A Fine Mess

What is it, I wonder, about ice cream that makes me go all philosophical? Earlier this year I posted a paean to ice cream entitled ‘Ice Cream Is Life‘. That was in direct response to a WordPress daily prompt, but more recently I was plunged unprompted into a new contemplative reverie by the alluring prospect…

Ice cream is life

Can I write a post about ice cream? Well, I can try. Do you want to read a post about ice cream? That, gentle reader, is entirely up to you. All I would say is that blogs, like ice cream, come in an ever-increasing variety of flavours and, also like ice cream, if you don’t…

Deconstructed

My own culinary skills, such as they may be, are very limited tightly focused. I know this and can live with it. Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge nobody has ever died after eating something I’ve cooked (a prolonged streak of luck that Madame sometimes finds quite baffling), so that’s a result in itself.…

Don’t mention the Bastille

Tuesday was a public holiday in France. Arguably, it was the public holiday: July 14th, the Fête Nationale. You may even think it was Bastille Day. Wrong. We were surprised to discover that French people don’t refer to it by that name and would quite likely have no idea what you were talking about if you…

Hot Stuff

Some people swear that “It’s impossible to eat badly in France”. Well it isn’t. It’s certainly possible to eat extremely well in France – often in the unlikeliest and unpromising places, which is part of the country’s great charm. But restaurant quality is as variable here as anywhere else. Contrary to the image that they try to…

Snails for breakfast

Gastropods are not for me. There’s enough food in my world not to have to resort to dragging a lump of snot out of a shell and eating it. I mean, have you seen what a whelk actually looks like? However, there is one type of ‘snail’ that’s got me bang to rights with this latest instalment of…

Nil by mouth? No thanks

“If you could get all the nutrition you needed in a day with a pill – no worrying about what to eat, no food preparation – would you do it?” Taking the superficially easy option without due regard to the longer-term implications is a bit like peeing yourself. It feels okay for about five seconds, but after…

En fete

‘C’est la realite de la France profonde.’ So said Serge, who was standing next to me in a group of about half a dozen blokes who, as men do, had gathered round to gawp reverently at the cochon farci which had just, to great applause, been carried into the marquee from the barbecue pit. Last…