fatfoodclub

It's crazy to think of food without thinking of alcohol. Cheese and wine have long been associated together. In Germany,  beer is served alongside sausage and in Russia they even drink vodka with breakfast. But this isn't a geography lesson in food and drink. So, back to my point, these two things go well together and no better example can be given than to that of the trusty takeaway. Firstly, they are like the late night peace keepers running an operation between people leaving bars to them getting home to bed. Secondly, they serve the needs of people who are hungry, finished with pubs and in some cases moved onto decorating shopfront windows and who now turn to food as the only cure to fill their now even bigger appetites. Once inside you are hurried along, your order quickly placed and served before the worlds most patient staff who carry looks of having seen this all too many times before are interpreting yet another sentence of words that usually comes with free garlic b…

It's fair to say that the high streets across Britain have been taken over with coffee shops like Starbucks, Costa and Cafe Nero. And why not, the tea in Starbucks is some of the best available and the very generous Costa card continues to serve up decent cappuccinos. La Petite Cafe Bistro is no different, it serves up good coffee. It offers the usual list of coffees on the blackboard perfectly situated behind the counter and before the order is finished the coffee is made. Unlike Starbucks et al, fresh food doesn't come in plastic wrappers or microwaved on order. There is no fridge which leaves the impression food had been waiting all day and there is no one asking for your name only for it to be mispelt on the side of a plastic cup. And this is where the high street chains have  become predictable and boring. Independant places are standing proud. Their food matches the same attention and quality given to their coffee. A nation of tea drinkers are being replaced with a nat…

Supermarkets would proudly show off their produce with deals and half price offers on the very best and freshest food available. Growing up on healthy lifestyle packed with fruit and veg was a very important part of childhood. The humble tomato played centrepiece to salads with iceberg lettuce, peppers, cucumber slices of bread and always salad cream. The humble tomato, bright, colourful and red.

It was only recently things became clear. Supermarkets had been very clever, my palate trained. My senses, tricked. They had left an impression that things would never change. The salad was always just going to taste like it always ever did. Plain. Bland. The tomato, perfectly round, not yet ripened and somewhere perfectly between sweet and bitter making it neutral and tasteless. And no wonder a million people will stand proud declaring they are done with salads, their hate for the tomato. Salads have had a fair bashing. And for good reason.

Enter the farmers market. Supermarkets have step…