Posts by Tom Johnston

Yesterday was the so called Glorious Twelfth. Depends on your viewpoint, I suppose. Less than wonderful if you’re a grouse, as it’s the start of the shooting season. I came to grouse late in life, and I can certainly see what the fuss is about, but prices are always inflated immediately after twelfth in the…

At this time of year, many of you may be enjoying (or suffering) a glut of tomatoes. Here are a couple of recipes. The first is for a soup which is good at any time of year, but has a beautiful summery colour. A word of warning: the tomatoes need to be quite sweet, though…

Scotland, we are told, produces the finest soft fruit in the world. We do, do we? Well, not on the basis of the strawberries I’ve had this year. At the beginning of the season the quality  could be forgiven because of the lack of sunshine: no such excuses now, and I still haven’t had any…

An invisible ingredient? I hear you repeat in wonder. How can this be? Now, I concede that, out there, there exist people with palettes so refined, that they can detect everything. Some of you may be among them: but you are rare. Alice Waters of the legendary Chez Panisse in California set a challenge to her…

Stews and Curries If you stop and examine closely the contents of many of our favourites, the ingredients by themselves aren’t all that sinful. There are two things which hike up the calorie count. Firstly, in this comparatively affluent age, we are likely to include a much higher proportion of meat, chicken or whatever than…

Well, the final instalment. At last, I hear you cry. One of the main purposes of this section has been to try to ensure you don’t die of ignorance, in other words to point out the truly horrendous number of calories to be found in processed food. Takeaway See also under Curry and Pizza. This…

Well, the food A – Z is (gently, I hope) suggesting that pasta and pizza shouldn’t feature on your regular menu. Here are a couple of lower calorie options which may fool the brain slightly. Spiralised Courgettes All’ Amatriciana Now when spiralisers hit the market, I was right up there voicing my contempt at this…

This is the penultimate in the A – Z series. Some of this may be no more than stating the obvious, but there may be a few surprises. Meat Lean meat is better for dieters, but if your meat has fat it on it, don’t remove it before cooking. Just don’t eat it. Beef is…

I used my May sabbatical to get a few articles in the can, as it were, to be able to roar back as fresh as, well… a very fresh thing. At the time of writing I was fairly unsure what the rules would be about entertaining, but it surely can’t be too long before we…

The thing, said Kenny, is that everyone who wants to lose weight will tell you that they hate salads. Until I started going to France regularly, I was probably among their number. Remember the Scottish attempt at a “salad”? A piece of cold meat, or worse. Possibly a birstled three day old Scotch egg whose…