All about me

My favorite meal-time!

On my voyage through life I want each dish to be memorable: 

I want my food to take me to new shores and to discover new flavours but not at the expense of my time.

I value taste but also health and I want my cooking to reflect this. Above all I long for quick, easy yet tasty, real, nourishing, festive meals.

 My favourite time is tea-time and I am lucky to live in a town where it is the best meal of the day…

I love food, travel, literature and London in that order and I want to share my recipes for enjoying them all .

I cook a mixture of traditional and modern dishes, taking my pick of the best of French, English and Mediterranean offerings.

Last but not least, I am concerned by our impact on the environment and I want to cook along with the seasons, using local and fresh ingredients that have been grown in a responsible and respectful way.

In praise of a gourmet childhood:

I want to remember how exciting food was when I was a child. Meals at home where not so much a feast as a thrilling punctuation of our day: Discovery, taste and a shared love of celebration for celebration’s sake were what fashioned the menu.

I feel blessed I grew up in a household where food was given the festive place it deserves. We were grateful for each meal and curious about new sensations. It shaped the way I travel: I go and check out the market first, sample restaurants next and love recreating at home the holiday flavours I enjoyed abroad.

I am not a trained cook, just an enthusiastic one; and I just cook what I want to eat. With no other agenda, I follow my fancy to wherever it takes me – but then, that’s what I’ve always done in life.

I was lucky enough to be free to follow my own path.

I only realised later that a foodie education in Provence was something to feel grateful for. Not to mention the early introduction to wine-tasting!

Our family meals were at the crossroads of three countries: France, Spain and Morocco. Three places where my maternal grandmother has spent many years of her life and gathered all the ideas she has been so generously teaching me. Living in London, my cooking has sprung from many more sources of inspiration and I now love mixing all these influences into the meals I produce and the recipes I write here.

Thank you for visiting my on-line food diary. I hope you get inspired too! And if you are into running challenges too , check out my new book on AMAZON, full of motivational and nutritional advice: “Journal pour un premier Marathon”.

Diane