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Taken from the My Plastic Free Life blog's Plastic Trash Challenge. My first week was a doozy!

This is the week we do our usual thang, consume as normal, etc. I was rather stunned (and embarassed) by the results. I'm going to do the challenge again (I'm doing it this week) but not every consecutive week. We shall see how it goes.

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The Guardian has a lovely little 7-shot photo essay by Murdo MacLeod of Iain R. Spink making his Arbroath Smokies, a traditional smoked haddock. The Arbroath Smokie is now officially a protected 'Geographical Indication', much like champagne or Roquefort cheese, and must be manufactured within 8 km of Arbroath, a small town northeast of Dundee, ( Read more... )

Amazon.co.uk is currently having a sale on electronic Salter Kitchen Scales. Now normally I wouldn't bother commenting, however I have to say the Salter scale I have (which is a smaller compact model, but still goes down to 1 gm or 1/8 oz weight) is excellent, and if you're thinking of buying one, I thoroughly endorse this brand ( Read more... )

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Saturday I went to a lovely afternoon tea with some friends. Johanna of The Passionate Cook organised it; she has just had a baby and as she is feeling the lack of culinary outings, her solution is for Mohammed to go to the mountain. I'm certainly not complaining - I had a great deal of fun talking cooking, cooking, and yes, more cooking! and the ( Read more... )

Easter was an occasion of great celebration in medieval times in the Western Christian world - not just for religious reasons, but for culinary reasons also. It was the termination of Lent, the seemingly endless 'tithe days of the year', meaning no more preserved dried fish! Meat, eggs, cheese, milk and butter were back on the menu; fasting was ( Read more... )

It's Spring.

It's snowing.

Eep.

For a girl brought up in the moderation of the Auckland climate this is more than a little disconcerting. It's also cold. So what can you do other than huddle up at home in the warmth, with a glass of red wine and some comfort food? Definitely the best thing to do. Comfort food in this instance being a ( Read more... )

I've just acquired the book "Dangerous Tastes: the story of spices" by the excellent food writer Andrew Dalby. He has an interesting section on long pepper, which includes an elaboration on its disappearance from medieval Western cuisine. Rather than paraphrase him, I'm just going to quote the book verbatim:


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I'm going to call this creation Lindow Stew - it tastes great, but there's no denying it resembles nothing so much as one of those ancient bodies pulled out of a peat bog ( Read more... )