Food and drink news, latest recipes, wine reviews & more

Chemist cooking up new career – as a pie-maker

A PHARMACEUTICALS expert has swapped the lab for the chemistry of cooking in his bid to create the perfect pie. Read

Flavour of life

Michelin-starred chef John Burton Race’s new book promotes using fine quality local produce at its seasonal best. Jane Hall found out more. Read

Sicily keeps getting better

SICILY produces a lot of wine, nearly as much as Portugal, but it’s largely nothing to write home about. Read

A Taste of Persia, Marlborough Crescent, Newcastle

PERSIA sounds so exotic to me. My boyhood notion of what it was like came from images from the Arabian Nights merged in a luscious blend with camel caravans, date palm oases and the mysteries of the harem, best viewed through a gauzy film. Read

Now it’s two for dinner

TWO successful Tyneside restaurants have joined forces to encourage more people to eat with a conscience. Read

Beer with a sting

GORDON Sumner, The Entertainer and urtica dioica deserve some respect. Next week is National Be Nice To Nettles Week, a Sting-orientated love-in which coincidentally heralds the return of a seasonal ale. Read

Asparagus with dry cured ham

“THE first new season’s asparagus (available now) is one of my favourite ingredients. Read

Butcher Chris Green, who operates from premises in Longhorsley and Longframlington

Butcher shuts up shop

A FAMILY-RUN butcher’s business is ending 120 years of tradition by reluctantly pulling the shutters down on its shop in a Northumberland village. Read

Susie Howey from Food Local Food, at the Rothbury Food and Craft festival

Food fair to crowd’s taste

VILLAGERS are set to make a bank holiday community day into an annual venture after the inaugural event proved a success. Read

Hunting for supper

IT’S 5pm on a showery April Monday. Just yards from one of Newcastle’s busiest commuter roads, I’m pushing my way David Bellamy-style through the verdant, damp undergrowth of a city centre park. Read

Carrot and stick beats ranting

BEING in the food industry, you’d expect me to believe in the carrot and stick approach to management, but not everybody in my position seems to agree. Read

Gods Kitchen, Chester-le-Street

IT’S the nature of life that we all go through changes. Buildings too have a life and they go through similar transitions. Read

France’s best-kept secret

ONE of the world’s biggest vineyards spreads north from the broad estuary of the Gironde in the Charentes region of western France. Read

France’s best-kept secret

ONE of the world’s biggest vineyards spreads north from the broad estuary of the Gironde in the Charentes region of western France. Read

Oddfellows festival is a friendly drinks ‘society’

LATIN may be a dead language, but Amo, Amas, Amat survives in loving relationships. Veni, Vidi, Vici came and went with Julius Caesar, but what of Amicitia, Amor, Veritas? Read

Cooking up new food skills

FISH lovers can hook on to new culinary skills with the opening of a regional training school. Read

Taste North East Food and Drink Festival

Demanding a second bite

WHEN can we do it all again? So say stallholders who attended the first ever Journal Taste North East England Food and Drink Festival at the weekend. Read

Slow food catches on quick

Fast pace, no time, quick fix, little appetite? Alastair Gilmour opens the door on Slow Food – and does us all a favour. Read

The marvellous Muscat stands true test of time

MUSCAT is one of the greatest grape varieties and certainly one of the most ancient. Its origins are probably Mediterranean, where it still thrives. It is almost certainly a variety known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as being as attractive to bees as to humans. Read

Festival puts spotlight on the micro-brewers

STATISTICS reveal that micro-brewers are responsible for one in every six pints of beer sold in this country. On first looks, it’s impressive; on the other hand, it’s a dispiriting fact if you calculate that five out of six pints aren’t. Read