There are few cake-related lies told with greater sincerity than “No thanks, I couldn't possibly...." Particularly when the last chocolate éclair on the plate is in play. The French pâtisserie counter is one of those rare places where adulthood briefly, but totally, fails me. We may have a mortgage, a pension and strongly held opinions about climate change, but put me - a grown-ass man - in front of twelve pretty cakes behind a pane of cough-proof glass, and I become eight ye

I hear that phrase on the news quite a bit, every time there is a live report from the scene of something dramatic or tragic. "Here's what we do know.".. It's the baseline of established truth. The poured concrete on which further clarification can stand. It might not be much, but it is solid and reliable and certainly good enough for most of us, given the circumstances. No educated guesswork. No stabs in the dark, no taking a shot at anything. Which brings me, as neatly as

There was a particular little shop that used to exist on almost every French street corner, and although most of them have quietly disappeared, their ghosts remain if you are lucky enough to spot one. You will be walking through some entirely ordinary town or village, when your eye drifts upwards and catches an old façade, it's painted signage faded and faint, but sure enough - perhaps above a mobile phone shop, an estate agent or some other high street blandness, you will se

There is a recognisable sort of chap standing beside a very clean car outside a top hotel. He wears two principal things - a peaked cap, and an expression of professional, unbothered serenity. He opens the door. He inclines his head. He says "Sir" and "Madam" with the respectful deference of a fellow who has said it many times. And when you have spread yourself across the leather interiors, he glides you smoothly across town without, it seems, doing anything so vulgar as maki

I am a sucker for things that are not really traditional food parings. I mean I love things that do go together - fish and chips, buttered toast, and cream on jam, but I do like a new challenge. Enter, Roquefort & Honey Ice Cream. Found on a menu at a not-very-posh bistro in the stunning town of Sant Malo. There were clearly less challenging flavours on offer, and I could very much have made a far more vanilla choice, but something about it made me want to dive headlong into

There is a fine line between what we understand as appreciation and what we immediately deride as snobbery. Somewhere along the way, we decided that knowing too much about wine, coffee, or olive oil, made us a bit "too" something. You will know by now, that I love to look at the roots of words. The Etymology. The Verbal archaeology that whispers through history, where words and phrases orginiated and how we have skewed them to suit modern purpose. Frustratingly, the origins o

It's hot here. The sort of heat that suggests any kind of movement is a bad idea. Last night I sat in the pitch-black kitchen, with the fridge door open. It was not as effective as I would have liked. It was like being interrogated by the faint smell of Melon. Now then, if we played a word association game, and I said "Summer".. chances are someone would respond "Ice Cream". It is a horse-and-carriage relationship. A friendly rebellion against the sun - saying "OK if you want

I recently stumbled across an article in Forbes magazine, comparing two pieces of real estate. The first was a 996-square-foot "tear-down" in West Los Angeles. I had to look up the term "tear-down". It is basically a house that no-one wants to live in, and is far cheaper to knock down and build from scratch, than to fix up. The second property, was a 4,806-square-foot Château in France on 24 acres, with 8 ensuite bedrooms and a guest house. They were both listed for the same

Like many British people, I came to goat's cheese quite late in life. I mean, when I was a kid, you could order fruit juice as a starter in a fairly posh restaurant... yes, children, it was once thus. Anyway, in our house, goats didn't produce cheese, cows did. And they made it all in a place called Cheddar. Britain in the seventies, was not a place where food was discussed with any particular reverence. It came either hot, or cold. Cold was for lunch, hot was for dinner. Bre

Aren't cherries just a wonderfully optimistic fruit? They arrive quite suddenly, unlike the well guarded blackberries of Autumn, which just take forever to ripen and seem to do so one at a time. Cherries just appear. Reckless and post-box red, they are a bounty of equal opportunity, for birds and beings alike. In France, cherries are not simply fruit. They are a seasonal event. A brief national orthodoxy that, for approximately three glorious weeks, has everyone smiling. Here