The Food Section

Make mine a Sloe Poach

FANCY a cocktail? Forget James Bond’s martini (shaken not stirred, of course), the legendary Manhattan or some trendy new concoction from the latest hot mixologist – Blandford’s Hall & Woodhouse brewery wants you to try beer cocktails. The brewery’s Dorset Beer Festival not only offered a chance for serious beer lovers to try more than…

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Harvesting honey with Philippa Davis

TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis was home in Shaftesbury for a week recently and had a chance to discover the sweet allure of bee-keeping and honey harvesting. But before she could start dreaming of the delicious dishes she would make with the golden honey, Philippa, a private chef whose work takes her to exotic and beautiful…

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Regular and occasional markets

FARMERS and food producers take their goods to markets across the region, giving them a chance to meet and talk to their customers and find out what they like and what they don’t. Customers have the chance to buy fresh, local and seasonal food from the people who grow and make it, at the same time…

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Thali Evening, Beggar’s Banquet, Shaftesbury

I FIRST discovered Thalis 25 years ago at the Mandeer, a delightful vegetarian Indian restaurant hidden downstairs in a tiny alley behind the junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. Their menu included up to seven different Thalis, each made up of a tray of six or seven katoris, small stainless steel bowls, with…

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Lunch at The Acorn at Evershot

The first in an occasional series of suggestions for dining out in the region EVERSHOT might be seen as the quintessential Dorset village, with its history writ large on the main street and the rolling countryside that surrounds it. Eight miles south of the sprawling commercialism of Yeovil and the second highest village in the…

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Enjoy the fruits of your foraging

FORAGING is the fashionable word in food circles, but in fact country people have been doing this for centuries (for ever!) and the first, and still the finest, guide to foraging for wild food is Food For Free, by this country’s greatest natural history writer, Richard Mabey. But a new book from two women who…

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A new cocktail from chef Philippa Davis

WE love raspberries and with a Scottish heritage we are also partial to a good malt whisky, so the latest postcard recipe from Shaftesbury-born chef Philippa Davis really hit the spot! Philippa is a private chef whose various commissions and invitations ensure she is always on the move. She now her own website, and sends…

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