some pink/crimson/red things eaten and enjoyed in my house in the […]
If osso bucco is a complex symphony, baked alaska is a frivolous operetta and a jam doughnut is a song by Cliff Richard, then a bowl of fine soup is a fugue. The best soup unites ingredients that act beautifully together; separate but always enhancing and echoing each other, just like a fugue. As I […]
Polpo by Russell Norman Photographed by Jenny Zarins Published by Bloomsbury, July 2012 Price £25.00 Polpo’s food, in its restaurants and in this book, is so stripped back as to be almost indecent. Eat at Polpo and you will be served Venetian-style cichèti, or small snacks and plates of food, with simple china, no linen […]
At this time of year cocktails in the garden have a glamorous appeal, even if they necessitate coats, boots and gloves. My new favourite ingredient for a cocktail is sherry, for far too long a comedy drink. Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe and Benito Pérez Galdós all wrote about sherry; the Poet Laureate gets paid in […]
