Notes and recipes from a Wine Merchant’s Kitchen

A tale of 250 of my family’s favourite meals.

Falling in love with exciting food and wine is a swift and easy process, providing it daily, at home for my family, is a lot more demanding. Notes and recipes from a Wine Merchant’s Kitchen looks back on the successes and mishaps of a life spent casting around for culinary discoveries.

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Notes

Upbeat Update

Upbeat Update

Eastern Daily Press. April 2022. Words Stacia Briggs. Photos Brittany Woodman. Sometimes the best ideas emerge from the worst of times – when a...

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Begin Part 1

Begin Part 1

  "What are days for? Days are where we live. They come, they wake us Time and time over. They are happy in: Where can we live but days?"...

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Recipes

Pheasant and Leek Pie

Pheasant and Leek Pie

“The industrial eater is one who does not know that eating is an industrial act...the condition of the passive consumer of food is not a democratic condition. One reason to eat responsibly is to live free”.   Wendell Berry. Farmer and essayist. At the time of writing,...

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Authentic Welsh Rabbit (well, possibly)

Authentic Welsh Rabbit (well, possibly)

Words are one of the principal tools by which we can navigate our complex world, but they frequently serve to obfuscate reality in equal measure. If you’ve ever been stuck next to a member of the flat earth society on a long-haul flight, or studied Donald Trump’s...

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Sourdough tales

Sourdough tales

Apostasy (/əˈpɒstəsi/; Greek: ἀποστασία, translit. apostasía, is the formal abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous religious beliefs. One...

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Guanciale & Spaghetti all’ Amatriciana

Guanciale & Spaghetti all’ Amatriciana

Amongst the guardians of Semitic languages, pigs get burdened with a bad press. In some faiths, they are regarded as ‘unclean’ animals, mainly because, whilst rummaging in the wild, they will eat virtually anything - carrion, garbage, even animal excrement. Not so...

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Pain de Campagne

Pain de Campagne

I have for some time laboured under the twin beliefs that everyone who worked their own kitchen should fashion some home baked bread once in a while and that all shop-bought loaves teetered on the brink of the inedible. Well it turned out that some modification of...

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Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

Blackadder: “Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?” Baldrick: “Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron”. In my determined quest to reduce our household consumption of meat, treating it as an occasional pleasure rather than a daily expectation, I...

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Picallili

Picallili

A lady friend - refined, middleclass stock, Dubarry wellies in season and a penchant for Mercedes estates - frequently ‘throws’ dinner parties. She never deigns to provide simple suppers. We bump into each other on occasion at a nearby Country Market. Part farmer’s...

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