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…
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…
Les miso rabbles
One of the most celebrated dishes on the menu at Nobu, the black cod, is dismissed by Yuki with a smiling shake of the head as…
A Soho sausage
Amid the shortcuts and alleys, the bright lights and dark doorways Soho still exists. At least a kind of Soho that is a familiar memory. There…
The Modern Husband 