I’ve spent over a month in Malta and writing went on the back burner for a few weeks. Despite the good intentions, including the desire to wake up early morning to write and exercise, the tiredness and heaviness of the previous months took their toll. I did not realise the extent till I found myself waking up late in the morning on the first days of my vacation without any energy and desire to do anything other than cook and be lazy.  Add to that a WIFI free house and the stifling heat of a Maltese summer and you will sympathise with my plight. But that’s the point of summer after all. Most of the time was spent cooking (and sourcing ingredients), reading, swimming and recharging energies which should enable me to get back to the usual routine. Cooking this summer was spontaneous depending on what I found in the shops close to home without much planning or following recipes. This spontaneous cooking meant that I didn’t even bring out the barbecue this summer since I … [Read more...]

A few Christmases ago, my father was standing next to me at the stove as I was preparing the traditional Christmas lunch which I’ve been cooking pretty much since I met my wife in 2000. He asked me a very simple question. Where did your love for food and for cooking come from? And while that might look like a very simple question, my relationship with food, as Facebook would say, is complicated. It is a question I’ve often been asked and the best answer is probably centred around the key people in my life, that is my wife, my parents and my parents-in-law. This is maybe the closest that I’ll get to answering this question for the time being. The story is much longer and includes many twists and turns and stories along the way but you’ll get the gist below. A few weeks ago, as readers of the Food and Wine Gazette newsletter know, I lost my mother-in-law. For my wife who lost a mother and for me who lost a second mother, it was hard, very hard, made more complicated and difficult by … [Read more...]

Anthony Bourdain, a cook, a writer, a traveller, a TV personality and producer, a foodie at a time when food was barely on the radar screen and one of the main instigators of today’s culinary travels is no more. He sadly took his life away in what is an apparent suicide. It’s hard to think that someone you have never met could impact you so much but that was the case with Anthony. His two seminal books Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour where what triggered an interest in me for food, food books and food writing. He was a cook when he wrote 'Don’t Eat before reading this', a seminal piece in the New Yorker which was the prelude for his career as an author and TV producer. In that article he gave tips on what to avoid in restaurants from doing the restaurant a favour by ordering a well done steak (they will serve you the worse piece of meat you can imagine), by avoiding the dish of the day (it is what restaurants needed to sell lest it is thrown away), the dreaded brunch or … [Read more...]

In France, the Michelin guide is big, bigger than anywhere else in the world. It is the benchmark by which chefs and restaurants are judged. And for the French public its a bit like the bible. So when Sébastien Bras took to Facebook to announce that he wanted Michelin to take back his three Michelin stars and did not want to be listed any longer in the Michelin guide he shocked many. In France, and in many other places in the world, no one has the audacity to counter the red guide. They have the ability to make or break you. And they also have an impact on the bottom line. Moving from one star to two stars or from two stars to three stars means an increase in turnover for the restaurant. Some restauranteurs calculate this at 20%. On top of it, three Michelin stars are also scarce. He is one of only 27 chefs and restaurants that have been awarded the coveted three Michelin stars in France. And many more aspire for that accolade. But away from the fanfare is another reality and … [Read more...]