With barely a week to go till I embark upon my picnic, I am not even halfway through the picnic-game alphabet. H is for ham sandwiches, and that seems to be about it. Ham sandwiches in my family have a very stringent pedigree. Since time immemorial, they were made on …
First things first: Gin has medicinal properties. Ask any British officer posted to Dehli in the 1890s. Or the gent from the East India Tea Company likewise. I’m convinced it was not quinine in the tonic water alone that beat back malaria, but the astringent, near-medicinal properties of juniper and …
My title paraphrases one of the best show titles of all time: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Did you know that this was in turn ripped off from an apocryphal Borscht Belt shaggy-dog joke? Well, so they say. I can’t actually find any source confirming …
Somebody (possibly the Astronomer Royal) decreed the egg a perfect food. Who am I to disagree? Many people think of them with the same fondness as Izaak Walton did strawberries. He quotes a certain Dr Boteler this way, concerning this berry’s relationship to perfection: Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, ‘Doubtless …
There’s nothing like being in a foreign land to inspire one to cook some of the fine produce of the country. As I consider ‘D’, the next letter in the Picnic Game alphabet, I can’t help but laugh when I think of one of my closest calls with culinary disaster. …
I have decided to while away some hours between now and that wonderful moment when the aircraft doors are ‘prepared for take-off’ by assembling my shopping list. The first several letters of the alphabet are enough to sustain life for 10 days without any problem. Consider these possibilities in just …
I so love Sunset Magazine’s articles about road trips. The photographs draw you in, making for compulsive page-turning. A teardrop camper poised on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. A family picnicking in a grove of redwoods. A birder or a photographer, binoculars or camera in hand, dwarfed by sand-sculpted …
One of the best Christmas presents my Dad ever gave me was my very own subscription to Gourmet Magazine. Dad was a talented self-taught chef himself, storing stacks of Gourmets on the shelves that held his cookbooks. He was proud that I had shown a knack with a knife as …
Ah, for the years of my life when the day after Christmas — that source of rich gravy, rich desserts, and perhaps rich gifts — could be ignored, thanks to the blessing of Boxing Day. I loved Boxing Day. The entire British universe (well, the post office, probably the local …
