Welcome, Welcome to a brand new feature, which will appear on a Tuesday. I've long considered doing a food blog. I wasn't quite sure whether to set up a new blog specifically for food or as a subset of this blog. Being a lazy sod, I decided that Tuesday would be food day on this page. So what will it all be about? Well, as well as being a lazy sod, I am also a greedy git. I love food. I also love talking about it, cooking and sharing the good places I go. So this will feature reviews if I go to a great eating place, or a great place to get food. It will feature recipes, if I discover one that I like. I will also be commenting occasionally on what other food writers and programmes are saying (one of the odd things is how rarely I actually see a recipe I'd bother cooking on cookery shows and how rarely I get a useful tip). I'll also, occasionally, be giving my views on healthy nutrition. These are a personal view and I am not medically trained, so don't take these as anything other than the ravings of a lunatic (but please remember that lunatics made Britain Great!).
And it will feature my opinions on food, something I have strong opinions on. Talking b@ll@cks on my blog and eating are two of my passions, so it should be a marriage made in heaven. And finally, I will even be making the odd video of some of my cooking tips, when the mood takes me. So where shall I start?
Well lets start with a few words about what I consider good food to be? If I eat a meal, there are three things I want. The first is, I want it to be tasty. The second is that I want it to be full after I've eaten. The third thing is I don't want to feel ill. For me, the feeling ill is a dealbreaker. I have a hiatus hernia and I nearly died of a stomach bleed in 1984, so I do watch my food. It is why I rarely eat pizza, even though I enjoy it. When I am starving hungry, sometimes the first and last criteria goes out of the window. The middle one is pretty much always important if I am having a meal. I like fresh, high quality ingredients. With these I rarely feel ill. I like spiced, flavoured food generally, although I also enjoy traditional British foods. We will be exploring both.
I sometimes watch food programmes for ideas. Most either cook food I don't like and wouldn't eat, don't do things the way I like them or are simply irritating. If I watch a programme, I want to learn things and be buzzing with inspiration. There is no point making food shows with ingredients you can't get in the UK or that you need to bury food for a week in the garden to make (a figure of speech). I'm not into baking at all, as I don't have a sweet tooth, so that rules out the most popular cooking show. I don't mond Masterchef too much as generally you will pick up a few tips. I really don't get the Nigella style shows as I've never been inspired to cook a single item they've made.
Then there are food reviewers. Interestingly, Yummies in Mill Hill has a review from Giles Coren at The Times in the window. He loves the food there. It does good smoked salmon and great beigels, although I used to prefer the ones we'd get down in Aldgate when I worked down there. A Coren review alerted us to the excellent JM Oriental Kitchen in Colindale. Credit where credit is due, and I will be following up the odd recoommendation and giving my considered thoughts.
One of the inspirations for starting this series is the fact I'm on a pretty harsh diet at the moment. I have been since mid November. I've lost a stone in that time and feel far better. That is even with a pretty good Xmas in the middle. It has made me appreciate how many food adverts there are on telly. When you are only eating two meals a day, in a four hour window, you realise that you want to eat good food. It works for me. I am doing this three times a week and it was a real struggle at first. It is getting easier and I feel better. So I will be writing about this as well.
Then there are my recipes. I am toying with the idea of videoing some of these. The issue here is Mrs T detests me blogging and utterly refuses to take part, which makes it hard for me to really do the sort of video I'd like.
I will also be looking at where I get my food and why I go there. I think you may enjoy some of these bits, if I can do them how I want.
And finally, I'll be sharing my food stories with you. Not all of these are what other food bloggers write about, but if you follow this blog, you probably knew that anyway.
Anyway, I thought I'd start by just writing an introduction. I can't wait until next week to start (actually I have already)
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