Writing
Essays on place, culture and the spaces in between.
Look At The Plates
When travelling, there’s a long list of advice people give about how to find a good place to eat. But I’ve never seen anyone say what I am about to reveal…
Fruit, Heat, Repeat
It’s hot and humid and we are stood uneasily inside a badly lit shop. Sharp knives are carelessly left on any flat surface that can be found. A large spider crawls up a wooden beam directly behind my wife and settles, part-camouflaged beneath a heap of pineapples.
Pizza, Oh Dear
I interrupt my usual travel writing (no, this is not a travel blog) with something closer to home. Pizza.
Unfamiliar Kitchens
Eating out is one of the great joys of travel. I love food and I love trying as broad a range of things as possible while away, ideally local and ideally seasonal. We spend a lot of time planning what and where to eat on our trips to make sure we experience the best and most authentic food a place has to offer.
Trattoria Aldo
We take a left from the busy streets of the market. Catania is as edgy as I recall - the dark grey buildings, narrow streets and looming Mount Etna giving it a totally different feel to the baroque hillside towns of the Val Di Noto, where we have just come from.
The Long Way to Scaccia
Some foods find you. Others you have to hunt for. Scaccia belonged firmly in the second camp. I first came across it years ago, in a newspaper article I read.
The Last of the Greasy Spoons
There’s something about a full English. I don’t eat them often — the last one I can remember was back in June 2024 - but every so often the craving strikes. This time, it led me to The Moor Cafe in Sheffield city centre, a place I’d never tried before.