The Palomar Cookbook, Mitchell Beazley, London, 2016 On Monday July 7th, 2014, I had dinner with Peter, Phoebe and Max at the Palomar in London, 24 Rupert Street, Soho. I wrote in my diary, “this may have been the best restaurant meal I have ever eaten”. I had read about this restaurant in the Time … Continue reading Palomar
Secrets of Scandinavian Cooking… Scandilicious by Signe Johansen, Saltyard Books, 2011 When I was a child there was a very popular series for children, My Home in… The first one in my collection was No. 16, My Home in Norway. Perhaps that is where my fascination with the Nordic countries began. And of course Hans … Continue reading Scandilicious
Napoli is the capital of Campania in southern Italy, and sits on the Bay of Naples. We decided to take a long weekend to visit the city of Napoli as well as nearby Pompei and Ercolano which were destroyed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 CE. We stayed in a bed and breakfast … Continue reading Napoli – home of pizza …and friarielli
I spent two and a half weeks visiting family in Berlin. I was staying in a pension in Weissensee, which was a borough in East Berlin and is now part of the larger borough of Pankow. Fun fact – it is the location and title of a popular German soap opera set in the 1980s, … Continue reading Hello and goodbye to Berlin
We decided to take a short break away while we are staying in Austria. A number of factors came together resulting in our stay at Gasthof Botenwirt in Faistenau. As some of you will know I have my mother’s 1956 diary of her European travels and I am interested in revisiting places where she and … Continue reading The Salzkammergut
We are settling into life in Linz. For context, Linz is a city in Upper Austria, straddling the Danube River midway between Salzburg and Vienna. Our apartment is in the Innere Stadt district which is pretty much the city centre. It’s about fifteen minutes walk from the main square. From the kitchen window we look … Continue reading Early days
We spent a week in Kraków in Poland en route to Austria. I have never been to Poland before and had absolutely no idea what to expect from the food. We arrived late in the evening and went straight to sleep so my first meal in Poland was breakfast, or śniadanie. Always a challenge. Breakfast … Continue reading Śniadanie and kolacja
Our first stop out of Wellington was Narita, Japan. We were staying at a hotel close to the airport at Narita solely for the purpose of breaking our journey and getting a good night’s sleep before the second leg. It was dinner time when we checked in and our hotel did not do dinner, so … Continue reading Revisiting Japan
Around the Table 