I’m a freelance journalist and writer – mostly on food, drink and travel – author of the Guardian’s long-running “How to Make the Perfect…” recipe column, a weekly fixture since 2011 (initially in G2, you can now find it in the Saturday Feast section, and online), and seven books; five cookbooks and two food-focused travelogues.
My work has also appeared in the Sunday Times, FT, Telegraph, Daily Mail, New Statesman, Literary Review, National Geographic Traveller Food, delicious, olive, Sainsbury’s Magazine, Waitrose Weekend, Eurostar’s Metropolitan Magazine andBA High Life, amongst others, and I’ve popped up on BBC Radio Four and Two, RTE and BBC2’s Great British Menu.
I’ve won two Guild of Food Writers Awards, one Fortnum and Mason award for Cookery Writer of the Year and been shortlisted for several others, including the Andre Simon awards. My sixth book, One More Croissant for the Road, was also a Sunday Times bestseller and a Radio Four book of the week.
I also teach food and non-fiction writing for Guardian Masterclasses and the Arvon Foundation, and have interviewed authors including Nigella Lawson, Dame Mary Berry and Yotam Ottolenghi on stage. I’ve been cod fishing in the Arctic Ocean (and caught a turbot), cooked barbecue in Kansas City and sung karaoke in Kagoshima (the less said about the last the better).
I’m based in London, but like to get out of the city as much as possible, either on my bike (most recently cycling the length of Shetland) or in the company of my cairn terrier Wilf, and, very occasionally, with both.
