I’ve been making my own jam for a couple of years now. I don’t do this on a regular basis (though I really should!), and I definitely don’t make jam nearly as often as I would like to. But every now and then I’ll come across a glut of beautiful fruit that I won’t be able to avoid buying by the crate, then there’s nothing to do but cook it down into jam and bottle it up. Keep reading →
I have a strange obsession with making things from scratch. And this obsession doesn’t stop at dishes – I’m often trying to find ways to make what most people would consider ingredients on my own. It’s so bad that whenever I start banging on about a new project I’m embarking on, one of my friends starts asking if I’m going to grow a tree and whittle my spoons out of the branches, using a knife made from a flat, sharp piece of rock. (I’m rolling my eyes right backatcha, S.) And as much as I’ve talked about making many things from scratch (bacon, ketchup, mustard, cheese etc), I haven’t actually gotten round to most of it. Keep reading →
I’m not sure about you, but I’ve always been more of a beer drinker than any other sort of alcohol. Sure, I enjoy the odd glass of wine (mostly when I’m inhaling a gooey wedge of brie – only since discovering my lactose-intolerance that’s happened with far less frequency), and once in a while I’m in the mood for sharing a bottle of sake, but beer is my go-to drink. However, when I’m in the mood for cocktails, the only one I ever really want is a mojito. Keep reading →
It all started when I was last in London, and I had a scoop of the most perfect Pistachio ice cream at the Fortnum & Mason cafe. Wanting desperately to replicate it, I trawled through the internet looking for pistachio ice cream/gelato recipes, but each and every single one of them called for this elusive ingredient – pistachio cream/paste. (All the online stores selling it only either shipped it in industrial-sized tubs, or wouldn’t ship to Asia due to customs regulations.) After a couple of weeks, I started looking to try and make this darned paste on my own, only to be shot down again – you need some specialized heated rollers to extract the oils out of pistachios and mash them into such a smooth paste. And as much as I love pistachios, I wasn’t about to go that far, so I all but gave up the hope of ever getting my hands on any, especially when I couldn’t even find it last December in New York. Keep reading →
Over the Easter holiday, I met up with a couple of friends down under for a gloriously indulgent weekend in Western Australia. Kick starting the weekend off with plenty of mojitos (both the night before and the night after a 4-hour long drive into the Margaret River wine area), we then spent the next three days in a wine, cheese and chocolate-induced food coma.
Although Australia rarely is my first choice for holiday destination, one thing that always makes me kick myself for not returning sooner is the weather. The whole time we were there, the temperature hovered in the mid twenties, with oodles of blue skies (as you can see in the pictures), and a comfortable level of humidity. And with the general casual attitude of the friendly locals, I was blissfully happy wandering around vineyards, soaking up the sun in a teeshirt and sunnies. Keep reading →
