Keep your eyes on the pies December 2, 2009 CHRISTMAS without mince pies would be like a British summer without rain – simply not possible. We love our mince pies – at least before a month of over-eating them makes us a stone heavier and permanently nausceous. But they can vary in quality. At their best, they are a combination of sweet, sour, gooey [...]
Stars and spas in California’s flashy south January 10, 2010 THE Southern California sunshine danced on the ocean off Newport Beach as we stepped aboard the boat where we would be eating our lunch. We opened the champagne, tucked into the picnic, and took it in turns at the helm to guide the boat, silent as a whisper around the bay. This was a brilliant [...]
Get your hands dirty in Sardinia November 15, 2009 THESE days, you can hardly turn on a television without seeing somebody rummaging around in hedgerows, or cooking a meal with something they have just picked or plucked from a tree. Foraging is in. The idea of wandering around the British countryside in November looking for my dinner doesn’t exactly appeal – but doing so [...]
An East End gastropub on the up November 23, 2009 The Princess of Shoreditch76 Paul Street EC2A 4NE,Tel: 020 7729 9270Cost per person without wine: £34 THE NEWLY revamped Princess of Shoreditch describes itself as a “gastropub and restaurant”, which might be seen as having your cake and eating it, but the owners have grand ideas. In the bar downstairs you can get souped-up pub [...]
Galvins open a temple to fine food December 7, 2009 Galvin La Chapelle35 Spital Square, E1 6DY, tel: 020 7299 0400FOODSERVICEATMOSPHERECost per person without wine: £50 THE Galvin brothers first struck gold with their close-to-perfect Bistrot De Luxe in Baker Street, which fused rusticity with the fineness of serious French cuisine. Then they took over Windows at the Park Lane Hilton, turning it into a [...]
Warning: anger is bad for your heart November 30, 2009 NEXT time you feel you’re going to burst a blood vessel from rage because a colleague undermined you or stitched you up or just generally made you feel crap, think carefully about how you deal with your feelings. Repression could be deadly – a study from Stockholm University’s Stress Research Institute found that men who [...]
Both black and white beers will bring out the best in oysters November 26, 2009 London's connection with oysters goes back as far as the city itself. The eating of oysters in London began in Roman times, when the British product was shipped as far as Rome. They continued to be popular in medieval times, when the church imposed lots of “fish days”, during which seafood had to be eaten [...]
Now’s the time to shoot the puppy November 22, 2009 ALL professions lend themselves to slang, but few are as fertile as the City and Wall Street. Since the term “credit crunch” emerged, a host of other terms have entered the lexicon. A year ago quantitative easing was just an arcane – if tongue-twisting – bit of economic theory. Now it is part of the [...]
Black swans, blondes and other shaggy dog stories November 11, 2009 WHAT THE DOG SAWBY MALCOLM GLADWELLPenguin, £12.99 WHETHER Malcolm Gladwell – the author of Blink, the Tipping Point and Outliers – is really the “the world’s most influential thinker”, as the blurb on the back attests, is open for debate. What is certain, however, is that he is formidably fashionable, and on the strength of [...]
Sun, sea and Hinduism all come together in Mauritius December 14, 2009 THE first thing that you notice about Mauritius is that it is a real place. By that I mean that it is a contrast to its holiday competitors in the Indian Ocean, the Seychelles and Maldives. They are made up of dozens of tiny islands which are often owned by resorts and have been turned into [...]