In Season:Cheese and Onion

This article was first published in Francoise Murat &Associates newsletter in March 2010.

Mention cheese and onion and most people think of crisps. My quick Twitter survey revealed answers naming the Walkers brand,the colour of their bags (blue apparently) and even Gary Linekar,the face of Walkers crisps for so long he must surely have earned more from promoting crisps than from playing football and being a pundit. A few people were more inventive suggesting pasties and toasties but for most it was all about the crisps. The reason the crisp flavour works well is that the milky [...]

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April 8th,2010 | Tags:,,,,,,,,,, | Category:blogging,british,cheese,cheese making,country/region,eggs,english,food writing,garden,recipe ideas,seasonal,spring | 9 comments

An unexpected glut of cherry plums

Of what? Of cherry plums. What are they then?

The simple answer is they are plums that look like cherries and the trees can be found planted in many a street and garden mostly across the southern half of the country. But you want to know more than that don’t you? Well then if you are sitting comfortably I shall begin. © Danielle Harlow –Fotolia.com We’ve lived in our house for nearly 12 years and when we arrived the garden was a bit ramshackle. It had been nice at one point I’m sure but the previous owner was rather [...]

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July 12th,2009 | Tags:,,,,,,,,,, | Category:drinks,preserves,recipe ideas,seasonal,spirits,summer | 19 comments

Under the clock,with the flowers

Yesterday I had an assignation at Liverpool Street Station in London with a man I’d never met before called Dan (at least that what he said his name was). We agreed to meet at 11.30 BST. He said I’d recognise him by the flowers and the gentle aroma of garlic. How he was going to identify me we didn’t establish. Gave me plenty of get out but not him. Fortunately there aren’t that many people just standing looking like they are waiting for a man bearing a wild garlic plant at that time of day –most people are [...]

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April 30th,2009 | Tags:,,,, | Category:blogging,seasonal,spring | 7 comments

First rhubarb harvest

Today we harvested our first stalks of rhubarb this season. Coming in at six stalks it made a nice compact handful. We’ve got 3 rhubarb crowns and one seems to be slightly ahead of the others so all the stalks came off the one plant.

Over the last few seasons we’ve had mixed cropping results –in the first few years after they were properly established we got a pretty good crop and then a couple of years ago they started to bolt very early in the season. We would get curious but quite attractive flowering rhubarb stems but [...]

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March 30th,2009 | Tags:,,,,, | Category:fruit,garden,recipe ideas,seasonal,spring | Leave a comment

Coming over all horticultural

It really is amazing how a bit of sunshine,some daffodils and lots of blossom on the almond tree can make you come over all horticultural.

A few weeks ago I was thinking about growing veg from seed (its time to sow this weekend now its getting warmer),then we were reorganising the herb bed and lavishing love on the lemon tree but toady here’s a quick guide to making compost. Where will all this horticultural longing take me next?

How to make great compost?

Well first make sure you have a garden – its pretty useless to start a [...]

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March 14th,2009 | Tags:, | Category:garden | Leave a comment

Labour of love

After the gardening bug bit me on Saturday I decided it was time to see how my lovely little lemon tree was doing.

It lives in the lean-to that we use as a utility room and often gets forgotten amongst the never-ending piles of washing (how exactly do 2 people create so much to be washed,its not like we wear three different outfits each day – well not normally any way!).

So off I pottered to check it out.

HORROR.

It had been hit by another bout of scale insect (ugh ugh ugh). These evil creatures don’t look much [...]

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March 2nd,2009 | Tags:,, | Category:garden | 4 comments

Just like ‘The Good Life’

Over the last few days I’ve been doing food related sort of ‘gardening’ activities. What exactly does that mean?

Well so far its involved visits to three garden centres,some internet surfing,the purchase of about 10 packets of seeds and one rather nice terracotta pot,oh and a little bit of time actually in the garden. All this because some nice mild sunny weather and those daffodil shoots and tree buds I mentioned in my last post mean I just can’t help but start thinking about what herbs and vegetables to attempt to grow this year.

Last year we [...]

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February 28th,2009 | Tags:,,, | Category:garden | Leave a comment

ideas…

#livelocal beef asparagus competition Dan Lepard mushroom salad cheese suffolk chocolate herbs wild garlic bread rhubarb stock leftovers chutney coffee challenge lunch garden lemon potatoes british pasta curry quick spring toast chicken twitter sandwiches mayo english sourdough roast chicken seasonal summer soup/stew foraging lamb blogging breakfast tomato homemade
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food snippets…