Snow, Walthamstow Central

Snow tomorrow

Walthamstow Central rail station, February 2009, when a cold snap shut down most of London for a couple of...

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French Ant

Go to the ant…

At the Gorges de Pennafort, Provence, we made camp (unwittingly) in the path of some huge but otherwise harmless ants.  Relaxing in the company of these creatures is impossible — their industriousness is of truly biblical...

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rooftops

From the belfry

View of the terracotta-tiled roofs of the city from the belfort, or medieval belfry,...

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Dark skies

Shades of the Beguine

Bruges is a strangely sinister little town, with deep houses and twitching net curtains. As the sun sets, shadows lengthen and night begins to fall, a strong sense of the gothic creeps across the...

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DSC_1799.NEF

My Kingdom for a Horse

For those of you who watch Heroes, Ventimiglia will be an Italo-American, all-flying, all-teleporting, multi-purpose dreamboat called Milo, who sports a razor-sharp jaw and flawless skin. For the rest of you, it’s a one-horse town on the Franco-Italian border that, at some point in history, lost its horse. Friday morning and early afternoon are best...

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Echaudé

Fun-paqued cooking from the Middle Ages

The Échaudé takes its name from the French and means, literally, “scalded”. Hurled briefly into boiling water before being chucked into a hot oven, this Easter speciality (hence the awful pun) hales from the Middle Ages, in whose times unlucky humans were wont to suffer a similar fate. These were baked and photographed at La...

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Radicchio tardivo di Treviso: Treviso, Italy

Tardivo magnifico: worth the wait

Radicchio ardivo is a subspecies of chicory, and owes its striking colour to Francesco van den Borr, Belgian agronomist and inventor of the imbianchiamento technique, which uses scalding spring water to transform the colour of the leaves.  A little bitter when eaten raw, cooking changes the flavour to a deep, rich sweetness. This specimen was...

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