 “Ahhhhh…” came the voice from beyond the fence,“it isn’t a proper British summer without crab sandwiches,it really isn’t….I do declare that crab sandwiches are the epitome of the British seaside”. We sniggered quietly,picturing the lady next door lying on her sun lounger eating crab sandwiches and extolling their virtues loudly to no one in particular. And although amusing she had a point,proper sandwiches made with good brown bread,some lemony mayonnaise and fresh fresh crab really are rather lovely,and very British. Of course there is nothing to beat the British coastline in August for [...] Continue reading A British seaside summer… Even after a year on Twitter I still find the connections you make amazing and surreal at the same time. I guess its true of any kind of networking that if you put effort in and talk to people then you’ll have some great opportunities present themselves. I’ve meet a whole lot of fascinating people,some I’ve only talked to on Twitter so far but plenty I’ve met in the ‘real’world as well. So I’ll be carrying on tweeting (and other online networking) and hoping to meet more. One opportunity that came up recently was the chance to write [...] Continue reading On blogging,writing,twittering… “Here,turn right here,this has got to be it”. We swerve round the corner and bounce along the driveway. “Nice pond,but where’s the big house?” There’s plenty of rolling parkland and a cluster of outbuildings but no grand house to be seen. There’s also a tall affable looking chap wearing wellies and a big chunky jumper so we slow up and roll down the window. “Here for the food foraging?” he says,“follow the track round between these buildings and you’ll see a group of parked cars and over to the right people on the lawn,that’s [...] Continue reading A walk on the wild side Err,hello,um,what’s all this #livelocal thing??? I’d seen a bit of twittering about this (hence the # tag – used in twitter to make searching easier) and wondered what it was so I headed over to Becca’s blog to find out more. Here I saw that Becca was about to spend the next 7 days (she’s started today I think) trying to only eat foods that had been grown with 100 mile radius of where she lives in Sydney,Australia. Interesting challenge I thought and then also spotted that it was a wider initiative to get people [...] Continue reading #LiveLocal The asparagus season has been going for a week or so now and so far I’ve only had one tasting just over a week ago and none since. It was great but once only is not good enough,there are only 6-8 weeks of the season,I refuse to buy asparagus out of season and I love the stuff so I really need to get focussed – I mean I’d eat it everyday if I could! So today,despite the heavy rain and blustery wind,I decided it had to be asparagus for lunch,preferably with some Jersey Royals [...] Continue reading In season:asparagus,part 1 Last night I had mussels just as they should be – wonderfully fresh,plump,sweet and with a tang of salty sea-ness about them. Cooked in the classic style of mariniere – butter,white wine,shallots,parsley and served with crusty bread to mop all the delicious juices. I have to confess I didn’t cook them myself – I’ve always been a bit scared about preparing shellfish at home,maybe I just need to find a reliable local source and give it a go. The instructions in books always seems a bit of a faff – lots of leaving the [...] Continue reading In season:mussels When I did my G20 menu post (where I looked at whether Saint Jamie had delivered or not menu wise at the G20 dinner) I promised that I would put some resources up for you so here is a selection of recommendations: For checking out what’s in season/cooking the seasons try the following: Internet: Eat the Seasons BBC What’s in Season River Cottage Seasonality Table Waitrose British Seasons Books that are organised by season: Hugh F-W:The River Cottage Year (great stuff and quirky as ever –love this book) River Café Cookbook Green (based more on Italian seasons [...] Continue reading British seasonal resources | | |
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