I take immense pleasure from food. Whether I am standing barefoot in the kitchen on a sunny Sunday morning blending herbs from the garden to make a quick pesto, planning a 3 course meal for a mid-winter dinner party, or standing over the stove surrounded by preserving jars, elbow deep in jam, I am happy.
My love of food has been fostered by many things. My Mum, who cooks the most delicious meals from a seemingly empty kitchen, is a constant source of inspiration and advice. I attribute my curiosity for all foods new and unusual to the time I spent in Asia as a teenager where chickens are bought live in the market, wrapped up in newspaper and tied up with a piece of string doubling as a handle. Where the most prized of fruits, the Durian, is banned from hotel rooms due to its pungent smell. And where the fish markets overwhelm the senses, boasting daily catches of almost unimaginable sizes, colours and textures.
For me food is constantly evolving. It adapts to the contents of your fridge or pantry, to the age or tastes of your guests, or most simply, with the seasons. Food can evoke a sense of nostalgia. It soothes and comforts, fuels and nourishes, surprises and satisfies. It brings us together.
More recently it is my vegetable garden and a new found passion for cooking fresh, seasonal, unprocessed food that inspires me. The process of selecting ingredients and experimenting with flavours, textures and colours that compliment each other is at once both challenging and rewarding. And when at last sitting down to eat, it is the company of good friends and family which is always the perfect accompaniment to any meal.
3rd May 2012
Spring onion pancakes
If I close my eyes and concentrate hard enough I can block out all stimuli around me. The rhythmic tapping of fingers as they fall on the keys of well-worn keyboards, the heady aroma of freshly ground coffee and the slight stirring of the air as it passes through the dusty vents in the air-conditioning [...]
21st April 2012
Vietnamese eggs
Breakfast is a polarising meal. There are those of us who take great pleasure from the first meal of the day, the break of the nocturnal fast, and yet there are others who abhor it. In an effort to wake from deathly slumber some rely on administering staggeringly large doses of caffeine before the faculty [...]
18th April 2012
Fried Easter porridge
I must thank my boyfriend for this recipe which I have a sneaking suspicion was one of many he had up his sleeve, at the ready, to woo me with in the early days of our courtship. This is not to suggest however that his culinary endeavours ground to a halt once he’d won me [...]
10th April 2012
Chocolate dipped candied orange
This post is a wee ode to my Mum for having instilled in me the dogged determination to gift things handmade. I remember as a young child taking a sheet of white A4 paper and carefully folding it in two, lining up each edge so that it was perfectly square. Then out came the paints [...]
22nd February 2012
Date & orange blossom scones
Those of you who read our wee blog with fanatical fervour may recall that I am a lover of tea. Tea of the lose leaf variety. So when I learnt, on the eve of my most recent overseas travels, that Hong Kong plays host to one of the worlds most famous High Tea destinations, it [...]
7th February 2012
Raspberry & lime iced tea
My initial thought was to make a cocktail for this month’s high tea theme but after much deliberation I decided that I would turn my hand instead to iced tea. I had never made iced tea before, nor had I ever given too much thought to it so I did a little bit of reading [...]
17th January 2012
Tom yam soup
I think it fair to say that food, alcohol and various states of inertia are the excesses which typically define the festive season. And what’s more, to resist this trinity of evils it requires ineffable levels of self-control not conceivably mustered at this time of year. So once the weeks of gluttony and sloth-like behaviour [...]
7th January 2012
Larb gai
In the spirit of this brand New Year, I would like to propose a toast to new beginnings and to being inspired anew. There is nothing like seeing out one year and ushering in the next, full of hope and promise, of goals and visions and also of things unknown. 2011 was a great year [...]
19th December 2011
Christmas tea
On numerous occasions I have told of my passion for tea, and on numerous occasions (probably in the same breath) I have told of my desire to blend my own tea. I remember several years ago now feeling particularly inspired, wanting to blend, package and brand my own tea, as well as design wee tea [...]
5th December 2011
Orange chutney
Last night I indulged. I poured myself a whiskey, sat down at my kitchen table and gingerly cued Frank Sinatra’s Christmas carols. Whilst I awaited the protests of my flatmates (which strangely enough never came) I spent the evening sketching. I sketched with purpose, in the hope that from the collection of scribbles on the [...]
25th November 2011
Prawn tacos with chipotle sauce and cucumber slaw
I find the older I get the more attention I pay to my surroundings. I begin to note things like weather patterns and the way they shift and change with the seasons. I take subconscious note of the time of year which the spring bulbs push their wee heads through the frigid earth marking the [...]
4th November 2011
Mango and lime granita
This is my new soon-to-be-summer favourite. Granita. It is quick and easy to make and what’s more, the flavour combinations and colours are endless. A few weeks ago we took part in Taste of New Zealand and we served a selection of granitas to whet the appetite of our food-loving visitors. We did a mandarin, [...]