The Aperitif Guy

If you listen to my podcast¹, you will have heard last week how much I love to celebrate the winter festivals of St Nicholas, Advent and Christmas, and how I associate them with baking. I published my recipes for Dutch Sinterklaas biscuits last year, so I thought I'd treat you to my French recipe this year. Although sugar cane was cultivated in Europe in the middle ages, it was very expensive to produce and limited in its geographical spread, confined mainly to the island of Sicily and, later, Madeira. Sugar-based sweetmeats were luxury goods, even for the wealthy, and honey was the most commonly used sweetener. Rye was a popular grain for bread-making throughout central Europe, due to it being hardier than wheat and able to tolerate a wider variety of soil conditions. Finally, there are the spices that give pain d'épices its name (literally, 'spice-bread'): cinnamon, aniseed and nutmeg or mace. Aniseed is the predominant flavour, which is hardly surprising: it grows n...

In these days of social distancing, widespread home-working and self-isolation, there is a real danger that loneliness or boredom will affect us more deeply than we're ready for. We can't always manage our feelings, but what we can do is manage our activities to ensure they affect us as positively as possible. Any number of people are posting some brilliant suggestions to help us. Here are a few from me. Structure your day Drifting through an unstructured day is a recipe for boredom and procrastination. So set your alarm clock and get up at a regular time. Establish a few little rituals to mark the passing of the day: a morning walk, time to work, an online chat & coffee with a friend, early evening music. Whatever it is that you enjoy doing, give yourself bursts of that at the same time every day. Eat well Start the day with a good breakfast and space your meals out as part of your daily rituals. You will need some treats to keep you going, as well as the hea...

A table set for a St Patrick's night dinner Rain. Something Ireland has in abundance. Soft, constant rain. The Gulf Stream brings warm water up the Atlantic to the west coast of Ireland, ensuring the winters are never truly harsh, but it also ensures that the weather systems making landfall on that coast are well and truly water-laden. Cool air off the mountains condenses the water, which then falls as rain. It’s not great news for tourism, but it makes for fantastic agriculture. Ireland has always been a producer of good food. The rain makes for rich pasture for beef and dairy cattle alike. Milk, butter and cheeses are sweet and plentiful. Beef is firm and flavoursome. Small-scale farming and crofting mean that sheep farming produces high-quality lamb and mutton that is much sought-after throughout Europe. However, it is the pig that dominates the Irish domestic table. You won’t go long in Ireland before being served pork, bacon or ham. Any country that has know...

Although I am known for grand dinner parties like the one I blogged about a few weeks ago ( http://blog.theaperitifguy.co.uk/2020/01/bringing-it-all-together.html ), I also love more intimate dinners. Six or eight people around a table is a nice number, because most recipes are given in quantities for six, and a bottle of wine pours six to nine glasses (depending on the size of your glass). However, there are times when you're hankering for something a little more relaxed, or maybe you need to have a serious or more sensitive conversation, or you just want a quieter night. These are the times when dinner for two or four is wonderful. There are a number of recipes I can always rely on. These are things I've been cooking for years, recipes I know by heart and can easily play variations on when I'm entertaining. They're brilliant when I'm cooking for ten, as I often do, because I know they can be done in advance, and the recipes are easily scaled-up without loss...

Yes, I've used the 'C' word, and it's not even half way through November! Baking, though, won't wait. Christmas inevitably involves a lot of hospitality for us, so early preparation is key if I'm going to enjoy the festivities. Many of my favourite recipes have been handed from one friend to another, one generation to the next and are recorded on old envelopes and bits of paper stuffed into the back of an old cookbook. I love the stories and memories that go with them and I'm making a point of collecting them into a book to give to my next generation when they're old enough. They may have to get used to my habit of swinging from metric to imperial measures and back again, though. I'm of that age group who were taught using both, and, although I'm equally comfortable with each, I struggle to convert from one to the other. I just use the version I've been given. A Boxing Day buffet, with cake, sausage rolls and mince pies Cakes ...