A couple of years ago, I bought a pizza oven, a proper one, one that took four people to lift into place. I burn kiln-dried logs in it, and it hits almost 500c. It cooks a pizza in about two minutes, maybe less, and those pizzas are like nothing else I’ve ever tasted. The wood [...]
A few years ago, we had dinner at a Spanish restaurant in Liverpool. It was a little disappointing, but the one thing I remember clearly was that I decided to follow the hints on the menu and ordered a glass of fino sherry instead of the usual wine. It was a complete revelation – chilled, bone-dry, [...]
We spent some time in Donostia San Sebastián in northern Spain, a beautiful city renowned for its food, and held by many to be the culinary capital of the region, if not the whole of Spain. Why, then, did we spend a couple of perplexing evenings eating some of the worst food I’ve ever ordered [...]
The process of cooking fascinates me, the way in which things change and transform under the eye and hand of a cook, how they become something more than they started out as. I realise the gulf in technique and understanding between an enthusiastic amateur and the professionals … I cook a lot, but I merely [...]
This might sound stupid – and that’s mainly because it is – but the reason I tried this recipe is simply so that I could chop up a whole chicken with a massive cleaver. I’ve spent years in fear of dinging the edge of my ridiculously expensive German knives doing something as mundane as jointing [...]