With the high temperatures of late, I'm sure many of us have been looking longingly at the freezer cabinets in the shops, wondering if a cool and creamy ice cream could help us beat the heat. These last few weeks have been particularly hard for many of my patients going through cancer treatments, as drug regimens can make coping with humidity and high temperatures particularly difficult. I'm happy to recommend a bowl…
Losing someone we care deeply about is not only emotionally devastating; physically, it can throw our body into turmoil, with lack of sleep, shock, and grief causing chaos with our appetite and digestion. Many people find it difficult to eat anything at all. And when you do eat, you may get heartburn, bloating or tummy upsets, such as diarrhoea. The dishes our well-meaning friends have prepared for us get picked at or…
I've just made the most delicious ribollita, the classic Italian soup with as nourishing a list of ingredients as you could hope to find. With its dark kale, tomatoes and beans, it's a real meal in a bowl. Whenever I make this dish, which I think the word 'soup' undersells, it rekindles happy memories of holidays spent in Tuscany when my daughter Maya was young. There was nothing more idyllic than coming home from the…
For the past few years I've spent a couple of dark, rainy March evenings creating a moodboard to set the scene and vibe for the 12 months I'd love to have (why March? Because hopeful spring is on its way and New Year is loaded with too much pressure). I've always been a visual person, loving colour, textures, the patina of old against minimal new, and I find that looking at my collage of magazine pictures, words, photos…
At last, my late-planted lettuces have reached their peak, along with the peas and runner beans. One of the things I most look forward to when summer comes is being able just to walk into the garden and pick whatever I fancy, whenever I fancy it, then putting together simple, crisp, delicious salads. At the moment, I’m adding all sorts of other ingredients to the leaves and vegetables, to make them complete meals in a…
