One of the many curious things I remember about my childhood is corned beef hash, an odd dish of potato and corned beef served up on those nights when mum seemed to have run out of inspiration. It was always made of mashed potato, with corned beef similarly mashed right into the potato, then fried until [...]

Preserving meat … sounds like something that could go badly, botulism-riddled wrong, doesn’t it? Charcuterie is a a slightly daunting area, and it isn’t an undertaking to be taken lightly. I’m nowhere near ready to cure and air-dry a whole leg of pork, or equipped to maintain the specific temperature or level of humidity suitable [...]

I’ve become obsessed with keeping the exact location of the best blackberry bush in the whole of Shipley a secret, even going to the trouble of deleting the geotags from a photo I took of the view when I was stood right next to it. I swore the kids to absolute secrecy. They won’t talk. There [...]

This time of year always brings the first glut of the season – rhubarb. One day, there’s none, but the next, there are vast parasols shading slender stems rocketing skywards, growing thicker and darker day by day. Rhubarb is the most hardy and forgiving of vegetables, and it is a vegetable and not a fruit, [...]