Le Coup Franc, Montbron, France

This is not Peter Mayle’s Provence and this is not the ‘wonderful little place’ that Giles and Samantha found as they toured the Dordogne last year, while Giles fielded emails from the office on his Blackberry and Samantha collected fabric samples for her shop. This is the France the French see – plain, simple, cheap and quite cheerful.

Leong’s Legends, Bayswater

The dish of tongues is speaking and we’re playing deaf. S and I are trying not to look at the grey curls of muscle, the Sichuan duck tongues, that S has ordered. They are arch and taut, twisted in a last quacky screech and hold horror in their sinews. And they are cold. And, in the ultimate diss, they are sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Rick Stein is Malaysia Kitchen’s Ambassador

Malaysia Kitchen is a year-long campaign that aims to enlighten British consumers about the exciting opus of Malaysian cuisine. MATRADE (the agency behind Malaysia Kitchen) today announced that it has recruited chef and ‘King of Padstow’, Rick Stein to be their official ambassador…

Out on the Wild and Windy Moors

Unashamedly squeezing a Kate Bush song into her article title because she’s a big fan, Caroline Sargent explores Northumbria and Hadrian’s Wall Country with all that it has to offer the traveller and foodie. Staying in a dovecote, poking around castles and putting up with 4 star hotels are all on the menu. Running up that hill, hotly pursued by the hounds of love, will help lose any weight the visitor might put on

Cook – Richard Bertinet

Hailing originally from Breton, Richard Bertinet is a chef, baker and food writer, who also runs a range of courses at his kitchen in Bath. It is the latter which has provided the inspiration for his latest book, Cook, as a lot of the content has been inspired by questions from his customers.

Richard Bertinet Launches his new book’Cook’ with a cooking masterclass

Invited recently to the launch of Richard Bertinet’s new book Cook, at a well known kitchen showroom in Wigmore Street, I arrived hot and bothered having not had the best of journeys. I descended to the lower ground floor where an active kitchen is set up to join a select gathering of food writers and others from the foodiemedia. After a quick cup of coffee, I was immediately set to work.

Turkish’Adana’ Kebabs

These kebabs are really delicious and have quite a fiery kick to them, but the level of heat is up to you. The are completely versatile in that you can BBQ them, preferably over charcoal which really is the best and most authentic way to cook them or if like me, you don’t have a BBQ then you can either grill them or pan fry them.

Olive oil from Liguria, Ligurian gold?

It seems that much of what I have attended recently is focussed on Italian produce and a tasting of olive oil from Liguria recently was yet another. The purpose of the tasting was to alert us to the quality of Italian olive oil generally, but in particular to that produced in Liguria which like many Italian region’s oils has DOC status.