Gordon White

London life skills learnt the hard way. Also recipes for some reason.

Genoese Squid For People Who Never Cook Season

This recipe is Genoese-inspired, from Diana Henry’s life changing book, Food From Plenty. The dish is for people who -like me- actually really like seafood but never really cook it because they’re too chicken shit.

Radish And Olive Salad For A Confusing Detox

In between catching up with business partners, family and friends over the new year there are evenings at home spent crying into my XXXL muumuu about how much weight was gained over Christmas.

A Very European Union Of Sausages

Chorizo, for instance, goes with everything and appears fun and exciting and vivacious like a hot Spaniard you meet at sunset by the beach.

How To Do Burns Night At Home

Of course, if you are going to be racist and turn your nose up at the fine people of Scotland’s proud heritage then I am going to make you work for it. This Highland stew is much more hassle but will begrudgingly serve as a delicious replacement.

Seventies Party Food For People Who Weren’t Alive In The Seventies

Quite a number of this year’s food trends have a seventies feel to them… chopped liver, wines made of things other than grapes…

Leek And Mushroom Tart For Lazy Jerks

Posted by Gordon White

We have fallen into this horrible routine of stringent dieting during the week followed by a weekend spent cooking and stuffing our fucking faces.

And with the last lingering gasps of winter there has been a bit of an alpine theme to our fucking-face-stuffing.

Example: I cooked the most amazing tartiflette a few weekends ago but it is so bad for you I think I shall be arrested if I post the recipe.

This one is… well… I don’t want to say “better” but you certainly won’t find yourself weeping with that particular mixture of joy and self-loathing that tends …

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How To Live Like An Alcoholic

Posted by Gordon White

1. Holiday Somewhere Pretty

Italy is unfair.

It’s a country of impossibly beautiful people dressed in amazing clothes living on carbs, wine and cheese. You would think that these attractive denizens would make for a lovely view as you sit at an enotecha table in a sunny piazza but you would be wrong. They just make you cry into your fiftieth bowl of pasta for the day.

Hence it was in Italy that I made a drunken vow. Drunken vows are something I take seriously. I moved to New Zealand off the back of a drunken vow.

But this drunken …

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6 Ways Piracy Is A Life Skill

Posted by Gordon White

Obviously I don’t mean piracy in the tawdry plagiaristic sense…. No -as ever- I mean it in the camp, swashbuckling, Johnny Depp sense.

Although, there is an amazing, classic article on plagiarism that you all should read over here. From one of my personal saints/people I would stalk if we shared a city.

Piracy is about opportunism and maximising an advantage when you have one.

As a sidebar, how neat is this pirate image? I was going to ironically select this one but then I saw that one of the guys was half-fish. Call me Sarah Palin, but when two …

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Hate Your Birthday? Visit A Graveyard!

Posted by Gordon White

Living in the Northern Hemisphere means my birthday has gone from being a cold, wintry affair to a blisteringly hot pain fest in the middle of summer.

And graveyards are more enjoyable in the winter, I feel.

But whatever… We were in Paris for my birthday and that’s now a summer activity. And the Père Lachaise cemetery was our one hat tip to touristy activity. (The main purpose of the minibreak was shopping. Also drinking.)

So we arrived on the Friday, which was my actual birthday, dropped our bags off and zipped straight over to the cemetery to say hi …

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Get Your Own Hangover In 5 Simple Steps

Posted by Gordon White

A catch up with some of my London-based school chums was long overdue.

So I thought it best to risk ruining what would have been a nice, quiet evening for three people by turning it into some impromptu birthday drinks… For me.

And now that I work in town, what better place to meet up than somewhere that is an easy two block walk… For me?

Here are a few tips if you want to turn your own evening into a “3 aspirin morning” like I did.

1) Make sure it’s hot

Both inside and outside the bar. In …

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How To Return To Polite Society

Posted by Gordon White

So yes, it’s been a while.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Bad because a societal hiatus of longer than four months and you start to hoard homemade marmalade and buy television show-themed ouija boards off the internet.

But good because you get a chance for a do-over. One that you have planned for a long time… A long time.

Here’s what I have learned.

1. Sort Out Your Commute

I could walk to work at Discovery Channel because it was -and still is- in the absolute ass end of fucking nowhere.

Which is about twenty …

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And The Rest Is Silence

Posted by Gordon White

This morning I woke up feeling good, relaxed… Almost youthful. I thought it must have been because the sun was out -and that’s certainly part of it.

The other part of it is that this is apparently the first time British airspace has been completely shut down. Ever.

And it’s quiet.

These are photos taken from the outdoor chair that I pulled into my yard to doze on. I couldn’t be bothered/had too much cider to stand up so please ignore the composition.

Please also notice that not only are there no planes in the sky, there are …

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Cheapskate Macaroni

Posted by Gordon White

Been a while since I put a recipe up but this just couldn’t be missed. Actually, I thought about calling this dish Deliaroni because it’s an EVEN LAZIER version of Delia’s mother’s macaroni recipe from How To Cheat At Cooking.

For those of you outside the UK who may not have heard of Delia, she is the country’s most famous food witch and ardent football fan, as well as being some kind of Christian or something. (So, one out of three, then.)

Anyway, like the rest of the country, I absolutely adore her… Even if she has steered …