A NEW cocktail from Blackacre Farm Eggs combines Dorset’s own gin, a sparkling wine from Lyme Bay and the white of one of Blackacre’s eggs to create a very British take on a French classic. Combining outstanding local produce and punchy summer flavours in equal measure, the South West 75 should prove a hit with…
IFORD Festival, in the beautiful Harold Peto designed grounds of Iford Manor near Bradford-on-Avon, has been offering picnics to its patrons for several years, and we enjoyed our first at the opening night of Macbeth this year. Ever since I first visited the festival I have been enthusing about its setting and unique atmosphere, and…
BURGERS are not just for carnivores – and students on Christine McFadden’s Burger Special day will discover just what an exciting variety of ingredients and flavours you can enjoy in a vegetarian patty. The course at the cookery school which Christine (aka The Dorset Foodie) runs at her home in picturesque Little Bredy, is on…
IT was a shop selling hand-made boots and shoes that drew us to Teignmouth – and it will be a pair of boots and the lure of the freshest, most delicious seafood that will take us back to this South Devon port. It used to be a popular resort but has been left slightly behind,…
by Simone Sekers THE first shrimping trip of the season is always a triumph of expectation over fulfilment, but the glittering May sunshine on the waves is so enticing that we can never resist. The very fact that there are waves is an indication that shrimping isn’t going to work – that chilly spring breeze…
Private chef Philippa Davis has just returned from the south of France – in time for English asparagus! LAST week I almost fainted. By instruction of a client I was purchasing some relatively good-looking apples from a trendy west London shop. The fruits were prettily laid out in pristine new wicker baskets and they had an…
by Simone Sekers MARCH saw us trawling Macclesfield’s Treacle Market, and by great good luck April found us in my home town of Lewes, in Sussex, looking at another range of local foods. My family left the town for a nearby village when I was ten, at an age when food was, well, just food….
THE sun was out, I had front row seats to the hottest Easter party in the Algarve (OK, I was cooking for it) and we had more chocolate than Willy Wonka for the Easter Egg Hunt of 2016, I just knew it was going to be a great week. On the southern coast of Portugal…
DORSET-based private chef Philippa Davis has been on the radio (Radio Soho) chatting to William Sitwell, editor of Waitrose Food, about her varied life as a private chef. And If you see a crocodile… “Row, row, row your boat” has got to be a top classic when it comes to kids songs. This was made…
MACCLESFIELD in Cheshire holds its Treacle Market on the last Saturday of every month; it’s a relatively new invention, aimed at bringing back life to one of the most attractive small towns that orbit Manchester. It reminded me of our own Frome Independent, the market stalls trickling down the hills and congregating wherever there’s a…