Author Archives: billoldfield
Chilled plum soup
If you’re lucky, like me, to have plum trees in your garden, you’ll occasionally end up with a surfeit to enable you to make this rather unusual dish. Unusual in that it’s a chilled soup as a dessert but it’s a doddle to make. In this recipe we’ve used a vanilla pod. If you can’t […]
Mince with leek dumpling and peppery swede mash
Spring may be on its way but we still need warming winter dishes, whether eating at home or in restaurants. The following recipe is reminiscent of school dinners or, at least, how they should have been if prepared and served well and is a popular dish Oldfields. And it’s interesting to note that there’s no […]
Jeremy Vine and the North East
About four years ago, out of the blue, I received a call from the Jeremy Vine Radio 2 programme. For some reason they wanted to ask how the news of the Corus steelworks closing was going to affect business. I’m not clear why they picked on me but it might have been because they also […]
Smoked haddock and egg pie with a cheesy topping
Always a favourite on our menu, we find fish pie in any form is popular – even to those who profess not to like fish. When choosing the haddock, most fishmongers will have two sorts: one that’s slightly grey in comparison to fresh haddock as a result of the smoking and another that, as […]
Mobile phones in restaurants
Mobile phones have changed the world. I know hardly anyone without one these days; even most diehards who, two or three years ago, swore they’d never get one are now surfing the web and texting while on the go. It’s been an incredible revolution over, I guess, the last 20 years. I had my first […]
Feeding the parents
I always had the best of relationships with my parents-in-law. They were wonderfully down to earth Yorkshire folk who liked to laugh, loved their family and really enjoyed their food. Father-in-law particularly loved his grub – it was one of his favourite pleasures. Like many people, for him eating was something to be enjoyed and […]
Delivered to your door
Sometimes a knock on the door is the last thing you want to hear. You’re busy, you’re in the bath, you’re getting ready to go out. We’ve all been there, one foot in your pants, hair dripping wet, trying to find your car keys. One of the worse things it can be is the postman […]
You don’t believe it
You may have known it but I didn’t. After being ridiculed at school for pronouncing the name of that chivalry revivalist of the middle ages as “quicks oat” I now discover we shouldn’t be calling him “key hotae” after all. Apparently Quixote should be pronounced Quixote and I was right all along. It was episodes […]
Millionaire’s Shortbread
If you’ve never cooked this, and you have a slightly sweet tooth, then you should do so. Immediately. And if you don’t think you’ve died and gone to heaven, then you’ve got no soul. I love the result of boiling the unopened can of condensed milk for hours until you end up with a rich […]
Good food, innit?
Don’t you just love the French? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve used that phrase in my lifetime. I know I’ve started four food-related articles with it in the last six and a half years. So today makes it a fifth then. And I do. I love the ways they do things […]
Bill Oldfield 