19 February 2014

Steenbergs New Taster Panels Report - Tea Tasting 1

Welcome to Steenbergs Tea Taster Panel's first review of some of our teas!  Back in October 2013, we asked all of our lovely customers if any of you would like to be tea and spice tasters for us and luckily lots of you agreed! Thank you so much to al...

05 February 2014

Steenbergs Tasting Panel results - Spices 1

Spice Tastings

25 June 2012

Is social media really so benign?

The penny finally dropped today about the creeping commercialisation of all of our private conversations and lives.  On the BBC Today programme today, Evan Davies said follow us on Twitter after a piece on Arcelor Mittal in Liberia, which questioned...

05 June 2012

Cooking With A Wonderbag

Sophie came across the Wonderbag on the radio and then The Guardian, so one arrived several weeks thereafter.  Basically, a Wonderbag is a modern and green take on the slow cooker and that you find in books as far back as Mrs Beeton’s and even like t...

25 April 2012

Dosas – Southern Indian Pancakes

My parents have recently come back from a wedding in Southern India and they have been to one of my favourite regions, Kerala.  They were blown away by the delicious food and already miss the flavours of their staple, the dosa.  At about the same tim...

17 April 2012

Pretty Little Rich Cake

It was Sophie’s birthday the other day.  We went out en famille for a Chinese meal at Sweet Basil in Kirk Hammerton.  Sophie wanted a strawberry cake, so I felt like trying something a bit old-fashioned.  Before Bird and Dr Oetker independently came...

11 April 2012

Life So Material

“For too long we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community value in the mere accumulation of material things.  Our gross national product now is over 800 billion dollars a year, but that gross national product, if we judge the United...

28 March 2012

Sophie Grigson Cookery Demonstration At The Oak Tree In Helperby

On Monday 26th, we had arranged a cookery demonstration by Michael Ibbotson (who owns the acclaimed The Durham Ox); they have, also, recently taken over The Punch Bowl in Marton cum Grafton and breathed life back into it and are developing a reputati...

19 March 2012

A Better Version Of Simnel Cake Than My Last Attempt

A year or so ago I made a simnel cake, but it came out rather squat and a tad heavy. The squatness was easily remedied with a smaller baking tin, while the texture was improved through using a lighter recipe with more eggs. I have, also, used an id...

05 March 2012

Having A Crack At Making Pan Pepato

One of my favourite Christmassy things is panforte and I, also, love Nurnberger lebkuchen.  It hails from Siena which is probably my favourite city in Italy.  There really is something special about sitting out in the Piazza del Campo, looking across...

25 February 2012

Delicious (Though I Say It Myself) Orange And Earl Grey Cake

17 February 2012

Some Recipe Ideas For Laura Santtini's Alchemical Larder Ingredients

I have been asked by several people to give some starting ideas for the various goodies within Laura Santtini's Alchemical Larder box that we provide to Fortnum & Mason, Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Selfridges amongst others.  So while there is a...

12 February 2012

Homemade Marshmallows

It is not very often that I rip out pages from cookery magazines for use at a later date, so it was a surprise when the other day I found some pages I had ripped from a copy of the magazine, Delicious, from some years back.  In it, I had obviously fa...

04 January 2012

A Little Bit About Myrrh

I wrote some time back about gold and frankincense, so to complete the trio, here are some notes on myrrh.

31 December 2011

Time Please

For those who have suffered my thoughts on time before, you will know that time is something that concerns my little brain. In fact, what exactly time is has concerned much brainer people than me. And perhaps reconciling time with the two main para...

31 December 2011

What Is Not?

23 December 2011

Give Some Time And Make Some Christmas Sweets

In this festive period, we have been asked out to various families for drinks, or the kids out to parties.  And the question always is what to give people in a period of giving.  So yesterday, the kids and I spent a happy day making sweets, much as w...

20 December 2011

Recipe For A Thoroughly Modern Vegetarian Balti

Once in a while, I really need to go without meat of any form and I am going through one of those patches at the moment.  So I have tweaked my Chicken Balti Recipe from earlier this year to be more tofu friendly and so usable as a vegetarian dish. At...