Here are my annual christmas picks. Click on the title for a link to buy online. May I also draw your attention to my summer list of food books that I recommend? Books for fans of Vietnamese cooking: My Vietnamese Kitchen by Uyen Luu (Ryland, Peters) This is possibly the prettiest book of the year. Uyen…
Christmas
20 Christmas gifts for cooks
All year I bookmark things I like, saving them up for my annual foodie Christmas list. Men, Women, this is what your WAGS (wives and girlfriends) want. There are some blokey, butch-in-the-kitchen, gifts towards the end of this post. I lust after Sophie Conran’s range for Portmeirion pottery. White, hand-made looking, simply designed but a…
18 stylish and useful items for the kitchen
“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris ‘Buy cheap, buy twice.’ After David Cameron’s bread maker confession, I was reminded of a rumour about Ed Miliband. He is reputed to have thrown away the Aga that came with his house because it wasn’t…
Meatless Christmas: more recipes
On Christmas Day, we ate shop-bought croissants before my mum and I started on the meal. My dad changed all my light bulbs, scrubbed my toilet with a toothbrush and Spirit of Salts then cleaned all the limescale off my bath. It was the best present. A couple of years ago, he spent Christmas cleaning…
Meatless Christmas: pizza and dating
It was a small quiet Christmas this year with just my mum, dad and The Teen. My parents were a little reluctant to come over as they have no transport and we don’t have a TV. I gave them my bed on Christmas Eve and they put up with no telly until they got buses…
Boxing Day recipe: Smorgåstårta/Sandwich cake
Smorgastarta, a typically Scandinavian sandwich cake, would be a fantastic showpiece for Boxing Day. One wants simpler food after the belly stretching richness of the Christmas Day banquet, maybe sandwiches or the sharper, hotter tastes of foreign food. It’s a day to use up leftovers, turkey sandwiches, turkey curry! This savoury ‘rainbow’ cake would be a…
Christmas Necessary Pleasures: The Food Programme
I was delighted to be invited to talk about Christmas food on BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme with presenter Sheila Dillon, publisher Tom Jaine and contributions from Jamie Oliver, Charles Campion, Paul Hollywood, Tim Hayward and others. There was an interesting discussion on citrus, the difference between mandarins, clementines, satsumas and tangerines as well…
Recipe: Muslim mince pies
It’s a bit cheeky calling them that, but I’m giving a little nod to the thousands of non-Christians in the UK, who also like to celebrate the midwinter festival. My recipe is inspired by Middle Eastern flavours such as saffron, raisins, sour cherries and barberries. In fact the mince pie was ‘invented’ by crusaders coming…
Recipe: Marmite christmas tree biscuits
Merry Marmite Christmas tree biscuits Making Fudges Marmite biscuits Simon Cowell is responsible for a lot of things, not least rising biscuit sales in the UK. Nobody goes out anymore, people are staying in, watching Saturday night TV together and… this is so British…eating biscuits. (For further reading on this subject go to A nice…
Cookery books for Christmas part 1
This is my by no means all-encompassing best of 2012 cookbooks list. It’s just the books that I happen to have come across and bought or have been lucky enough to have been sent by publishers. Some are well known, others less so, all merit purchase. But one caveat: I cannot be certain that the…