Posted by peter | February 28th, 2010 (by susie)
Driving into the wine country of Martinborough there was a subtle, almost imperceptible shift in atmosphere.
We had entered another world – a laid-back milieu of boutique wineries and small, sleepy towns that seemed to belong to a bygone age.
Our first stop in the region was Greytown. We’d been told to try The French Bakery. A white, wood-board building with smart grey signage: it looked promising from the outset and we weren’t to be disappointed.
Pete took one bite of
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Posted by peter | February 27th, 2010 (by peter)
As we drove into Hawke’s Bay through the verdant volcanic landscape of the North Island’s central hills, little did we imagine our short visit would include a car fire, cheese tasting and Super Tuscan red.
But, as we’re currently discovering, New Zealand has a wonderful capacity to surprise and delight.
Our first pit-stop was in Napier, one of the area’s largest towns, famed for its Art Deco architecture. We must have missed the prime parts on our way through (we saw more
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Posted by peter | February 22nd, 2010 (by susie)
Auckland: 3.38am.
We have arrived.
One of the many things I said shortly after we’d touched down into a steamy Auckland airport was: I need a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Twenty four hours of alcohol-free flying with a two-year-old followed by the welcoming New Zealand sunshine had left me rather parched.
I wasn’t to be disappointed, either. After a brief interlude, including picking up our shiny red yet spatially challenged Ford Focus hire car and duly getting lost in
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Posted by peter | February 20th, 2010 (by peter)
Bangkok: 2:42am. Sleepless. The air con is humming gently. The horizon remains steadfastly glittering, gaudy. Perhaps blogging will help..?
Last night, we savoured the charms of Flow, one of the several restaurants in the Millennium Hilton, Bangkok. We’d flown in during the afternoon, on a stop-over en route to Auckland. Despite the time difference and sleep deprivation, our first thoughts were for the evening’s food and drink. A promising Thai cuisine venue in the hotel was
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Posted by peter | February 18th, 2010 A very quick post to say we are thrilled to have both been short-listed for the IWSC Communicator of the Year Award 2010.
It’s a real boost to have our work recognised in this way and we’re over the moon. We’re also taking it as a very welcome validation of everything we do here on the site, and with the wine school.
Things have moved fairly quickly since we launched this venture in September 2009, and we couldn’t be happier.
Onwards and upwards!
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Posted by peter | February 18th, 2010 (by susie)
Being a devotee of all things fizzy, golden and expensive, I was intrigued to see Champagne Lanson’s recently launched publication: The Little Black Book of Champagne.
OK, so in essence it’s a PR exercise as part of Lanson’s 250th anniversary celebrations, but it’s also quite a fun little book, with bits on Champagne Etiquette (eg turn the bottle, not the cork, when opening), the most expensive Champagne in the world (a bottle of 1928 Krug sold in Hong Kong,
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Posted by peter | February 16th, 2010 (by peter)
Before I went on the Katie Martin show on BBC Radio Solent, one of the Twitter brethren offered me the following input.
“O you’ll love going to Radio Solent!! They’re like one big family!”
And blow me down if Julie from Hampshire wasn’t spot on. Without getting all cuddly about it, BBC Southampton is an impressive set up (largely, I was informed, because of the presence of the TV arm, which makes South Today).
And everyone is, well, like a big happy family. Rebecca the
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Posted by susie | February 10th, 2010 (by susie)
Today I’ve been filming just down the road from me in Eastleigh for this week’s Saturday Kitchen.
We had almost every type of weather imaginable from bright sunshine to snow and an icy wind. I’m now thankfully back in the warmth of my centrally-heated home and just beginning to thaw out, so here’s a brief run-down of what to expect.
This week’s show features two very different recipes: a classic from Ken Hom of Chinese-style chicken on a bed of crispy noodles, and
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Posted by peter | February 10th, 2010 Montana South Island Pinot Noir 2008, 13.5%
£6.99 down from £8.99, Waitrose (until 16th Feb 2010)
The thing about Pinot Noir is it usually comes from just one spot. It’s a winemaker thing. Pinot means place. And that’s it.
The trouble with this is as follows. In certain – actually, probably the majority of sites, where the vines are young or the winemakers haven’t quite worked out the intricacies of handling the particularly pernickety Pinot, this can make for wines that just lack
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Posted by peter | February 8th, 2010 (by peter)
In our house, you can generally tell when a Saturday Kitchen shoot is coming up.
Susie starts stockpiling obscure ingredients. Then she busies herself around the kitchen, murmuring incantations. Occasionally, a sotto voce (and mostly relatively mild) profanity emanates from her general direction, usually in the direction of the chef and author of the recipe lined up for the show. (But sometimes towards me; I maintain a low profile just in case.)
At the same time a mini profusion of
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