Length: < 1 min Going past a pub called The Butchers Arms wouldn’t normally warrant anything more than a glance to wonder, idly, if it’s maybe worth a stop-off at some point. That there’s a sign next to it, pointing to The Natural Burial… Read More »Sweeney Todd. Essex redux.
Length: < 1 min It’s about time that I actually looked at some local recipes from the land of my ancestors. It’s not just trotters and sauerkraut, kids (although I will never turn down an offer of a hot bowl of Schweinshaxe…) This copy… Read More »Reading recipes from my real German family
Length: < 1 min I’m told that the scientific community believes that once we’ve finally destroyed the seas, the only things that’ll be hanging on are squid, monkfish, jellyfish and algae. No sole. Sole-less. Unlike the Stones… “Soul survivor, soul survivorSoul survivor, soul survivorIt’s… Read More »The “sole” survivors…
Length: 5 mins Why this extended piece; and why now? Well, it’s partly been prompted by having just finished watching the whole 2023 edition of Master Chef: The Professionals. In this — their last week — the 3 remaining finalists went to eat… Read More »Definitely done with dining. Part 2
Length: 4 mins Not done with eating of course. No, not that. And just before I start in on this latest rather long, mixed, occasionally ranting offering, first some ‘news’ that will come as no suprise to anyone: the multi-national food companies, supermarkets… Read More »Done with dining, definitely. Part 1.
Length: 2 mins After the biscuit fire went all to plan back in October, it then took me a further 2 months to finally get around to clear-glazing the pot and then going through the nerve-shredding period of the final firing. The glaze… Read More »The rise of the Terror Fish; or success for kimchi kojin kilning
Length: 2 mins There have probably been a few butchers that have attempted to defraud their customers — I’m sure dating all the way back to when the trade first started, in pre-history days*. Some headlines from the past 20 years give a… Read More »Pig butchering; a scam?
Length: < 1 min I was delighted to read this paen to the hard-done-by pan-wash person, to the physicality of the kitchen porter, to the spirituality of the pot-wash genius, nay, magician, via the indispensable, The Oxford Companion to Food. There’s a quote from… Read More »An ode to the KP; or the religion of the pan-wash
Length: 3 mins I’m a little brain dead. A little under the weather. A little out of sorts. A little tired. Of so many things in this hellish time. With 1 in every 200 Palestinians having been slaughtered by the Zionist war-machine, ably… Read More »Berkshires, Berlin and books
Length: < 1 min An apposite quote via the rather talented Chris Cosentino (I mean he’s a Chris, come on, what do you expect?): His attraction to offal is well documented and as you, gentle, bright, smart reader will have already worked out, he’s… Read More »A centipede of pork chops
Length: < 1 min Or, soon come, perhaps? Marley and Pete Tosh sang this one, back in 1971. This is solo-Tosh — being Tosh, in his own, inimitable, fashion. He embraces the themes of hope and patience, alongside the Rasta belief that everything will… Read More »Something w̶i̶c̶k̶e̶d̶, this way comes
Length: 5 mins I spent 2 days last weekend in the old spa town of Bath; the ostensible reason for this occasion was a short — 1/2 day — course on ramen making, run by Chef Tim Anderson — ’tis him on the… Read More »Bathed in bridge-adjacent binchōtan beauties
Length: < 1 min Read the New Socialist piece which encapsulates all my feelings. If after that, you still want to come at me, fine. You’re on the side of the oppressors, the colonialists, on the side of apartheid and repression. And definitely on… Read More »“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”
Length: 4 mins Is there any culture, ethnic group or country that doesn’t have some sort of salted pork or beef dish; one that often sits front and centre? Religious dietary strictures aside, of course. And yes, I know the same process isn’t… Read More »Salt me some meat, mate.
Length: < 1 min “I need it every night”… If push came to shove I’d have to say that the Rhodochrosite is my all time favourite rock because — depending on how it’s cut and polished — it can look EXACTLY like a cooked… Read More »Ham or bacon? “Rock is dead they say, long live rock”.
Length: 2 mins A less-played Who track, “Armenia City in the Sky” was an acid-trip paen (allegedly)… …but catching a news report this morning brought it to mind, especially the very first line “If you’re troubled and you can’t relax”, which effortlessly and… Read More »Armenia City in the Sky; or simply any place that doesn’t try to kill us, maybe?
Length: < 1 min This description may have — once or twice in the course of 50+ years of, conscious, eating — been aimed in my general direction. But I’m no match for the appetite (or range of food-stuffs eaten) of the protagonist, Tarare,… Read More »Who are you calling a glutton?
Length: 2 mins Don’t those words make “you shiver with antici–Pation” (a hat tip there, for Tim Curry’s “Rocky Horror” tour-de-force)? Known as Pi dong, in Shanghai where it’s frequently used to ‘stuff’ soup dumplings. It’s a rich stock, sliceable when chilled but… Read More »Jellied stock…
Length: 2 mins The second solo LP by — post-Roxy Music — Brian Eno dates from 1974 (and is still a real banger by the way) and has been described thus “… inspired by a series of postcards depicting a Chinese revolutionary opera titled Taking… Read More »On “Taking Taiwan (By Taste)”.
