Carrot

a tale of palate and palette

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cup of tea and bere loaf

a simple tea loaf, baked with bere

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zwiebelmuster

Nicole Wagler tells us about eighteenth-century porcelain and her sense of place in Meissen

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YOLK!

Yes, I am standing in a frozen landscape dressed as a fried egg – what of it?

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rainy sunday crumpets

Hello everyone, Tom here with a quick idea for some Sunday morning baking. Thank you to everyone who commented on my bread post with suggestions on how to use my excess, unfed sourdough starter. I was particularly excited by the prospect of making sourdough crumpets . . . so here’s my take! Kate especially enjoyed…

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one loaf or two?

Hello from the farthest reaches of rural broadband . . . it’s Tom again. So, who doesn’t like fresh bread? I certainly do, but our local shops have been out of flour, of all kinds, for a couple of months, and my bread baking has been sadly on the back burner. I’ve been eking out…

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oatcake recipe

After we published my oatcake-inspired cardigan, Land o’ Cakes the other day, Tom reminded me of his favourite oatcake recipe that he’d included in our Buachaille book some years ago. This is a great recipe for whipping up a quick bread-replacing staple (and as long as the mill producing your oatmeal doesn’t also make wheat…

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Brenda’s plum cake

It definitely feels like harvest season here: the swallows and housemartins have departed, we are curing our bumper onion crop for the winter, and the trees on the steading are full of fruit. Our neighbour, Brenda, has several beautiful plum trees, which have been very productive this year. So productive, in fact, that Tom has…

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Desmond’s mince pies

For many years, I’ve had a quiet obsession with riciarelli, which I first came across, flavoured with orange flower water, in Betty’s tea rooms in York. Betty’s only seem to sell these wee macaroon-y treats in Spring for some reason, so I had to persuade Tom (who does not need much persuading where baking is…

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Bunnets!

Friday is pattern release day, and today I have for you a pair of bunnets. Bunnet is a colloquial Scots term for a hat. The word bunnet is etymologically related to the English bonnet, and the French bonnet, but while the English term has predominantly feminine associations, the word bunnet is most often used in…

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Whernside, cheese, and wool

We spent a couple of days in North Yorkshire, and took a walk up Whernside – one of the county’s ‘three peaks’. With its limestone pavement, familiar moorland flora and Victorian infrastructure, this is a landscape of which I’m very fond, and in which I love to walk. The Ribblehead Viaduct is such a spectacular…

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you say “potato” . . .

Hiya! It is I, Bruce. Today I am here to tell you about a delicious and intriguing object: the POTATO. Also known as “tattie” or “spud”, and, often (for some mystifying reason) prefixed with the adjective “humble”, the POTATO is one of my all-time favourite foods. Together with other wondrous food-objects (for example, CHICKEN, SAUSAGES…

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thyme and taleggio scones

Neither Tom or I are fond of food shopping, yet for some unknown reason we have never ordered our supplies online using one of the many delivery services now available. I finally tried this the other day, and of course made the mistake of failing to adjust the default units under which some items are…

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a few days in Cartmel

A pretty Cumbrian village . . . . . . festive windows . . . . . . and doors. Ben, the friendly cat . . . A fine local food market . . . And a wonderful birthday meal. In case you are wondering, the food at L’Enclume was just as amazing as you…

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