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 [...]
I’m not a huge fan of spirits, so when a recipe calls for a dash of this or a small glass of that, a trip to the off-licence is often needed. This Spanish tart from the superb Moro Cookbook by Sam and Sam Clark calls for oloroso sherry, a smooth, dark and nutty wine. I [...]
La Grillade is a typical French restaurant, just like the places you’d find in any sizable French town. Except it’s in Leeds. That makes it special. The restaurant is housed in the basement of a Victorian terrace, and looks uninspiring from the outside. Down the stairs, it’s a different world, a series of small dining [...]
This nearly didn’t happen. There were too many things that could have gone wrong, and most of them nearly did. Toasting pinenuts, blind baking a pastry case, the wrong type of honey… To my surprise, things turned out well, and we had a delicate and delicious dessert, sweet and balanced with a deep honey flavour, [...]