starters

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Festive Stuffed Mushrooms

  At many tables in the following week across the world; this will play out. There’s a group coming around for dinner. It’s festive. Which means everyone should play nicely. In my past life, I spent two and a half years hunched in cold lecture theatres and over a laptop so I could get a …

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Gourgeres

I’ve made a terrible mistake. I missed something. Earlier in the week when I was shaking off some completely indulgent birthday blues by trying to account for the ten best things I ate in the last year, I skipped something. I’ll try and skirt past the emotional sloppiness. It was illogical and mad (particularly in …

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Baked Savoury Apples

My mother’s new house in the green flecked paddocks of Berry has an orchard. At my sister’s place, down a thin rough road baby chickens have just hatched. It’s spring in their fields. On the other side of the world the leaves on my stoop have turned. It’s amber and gold underfoot and the air …

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Baked Panzanella Nests

There’s a fine line between content and smug. These crisp and squished tomato bread nests may be the tipping point. It started with a late Friday afternoon excursion to Borough markets. The sun was out.  At the junction there were crowds spilling out onto the curb, sipping sneaky pints and getting a jump start on …

A June English menu continued: Salmon Soup

A June English menu continued: Salmon Soup

Cream of salmon soup. That’s what was prescribed to start my grandmother’s day-dreamed menu for a summer dinner party in 1937. The party itself never came to be, but there’s something that makes me think the soup may have made an appearance in on her table. Her original recipe has all the hallmarks of her …