JAPANESE-born cook Teruko Chagrin, who has lived in North Dorset for many years and used to write a column for the Blackmore Vale Magazine, now teaches Japanese cooking to small groups, and gives classes at Luke Stuart’s White Pepper Cookery School at Lytchett Matravers and for Christine McFadden at Little Bredy. In the first of…
PETER Wintle first saw Peter Shaffer’s play Equus in 1976, three years after I saw the first production at the National Theatre. It has always been one of the most controversial plays among Shaffer’s extraordinarily varied body of work, recently in the public eye again with Daniel (Harry Potter) Radcliffe in the leading role of…
ANYONE who has ever had dealings with amateur musical or dramatic societies will recognise the set-up in Alan Ayckbourn’s brilliant comedy, A Chorus of Disapproval, Frome Drama Club’s autumn production at the Merlin in November 2014. There is the endearing old couple, company stalwarts who are slightly despised by the younger (but not necessarily more…
TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis can find herself anywhere from Provence to the isle of Skye, from deer-stalking in the Highlands to the watery landscape of Chichester Harbour where she was catering for a shooting party … “There is nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats…….” so Ratty exclaimed to Mole…
A new monthly column by Justin Tunstall of Town Mill Cheesemonger, Lyme Regis BEING a cheese judge brings mixed blessings. While it’s an honour and invariably stimulating to spend a day with one’s fellow judges, discussing the qualities of a selection of cheeses, not all of the cheeses submitted are up to snuff. Sometimes a…
JANET Wood from Mere travelled to Mongolia during the summer to take part in an expedition with Col John Blashford-Snell of the Scientific Exploration Society. In the second extract from her diary, Janet describes the experience of arriving in the capital, Ulan Bator … We arrived at Ulan Bator Airport in the early hours having…
THE Freight and Salvage in the centre of the university town of Berkeley in California is described as a coffee house, but its fame is for much more than serving a latte or a frapaccino. This community run venue not only offers weekly classes in banjo, fiddle and guitar but attracts some of the world’s…
CARYL Churchill’s 1987 play Serious Money was a smash hit when it opened at the Royal Court, and now, quarter of a century later, it is just as powerful now when audiences can see how weirdly prophetic it was. Set in the time when the London money markets exploded in coke and insomnia fuelled mania,…
IN these days when, in spite of rapidly increasing air fares, many of us are lucky enough to travel to distant continents more than once in our lives, the concept of the “trip of a lifetime” is more an advertising cliché than a reality. But there are some plans that are so difficult to bring…
TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis spent Hallowe’en in Scotland where she swopped the spooky delights of pumpkin pie for the deeper and more complex seasonal flavours of a traditional breakfast. Guests on shooting parties in the Highlands usually expect a cooked breakfast, often a comprehensive menu including scrambled garden eggs, streaky bacon and avocado or black…