A few years’ ago, there was a public health campaign warning of the dangers of heart disease. It featured a middle-aged everyman who’d let himself go, a couch potato who drank too much. At one point, Everyman shovelled the contents of an Indian takeaway container onto a plate. The message was clear – drink too much, smoke, [...]
There are a lot of broadly Middle Eastern cookery books around at the moment. In the last few months, I’ve cooked from Ottolenghi’s peerless Jerusalem, and Levant by Anissa Helou, and now Joudie Kalla’s excellent Palestine on a Plate. All of these books share a common sense of identity, of place, and of history. The [...]
Hipster hamster food? Not exactly. Maybe. OK, yes. No. That’s not fair. This is a book about the Holy Trinity of preserving, namely fermenting, pickling and drying. Three related but very, very different processes. Kool kids love kimchi? Kool kids do indeed love kimchi. And rightly so. Yes, it’s fashionable right now to ferment anything [...]
I often struggle with lunch. Sometimes, there are too many meetings and it just slips by unnoticed, and other times, I fail to prepare and end up grabbing another mediocre sandwich here or there. Other times, my planning and effort collapses as I stare down dismally into a plastic box full of whatever was left after [...]
A few months ago, we were in town, and had lunch at the superb Trinity Kitchen. For those unfamiliar with the mighty city of Leeds, Trinity Kitchen is the food court attached to its big, shiny shopping centre. At this point, I’d expect most people with an ounce of self-respect to run screaming from any recommendation to eat [...]