I spent the whole morning re-organising my kitchen cupboards. I don’t particularly like doing housework but the lovely shop near me, Chiki Chic, have recently received new jars which I liked. Also, last Thursday was my first day as chef-in-residence at Leighton House and my first session was all about Middle Eastern ingredients. So, both the new jars and the need for a nice presentation were good incentives for re-organizing my spices, ingredients, etc., weeding them out and putting those that were still in plastic bags into glass jars — in the process I found that I had enough saffron to fill a 250 g jar! It took a long time and the exercise wasn’t totally efficient. The small jars don’t stack properly as I thought they would.

The large jars stack but the largest are only 750 g and many of my packets of ingredients like rice and flour come in 1 kg packs. Still, it is an improvement on what I had before and I got rid of all the plastic although I kept some of the old jars and branded containers to break the monotony. A morning well spent I would say. Now I can go back to my recipe writing! Oh, and if you are in London this coming week, come and see me in Leighton House next Thursday. I will be talking about Middle Eastern spice mixtures and on Saturday, I will be demonstrating how to make beautiful dips.

I spent the whole morning re-organising my kitchen cupboards. I don’t particularly like doing housework but the lovely shop near me, Chiki Chic, have recently received new jars which I liked. Also, last Thursday was my first day as chef-in-residence at Leighton House and my first session was all about Middle Eastern ingredients. So, both the new jars and the need for a nice presentation were good incentives for re-organizing my spices, ingredients, etc., weeding them out and putting those that were still in plastic bags into glass jars — in the process I found that I had enough saffron to fill a 250 g jar! It took a long time and the exercise wasn’t totally efficient. The small jars don’t stack properly as I thought they would.

The large jars stack but the largest are only 750 g and many of my packets of ingredients like rice and flour come in 1 kg packs. Still, it is an improvement on what I had before and I got rid of all the plastic although I kept some of the old jars and branded containers to break the monotony. A morning well spent I would say. Now I can go back to my recipe writing! Oh, and if you are in London this coming week, come and see me in Leighton House next Thursday. I will be talking about Middle Eastern spice mixtures and on Saturday, I will be demonstrating how to make beautiful dips.