I’m careful about who we use to supply our restaurant. There are certain meat suppliers in the North East with whom I wouldn’t begin to associate ourselves as they don’t match the standards and values we’ve set. We couldn’t do what we do if we didn’t believe in our suppliers and the raw materials we […]
“How can you rear them and then eat them?”, I’m frequently asked. It’s true, I get a tremendous amount of joy out of rearing a few animals; not least the pigs. They’re such fun, intelligent and affectionate animals that I’m frequently to be found inside the electric fencing of their paddock, sitting on the […]
Dinner parties. Don’t you just love them? However, for some hosts it seems to be a sort of torture. I reckon they really started to become popular in the eighties. And of course I blame Delia, because she was the one who gave those who liked to cook the confidence to cook for others. She […]
I remember an absolutely awful story from my teens where a student at a local college had crashed his motorbike and was in a serious way. People who’d seen the accident rushed to help him and, in a bid to make him comfortable, removed his helmet which, unfortunately, resulted in him dying. That’s why Formula […]
I’d so like to write a book. I did write one a year or two back but that’s a cookbook (called, as it happens, The Passion for Real Food, essential for your bookshelf, a great present for anybody who likes cooking or, indeed, anybody who’d like to learn to cook, and available from the restaurant […]
Are we invisible here in the North East? Last weekend I eagerly opened the Sundays to read a feature about the “Lip-smacking foodie festivals in the UK and Ireland” that was boldly proclaimed on the front page. Food festivals! Now that’s something that gets me going. Not only do I get to smooch around getting […]
The girl who cuts my hair is called Trish Brown. When I say girl, she’s more of a woman these days as I’ve known her a long time; time she’s spent gaining experience with one of the best hairdressing chains in the land before, a couple of years ago, opening her own salon in Darlington […]
Have you ever met a homosexual pig? I was introduced to one recently and, I must admit, I had my doubts. It didn’t look any different from the other pigs. It wasn’t dressed in a flamboyant fashion, didn’t seem to demonstrate a greater sensitivity to what was going on around it and I’m sure, if […]
It got into the press some months agao that David Cameron’s in-laws were objecting to having a slaughterhouse built next to their home. Quite why I should be interested in the personal matters of the Prime Minister’s relations is beyond me as it’s doubtful they were a major influence in our decision at the last […]
“And pigs like melons” I was heard to say as my friend walked into the room. Normally it’s me that picks up on the tail of a conversation and gets the wrong end of the stick. His response: “Well maybe they were when you first got them but they’re a lot larger now” seemed hysterically […]
Bill Oldfield 