23 June 2010

Short Walk In Boroughbridge - Yorkshire

Saturday evening saw the roads quieten off as everyone hunkered down to watch England in their first match at the South African World Cup.  The constant background noise from the A1 disappeared as it only ever does on Christmas Day - England hoping f...

21 June 2010

Recipe - Sweet Barbecue Style Chicken Legs

We are always looking for ways to liven up chicken to feed the kids - simple, tasty and quick & easy family food.  This recipe is something I devised for Sweet Barbecue Style Chicken Legs is so quick to make that our children both love to help to...

18 June 2010

Quest For The Best Burger In The North

I have decided, like many before me, to go on a quest; a quest for the perfect burger. 

17 June 2010

How Do Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases And The Earth's Orbit All Link Together?

I've written a number of blogs now where I try to get to grips with some of the numbers underlying global warming.  So far, I agree that the historic figures do demonstrate global warming over the last 100+ years within a relatively wide band of poss...

16 June 2010

Teapigs - Clever Marketing By Tetley Tea

I had always wondered how Teapigs came from nowhere and were able to create a fabulous range of tea using really expensive Fuso tea bagging kit etc etc.

15 June 2010

Pepper Harvest

I have just been cleaning out one of the drawers in my desk and found this old CD of photos from Kerala.  I thought it would interesting to put up a couple of photos of farmers harvesting the pepper from the vines.

11 June 2010

Ripon Water Walks - Walk Along Ripon Canal

Ripon is blessed with lots of fabulous waterways and green corridors through the city.  One of the most noticeable is Ripon Canal, which cuts a straight caesura into the centre of the city, with the canal sitting on your left as you come in along Bor...

09 June 2010

Recipe - French Tomato Tart

The other day my parents visited from Northumberland, and as it was a gorgeous sunny Thursday, I plucked up the courage to try one of David Lebovitz's recipes.  It's always a matter of bravery as I am in awe at other people's ability to make seemingl...

04 June 2010

May 2010 Food Blog Round Up

This month definitely has a seasonal theme of Spring to it.  Everyone has recipes for rhubarb, all of which are so much more inspiring than the classic Rhubarb Crumble that I blogged about this month and the rhubarb compote that we have been living o...

01 June 2010

Steenbergs Has Improved Our Range Of Household Cleaning Products

Did you know that one of my first jobs was in the Pets & Cleaning Department in Fenwick's in Newcastle?  And ever since, I have had a strange and haunting obsession for Household Cleaning products.  Well, I am not really that fascinated in them,...

31 May 2010

Ripon Water Walks - Along The Ure

I mentioned in my first blog about walks in Ripon in North Yorkshire that I did not believe that Ripon had only been settled as a monastery in 650AD.  I believe this basic historical fact about Ripon's history even less now after walking along the Ri...

29 May 2010

Can We Save Ourselves From Global Warming?

I went to a public lecture by Professor John Beddington who is currently Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government.  He was lecturing on Climate Change as a University of York Biology lecture.  And yesterday he was back in London attacking climate s...

27 May 2010

Visit to Milk Shake Bar in Ripon

Yesterday evening, the Steenberg family finally went to visit the milk bar in Ripon.  It was a treat after we took the kids to Evensong in Ripon Cathedral on Monday evening for the Whit Monday service; that was beautiful with the service sung by the...

26 May 2010

Water Walks In Ripon - Alongside The Skell

As you walk through the centre of Ripon alongside the River Skell, you get an appreciation of how many bridges there are.  Sure, Ripon isn't Venice with its profusion of quaint, romantic curve bridges that play on the imagination nor the strong, engi...

24 May 2010

Recipe For Pink Rose Macarons

Pink is one of those colours I have never really liked.  However, getting married and then having a daughter have made me accept pink as a colour and slowly but surely start to like pink as long as it is subtle rather than Barbie coloured.  Sophie ha...

22 May 2010

New Season Asparagus

There's nothing simpler, nothing more delicious than new season asparagus.  Some years ago, Sophie and I tried to grow asparagus, but we never had sufficient patience and that project came to nought.  But luckily there are loads of brilliant local gr...

21 May 2010

Recipe for Indulgent Coffee Cup Cakes

There's lots of fuss and carry on about cup cakes and how wonderful they are, so I felt I better try and make some.  I was, also, unsure what the actual difference between a cup cake is and a good, old fashioned fairy cake.

20 May 2010

New Indonesian Pepper Just Arrived at Steenbergs

I read a book last year called “The Scents of Eden” by Charles Corn – it’s a history of the spice trade.  It was great as the perspective was different from the histories that I had read in the past which always wrote them from the angle of European...