Cheese on toast was a wonderful ally when I worked nights as a breakfast television reporter. The shift started at 9pm and ended at 9am… and it was brutal. Complexion, fashion sense, good temper and appetite all disappeared through the metal-framed windows of BBC Television Centre by about 3.25 each morning. Cheese on toast became […]
Tag: edible flowers
Seeking Chicks and Finding Elderflowers
The potter Edmund de Waal, author of the memoir The Hare With Amber Eyes, describes his favourite Japanese netsuke, or miniature sculptures, as ones where you can ‘feel the wear’. They’re the ones that have ‘been changed by being handled; they’ve had a life, and a history, and been knocked around and rubbed away….’ I […]
A feast for Karen Blixen
There are many reasons to admire the writer Karen Blixen and Babette’s Feast is one of them. Her story of a french woman who creates a magnificent dinner on which she lavishes her entire fortune is one I’ve always loved. The two elderly sisters for whom Babette cooks are aghast to learn that she has […]
Green gazpacho with borage ice
Going through security for my flight from New York to Virginia I noticed a sign that said ‘no snow-globes may be taken on this flight.’ It sounded such a fanciful idea to even think of taking a snow-globe flying that I immediately wanted to. And that got me thinking about how to make an edible […]
With love from lovage
I’ve been given a fabulous book – The Alice B.Toklas Cookbook, first published in 1954. Alice B. Toklas, the lover of writer Gertrude Stein, was an eccentric cook. But Gertrude and Alice’s dinner guests were the likes of Matisse and Picasso, so the originality stakes were high. When Picasso popped round for lunch, Alice decided […]