WHAT do we need? Sunshine! When do we need it? Now! Most of us would give our eye-teeth for a few weeks of sunshine – frosty would be fine! So who can blame travelling chef Philippa Davis from Shaftesbury if she grabbed with both hands and the first available plane an invitation to go and…
WHEN you look for a skiing holiday, the first places you think of are likely to be the French Alps, the Tyrol, the Dolomites, Whistler in Canada or one of the spectacular Rocky Mountain resorts like Jackson Hole or Aspen. For the non-skiers there are other choices, and for those who want to combine a…
TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis from Shaftesbury is back in Scotland, cooking for a shooting party on the Cawdor Estate near Inverness, home to many game birds and beasts, wild salmon, and Shakespeare’s Macbeth (which inspired her to flights of verse and fancy but probably didn’t harm the food!) … The train journey up from…
SHAFTESBURY-born private chef Philippa Davis will be back in the West Country for Christmas, but in the run-up to the festive season she has been cooking in the south of France … Chilled milky blue light rested over the Alpilles mountains as I drove towards my final pre Christmas job down in the south of…
TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis from Shaftesbury has been working in Israel and her latest postcard recipes reflect the delicious cuisine of this ancient land where so many culinary and religious traditions meet … My first adventure out was a food tour of Jerusalem. Taking the road from Tel Aviv we travelled down the same paths…
TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis can find herself anywhere from Provence to the isle of Skye, from deer-stalking in the Highlands to the watery landscape of Chichester Harbour where she was catering for a shooting party … “There is nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats…….” so Ratty exclaimed to Mole…
JANET Wood from Mere travelled to Mongolia during the summer to take part in an expedition with Col John Blashford-Snell of the Scientific Exploration Society. In the second extract from her diary, Janet describes the experience of arriving in the capital, Ulan Bator … We arrived at Ulan Bator Airport in the early hours having…
IN these days when, in spite of rapidly increasing air fares, many of us are lucky enough to travel to distant continents more than once in our lives, the concept of the “trip of a lifetime” is more an advertising cliché than a reality. But there are some plans that are so difficult to bring…
TYNEHAM, Dorset’s famous ‘ghost village’ close to the coast in Purbeck, has been described as the community that died for D-Day. In November 1943 notice was given to the village’s 225 residents ordering them to leave within 28 days as the area was needed for forces’ training. On 17th December the last villagers left believing…
ONE of the joys of an English autumn is the game and we are lucky in the Wessex area with the number of excellent independent butchers and game specialists from whom we can buy local pheasants, partridge and venison. If you don’t have a good local specialist, ask at Somerset or Dorset Farmers Markets (see…