From tapas bars to high end dining and everything in between Years ago, I told a friend that the only history you needed to learn about a place you could learn from its food. It was the sort of bullish statement I’d make, where I’d have to make up reasoning on the spot. While it […]
Market in L’Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue It’s Sunday. After a day’s rest, the mistral has woken back up and is disturbing various parts of the town’s market. We wander through. There’s saucisson flavoured with things like ceps, roquefort, truffles. A fishmonger sells dozens of types of fish, almost all of which are sold out by midday. Grocers sell […]
I fondly remember one Christmas about four years ago, when having a work team lunch before break. I was sat next to my boss (Sicilian), and opposite the company COO (also Sicilian). The mood of the lunch went a bit sour somewhere between the first and second courses, when asked my favourite cuisines. Without hesitation, […]
Italy is not a country I am familiar with. Unlike with France where I could tell you regional differences between beef stews. With Italy, I don’t even know all the different region names. When we decided to visit the Ligurian coast in mid-August, it was not planned like my usual trips. Instead of chasing the […]
The news that the BBC is culling 11,000 of its recipes from their website comes at a fitting time. Last week, myself and thirteen friends rented a Provencal bastide in the Bouches-du-Rhone. I spent most of the week cooking, and yet I went with just three cookbooks. The trip has now become an annual celebration […]
After the attacks on Paris happened in November, I reread Hemingway’s ode to Paris, A Moveable Feast. The moment I finished it, I went online and booked this holiday. Refined stews and Hotel du Nord I had a brilliant meal in the bistro at Hotel du Nord on the first night. The bistro was a caricature […]
Ferro di Cavallo is a side street trattoria with bright red walls and a maître d sporting a James Murphy beard. Its clientele was reflective of what we had seen elsewhere: the odd young group of friends, but mostly older families – and large families they were too.
Cassis Elizabeth David’s anecdote about the English still selling olive oil in chemists in the 50s is renowned. Even in post-rationing Britain, the thought of the dishes David covers in French Provincial Cooking, while we were using powdered eggs, must have sounded incredibly remote. A lot has changed in the fifty-two years since that book’s […]