Food & drink
Local food isn’t always fabulous
Other country’s dishes, irrespective of what they involve, are invariably presented in travel articles as though they’re all exceptionally tasty just because they are authentic. […]
travel
Food & drink
The problem with vegetarian food
I know a lot of people who balk at the idea of vegetarian food, as if the very mention of might be contagious. Maybe they’re worried the next time they bite into a meaty fillet their taste-buds will have become infected and the flavours will disgust rather than delight? […]
Europe
Spotting the Cultural Differences
One of the areas where it’s easiest to spot cultural differences is food & drink. Living abroad, and travelling for work, has taught us that British palates aren’t any fussier than other nationality in Europe. […]
Food & drink
Creative cuisine is working class art
My favourite part of the hotel was the kitchen, a volatile place where big personalities added expletives and threats to an air filled with the aroma of uninventive dishes destined for the unadventurous palates of coach excursionists from England. […]
Catalonia
Road tripping through three countries in the time of COVID-19
We drove through three countries, from Portugal’s Atlantic coast to Provence, not only switching from stuttering along in one language to another, but trying to figure out what COVID-19 restrictions applied where. […]
Hiking
Escaping from COVID prison to Northern Portugal
In these open hills there are no other people, most folk wouldn’t dream of walking when temperatures are predicted to hit the upper 30s, but there is an abundance of life. Ignoring us as we sit in the meagre shade of a human-sized cairn are wild Garrano horses. […]
Food & drink
The problem with recommending restaurants
In the words of the great Jim Morrison, people are strange… or they can be when it comes to food. As well as having very contrasting likes and dislikes, folk have very personal foibles, all of which makes recommending restaurants somewhat of a lottery. […]
Food & drink
Meat and two veg, a concept past its sell by date
I saw the phrase ‘meat and two veg’ the other day, coincidentally as I was uploading photos of our lockdown meals which most definitely were not of the meat and two veg variety. For some reason it jumped out at me, and for the first time I realised what a curious thing it is. […]
Travel Talk
Travel dreams or travel nightmares?
Travel is enlightening in many ways, mostly positive ones but not always; what were once romantic notions have been smashed to smithereens on the harsh rocks of reality; exotic dreams painted by travel industry marketeers laid bare by first hand experience. […]
Travel Talk
RIP, the death of the hotel buffet
I don’t dislike hotel buffets, I rather enjoy them. There’s a guilty pleasure in creating anarchic combinations on my plate; ingredients which wouldn’t normally look the road the others were on. No, I don’t dislike buffets, I fear them. […]
Food & drink
Cooking with travel memories
Perhaps, as we can’t travel, memories of tasting similar creations in various destinations has added extra oomph to flavours, but we’re relishing reliving travel moments thanks to these lock-down menus. […]
Living Abroad
Following the curve, living with lockdown in Portugal
Less than 24 hours later and I wish we’d bought more at the Alentejo supermarket. The madness we’d been reading about in British press reports descends on Portugal. There are queues of shoppers at each till, their trolleys piled high with produce including, of course, multi-packs of toilet paper. […]
Europe
Travel and weather, beyond the sun and rain
Ever since we took up walking in earnest, and starting monitoring weather conditions and their after effects, we’ve learned things about the weather we would once never had considered for a second. […]
Europe
Victims of fake news and foggy mornings
Without leaving the house, apart from essential grocery shopping, we’ve managed to find ourselves the victims of fake news in a national paper in the UK. […]
Europe
Being James Bond in Siena, Tuscany
Tables, chairs and parasols line narrow streets and fill small piazzas, their occupants enjoying fat-crusted pizzas whose slices reluctantly pull apart in a cat’s cradle of melted cheese, and plates of pasta topped with rich sauce and drizzled in aromatic olive oil. […]