Disagreements over chocolate are commonplace: some people prefer milk, some dark. Family members and friends may well argue over who gets to eat the nation’s favourite Quality Street (according to a 2021 article in the Daily Telegraph it is the purple one ) and who is lumbered with the least favourite (the orange creme according to the same article). But you wouldn’t normally expect such differences to be described as a ‘war’. Continue reading “The Chocolate War”
Food and generosity
In my last post I blogged about Maggie O’Farrell’s latest novel, The Marriage Portrait, inspired by My Last Duchess by Robert Browning, a poem which I taught frequently during my career as a secondary school English teacher.
The text that inspired this post – Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird – was also one I taught frequently (as well as also studying it when I was at school). Continue reading “Food and generosity”
A Woman’s Lot in Renaissance Italy
In my previous existence as a secondary school English teacher I frequently taught Robert Browning’s poem My Last Duchess to my GCSE classes – click here to read the poem.
A Chemistry Lesson
It is not uncommon for cooking – specifically baking – to be likened to chemistry. The way that baking requires the cook to mix together ingredients in specific quantities which then combine and, through the application of heat, turn into a new product, is not dissimilar to what happens in the chemistry experiments we all participated in at school. Continue reading “A Chemistry Lesson”