You turnip! Vegetable insults around the world
In Zambia, an opposition politican has been charged with defamation for comparing the president to a potato. Speaking on the radio earlier this week, Frank Bwalya…
Pearl Buck in China
I recently finished reading Hilary Spurling’s masterful biography of Pearl Buck, the daughter of American missionaries who grew up in China and became a novelist who…
A Chinese view of Italian food
You can read my piece about eating my way around Piedmont with Chinese restaurateur A Dai on the From Our Own Correspondent pages of the BBC’s…
Turin adventures
I’m just back from a week in Turin for my first Slow Food Salone Del Gusto and Terra Madre. The Salone Del Gusto centres on a…
The culinary delights of Suzhou
You can read my article about Suzhou cuisine in today’s Financial Times Weekend. Here are a few photographs from my various trips there: one of my…
El Bulli
The legendary Catalan chef Ferran Adria announced last night that he would be closing his restaurant, El Bulli, after the next two seasons. As I think…
General Tso’s chicken (again)
Francis Lam has written an interesting piece on the history of General Tso’s chicken for Salon.com. And I think it may clear up one of the…
Feeding the Buddha
My old friend Volker, who readers of ‘Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper’ may remember as my original partner-in-crime at the Sichuan cooking school, came to stay…
Fusion food in Shoreditch
Non-Chinese cooks often consider Chinese food as a complete world apart from other styles of food, but I find that Chinese cold dishes mix well with…
Through Chinese eyes
A Chinese woman I met the other day has fallen in love with London. Why? Because ‘it’s so crappy and dirty, the streets are narrow and…