If there's one thing that typifies California cooking to me more even than artichokes, it has to be garlic. It grows famously in Gilroy, south of San Francisco, where the town smells of garlic in the best kind of way, and you can procure anything … [Read more...]
Chez Panisse almond tart, and how even the best recipes evolve
The Chez Panisse almond tart has a loyal following to this day, almost forty years after it was first developed by pastry chef Lindsey Shere for the Berkeley restaurant that started the American food revolution. Sophisticated and delicious, this … [Read more...]
A Maytime tea celebration
“Point me to the nearest garden, beach and tea shop” May is the most liberated of months. It throws off all restraints to burst voluptuous into blossom and leaf. It’s also the month of bank holidays, when we migrate towards green space and … [Read more...]
Peach cobbler: in search of a lost recipe
The worst summer job I had as a teenager was as a "roller girl" at a small peach-packing plant in rural south Jersey. It made a change from waitressing, but it was hellishly hot, hard labour, and we girls of the rollers were constantly covered in … [Read more...]
A progression of rhubarb
Our colder than usual March here in East Anglia was good for primroses and daffodils, but the rhubarb on my village allotment used it as an excuse to tarry in hibernation. Where I would normally be harvesting the first stalks by now, I turn in … [Read more...]