A lovely evening Tuesday with bend_gules and Dan, both social- and food-wise, at the Dovetail Belgian pub, in Jerusalem Passage, Farringdon. Dan told me that Jerusalem Passage was supposedly paved with stone bought back from the Holy Land after the Crusades. Cool, huh? It’s right next to where the St. John Hospitaller’s HQ and medieval gate still is. Unlike ( Read more... )

I've been back to work for only three days and I am already anticipating the weekend sleep-in with great pleasure. Yesterday I was too tired to cook dinner, so finished off the duck liver pâté I had made from our Christmas duck. I always forget how delicious (and easy) homemade pâté is until I make it again, and then kick myself mentally for not ( Read more... )

Am back from The Slough of Despond... er no, actually, I still live there. Rather, am back from my Slump of Apathy regarding internet social networks (I still avoid Facebook however ( Read more... )

Every couple of months or so, myself and a friend, Sooyin, have dinner together. We usually end up turning going Japanese, but other Asian countries such as Malaysia and China get a look-in too. Last week Sooyin introduced me to a new cuisine - Korean, which oddly I'd never eaten before even though there were a couple of Korean restaurants in ( Read more... )

My next kitchen purchase is definitely going to be a cherry destoner. Yesterday night was spent making Brandied Cherries (or rather to be more accurate, Cognaced Cherries, if there is such a word as cognaced - if not, I've just made up a new alcoholic word. Go me.) for Christmas. After the first ten minutes of cutting the fruit, removing one half, ( Read more... )

I discovered a wonderful new winebar last night - The Tapster, aka Davy's Tapster, just around the corner from the St. James Park tube station ( Read more... )

After a variety of tedious DIY chores around the house, I really didn't much feel like cooking. However there were some shell-on tiger prawns in the fridge that needed to be eaten, and a large organic mango that tatantanya gave me which was at the "devour me now because in five minutes I'm going off" stage. So I threw together a quick and easy meal of ( Read more... )

Dinner last night was delicious (even if I say so myself!); a rich creamy risotto with ham, asparagus and pecorino, melded together with pear cider.

The recipe was inspired by an amalgamation of two of my favourite rice dishes - Risi e Bisi, the famous Venetian 'Rice & Peas' (introduced to me by my favorite Venetian, Nina), and Champagne Risotto ( Read more... )