Winter Wonderland - 09/02/07
Wednesday, I woke up at 4.30 AM and, for London, there was a good covering of snow, crisp and even, if not deep. It brought to mind the big chill of 1963, the coldest winter since 1740, and yet to be surpassed
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Blue door blues – 22/01/07
After delivering our three year-old to her ballet class with the excellent Mark Elie last Saturday, my wife overheard some Americans on Portobello Road bemoaning the fact that they couldn’t find the blue door
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Roast parsnips and sweet potatoes with rosemary
This is one of my favourite vegetarian recipes though it’s also good as an accompaniment to a chunk of charred meat. You can substitute, or add, just about any root vegetable you care to
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Notting Hill Nonsense Human Being of the Year 2006 – 20/12/06
To be honest, I had no plans to make such an award. But a candidate so deserving has emerged this week that I now feel I have no choice
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Bagasand - 13/12/06
I was down the pub the other night – a fairly rare occurrence with two small kids – and I heard something new. The two fellows at the next table were discussing a friend, one who evidently had landlord problems
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Chicken liver paté
One of my favourites as a starter and chicken livers are cheap – currently 99p for 400 grams at Sainsburys. This recipe is from my late mother-in-law who was a fantastic cook
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Tits on a Saturday - 07/12/06
A dreary wet Saturday morning, early, and I’m up with the girls to give my wife a well-deserved lie-in – the baby has been teething
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Smoked haddock with courgettes in whole grain mustard sauce
Smoked haddock is cheap and delicious; if you want to be fancy, most supermarkets sell a slightly superior version without food dye, but I don’t guarantee that the extra cost is worth it
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Naked civil servants knacker the Notting Hill canal - 30/11/06
How could a bunch of tossers in the Newcastle office of an obscure government agency, who apparently enjoy leaping naked from filing cabinets, have an impact on life in Notting Hill?
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How the Notting Hill rich live - 23/11/06
What a strange lot the rich folk up the hill are! Here’s a couple of neighbours who’ve been battling it out in the courts over one of them kicking a football about in the communal gardens with his five year old boy
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Sunday at the supermarket – 20/11/06
Sunday mornings, my wife takes the three year-old swimming, and after sitting on my arse for half an hour, a rare opportunity gladly taken, I put the baby in the pram and stroll along the Grand Union Canal to Ladbroke Grove Sainsburys
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Recipe: Chicken Chorizo
The beauty of this recipe is that you can count on the chorizo to give the dish a rich and intense flavour. If chorizo (Spanish sausage) is unobtainable where you live, my advice is to move
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