22 Things Happy People Do Differently

This is a great article by Chiara Fucarino and you should check out her blog Life’d

http://www.lifed.com/22-things-happy-people-do-differently

Richard Branson – Opportunity Through Enterprise

This just in from Sir Richard Branson, speaking in Westminster Abbey this afternoon at the Commonwealth Day Observance service. Here is the speech he gave to the many young entrepreneurs and other guests present…

Inspiration Really Can Come From Anywhere

Below is the transcript of a speech given today by HM The Queen to commemorate Commonwealth Day 2013. While this message may speak specifically to those who live in the Commonwealth, I would urge anyone to read the text. Surely the words of this speech are a great message and ethos for life regardless of where you live in the world. I highly recommend giving this text the few minutes it will take you to read, and a few more to simply digest what the spirit of the message means to you. Food for thought…

Deja vu?

I have just got home after two and a half days of being away at a national customers conference where we must have trained close to a thousand people in the virtues of grilling, roasting, smoking and baking on a barbecue. Why do I have deja vu? Because 3 weeks ago I did the same Wednesday – Friday on the road at a national customers conference where we trained in-store staff on the virtues of grilling, roasting, smoking and baking on a barbecue… 🙂

Time Goes Faster Than You Think

So the last 2 weeks of holiday have gone by in what now seems like a flash. I took a trip out to Calgary for my sister’s birthday, and I caught up with quite a few friends I haven’t seen in a loooong time. It’s always hard to feel relaxed after a ‘visit’ because if you’re not careful you can spend most of your time rushing from one coffee meeting to a lunch and afterwards onto a dinner somewhere else. I know it must sound like ‘hell’ but I’ve done enough trans-Atlantic trips to know it is all too easy to sit back on the plane and wish you could go somewhere else to relax…

My Christmas Gift To You! A ‘How To’ Video For Cooking The Christmas Turkey :-)

So Christmas is here and there are turkeys being picked up from butchers’ shops across the world. People are making their final trips to the shops for all those key items that make Christmas so special to them and their families, before heading home hopefully to a place where loved ones gather to share a few days of fun and forget their troubles.

Didn’t He Do Well :-)

When I woke up this morning I found 3 emails from my friend Dave. One was a photo of him with his pie, another was an email to his family back in the UK telling them what he had made, and the third was with a short video he had made to tell me how much he had enjoyed the pie! 🙂

First Skype Cook-Along!

If a picture says a thousand words then this short clip is an essay! 🙂 This is just a quick post to share a milestone for me, which is to teach someone to cook via the internet. A friend asked if I’d help him learn to make a traditional Steak & Kidney Pie. Being from Yorkshire in the North of England but living in Washington DC, Dave can sometimes have a hankering for some old-fashioned British classics.

Anatomy of a Knife

So here is the first in the series for Building Your Knife Wallet and we’re going to run through the elements of a knife, specifically a Chef’s knife. Before we get into that though I should explain that for most Chef’s this is the knife that they will use for most things. Once you find a knife that is balanced, weighted and sized right for you, it will become your go to knife!

Intro to Knives

I have been approached by a friend to help her put together a useful selection of knives for when she’s cooking and baking. I thought I would share this through the blog as I’m sure we can all become bewildered at times by all of the different brands, types, shapes of knives, etc, that are out there. Doing a bit of digging I have found quite a bit of information on the basics of knives so I’m going to split this down into a few smaller posts and make the reading a bit more manageable 🙂