Book review: One Perfect Ingredient by Marcus Wareing
I’m a bit shy when it comes to new recipes. I have to be seduced. Like everyone, I respond best to a combination of great recipes and guaranteed good results. Superb photography is the champagne that encourages me to slip on my apron and sort out ingredients with a trill. One Perfect Ingredient is the latest cookbook from Marcus Wareing. His first book (How to Cook the Perfect…) was recommended to me by my old cooking pal Gilbert. “Wonderful book. No prinking about. Simple elegant recipes that make you think about the...
read moreDeluxe fish pie recipe
A few months ago a local caterer and superb cook was spotted buying a Waitrose fish pie. When she was asked why she was buying one when she could easily run up a pie herself, her response was clipped. "I just couldn’t make it for the price." The story did the rounds in Newmarket and presumably Waitrose fish pie sales soared. Fish pie is a rare treat as fish is so expensive these days. But with a little patience and forethought you can enjoy a great fish pie for a fraction of the price. Every now and then I shop at Waitrose on...
read moreA present of stones
“I don’t know what we are going to do with these stones.” David peered at the rocks that were arranged in a commodious pot just outside the front door of Einat’s house. “I don’t suppose that you’d be interested in them, and the others?” His eyes drifted to the grass and a group of sizeable flints. “Yes please.” They were all large rocks. Massive flints and other superb unidentified specimens. Stones are handy. They can stop up rat holes, block escape routes for the Min Pins and...
read moreUpdate on Mrs Boss and the duck eggs
I’ve overslept, having fallen asleep at the laptop last night. My post is not finished and I have to go out for the day. So this is just a small update on Mrs Boss and the duckling eggs. I have made extensive repairs on the “castle”. Mice have spent a happy winter chomping through the castle walls. With the aid of one of Dan’s olive tins and a large pair of tin snips I have repaired the damage and disinfected the accommodation with Citrox the organic disinfectant. I discovered a rat run under the house, which ends just...
read moreHow to tell if your eggs are fresh
When I cracked the eggs into the frying pan this morning, one egg was clearly much fresher than the other. The first had a yolk standing just right above the white like a small hillock. The next had a much flatter yolk. It smelt fine but the flatter yolk indicates that the egg is not so fresh. Even if I put the ‘flat’ egg on my plate Danny always notices and offers to swap. “There must be some way of knowing which eggs are the freshest.” We have a superb wooden egg stand that I inherited from my Aunt Pickles. This holds...
read moreGrowing your own tomatoes and coping with blight
Each year we marvel when the first tomato seedlings appear. It’s hard to believe that they should grow into sturdy plants almost as tall as me and provide us with pounds and pounds of fruit. Out of 80 potential finalists, only forty will make it to the next round. Usually we end up with around thirty plants. These make up the cast of our grand tomato opera. A few divas and supporting roles and at least twenty less showy plants that make up the chorus. The main cast bask against the sunny side of the cottage and the rest are in the...
read moreForaging Rocambole (Sand Leek, Spanish Garlic): an edible alternative to wild garlic
There’s a lane that I often drive through on the outskirts of Dullingham village. It is called Eagle Lane and runs beside a large estate. At the top of the lane there are a pair of vast palace sized ornamental gates with a gate house just beyond, snug amongst the trees. A good half mile down the road, two large stone eagles guard anther wide entrance. These old eagles sit aloft high stone posts. They are large and distract the eye from the entrance. On close examination, the entrance reveals nothing but a haze of trees, wispy green and...
read moreHome
Quite often I sit at the kitchen table and think about the people that have sat in this room over the last 360 years. Until 25 years ago this was a small two bedroomed cottage with a couple of lean to barns each side. Probably in its infancy, our kitchen housed cattle and hens along with the humans. Three hundred years ago, domestic livestock often shared the ground floor with the inhabitants of a cottage. Upstairs was the purely human realm, with a scatter of dogs and cats that crept up and were welcomed to warm cold feet on a chilly night....
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