Lemongrass and ginger soup
Soup is troubling. When is it lunch and when is it just a hot drink? There is the thick, blitzed to a purée type, imagine a…
Green, green tomatoes of home
I’ve had to leave quite a few tomatoes behind on the vines. Some are half eaten by snails, some of whom no bigger than half a…
Annual shrubs
The grapes have always been as much pip as fruit from our garden, this most likely being down to my lack of thining them out in…
Kale of the century
The kitchen cupboards are full of butterbeans, lentils and chickpeas and the pot-bellied white wire basket on the counter kept loaded with eggs as much possible.…
Daily stock take
The basement kitchen, reached via unfriendly and claustrophobic corridors lit with a cold blue neon glow, was busy from about 6am when Patrice the pastry chef…
The peanut vendor
The closest I’ve been to Tijuana is my possibly over enthusiastic collection of Herb Alpert and his brass band’s albums. But I’ve always fancied sitting in…
A glass of lemongrass
The Indian supermarket I use in Tooting is always busy, nearly every till has a person on it, and one at the end to pack for…
Who pears wins
There is a real stillness to the air and the warm sun feels unusual for April. The car, unmoved from the driveway in weeks, has a…
Don’t go nuts
The kitchen is blissfully silent. Unless you really listen. Then you can hear birds outside or the occasional car (this is not the same as an…
In the soup
At the back of the cupboard, being saved for who knows when, was the tin of Norwegian fishballs I’d bought from the Christmas market over a…
The Modern Husband 