Occasionally I answer someone’s question with a fact I know to be true, only for them to cock an eyebrow at me, as if to say ‘Well that’s what you think – but can you put meat onto those opinion bones so I can actually believe you’. So when some asked me what the best Jaffa […]

It’s my dream to take a peek behind the confectioner’s curtain and let light in upon the magic of how Britain’s chocolate bars are made. How do they get Maltesers so round? What is that in a Milky Way? Do they make one continuous Curly Wurly and cut it into pieces or are they all […]

The word meat is a funny thing – a generic term used to describe the flesh of myriad animals. It is loaded with economic and ethical connotations, with questions of sustainability over the intensive farming methods of the west. But there is so much more to meat than feedlot beef, crated pork and beak-trimmed chicken. […]

Biscuits are elemental in our lives. They are the quiet markers of time, defining our ever changing tastes and ascent to adulthood. They are worthy of not just the odd misty-eyed recollection, but a discreetly ordered table – defining the deliciously crumbly boundaries between their baked brethren. Click on the picture to enlarge so you […]

Greece are set to be bailed out to the tune £120 billion again, from the EU and the International Monetary Fund, having had a similar amount poured into their coffers last year. Whilst the economists and financiers may accuse inflation and pension funds, they are not to blame. We are. Biscuit shoppers everywhere have let […]

Hollywood loves a sequel. The cash-cows of popular franchises can be milked for decades! Who’d have thought you could squeeze a single film out of Big Mama’s House, let alone two follow ups?! So with the world admiring RPatz in his latest outing Water for Elephants I got to thinking about wringing some more cash […]

I remember a time when they were only three television channels. Saturday would role round and the airwaves would drip with sport, Grandstand vied with ITV’s World of Sport, in bringing the British Public the most obscure sports they could handle (parallel bars anyone?) But there was an oasis that I ran to. Every Saturday […]

For the past 50 years the main political parties have taken food for granted, allowing our weekly shop to go from locally grown, natural food to become air freighted and processed beyond recognition. They have all put issues, which create sound bites, above issues that create bites which are sound, nourishing generations to come. Gone […]

Tesco – the harbinger of high street doom, or the panacea of Britain’s shopping woes? Their name alone invokes some passionate emotions, if you immerse yourself in the blogs and writing of ‘foodies’, you would readily surmise that the Essex-based, grocery behemoth was responsible for everything that is wrong with the English attitude to food. […]

Every time I cross the threshold of Asda, no matter what is on the list, I come out feeling angry, stressed and ever so slightly bewildered. It may not be instantaneous, but it will happen – this time was no exception. Being no stranger to the store, I prepare, steeling myself for the limited varieties […]

Sometimes you can struggle to recall the first time something happened and on other occasions, it can have an unparalleled clarity. Usually, with me, if food is involved, it’s the latter. I can recall the first time I tried pizza, a cheese and tomato monstrosity at Codsall Middle School, Instant noodles – Tom’s house, Diet […]

I have a confession to make. I have fallen out of love with food. It’s a horrible feeling, but I know who to blame, or rather what to blame – New York. I recently visited New York and viewing it through food loving eyes, I was struck by something that I’d never noticed before. There […]

The first time you are conscious of being seduced it fills you with strange emotions. You know you are being used, but that realisation doesn’t detract from the pleasure of the moment, although the dirty feelings crystalised by hindsight have left me with a sense of guilt that I can’t rid myself of. My first […]

I bought a pack of Garibaldi biscuits the other day, put it down to nostalgia if you want, but I like the buggers. I sat with a cup of Clipper Organic Earl Gray, munching on these jewel studded cardboard treasures, wondering if life could get any better. Casting my eye toward the packet – ignoring the […]

“We are a nation of voyeurs. We love Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson in our millions, but we leave them on our coffee tables. We watch them but we don’t always learn from them,” Tom Parker Bowles, critic and author. I never thought I’d agree with Tom Parker Bowles, but he is right. Britain lost […]

4 Ingredients is, according to the blurb, the number one bestselling book in Australia. It was written by two Queensland mums who hit upon the idea that there are thousands of people who would want a cook book which would reduce all their family meals to just four ingredients. Think of the timesaving! Think of […]

Our capital is a gastronomical gold mine, full of  amazing chefs, producing sumptuous dishes in stunning restaurants. It is also a massive, sprawling conurbation, whose inhabitance move ghost-like through it – their only trace, the detritus they leave behind.  This is what I like to immortalise in pixels, as found.