Flowers from the garden: January 2008
This is the start of the second year of not buying flowers and just picking flowers from the garden. In January 2007 I decided not to buy flowers for the house for a year. Having been a rather extravagant flower buyer for decades, this was a testing challenge. Especially when I passed a flower shop or supermarket display. Danny bought me an occasional bunch but as the months went by I began to prefer the flowers cut from the garden. They have a softness and a charm that is rarely found in commercially produced flowers. Having been an avid...
read moreSherry vinegar, beware
Many years ago, when I wasn’t into cooking, I invited my best client and his wife for a weekend in the country. This was one of those invitations that you suggest to a very busy person after a very long lunch. To my horror he jumped at it. We both enjoyed good Soho food. Perhaps he assumed that as I savoured good food, I must be a great cook. Wrong. I was living in a high speed world where one just ate out. Apart from these forays it was sandwiches in the week and steak when I came home for the weekends. Light years from where I am now....
read moreHow to save money in 2008: January review
We have done the last shop for January. The challenge is to save 25% of our weekly household bills in 2008. Food, loo rolls, dog food, chicken food, consumables, fish food, grog and anything that we actually buy over the counter. I have been trying to shave our budget for quite some time now so I knew that it was going to be tricky. We have cooked from scratch for years. We don’t buy biscuits or cakes or even plump butter croissants anymore. If we were not going to spend miserable, on the wagon evenings, huddled beside the heat of a...
read moreHow many eggs does a chicken lay an hour, a day, a year?
If only there was a standard answer. We often are asked this question. Danny reckons that it’s school children researching a project. I suspect that it’s grown up chicken owners that are gradually being driven crazy by the fact that their point of lay chickens, bought six months ago, have never ever laid an egg. I’ve been there. We bought six hens, expected six eggs a day, promised eggs to our nieghburs. Five months later we collected our first egg. Apart from our nifty little plastic hen that sits on the table at Easter and...
read moreBest recipes for leftovers: Quick and easy pork and summery vegetable risotto recipe
I always used to choose risotto in Italian restaurants as I imagined that it was a complicated dish to cook. “Let them do all the stirring and sweating.” I’d think as I pointed to my choice on the menu. Recently I discovered that risotto is easy and quick to make. And a great way to transform the leftovers from the Sunday joint into something delicious. You can use uncooked meat and fish in a risotto but this recipe is designed to breathe life into pork or chicken that you find kicking about in the fridge. There are two...
read morePugs
Nearly 25 years ago my sister Sara decided to get a pug. She’d had a pug as a child and Tweedle was the perfect dog. Even though the mutt looked rather plain in a bonnet she was happy to be dressed in dolls clothes and be pushed around in a pram. Looking back, Tweedle was an Einstein amongst pugs. Generally they are not the brightest stars in the intellectual firmament. Sara didn’t want a puppy so we visited various breeders to see what they had available. Nothing fitted the bill. Then she heard about a year old pug in...
read moreAnna’s half remembered wonderful spinach and courgette Tian recipe
I tend to work a 10 to 6 day. One of the hardest things about decorating is working in a house where children eat at six. Just as I am beginning to feel a bit tired and peckish, delicious wafts drift out of the kitchen from 5 o’clock onwards. By the time I am leaving it is hard not to grab a plate and join the queue. Anna’s head appeared over the balustrade one evening “I’ve bought you a tasting plate of Tian.” Within seconds I was wolfing it down. Heavenly, delicate and tasty. I tried to memorise the ingredients,...
read moreBoots
I had an interesting email from a guy that writes the blog – Bay Area Kicks. He suggested swapping links as we had a lot in common. I nipped over to his site for a reccy. It’s a blog that focuses on trainers. The ones that you wear on your feet. Years ago I bought my first and only pair of trainers. Had the idea that it might be good to run everyday. As I struggled past the corner shop I heard a snicker. The trainers never ran again. I mulled over this American guy and his penchant for shoes while weeding our veg patch. He had hit...
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