Although you can use any cherry, sweet or sour, for this recipe, I used Picota cherries for this gelato ice cream recipe. Hurry! The Picota season finishes in about ten days. Since discovering Picota, I find most other cherries a bit disappointing. Here in France, I’m eating the local Bigarreau cherry which has all the…
Desserts and sweets
Picota cherry season in Spain plus a recipe for cherry gazpacho
The Picota cherry comes from the Jerté valley, in Extremadura, Spain after being introduced by Arab farmers in the 14th century. Earlier this year I went to visit the valley in a cloud of snowy blossom. Last week I visited the trees while in fruit, drooping with ‘red diamonds’ as they are called locally. The…
An interview with Felicity Cloake
As the author of the weekly Guardian column ‘How to make the perfect…’ Felicity Cloake, at a mere 36 years old, is fast reaching national treasure status. Fair-skinned with laughing eyes, originally from Hertfordshire, she lives in North London on the Caledonian Rd. With the publication of her latest book ‘One more croissant for the…
Summer in the Alps, Val Gardena plus recipe for apple fritters
I’m usually more of a beach person in the summer. But having visited the Dolomites in southern Italy only a couple of weeks ago, I was keen to visit the northern end of the range up up towards the Alps. This area, Val Gardena, is one of the most beautiful Alpine areas (unlike the grim…
Apple blossom tart recipe
I did two versions of this. Both looked and tasted great, but the cinnamon apple blossom was spectacular, like a healthy cinnamon roll. Ideally you will possess a mandolin. If you don’t, please buy one. It will make you look like a pro in the kitchen in so many ways; from finely cut slices of…
Chocolate and Violet cake
When I started my supper club back in 2009, sparking a movement of home restaurants and pop-ups around the UK, I had to make some sacrifices. I gave up my living room, my TV and my comfy sofas to turn it into a ‘restaurant’. Now I have 3 long tables down the centre, a side…
Sour Cherry Strudel recipe
Proper strudels are made from very thin pastry rolled out so thin it will stretch over a table like a vast floury cloth. It should be so fine that you could read a newspaper through it. I’ve seen it made from scratch in Vienna at the Demel Coffee House. This elastic pastry is related to…
Recipe for Orange Chocolate Mousse
French menus are incredibly predictable. French restaurants always serve the same thing, especially at lunch, for le menu prix fixe. This consists of crudités to start, or perhaps a herring or carrottes rapées. For main, there will be some kind of meat with fish on Fridays. That comes with pommes frites or pommes à la…
Andre Simon Awards: the Niki Segnit interview
Niki Segnit, author of the groundbreaking book The Flavour Thesaurus, is tall, attractive and remarkably fresh faced considering she has four-year-old twins. Originally from Hampshire, she has lived in Islington for six years. I visited her kitchen, the zinc-topped desk and laptop where she writes, facing the busy City Road. Her aforementioned first book, a…
Recipes: 3 Galettes des Rois
Every January in France, patisseries and bakers sell galette des rois, an elegant almond-filled puff-pastry pie, which contains a charm or ‘fève’ (bean) and comes with a golden crown. If you are lucky enough to get the figurine in your slice, you get to wear the crown. The Feast of Epiphany, the arrival of the…