by Simone Sekers FACING the chores of everyday life after returning from holiday is never easy, and when that holiday was ten days living in Venice it is doubly difficult. From sitting on our wisteria-hung balcony, watching the humming bird moths hover over the late flowers of a white petunia, as the sun sunk over…
THERE’s a slightly odd question that I’ve been asked more than once: “I’ve never had sheeps’ cheese before – is it very goaty?” Many people assume that anything other than cows’ milk will give a strong flavour of goat that they’ve experienced, perhaps on holiday on the continent, or as part of a recipe. Recipes…
“Where you off to next?” “I’m off to cook for a stalking week.” “Stalking? What’s that, sounds dodgy?” said my friend. “Well…. it’s where you head into the hills dressed in tweeds, cashmere and Barbours, crawl around in the mud and heather and scramble over rocks and walk for absolutely miles from sun up to…
LUNCH at The Dining Room is a pleasure – the restaurant in the pedestrianised heart of Weymouth’s old town is contemporary and light and welcoming, the food is colourful and delicious, with an emphasis on seafood. Quite right too – some of the best sustainably caught fish and shellfish you will ever eat is brought…
LIVING in South Somerset, we always have to leave ourselves with plenty of time to get to Bristol, if we are reviewing productions at the Old Vic, the Hippodrome, the Redgrave (up in Clifton) or the Tobacco Factory in Bedminster. Sometimes we eat first, sometimes we take sandwiches, sometimes we stop at a favourite fish…
IN the middle of September we were at the 15th annual Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival, and as we sat on straw bales in the warm Indian summer sun, drinking perry, our shopping clustered round our feet, I realised how much things had changed since I first started writing about regional foods. It was a long…
PHILIPPA Davis, the travelling chef from Shaftesbury, has been swamped with plums on her recent engagement in the south of France where she faced an almost impossible task of making use of all the plums growing in the garden. For her latest trip she was in Stirlingshire in Scotland where she found a freezer full…
TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis was back in Dorset in time for the annual Great Dorset Chilli Fest at St Giles Park near Wimborne – and the hedgerow harvest of blackberries … The tropical sun set a thousand colours over the lush vegetation as the choruses of tuneful birds swooped through the warm evening air back…
FANS of TE Lawrence and excellent home baking have a double treat at Moreton Tea Rooms – the delicious cakes at the award-winning tea rooms are displayed on the bier on which Lawrence of Arabia’s body was carried to the funeral at nearby St Nicholas Church with its beautiful engraved windows by Laurence Whistler. Moreton…
IT’s a sad fact that Britain’s biggest selling “smoked” cheese isn’t actually smoked: look at the labelling and you’ll see that Applewood is described as “smoke-flavoured” and “smoky”. We won’t sell it in our shop – if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing properly. Our suggestion to anyone who arrives looking for this…