Rockliffe Hall Gourmet Breaks. A taste of the North

Kenny Atkinson is a Great British Chef with a Michelin Star to boot. He’s now head chef at the new 5 star country house hotel Rockliffe Hall in County Durham and Nick Harman went up to sample the delights of their Gourmet Break, admire the historical setting and avoid the fabulous spa if he possibly could.

Michel Roux: Pastry – Savoury and Sweet

Michel Roux has spent his life up to his elbows in flour and butter. He is one of the few world-famous chefs who is perhaps known for his patisserie skills above all else. He began, as he explains, at the age of 14 with 4 a.m. starts six days a week as a tourier – the person who prepares, rolls and shapes the dough for the day’s work amid a morning mist of airborne flour particles.

Garlic Connects Friends

It was a snail that introduced me to garlic. My mother was from England and my father was from Slovakia so spice and punch came in the form of mustard, black pepper or sauerkraut. Olives, capers and anchovies never appeared on our table. Since then garlic appears so frequently in my recipes that I use garlic scapes, the immature flower stalks of hard neck garlic, as my logo.

Ocean Spray Cranberry and now Blueberry too launch in 3D

To be fair these new Ocean Spray commercials are better than the last ones featuring acidic women from Crouch End hinting at problems ‘down there’. These feature two mentally-challenged Americans standing waist deep in a cranberry bog. Perhaps they are applying the berry to their parts externally? They didn’t succeed in putting me off Ocean Spray though, so that’s a result of sorts.

Melati, Peter Street, London

This popular Malaysian restaurant has been in business for some 30 years now. Melati is a short walk from west end theatreland, and is a great place to grab a tasty meal before the curtain goes up, or to meet friends and have a relaxed informal meal, particularly if you are excited by mouth tingly zingy dishes, we enjoyed it.

Jose Pizarro’s Easter Spring Lamb

Leading UK Spanish chef Jose Pizarro has created a mouth-watering little recipe for Easter. Using spring lamb, the recipe combines olives, mint, garlic, potatoes and lots of other gorgeous things to create a really delicious Easter feast or simple tapas with friends.

Tapas Fantasticas

For the uninitiated, this festival, now in its third year, seeks to replicate a similar event that takes place in the Rioja region of Spain each year, where locals and visitors walk from one restaurant/tapas bar to another purchasing one dish and a glass of Rioja wine to complement it, at each. This sounds like a great thing to do on a summer’s afternoon and evening. One for the Diary I think.