Spring cooking: Recipe for asparagus tart

An improvised tart to celebrate spring – perfect for a Sunday lunch with friends.
The White Witch still has the East Coast in her wintry clutches, but here in Californarnia, Aslan is on the move. It’s spring! The song birds are pairing up, the squirrels are getting frisky, and the trees are in blossom. Best of [...]

Baking recipe: Chocolate macadamia nut brownies

Super Bowl Sunday party
Along with Thanksgiving, Super Bowl Sunday is a venerable American tradition with a focus on food. We had to feel our own way for Thanksgiving, but our neighbours invited us over for a Super Bowl party.
This was my first time watching American football and I must admit it was pretty baffling. It [...]

Fettuccine carbonara and other culinary misadventures

I enjoyed this piece by Matt on Abstract Gourmet about rediscovering fettuccine carbonara years after boarding school nearly put him off for life. He writes:
“The list of things that boarding school food turned me off was actually fairly extensive. Among them, steak diane, ham steaks with pineapple, lasagne, meat pies, hot dogs, and pretty much [...]

Sustainable food: Local versus organic

The latest post in my series on sustainable food in partnership with Chris Perrin of Blog Well Done.
It’s time to buy groceries. You are armed with a shopping list, cloth bags and the best of intentions to buy food that is sustainable in every way. But the organic apples in Whole Foods are from New [...]

Travel and expat blogs make finals for 2010 Bloggies

Travel blogs have made a fantastic showing in the finals of this year’s 2010 Weblog Awards, also known as the Bloggies. Food blogs have been popular in the Bloggies for some time and remain so, but the profile of travel blogging has really leapt ahead in the last couple of years.
The Bloggies is one of [...]

Driving Highway 1 in California: Santa Cruz and The Lost Boys Railroad Bridge

A chance encounter in Santa Cruz transports us to the set of The Lost Boys in Santa Carla.
The Lost Boys – classic 1980s teen movie
Have you ever seen the 1980s classic teen vampire movie, The Lost Boys? It features a Who’s Who of ’80s actors – Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Keifer Sutherland. We [...]

Sustainable food: Where you shop and the 3/50 Project

Welcome to the second week of the series on sustainable food that I am writing with Chris Perrin of Blog Well Done.
What is sustainable food?
Food is what sustains life. For millions of people, this is the primary function of food. If you don’t have enough to eat, you’re not going to turn your nose up [...]

Travel writing tools of the trade – Californian driving licence

My Twitter friends may be wondering why I asked them to wish me luck this morning. But many of them did anyway and I now have some good news to share.
I am now the proud owner of a California driving licence!
First-time driver
This is also a confession – until an hour ago, I was not licensed [...]

Carnival of Cities for 30 December 2009 – From New York to Nairobi

Happy new year! I am delighted to be hosting the Carnival of Cities this week. What a great round-up of interesting posts about cities around the world. To all the participating bloggers, thank you and don’t forget to promote this post!
Please note, the Carnival of Cities is a blog carnival for posts about any single [...]

Thanksgiving dinner: A dress rehearsal for Christmas

We cook up a feast for our first Thanksgiving in America.
Thanksgiving is a peculiarly North American holiday. In the United States it is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November and in Canada it is the second Monday in October and is, I believe, more of a harvest festival. Perhaps readers can enlighten me on [...]

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