“So on Christmas morning I was up at five o'clock, making the fire as bright as a furnace, baking minc'd pies and boiling plum puddings the size of Medici cannonballs, and setting three sides of roast beef to turn on… — Martine Bailey Copy Share Image
“Look, I fetched some Fat Hen for you.' Jem offered me a bunch of wilting greens. I reached for the plants, rubbed the leaves with a snap of my finger and thumb and sniffed. They were as fresh as spinach but not so peppery and warm. And wasn't that a faint whiff of cat's piss? Mrs G always said I… — Martine Bailey Copy Share
“Around me shone the kitchen I'd worked in each day: the copper pans hung neatly, the scratched wooden table and neat blue plates set in rows on the dresser. I got up to rake out the cinders and suddenly clutched at the black stone of the hearth. How long was it since as a new girl I'd first spiked a… — Martine Bailey Copy Share
“It was almost Christmas, and Renzo was preparing all the delicacies Florentines must eat at the festival: roast eels, goose, fancy cakes with marzipan… — Martine Bailey Copy Share Image
“Sal and Henry return with a gust of warm garden air and I settle down to create miniature roses from sugarpaste using tiny ivory spatulas and crimpers. I will have no antique tester bed crowning my cake, only a posy of flowers: symbols of beauty and growth, each year new-blossoming. I let Henry paint the broken pieces with spinach juice,… — Martine Bailey Copy Share
“There was a new smell in the air at Lyons, of sun-baked southern stuffs, of strong red vinegar, and spikes of rosemary. It was a good thing too, for some of the streets were stinking warrens, and the beggars near withered me to death. The beggary was not for want of charity, for the place was a mass of popish… — Martine Bailey Copy Share
“Signor Renzo's lodge stood on a grassy knoll near the crest of the hill. It was a modest place, just a low stone hut, before which stretched a woven ceiling of vines. My dinner was cooked on an open fire by the table. This was no banquet, but what the cook called a pique-nique, a meal for hunters to take… — Martine Bailey Copy Share
“The Cocoa-Nut Tree at Covent Garden? Why it's the finest confectioner in the capital and sells bonbons, macaroons, candied fruits, and ices,' I said… — Martine Bailey Copy Share Image
“While Mr Loveday aired my lady's sheets, I set to scratching up a supper. With not even time to change from my own damp… — Martine Bailey Copy Share Image
“On December the twenty-third, the park was hazy from clammy mists that muted and softened all color and distance. Michael had not set off… — Martine Bailey Copy Share Image
“Every cook knows it's a rare day when you have all the parts of the perfect dish. But that day back at Mawton I… — Martine Bailey Copy Share Image
“I was thrown together with Florence, or 'Florawns' as she was called, a pert girl of nineteen who worked in our kitchen and was… — Martine Bailey Copy Share Image
“I'd give me two eyes for a slice of apple pie." She was brain-cracked, but spoke for them all. Then Tabby Jones joined in,… — Martine Bailey Copy Share Image
