Last Meal
Walking home from dinner last night, A party thrown by our friend, Five courses to celebrate the end Of a five-month divorce, I asked you what your favourite dish was. Me, I said, I’m stuck between the starter – Frisée leaves supporting The meat of a blue king crab Razor thin chives and strips
Itadakimasu
では、ゆっくり味わいましょう。 Dewa, yukkuri ajiwaimashō, or “Well then, let’s enjoy this slowly”, I recall my grandmother saying to me over tea before watching her daily dose of travel shows. While I was living with her, the two of us would sit down every afternoon on the zabu
Tea-time: In Conversation with Hamblin Bread
To bake, according to Kate Hamblin, is to surrender your hands to the rhythm of your ingredients. Hugo Thurston and Kate Hamblin opened Hamblin Bread on Iffley Road in 2018, placing stone-milled flour and heritage grains at the heart of their neighbourhood bakery. Shao-Yi Wong interviews Thurston an
Tea-time: In Conversation with Skye McAlpine
“A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.” Elsa Schiaparelli’s words are certainly true of Skye McAlpine, the Venice-based cookery writer behind the hit blog From My Dining Table (and graduate of University College, Oxford). In A Table in Venice and A Table for Friends –
Trifling
A village fete. Bunting. The air is sticky like marmalade. The scorched grass as crunchy as a brandy snap. Light up on Winnie, seventy-four, blouse the colour of stained wallpaper, standing behind a cake stall. WINNIE: “I don’t use clotted cream.” I knew I’d have to kill her when she sai
JESA
We invited our ancestors to dinner for a feast too good for the living a low lacquered table lay immaculate and swept — a week’s worth of preparation on smooth wooden platters porcelain cups metallic bowls; a different clack thud and tinker at each spare movement — and
A Feast for the Eyes
Still Life with Fruit, Jacob van Walscapelle, c. 1675 1. Against a tastefully dark background, colours look richer. The edge of a crystal wine glass stands out more sharply, a pomegranate seems redder, the bloom on the midnight-purple skin of a grape looks softer. This is what food is in
Dirty Dishes
NIGELLA TALKS DIRTY—a YouTube video I found the other day, which manipulates scenes from Nigella Lawson’s various cooking shows to make it sound as if she’s having sex. “If you want to squeeze”—and here the video cuts—“my plumptious beauties”—and again— “then be my guest”.
