Crumbs on the Table

Stories about food

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About Crumbs on the Table

I started writing about food with the intention of collecting stories — my own and other people’s — that would take some interesting paths through time and space.    The people who cook it, grow it, raise it and eat it, are at the centre of these stories, but the food itself is as important as the people. Apricots, cherries, clams, asparagus, cows, bees, and the land or sea from which they come, are given equal billing with the human players.  I want to understand the connections.  I’ve also set out to explore our recollections of food and place, and how we are shaped by them.  I think there is meaning in doing so that can make us more awake to the radiant beauty of life, and more aware of the mistakes we make when we forget it. Crumbs on the Table  is my essay in looking for links: just a few crumbs off the loaf, scattered a little randomly, like memory, in the attempt.

It is also important to me to record the best of the recipes I have collected through many years of cooking obsession.  I have come to realise that I have a book in my head that needs to get out because some of these recipes and their stories are too good to die with me.  I have gathered them, magpie-fashion, from many places and people.  Some have been given, many are from great cookbooks, both old favourites and new discoveries; some I have absorbed from sources I no longer recall who to credit; a few are my own invention. I have loved to cook, and to be cooked for, as long as I can remember and have made it a life’s habit to seek out special recipes and toy with them, try to master them.  I hope other people will enjoy some of these and make them their own.

Cooking for me has been at various times a hobby, and a profession, as well as the daily routine.  It has been a passion, a joy, a way to play, regardless.  I am blessed to love it and to find it a creative outlet that gives me a way to give.  And though I adore the romance of food I recognise the risks in romanticising what is afterall an elemental and therefore complex part of life that often falls to those who have less love for it, but need to do it, sometimes on a shoestring — or who work hard, sometimes for a pittance, to make it possible for others to put dinner on the table.  Food can also be a worry, a burden, a resentment, a chronic back-ache.  It calls upon the full range of emotions, and the body.  I think some of those stories are worth acknowledging, too. For I do believe, if I believe anything, that taking care of basic needs is a serious business and it takes an entire network of endeavour and sacrifice to bring a plate to our table.  We could honour that more, and if we did, perhaps we would find more nourishment there, and in each other. More than anything, I want to share the exhilarating wonder  of food and its making.

Words have their limits.  It’s time to get physical.

Biography

Laura Donohue is a writer, food photographer and cook.   She runs Cottage Garden Cookery from her home near Cambridge, England.  Her blog, Crumbs on the Table, has been a finalist in the Guild of Food Writers Food Blog Awards three times (2019, 2018, 2015); her food photography has also been in the finals of the international Pink Lady Food Photography awards.  She broadcasts stories about food on radio, writes food columns and articles for various UK publications, and has been published in the American Best Food Writing  series.

After a childhood in Texas and rural southern New Jersey, and adult migration to California (via college in New England), Laura eventually settled in the UK, where she has lived almost as long as in her home country.  She regards herself as a product of many nationalities, having also had life-changing experiences in Denmark, Norway, Bermuda, Ghana, France and Italy. She worked as a writer within higher education for many years, and was more briefly an academic after doing a PhD in comic literature.  She has also been director of development for a charity educating girls in Africa, and a lieutenant in the US Navy. She once soloed in a small plane.

A product of the global melting pot, she has found culinary inspiration from her international family and friends; from cooking courses with gifted chefs and teachers; from her travels; from books; and formatively, in the California food revolution of the early eighties, reading with an eclairwhen she lived in Berkeley and cooked for an all-too-brief-while at Chez Panisse.  She also ran a kitchen in Palo Alto, California, and taught cookery at the Common Market Cookery School in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Laura remembers most meals she has eaten. She delights in stories and her garden.  She loves writing as much as being in the kitchen.  She believes it is almost always possible to make things better.

What you will find here

Crumbs on the Table  is a food blog with tested recipes, and stories about food.  I aim to share the best recipes I know, and something of their context: the places they come from, … More

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Finalist
Guild of Food Writers
Food Blog of the Year 2019

guild-of-foot-writers-logo

Finalist
Guild of Food Writers
Food Blog of the Year 2018

Best Food Writing Book

Published in
Best Food Writing 2016

guild-of-foot-writers-logo

Finalist
Guild of Food Writers
Food Blog of the Year 2015

Pink Lady Food Photographer of the year 2019 - Highly Commended
Pink Lady Food Photographer of the year 2018 - Commended
Pink Lady Food Photographer of the year 2015 - Commended
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Recent Posts

  • Wholesome carrot breakfast-muffins, and a finely textured carrot cake
  • Chicken breasts with black olive tapenade, roasted red peppers & prunes in puff pastry — and other ideas for a different Christmas
  • Caramel cake distraction bake
  • Tamale pie
  • Sicilian pasta ‘ncasciata: pasta bake with aubergine
  • Rose and violet shortbread biscuits

Featured recipes

Napoli bream with pink peppercorns, coriander seeds and rosemary

Tuscan-style grape and walnut harvest bread

South African malva pudding with coconut and rum

Citrus jelly with passionfruit

Sweet potato quesadillas

Rhubarb sponge crumble

Asparagus and pea ravioli

Coffee crème caramel 

Apricot pie

Garlic soufflé

Fish with grilled cucumber

Baked gooseberry caramel pudding

Chocolate rose cake

Sicilian vanilla gelato

Celery, stilton and sage tart

Fresh coconut cake and cream pie

Duck legs braised with beans and herbs

Roasted tomato soupRoasted tomato soup with coconut milk

Chez Panisse almond tart

Dobosh torteDobosh torte step-by-step

IMG_9245Baked chicken with potato, tomato and parmesan

Chocolate pots de crème

Peach and prosciutto panzanella

banana chocolate chip barBanana chocolate chip bars

Roast potato, chicken and bacon salad

Norwegian waffles

MK's Profiterole PontresinaProfiteroles Pontresina

Bong's chicken with artichokes

Books and Blogs

I share with you here some of the cookbooks, blogs, food memoirs, and other culinary writings I have found most delicious, intriguing, and helpful over the years.  This … More

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