The olive harvest: the money in olives has always been an enemy of tradition and quality Photograph: David Silverman/Getty Images Book review: The Observer, Sunday 15 January, 2012 Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller Is there any foodstuff as dodgy as olive oil? Human beings have been defrauding [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Olive oil – 5000 years of fraud and poisoning
Posted in Agriculture, book review, olive oil, The price of food, Uncategorized, tagged cocaine trafficking, tom mueller, virgin olive oils on 15/01/2012 | 2 Comments »
Disgusting airline food and eating cheap in NYC
Posted in Uncategorized on 24/11/2011 | 1 Comment »
The Times, 24 November 2011 I was so hungry on a flight to the US, I did something I haven’t since I was poisoned in-flight — I ate the food Last week I did something really stupid: I got on an plane without having had breakfast. And the flight was seven and a half hours [...]
Jamie’s great – or simply good?
Posted in Chefs, Uncategorized, tagged Jamie Oliver, the naked chef, the times, UK chefs on 03/11/2011 | Leave a Comment »
3rd November 2011, The Times His new book is tipped to be No 1 and a TV show (his 21st) is under way. Is Jamie Oliver the Elizabeth David of our time? When Jamie Oliver addressed the United Nations last month — not words I thought I’d ever write — I went to the end [...]
Food, hunger and happiness in Armenia
Posted in Armenia, Uncategorized, tagged armenia, BBC, brandy, churchill, khash, the times on 28/10/2011 | 1 Comment »
I went to Armenia in April 2011 for Oxfam, the Times and the BBC. On The Culture Show BBC2, 28 October I told how that story was done, in words and pictures. Here’s more from the trip: Food foraging in Armenia: an Audio Slideshow June 2011, BBC Online Churchill and Armenian brandy BBC Radio 4, From Our [...]
The Truth about Tesco’s not-so-big price drop
Posted in UK food, Uncategorized, tagged food, phil clarke, price, supermarket, Tesco, the big price drop, the times on 17/10/2011 | Leave a Comment »
17th October 2011, The Times Dozens of the savings offered by Tesco in its “Big Price Drop” — the £500 million campaign that started a supermarket price war three weeks ago — are on foods that were sold only briefly at the higher price, research by The Times has shown. Huge advertising promotions this month [...]
My experience of London? Pride came before offal
Posted in UK food, Uncategorized, tagged damsons, forgotten foods, london, Margot Henderson, oysters, Rowley Leigh, slow food, Whiteleys’ Le Café Anglais on 15/09/2011 | Leave a Comment »
15th September, 2011 The Times I lived in London for half my life but I approach the city now with flutters in the stomach. A committed vegetarian I know who leaves the West Country twice a year for the Smoke says that, faced with the urban challenge, he lapses. He goes straight from Paddington Station [...]
Male bonding: The public schoolboy
Posted in Growing up, Uncategorized, tagged male bonding, marriage, public school on 07/08/2011 | Leave a Comment »
7th August 2010 If ex public schoolboys are “the most screwed-up socioethnic sub-group”, it’s no wonder we struggle to find male friends. I wish I’d married a man,” a friend said to me. He sighed: “There’d still be no sex but there’d be more conversation.” I’d been up very early and I’d texted him saying [...]
Making £50 a week taste better
Posted in The price of food, UK food, Uncategorized, tagged £50, fifty pounds, food costs, Sainsbury's, supermarket prices, weekly shop on 07/07/2011 | Leave a Comment »
7th July 2011 The Times Two months ago, Sainsbury’s launched a “value” marketing drive, with TV and press campaigns, promising to feed recession-hit families for just £50 a week. The first menu was depressing with its pseudo-bargains, unlikely extravagances (a £5 bunch of grapes) and lots of tinned and frozen food. These included some sausages [...]
British farmers and the supermarket price wars
Posted in The price of food, UK food, Uncategorized, tagged farmers, grocery market action group, national farmers' union, price, raspberries, supermarket, supermarket price wars, the guardian on 02/07/2011 | Leave a Comment »
British farmers forced to pay the cost of the supermarket price wars The Guardian, Saturday 2nd July2011. As profits soar at the supermarkets, food producers say they are being forced out of business by unfair buying practices. You can pick up a punnet of British raspberries – at their best this weekend – on a [...]
If you don’t support independent restaurants, get used to soulless pizzas
Posted in Chains vs. independent businesses, UK food, Uncategorized, tagged chain restaurants, Creelers, Edinburgh, independent restaurants, Pizza Express, soulless on 01/07/2011 | Leave a Comment »
1st July 2010, The Times The effect of restaurant chains like Pizza Express is that independents barely make a profit After a particularly joyless visit to an Edinburgh Pizza Express last Sunday, all four of us ended up with mild food poisoning. Of course, I can’t prove that the restaurant was responsible, but the leathery [...]
