Category: Lifestyle

Last year, on a Chef’s Manifesto trip to Kew Gardens, we met the horticulturist Helena Dove in the kitchen gardens, where she told us about how the changing climate and shifting weather patterns are creating new challenges for farmers – for example, as the summers get hotter, and heatwaves more common, plants will bolt and […]

My first recollection of an Italian deli was when my mother brought home a piece of fresh parmesan and grated it over a bowl of pasta for me. The flavour was so different from anything I’d had before. It made me realise that authentic, fresh ingredients were crucial in the final flavour of a dish, […]

There’s a presumption that when the weather gets warmer, all a person wants is salad. Well, not this person. While I love salads, for dinner I need to feel the warmth of a meal in my belly. There is a wealth of dals out there, as many as there are Indian cooks, but the sort […]

Weather’s good? You need to get out? Meeting friends in the park but aren’t sure what to make for lunch and you want to look as cool as Christmas? Fret not – I got you! Thermos flask cevicheMy dear friend Ben Benton made me this when we first began to plan our new book, Max’s […]

Fresh thyme might just be my most used herb in the kitchen, thanks in part to the little pot growing at lightning speed on my windowsill. More often than not, I use it in sweet recipes – for flavouring custards, infusing syrups for cakes or in this blueberry frangipane tart. Fresh herbs bring such a […]

A potential increase in exports to the UK of Australian beef pumped with hormones has raised alarm food safety standards could be compromised. In Australia, the use of veterinary drugs to make cattle grow bigger is widespread and deemed safe by regulatory bodies. But hormonal growth promotants have long been banned in Europe, and the […]

A pot of pickled vegetables is useful to have in the fridge. The pickles – carrot, cucumber, radish, maybe some strips of cabbage – but also the pickle juice itself, the astringent potion of vinegar and spice. I make my own refrigerator pickles, though not all the time. It gives the opportunity to increase the […]