A ‘Bloody Good Sandwich’

Empires rise and fall.  Personally I think of the monument to Oscar Wilde at Charring Cross station that says “we are all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”. Gerald Ratner was a jeweller with a huge chain of shops across the UK. His empire shook dramatically after he [...]

The Best of British Gin

The Best of British Gin

Like most of us I love a tipple….. or maybe two. My tipple is gin and tonic. Not any old gin but one that comes from near to where I live. I was joking a few weeks ago to some friends about how my gin consumption was ethical as my “gin miles” (well, we all know of food miles!) are low. My favourite gin is distilled 4 tube stops from my flat in London. A distillery on the door step! I’m proud of this fact which something that people like Betty Ford may cringe about, but when you have a London Dry Gin that has won more awards than any other gin and is the only premium London Dry Gin still distilled in London, one can be proud of of what they are enjoying as they sup.

Tie a Donkey to the Ceiling – Happy Cinco de Mayo

Regular readers will wonder why Mexico is featured in my blog about all things British. Well there is a reason and it is all to do with Great British Cookers. Have I lost my marbles? Perhaps. Let’s start at the very beginning – it’s a very good place to start. One night a few years [...]

Raindrops keep falling…

Anyone who knows me knows that I find it difficult to switch off. Whenever a holiday approaches I always find myself doing the same thing: I promise that I will take a break this time, that I will put away the laptop, tidy away the notes, stop thinking about work for a while and rest up. Of course, this never happens – or at least it only does so for a day or two. Believe me, I’ve found myself lying awake in a cool bed in an air-conditioned room in everywhere from Miami to Jamaica, my mind swimming with ideas for cookery books, television programmes and new forms of cooking technology.

Hot And Cold

Determined to clock up more air miles than Richard Branson, I recently embarked on yet another whistle stop journey. This time it was Toronto for the Canadian launch of the AGA PRO+. I also had to do some promotional work for AGA MARVEL; the North American side of AGA, Marvel being refrigeration and AGA being cooking. All I could hear in my head was Katy Perry singing, “You’re hot and you’re cold…”. I’m proud to say that I have been chosen to be the AGA Brand Ambassador for North America, so it falls upon me to fly all over the world speaking about their products. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.