Vanilla Black Cook and Learn

These are dark times for those of us who alighted on eating out as a distraction from life’s mundanities. A few days before New Year, I seized upon the opportunity to spend a voucher for Roots that had been a kind Christmas present on the suspicion that restaurants might be about to be shuttered again,…

Source picnic

What better way to take advantage of an unseasonably warm May than with a picnic? Traditionally though, in my experience at least, picnics are little more than ways of infecting your sun-warmed food with grass and sun cream in an inconvenient location that lacks toilet facilities. In the absence of a hospitality industry to manufacture…

Comptoir Libanais Leeds Vegan menu

I’m not sure I can ever see myself taking up veganism, but I’m always up for trying something new and not the type to insist that a meal isn’t a meal unless it contains something that’s been killed. I’ve heard various viewpoints and arguments over the years, notably a speech from William Sitwell who came…

Riverford recipe box

It can be a struggle to constantly think of new dishes to try in the home. It’s oh so easy to end up relying on a few easy dishes that you’ve committed to memory and their derivatives, even more so when taking into account the trouble of getting to a supermarket to booster your stocks of obscure…

Filmore & Union summer menu (Closed)

It’s not too long since I visited Filmore & Union but whenever they have a new menu on, it’s worth a trip. They have a new summer menu to check out that’s great value at £14.95 for two courses or £18.95 for three. This menu continues the usual Filmore themes, catering for meat and dairy…

Vegan with The Whippet

The Whippet Inn has been well established in York for some time as one of the best places to go for a meat fix. Its expertise in charring meat to the right point is difficult to argue with but that specialism makes it rather less appealing for the ever increasing vegan population. With that in…

Welcome Spark York

York isn’t short of history. There’s a huge amount to learn about the history of our beautiful city. From Viking Jorvik, through Roman Eboracum and Victorian expansion to the present day, it’s easy to find most aspects of our history reflected in tourist attractions dotted across the city. Recent times have seen a reduction in…

Cardamom and Dill

I love quirky local museums. I’m never happier than when I happen upon a haphazardly curated old folk museum or village museum with odd exhibits. Keswick used to be a particular goldmine for these things, with the Cars of the Stars Museum, James Bond Museum, Puzzling Place and many others. A few of these are…