- Features RSS Feed

Gallic gourmets are putting French cuisine back on the culinary map

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

My best and worst restaurant meals of last year were both eaten in France – within 10km of each other in the Seine-Maritime département of Normandy where I share a holiday home. The menu of the worst meal was like being frog-marched back to the 1970s, to a time when croquette potatoes, tinned Russian salad and garish crab sticks could be served without irony.

So Moorish: Mark Hix offers his own take on classic Moroccan dishes

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Over the past 15 years, there has been a steady rise in the popularity of cooking using evocative, spicy, north African ingredients – think of restaurants such as Moro and Ottolenghi, or of one of the many pockets of London like Golborne Road in W10, which is lined with African street-food traders selling native ingredients and antique shops selling all sorts of artefacts. There is a real buzz on that street and the smells are amazing. So this week I thought I would offer you my own take on classic north African recipes.

The 10 Best summer cookbooks

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

1. The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden

On The Menu: Rhea eggs; Nyetimber British sparkling wine; Higgidy crustless quiches; Cartmel Village Shop; Millie's Jubilee cookies

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

This week I've been eating...rhea eggs

My life in food: Thierry Muret, chocolatier

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Godiva Chocolates, founded in Brussels in 1926, is known for its upmarket milk chocolate. Since 1988, Thierry Muret, a trained chemist as well as chocolatier, has been its development chef. The latest Godiva boutique opens today in Harrods in London.

Gorgeous Georgian: Now we can enjoy the cuisine of Russia's fiery neighbour nearer home

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

I was in Tbilisi to explore Georgia's legendary cuisine, but despite its reputation, could not believe the strangeness and deliciousness of the dishes coming at me. Strips of delicately poached chicken submerged in a thin but rich sauce of ground walnuts, infused with garlic, trout from a nearby river, pan-fried crisp and enrobed in a ruby-red pomegranate coulis.

The 10 best summer cookbooks

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

1. The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden

The supper on its uppers: Why we need to learn to entertain lavishly for less

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The dinner party, that great social institution variously loved and dreaded by the middle-classes, is reportedly in decline. If there is to be a place for chat about house prices and schooling for little Oliver (whose appearance in pyjamas at the dining room door may or may not be encouraged) it will not be around a table awash with wine and irregular soup spoons.

Like mamma used to make: Pizza Pilgrims is proving a word-of mouth sensation

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

"This is my new toy," laughs James Elliot as he points a laser gun into the back of a van. It's no ordinary van, though. The dark-green Piaggio Ape parked in one of the stallholders' spots in Soho's Berwick Street market is one of a kind. In the back, rather than the shabby tools of a Roman handyman, it has a custom-built pizza oven in which James, his brother Thom and their colleague Louis Lillywhite cook the best pizzas in Soho.

Will Dean's Ideas Factory: Billr app means an end to asking 'Why am I paying for your steak?'

Wed, 23 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Somehow, it's never easy. Even if there's an even number of you. Even if everyone has the same meal. And the same drinks. Even the tip can make things complicated.

Postcards from the veg: check out these gourmet destinations

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

What's the attraction?

If your idea of meat-free food is lentil casserole it's time for an update – vegetarian cooking has gone gourmet. National Vegetarian Week (nationalvegetarianweek. org) culminates with Bristol's VegFest this weekend (vegfest.co.uk), teaming cookery demos and comedy with live music.

Postcards from the veg

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

What's the attraction?

The French connection: lessons from an edible garden

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The French and their vegetables, huh? My sister and I are sitting in a French restaurant, and we're definitely eating soup, but its identity is eluding us. It is labelled with the musical word "topinambour", but that's as far as we get. The waitress isn't a huge amount of help; though we speak French and she speaks English, none of us possesses a specialist knowledge of vegetable translation. "It's a bit like a parsnip," she tells us finally, and we take another sip of soup, which is a weirdly frustrating experience when you don't know what exactly it is that you're eating.

Peter Gilmore: 'Congee – Chinese rice porridge – is great hangover food'

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

My earliest food memory... I have a photo of me aged two sitting in my mum's kitchen and licking the beaters from her mixer after she'd made a pavlova. I can't remember that particular occasion, but I do generally remember always wanting to give the beaters a lick.

Wines of the week: Fully Loaded McLaren Vale Grenache Shiraz 2008; Garnacha Castillo de Monséran 2010; Don Cristobal Premium Vintage Brut Cava 2008

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Sunday lunch

Like hotcakes: Bill Granger thinks the world is about to go pancake-crazy

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

My family is pancake-crazy, but I must admit that I haven't always been the biggest pancake eater.

Wine: Something for the weekend

Fri, 18 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Couch potato

Anthony Rose: Heart of steel

Fri, 18 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

I find it hard to say the word chablis without my mouth starting to water. While most chardonnay likes a touch of oak for texture, chablis doesn't need it. In fact its mouthwatering qualities derive from lack of use of oak in all but the grander premier and grand cru manifestations. Why is that? Thanks to a delicacy born of its cool location at the northern tip of Burgundy, chardonnay here reacts like the aromatic grapes of Alsace and Germany, preferring little or no oak to show at its bone dry, tongue-tingling best.

Difficult, moi? Feeding les enfants, French style

Fri, 18 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Pamela Druckerman lives several floors up on a lively boulevard in central Paris. At the door to the apartment she shares with her husband Simon and their three young children, the American author of French Children Don't Throw Food flits between one conversation, in French, with an electrician, and another with me, in English, apologising for the "chaos": "We had a sleepover last night, one of the kids was awake at 5am. I'm not in the habit of doing that for other people's children – what do I say to his mum?"

Is this the end of meat?

Fri, 18 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Jaap Korteweg's butcher's shop in The Hague trades well on its retro stylings. Outside the old-fashioned glass-and-wooden shop front, there's a sit-up-and-beg delivery bike parked on the pavement and, next to it, the obligatory fibreglass black-and-white cow. Inside, there are marble worktops – one with an old-fashioned meat grinder clamped onto it – rustic blue and white tiles featuring vignettes of Dutch country life, a set of antique-shop enamel weighing scales and a wooden butcher's block, opposite which chiller cabinets are stuffed with chicken pieces, meatballs, mince and smoked bacon.

Berried treasures: Mark Hix makes the most of British berry season

Fri, 18 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

We can really brighten up our desserts now the British berry season has begun. Planning pudding for a dinner all of a sudden becomes less of a chore – we can add some natural colour to the bowls. And berries or soft fruits also liven up mains, of course.

The 50 Best country pubs

Fri, 18 May 2012 20:00:40 GMT

The experts:

Sophie Morris is a seasoned pub-goer and food and drink writer (@morris_sophie).

Joanna Busk is features editor of 'Fork Magazine' (forkmagazine.com)

David Hancock is editor of 'Alastair Sawday's Special Places Pubs & Inns of England & Wales' (sawdays.co.uk)

Fiona Stapley is co-editor of 'The Good Pub Guide' (thegoodpubguide.co.uk)

Jackie Bates is editor of the 'AA Pub Guide' (theaa.com)

The 10 Best salt and pepper sets

Thu, 17 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

1.Marks & Spencer pinch pots

My Life In Food: Mark Sargeant, chef

Thu, 17 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

After stints working at Aubergine and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, Sargeant became head chef at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's from 2001 to 2008, earning a Michelin star in 2002.

National Sandwich Week: Use your loaf...

Thu, 17 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Hélène Darroze