One of the things Jamaica was meant to do was fill us with lots of fresh local food. It turns out that July is not the best month for this and thus our first few days seemed to involve endless servings of rice and peas - to the extent that by the second week no more could be stomached. read more...

This morning we got up and went into Manchester in an uncharacteristically swift manner with ideas of shoes and schaufensterbummeling. Getting out of the car Jackie's memories of mis-spent youth kicked in resulting in breakfast at the Koffee Pot - clearly a most venerable institution serving greasy breakfasts and covered in posters from interesting sounding upcoming gigs. read more...

The Heatons, being the affluent suburbs that they are play host to (count them) three traditional butchers shops: Littlewood Butchers just down the road in Heaton Chapel and over in Heaton Moor, La Charcuterie and Jacksons Butchers. Considering the bemoaning of peoples lack of interest in local butchers and reliance on supermarket tripe (or rather complete lack of actual tripe. read more...

Among other benefits, our new abode boasts a wealth of nearby things-to-do including the bright lights of Heaton Moor, a busstling little area full of handy shops (a hardware shop from which we have already bought a whole heap of plasticware and one called "Bumps and Babies" which we have both been eyeing up for some time) and trendy eateries one of which we visited when my dad, stepmother and smallest sister came round on Sunday. I had initially intended to go to the Bakery - however it was occupied with a party of some sort so we bobbed down Heaton Moor Road to the Town Bar. read more...

We recently acquired a Bread Maker from Jackie's mother and have now made several attempts at using it. We started off in a similar vein to our manual attempts with a plain white bread recipe. read more...

A mere three hours after having lunch at the Creperie de la Comedie in Montpellier we found ourselves at Liaisons Gourmande in Gignac. Stomach wise this was perhaps a little on the ambitious side as our salads and crepes were not exactly small - however we somehow managed to squeeze in a whole three course meal and were pleasantly surprised. read more...

On a slightly impulsive shoe-shopping trip to Montpellier on our last day in France we had to stop off for a bite to eat and some refreshment in the Place de la Comedie (aka the Oeuf). The Oeuf is a massive open space in the middle of town lined with cafes, bars, the theatre, the opera house, little stalls and is rather like the junction box of the city through which all must pass to get from one place to another. read more...

On our meandering way back from Pezenas today we nearly stopped for dinner in Meze but thought better of being under-dressed in shorts and T-Shirt, went home to change and then went back out to the Tournesol in Clermont l'Herault. We have now been here three times over the last four years and reviewed it in the past with a wee bit of negativity in our words, but I think this time, knowing to expect a certain amount of nouvellneness in the overall style of the food we had a really very pleasant experience of it. read more...

Much as it isn't particularly continental, when you've got a pregnant person in tow you have to make concessions and buy things like breakfast cereal. It was a bit of a funny choice. read more...

The other week, in the interests of healthy food for the bump and because Jackie had added some yeast to last month's shopping it became time to make some bread. To give us a bit of a nice simple head-start we turned to Nigel Slater's Appetite which has a recipe involving yeast, flour, water and a little salt (which I forgot to put in). read more...

My sister Sarah came up to Manchester today and as seems to be becoming traditional Jackie and I took her out for a slap-up near-birthday meal. Needing to top last years' rather interesting experience at Prana in Birmingham I figured we had to find something pretty good. read more...

Sometimes, home-made pasta is just too much faff. Particularly if you aren't feeling well. read more...

This Christmas we received a rather fabulous Imperia Pasta Machine (thanks again V&A&W&T). Anyone who has tried making pasta will know that it's one of those things you wouldn't want to do every other evening. read more...

Our quest for the most efficient shopping scenario in the universe has lead us (with thanks to Babyworld) to meat-online. co. read more...

Of the many delightful things we got from Northern Harvest one of the stand-out items was a big block of cheddar. Now when you think cheddar you of course think of generic rubbery special best bogof boring jaundiced cheddar. read more...

The one night we didn't really fancy going out or even cooking, we opted for the takeaway down the road. the Chinese takeaway, Do-Long. read more...

We found Sophieneck quite accidentally last year just wandering round. It looked so good from the outside we made a point of going to investigate later in the week and it did not disappoint. read more...

For a totally enlightening culinary experience you can't beat eating in pitch blackness. We visited Nocti Vagus, Berlin's celebrated "dunkel-restaurant" and after ironically getting slightly lost on the way there we found ourselves in what looked like a reasonably smart normal kind of bar. read more...

The big JISC-Cetis conference has come round and since this year it is at Heriot Watt, I took Jackie up to Edinburgh for a birthday treat before I headed off to do my thang. I've been to Edinburgh several times since I started this job, but this is the first chance I've to actually see any of it, so we threw ourselves in and did the full weekend break thing, castle and all. read more...

Jackie has been experiencing desires for chocolate cornflakes over the last few weeks, however as Asdas is a little too far away right now she has been fobbed-off by the re-introduction of Texan bars in the local village newsagent. Rumour has it that the bar disappeared in about 1984 (possibly something to do with the Miners Strike) but has been reborn in a slightly less chewy form - but nonetheless produced a pleasant reaction. read more...

With Alex's recommendation firmly in our heads we thought that after getting home from some rather sad family duty in Yorkshire we would fill our bellies with a take-away from Welsh's Caribbean Restaurant. They have a very nice website including their take-away menus so with some high hopes we dialled up some curry goat, jerk chicken, saltfish fritters and rather mysterious "ground food". read more...

Once in a while a special occasion comes along requiring excellent food in nice surroundings - and our 4th anniversary certainly counts. The Hotel-Restaurant de la Source in the village of Villeneuvette is a guaranteed winner in both respects come rain or shine - it has a copious terrasse for hot summer evenings and for cooler times a vaulted dining room. read more...

Our plan on arrival, it being a Sunday, was to find somewhere random to eat in Nimes as we had plenty of time and no chance of finding an open supermarket. We had a quick look at the arena from the outside and wondered to a nearby square to get a drink. read more...

We dragged a magnificent party of eleven from Alt-i-lab along to Nirmals, the legendary Indian restaurant on West Street, Sheffield. Our truly international crowd (English, West Indian, Belgian, Scottish, Australian, Dutch, Norwegian, Canadian, Ukrainian and Brummie) was well catered for by the ever persuasive Mrs Nirmal. read more...

To round off our week in Sheffield we treated ourselves, with high hopes and great anticipation, to dinner at Antibo. This classy sounding Italian place had a reasonably interesting looking menu and had been described by our good friend Rob as somewhere worth taking our time over. read more...

Is it a fish or a handbag. We were not quite sure but on closer inspection it turned out to be a restaurant in Birmingham - fronting delightfully on to the expressway and just next door to the "Mailbox", Harvey Nicks and all that. read more...

We got an indian takeaway this evening from Spice Island on Tonge Moor Road. (Phone: 01204 361678)<br/> We didn't have a menu for the place so put in our order by regular guesswork. read more...

To celebrate actually finding something to watch in the video shop worth watching, we were drawn to the Revels which were emblazoned with the words "new sweet". How exciting. read more...

If you are ever stuck in the Intercontinental Hotel in Berlin and have already figured out that the OK Diner is a total rip-off you might be tempted by Romiosini across the road. It's not really worth it though being cheap and cheerful with a hint of lethargy and an emphasis on the cheap. read more...

Our first day in Berlin involved sleeping, mainly followed by an attempt to eat. Trouble was they had moved several roads since our map was printed and by the time we had navigated our way round the block in both directions "Paris Moskau" itself was out of tables. read more...

Woohoooooo. finally found a takeaway that delivers. read more...

Edinburgh is fab - the place really appeals to my sense of direction what with all the little snickets and bridges and ups and downs. It's not exactly short on culture either there being lots of music in the air and theatres everywhichwhere. read more...

As I was feeling rather hungry yesterday I went out into Bolton in search of food and found the Olympus Fish and Chip Restaurant. On entering I was greeted with breakneck speed by the owner Tassos who sports one of the largest grins I have seen in a long time. read more...

Finding a decent restaurant in bolton is no mean feat particularly considering that there seems to be a general lack of decent sites containing reviews by genuine punters (there is of course no shortage of 'directory' sites willing to tell locations, phone numbers and nothing else). The best of the bunch seems to be visit-bolton. read more...

This was a curious place, set in the delightful Smithills Country Park, which itelf seems like a very good place for a lazy afternoon wander. The coaching house was curious in that it had a rather intrusive Dickensian thing going on - not only on the decor but also all over the menus to the point where it took half an hour of staring at the menu to work out that "Mr Winkle's Surprise" meant Scampi and Chips. read more...

We have now used this Chinese takeaway twice - and as it's our nearest will probably end up using it quite a lot. On both occasions the food was good, tasty though ineveitably crammed with salt (come on arteries, harden. read more...