Hay ice cream, Lamb in hay – all down to my stable existence

Don’t be a pet shop boy (or girl) if you’re planning on cooking with hay. That’s my advice and for decades I’ve been sourcing the finest sweet meadow hay for the pot. Scents of herbs and wild flowers to the fore. Not what you get from dusty, mousy dried grass in a packet from the pet store. And, beware, urban dwellers, straw (nutritionally worthless cereal stalks) won’t do at all.

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Ten cool Good To Go’s in San Diego, California’s colourful border city

Of all the places to live the West Coast dream San Diego has few equals. Immoderately blessed with perfect weather, surf culture and pristine beaches, its laid-back attitude belies its history as a major deep sea harbour for the US Navy. Oh and this taco-crazy city also worships the Brussels Sprout.

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The power of Superstition – why I now make a beeline for artisan mead

I’m on  a journey. Let’s call it The Honey Wine Trail. I don’t know where it will end. Currently it’s confined to Joule, the Salford craft beer bar run by Kev Fenton and Kym Dawson. They are The Mead Hunters. Their shelves groan with melomels, pyments, cysters and hydromels. Mostly bottles from the States, where […]

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If I’ve got a bone to pick with you let it be Hoppers’ signature marrow varuval

A quartet of marrow bone canoes were delivered – perfect vehicles for that Fergus Henderson signature dish – but Neil Sowerby took a different tack, giving them a spicy Sri Lankan kick via Hoppers’ recipe for Marrow Bone Varuval. How did it pan out?

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Here’s the catch! How I chose seafood over pies at garlanded Parkers Arms

A flock of dark birds shoots up off Standridge Hill as I hurtle north from Clitheroe to my destination, the newly crowned UK number one gastropub. A conspiracy of ravens? A murder of crows? Far from an ill omen in fulfilling times for the Parkers Arms. It has already been picked over (in a positive […]

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