I am standing outside a modern, purpose built bakery on the outskirts of Chipping Sodbury, and the smell of hot bread envelops the midnight air. “Is this building what you were expecting?” asks Tom Herbert, the Marketing Director of Hobbs House Bakery and fifth generation descendant of the original founders of the business, his great-great grandparents, […]
Continue reading
As a Lombard living in Britain for a quarter of a century, there is one cookery writer whose work has influenced my life more than any other, and who I wanted to meet ever since the publication of “Portrait of Pasta” in 1976. Since then, “The Classic Food of Northern Italy”, “The Gastronomy of Italy”, […]
Continue reading
From the moment we caught sight of Kiran Ravilious’ beautiful prints and designs on aprons, tea towels, nakpkins, cards and shopping bags, we beat a hasty retreat back to HQ to make sure she was included in our list of “must have” things for the kitchen and dining room. We love her use of bold […]
Continue reading
It’s early spring, the weather is getting warmer, the days are getting longer, and the vegetable garden is entering the ‘hungry gap’. This is the time of year when fresh, home grown vegetables can be thin on the ground. Most of the winter crops have been used, and it will still be a few weeks […]
Continue readingWe stock Norfolk Saffron, grown by Sally Francis, in The Foodie Bugle Shop, but until I contacted Sally I had no idea you could grow saffron in East Anglia, nor that it has grown there historically. A tiny amount goes a long, long way – I just use a pinch to make a golden Milanese risotto […]
Continue readingWe are organising a floristry workshop demonstration in our Bath shop – all the details are in the poster on the right hand side. Polly Nicholson {nee Bayntun} has a Diploma in floristry from the Chelsea Physic Garden and has created the Bayntun Flowers business on her Wiltshire estate, at the foot of the Marlborough Downs near Calne. Her […]
Continue readingThe trend for independent, specialist coffee shops is growing in Britain and our lifestyles are becoming increasingly in tune with Continental Europe, where a morning, mid-morning and post-prandial coffee is now the accepted norm. Recent industry studies have shown that the £5 billion coffee shop market in the UK continues to grow, year on year, […]
Continue reading
I am the founder and head chocolatier at Boutique Aromatique, a chocolaterie, patisserie and sweet pantry situated at the entrance of the Welbeck Farmshop in the courtyard of the Welbeck estate in rural Nottinghamshire. I have a passion for natural ingredients, botanicals and perfumery – all which inspire and inform my work and are at the heart of everything I […]
Continue reading
The sweeping views across the clear blue Solent right to the Isle of Wight on a clear day are one of the many reasons to visit Westover Hall. It was once the Victorian home of Alexander Siemens, the General electrical engineering industrialist who came to settle in the sleepy seaside town of Milford-on-Sea in Hampshire […]
Continue reading
At first glance the water pool looks like a shallow pond or tiny backwater lake. I step out of the car onto wet, shaded grass to look closer, and I see crystal clear water with plants floating in and around its circumference. My eyes are drawn to small mounds of pale brown, spurting silt underneath the […]
Continue reading