Post number one, 'A background'

My real love of food was born when I started travelling with my job in Europe, particularly the south of France, north east Spain and Italy. What impressed me so was the way people took the subject of food so seriously, not just those in the fantastic restaurants I started to eat at, but everyone I met. I am in the fashion business but food was always so high on the agenda with the people I was visiting. Botafumeiro in Barcelona, La Petite Maison and Le Merenda in Nice, Coco Lezzone in Florence. I was frequently taken to these establishments and they all excited and inspired me. The simplicity, purity and quality of the food was magnificent.

I was of course subsequently duty bound to reciprocate lunches and dinners when I welcomed visitors in London and this drove me forward to research what London had to offer, what was new, what was hot. Time out became an essential weekly purchase and I started venturing out, trying and tasting. One of my spanish colleagues back then was particularly demanding when he came to London, each time he visited he craved new and cool, food and fun.

It was on a particular night with this amigo that the first defining moment in my food life occured, a dinner at St John on a winters eve in 1994. I remember we ate Middlewhite and swede, glorious milky white and yellow comfort on a plate, Pigeon and lentils, proper welsh rarebit. The room and it's stark coolness, the simplicity but beauty of the food, the pig on the ashtrays, the menu printed with those immortal words 'Nose to tail eating', the coat pegs, I was inspired and hooked. Regular visits ensued.

Some years later I purchased 'Nose to tail eating' by Fergus Henderson and a happy obsession began. It was not just the fantastically novel, non whimsical preparations in the book but the imaginative and captivating way in which they are described to the reader. Not to mention the innovative and superb photography.

The second defining moment in my food life to date was when my old mate @legbye donated me 'Roast chicken and other stories ' by Simon Hopkinson. Hopkinson's love for what he was writing about jumped out at me and I found it totally inspiring. I could at last roast a chicken brilliantly, I never looked back. I was intrigued by the 'fanfares' in the book, where he wonders away from the food/recipe narrative and champions certain people and what they meant to him; this is when Elizabeth David, Alice Waters and Richard Olney came into my life.

Since then I have read and referred back to Nose to tail eating, Roast Chicken and other stories, Simple French cooking by Richard Olney and various Liz David books time and time again. This set of books have become my bibles for the food I love to cook and eat. I try to stay within their confines not least so I have a certain 'way' in the kitchen I am used to and can therefore perform quite well at. Bits and bobs of innovation in terms of ingredients and preparation barge they way in every now and then but generally I like to practise and eat simple, seasonal cooking with the emphasis on quality ingredients.

I have continued to be interested in and visit new restaurants and pubs as well as frequenting the stalwarts I love; I have watched with great interest the influence Fergus Henderson has had on food in London in the last 15 years, his disciples leaving and opening their own establishments, also the growing trend for bistro style food that I also love so much. I do enjoy the occasional foray into the world of fine dining too.

On this blog I will share(with those kind enough to read it) my new restaurant experiences in the UK and overseas. I will also share anything interesting that pops up from my messing around in the kitchen at home and random tit bits relating to real ales and fine wines. I rather enjoy a good pint of bitter as well as a fine bottle of wine.