The passing of Keith Floyd earlier this month caused me to dig out one of his old cookbooks, Floyd on France, a cornerstone of the Floyd canon and packed full of traditional French recipes described and executed with typical flair. Beef Bourgignon, caught my eye. It is, as Floyd puts it ‘a splendid stew (that) [...]
I posted some photos last week from a small café and bookshop in Becherel, France. It was an amazing place, a bookshop with a café attached as a sideline rather than the other way round. This is the way these things should be. It was how I imagine my bookshop will look and feel if [...]
What is it? Orangina is an orange juice based soft drink that’s massive in France and other European countries. It comes in a funny shaped bottle and needs to be shaken up before serving. “Shake the bottle, release the flavour”, as the advert goes. Every day, million of French waiters half-heartedly shake Orangina bottles with [...]
As Jonathan Swift put it in 1738, “he was a bold man that first ate an oyster”. That first brave leap into consumption is easy to imagine when you’re holding a freshly shucked oyster in your hand, the slimy flesh swimming in seawater. There’s a lot to put people off about a raw oyster. The [...]
