Half way through our stay, we wanted to ditch the guidebook and do our own thing. The barrio of Barracas isn’t mentioned in the Lonely Planet – isn’t on the tourist radar at all, as far as I can tell, which seemed good enough reason to go for a walk there and to go with the flow. Once a wealthy barrio, Barracas was hit by … Continue reading Barracas.
We flew for 12 hours, but I feel like we’ve come to a different planet…. We begin to settle in. We’ve been here for almost two weeks now and the apartment feels like home. We are at least getting used to its quirks. We meet some of our neighbours. The magician who lives on the other half of the ground floor with his girlfriend and … Continue reading San Telmo: Our ‘Barrio’.
We’ve only left the house to eat. We are in a tiny village. A handful of houses, the prettiest of Maries, and a twelfth-century church. Old stones, salmon pink and pale cream, mottled with grey and brown. Green leaves protrude from minute square windows. I think of them as wide arrow slits. Shutters, beams, towers and porticos.We can see all of this glory from the … Continue reading A French Country Idyll.
Danang, Vietnam, January 2020. Food is very important to the Vietnamese. They eat a lot. And when they’re not eating they’re thinking about eating. ‘I eat out twice a day’, Anh told us. Nearly all Vietnamese eat breakfast on the street. ‘We get up very early, we’re not really awake and no-one has time to make noodles for breakfast’. Any morning, any place in Vietnam, … Continue reading Food Stories 3. Danang – Foodie Heaven.
Christmas Day, Saigon 2019. A motorbike would have been easier. But we’d not yet figured out how to grab a bike for the two of us, so we went by car. To a neighbourhood district north of the city centre. Streets like strips of ribbon, flexing and turning. Bikes beeping behind us. Those that could not wait, over-taking on the inside, as the driver tried … Continue reading Food Stories 2: Eating With A Vietnamese Family.
There’s a great thing about walking in the English countryside. The tea-room. All good walks should begin or end at one. At Worth Matravers, deep in Dorset, next to the duck pond on the miniscule green is the quintessential, quaint English tea-shop. Full of antiques and mismatched china, embroidered knick-knacks, sugar basins with cubed sugar and tongs, old advertising posters, – and people. We could … Continue reading Dorset. Sea and Scones.
At times chicken and rice seemed to be the only fare on offer during our South American trip. We tired of it, but the chicken shop signs never lost their allure! Continue reading Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken!
In the past I’ve taken Parmesan – sorry I mean Parmigiano Reggiano – Parmesan is its inferior imposter – for granted. I always thought of it as a crumbly bit of old cheese, something to grate over my pasta, nothing more. It never occurred to me to eat it by itself, for itself. All of these – what I now see were strange – ideas … Continue reading Blessed Are The Cheesemakers.
If there’s one thing that the people of Modena like more than opera music, it’s food. Enrico, our Airbnb host, left us two pieces of information – one entitled ‘cosa mangiare’ and the other a list of noteworthy restaurants. A man after my own heart. Figuring we’d diet later, we wondered through arcades and ancient streets to pretty piazzas stuffing our faces, satisfying our stomachs … Continue reading Cosa Mangiare a Modena.
Above me a velvety night sky full of stars. Concentric circles shimmer. I’m in a vortex. Static but giddy. Drowning in light. It is a beauty that knocks me off my feet. For days now, I’ve been standing, head knocked back at a curious angle, neck cricked, staring up at apses and arches, mesmerised by sparkling, spangling bits of coloured glass. The mausoleum is small, … Continue reading Ravenna: Meals and Mosaics.
Wondering Woman 