As someone who cooks regularly for the fun, pleasure and indulgence of it, the last week few days have been a reminder that sometimes plain and simple options are best. That an empty plate and a contented smile at the end of a meal is the best feedback you can get. My partners mother suffered …
Author Archives: David Burbidge
The joy of cassettes
I’ve been seeing cassettes everywhere recently. They’re my current frequency illusion. Maybe those lightweight plastic encased tapes aren’t the museum pieces we all thought they’d become. Only this week I’ve seen both a Twitter request from Alison Tyler as to which tracks people would put on a mixtape if they were creating one for her …
Food & drink memories
There’s no memory quite as evocative as a food or drink memory. It does so much more than just bring the tastes flooding back. I’ve recently been reading Nigel Slaters wonderful autobiography Toast where he links just about every moment of childhood to a particular food or drink item. They range from sweets or chocolate …
Kitchen epiphany
It’s two in the afternoon, it’s wet and miserable outside and I’ve hardly ventured out of the house all day. You’d have thought that living in the UK would have made me used to this sort of November day by now. The sort of day when dusk is the perfect description for all of the …
Great British Bake Off week ten
Bake Off week ten and we’re there, after bread, cake, pastry and a whole bunch of slightly odd themed weeks it’s the final three bakers. Three challenges left before they turn off the ovens and pack up the tent for another year. If you’ve been following the series in the UK you’ll know that this …
Great British Bake Off week nine
Bake Off week nine and we’ve reached the semi finals. Only two more to go before we all get our Tuesday evenings back and I have to find something else to write about. This time the theme was patisserie. That fiddly and intricate style of baking that’s guarantied to make you stop and stare with …
A day in Cambridge with my Dad.
I spent the day in Cambridge with my Dad yesterday. It was his birthday last weekend and as we couldn’t get together on the day we’d agreed to meet up for a belated birthday lunch. Cambridge has long since been one of my favourite places so any chance to jump on a train and spend …
Great British Bake Off week eight
Bake Off week eight and as we’re down to the last five bakers it’s the quarter final. That might sound a bit confusing but don’t forget that three bakers take part in the final. After some unusual themes in recent weeks this show returned to a baking staple as it was about all things pastry. …
Breakfast in Koblenz
The cold meats and cheeses that I had for my first breakfast in Germany were a whole new experience to me. I’ve written quite a lot in previous posts about childhood memories of food. How living in Malta for a few years broadened my tastes at an early age, what an adventurous cook my mother …
Great British Bake Off Week Seven
Bake Off week seven and this times it was festivals. I don’t think that’s a theme they’ve used previously and I wasn’t too sure what to expect. In the end it turned out to be food for festivals in the sense of Christmas or Easter, not what you might expect to find to eat at …
David in the kitchen. 