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 [...]

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 [...]

Tractors, Cheltenham Ladies and Nutty Krust!

It’s not every day that I attend a horse race however last night’s was special. It was the final of the AGA Total Control Ladies Point to Point Race at Cheltenham Racecourse. I was there in attendance and what a great night of Hospitality AGA provided. Congratulations to the winners and how lucky Claire Hart is to have won an AGA Total Control cooker. After 10 years of working for AGA I now know the dilemma she faces. What colour? Well there are 13 of them!

The Great British Cooking Pot

After my Best of British food blog yesterday I want to tell you a bit about Great British Manufacturing which is part of my job role as AGA Brand Ambassador. AGA cookers, style icons of the UK, are made in Shropshire in the Coalbrookdale Foundry – the same one that Abraham Darby started the Industrial Revolution from by manufacturing cast iron with coke rather than charcoal. It was in this foundry that the famous Iron Bridge over the River Severn was cast in 1777. Before that Darby was granted a patent from Queen Anne in 1707 on the basis that he made the manufacture of cast iron cooking pots the most efficient in the world. And that he did by making them thinner and lighter. Last week the original patent was found in the National Archives in Kew. Darby went on to cast many more items such as the Halfpenny Bridge over the River Liffy in Dublin and the gates for The Crystal Palace, which now have been re-located and stand proud as the gates to Kensington Gardens in London.

Best of British Food!

Asparagus, Jersey Royals and Rhubarb – the Best of British food.

Spring has finely sprung. That to me suggests spring cleaning – you know, washing out the cupboards where the saucepans live and also throwing out accumulated rubbish or donating unused items to charity.