It was Sheila Dillon – longtime host of The Food Programme on BBC 4 – who recommended I get in touch with Kerstin Rodgers on my recent two-week visit to my favourite city and childhood home: London, England. Read more…
Archives for June 2011
London’s Hot – and Top – Spots to Nosh
Two weeks in London (U.K.) last month wasn’t long enough to sleuth the hot ‘n’ happening food scene in that fair city.
In the 1950s and ’60s, when I spent formative years there, bagels and baguettes were a novelty In fact, my Canadian dad used to make a pilgrimage to Soho’s Berwick St. Market to find cobs of corn: an imported delicacy in those days that cost the equivalent of a dollar apiece. Sunday was the day for our visit to Zlotnick’s in the North London suburb of Finchley where we lived to purchase bagels – almost unknown in our white, white-collar, white-bread nabe – at that lone Jewish deli.
Today, London is a hot-bed of delicious chow – from the nutrient-packed, luscious Muesli pot at Pret a Manger to high-end stuff like snails at the new St. John Hotel. What’s more, corn is on almost every menu along with harissa, veal cheeks, smoked eel, burrata, lovage and other exotica. Read more…
Britain is a Food Heaven and Haven. What Up Wit Dat?
My recent annual visit to London (U.K.) was the best yet. And, as a long-time defender of British food – yes, this in the face of doubters and haters who think gray roast meat and overcooked brussels sprouts typify that island’s grub – even I was surprised at the high quality of chow (almost) everywhere we ate.
Ross and I spent two weeks covering a wide area of that magnificent city – the place where I lived during formative years from age four to 19 – while sleuthing food, live music and just plain old fun.
This was in between hanging out with my mum who, at age 88, is alive, kicking, still speaking seven languages, being a culture vulture, savouring Goethe in the original with her morning coffee and teaching young ‘uns to read at the local primary school in Primrose Hill. Read more…