Dingo took my baby

Many months back, I had lunch with a few work colleagues at Café Below. The food was nice and the cooking accomplished, but what was around the table was more absorbing than what was on it. Café Below is set in a crypt. Masterminded as a concept eatery a few years ago, it exploited a …

Shake head for Yes, nod for No

If I asked you to name your favourite sport, there is a good chance that your answer won’t be weightlifting. The statistics certainly don’t think so. Weightlifting is ranked an undistinguished 36 in a list of the 100 most popular sports.  Even when the list is narrowed down to the 39 Summer Olympic sports, the …

Eight standing together

What lengths have you gone to seek an authentic recipe? I hit my personal best, when I e-mailed the Tuvaluan Consulate in London asking if they could send me one. In the prelude to this final act of desperation, I scoured the internet high and low. My searches repeatedly and inexplicably led me to the …

Signum Crucis

If appearances are deceptive, the Pontifical Swiss Guard are why. They may look like extras from a Renaissance period film, but the troubadour-like uniforms betray these gilt-edged soldiers. With five centuries of near uninterrupted service under their bandoliers, the guards are one of the oldest functioning military units in the world. They have survived annihilation …

Pearl of Africa

The cheapest Rolex in the world can be acquired in Uganda, costing just about 50p. But if you are looking for wrist watches, you will be disappointed. A rolex is a rolled chapathi (unleavened flatbread from the Indian subcontinent, brought to Uganda by Indian migrants) filled with an omelette. It was invented about 15 years …

The readers of Horse and Hound will be absolutely delighted

Earlier this year, I visited the New York office for three months on a work assignment. This visit was the first time I’d spent any significant length of time in the US since I relocated from Connecticut to London in 2003. It was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with the “old country”, especially its food. …

Manas and the 40 tribes

I grew up in a vegetarian home, acquiring a taste for seafood in later years. Meats I pick and choose, and cook them occasionally and only passably. When I started the blog, I knew that I would confront a seriously meat-based cuisine at some point that would throw me off my comfort zone. Here it …