Anissa's Blog

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a total stranger asking me if I would be a guest speaker at an offal night he was planning in his restaurant in Bournemouth. I didn’t know the restaurant but I liked the tone of his email. I also liked the idea of going to the seaside not…

I have this theory that however cosmopolitan and well-travelled you are, you always go first to the dishes you liked as a child. At least this is my case and even now, nearly 40 years after I left the home country, I always want to eat one of my favourite Lebanese dishes, mehshi silq bil-zeyt…

The modern part of the caves d’affinage (where they age the cheese) in Fort des Rousses. The old part is vaulted and it is where I filmed the short clip below that of Jean-Charles telling us about comté. Earlier this summer, I was invited to comté country in the Jura Mountains to see how the cheese is…

It must be my art background but I just love beauty. In everything. People, objects and of course food. And today I had a beautiful lunch. It doesn’t happen every day of course but my lovely friend Carole brought me the most beautiful eggs the other day, laid by her even more beautiful hens. So, I thought I would…

These pickled lemons are the doqq variety which is small and very thin skinned. Anissa: It has been quite some time since Charles Perry did a guest post but here he is now with another fascinating post on pickling lemons. Charles: The Arabs have been  pickling lemons since the Middle Ages. The 13th-century book Kitab al-Wusla ila al-Habib says, “Salty…