21 December - latest update
6 November
29 October
10 October
11 August
7 August
18 April
23 February

21 December

Another load - probably the last of the year. My love affair with capers is still going on. Two recipes below mention them in the title, but there's a third which also includes them. You'll have to read to find out which one it is. If you're getting tired of reading about capers don't worry, The jar will soon be finished.

I have a strange phenomenon to report. Every time I try to write 'peppers' I write 'peepers' and have to correct it. I just noticed this while doing this bunch of recipes.

Off to Malaysia tomorrow, via Sri Lanka then later on to Hong Kong. Happy New year everyone. Will try to blog something while we're out.

New recipes
creamy cauliflower fettuccine with capers and cashews
green pepper salad
courgette and capers pasta
dry fried aubergine
fluffy cheese balls
pkhali - Georgian spinach (or beetroot) and walnut pate

New cartoons
Nessie part 4

New stories
Penny dainties

6 November

This time I have written up some new recipes - a traditional one from the Caucuses, two from experiments that turned out quite well, one from a restaurant menu but with a little Macbean twist - the original was made with chicken but I've produced a lacto-veggie version (which is probably much tastier than the original) - and one from the half tin of pineapple that was left over from the previous recipe.

making a few new pages which you can find the links to below.

New recipes
Italian-style stir-fry
strained yoghurt with walnuts and herbs
spicy tomato and walnut dip
paneer and pineapple in tomato sauce
pineapple raita

29 October

I've been spending the last while working on the design of the site rather than producing new stuff. I think the front page is an improvement and I hope you'll agree...

Unfortunately, most of the photos and video clips I thought I had uploaded last time didn't actually get uploaded. Don't know what happened - but I put it down partly to working in an unfamiliar environment. I took all my files, plus a copy of Dreamweaver, on a flash memory stick and borrowed a computer in Hong Kong....and something went wrong somewhere. But I'm reunited with my own note-book now and I think I've fixed all the problems - uploaded another bunch of photos too, while I was at it. I added some new pics to my mountains and wallpapers pages as well as making a few new pages which you can find the links to below.

New recipe pages
Fat-free and low-fat recipes

New photo pages
flowers
Chinese spiders

10 October

Well the video page seems to work so I've added a few more clips. My favourite of the new ones is the Hong Kong dredger. You can see the page here. I've also been busy putting new photo pages up. Check out the list below. And that's it for now. I've been writing in my notebook as we travel but haven't had time to put everything into HTML. Will get a few recipes up soon....

New photo pages
Armenian gulls
Hrazdan Gorge toy railway, Yerevan, Armenia
Lumsden Sculpture walk, Scotland

11 August

As an experiment, I'm introducing a video page. There are five short clips on it already and you can see it here.

7 August

I've been making quite a few changes to the site...the front page has been mutating for a while now. I want a new look but I still haven't decided exactly how it should be. If you've visited before, you'll notice some new adverts scattered about. I'm wondering if I can actually make a bit of cash doing my cookbook rather than spending it. If I do, it will give me more time to write and upload stuff instead of doing shitty odd jobs to pay for the internet connection and stuff.

I'm doing a job at the moment which is a bit more stable than the kind I usually do, but by all other accounts, it's definitely odd. I'll be packing it in very shortly and Sveta and I will be back on the road for a while. Armenia is very a pleasant country, but it's getting a bit boring. We're off on a trip next week, starting from Central Asia, heading down through China and eventually into Hong Kong to hassle the kids.

New recipes
creamy courgette and red pepper pasta
Arabic-style beans
green beans and walnut salad
peppers stuffed with potatoes

New cartoons
A moose cartoon
Yozhik the famous coconut part 4
Yozhik the famous coconut part 5

New stories
A load of Barry

18 April

Some more new pages, but the main thing I've been doing the last while is going through the site fixing broken links or ones which led in the wrong direction, redesigning some pages, writing some extra material in the intros to recipes and fixing some bits of dodgy html code. A lot of work, but I think the site is already looking better for it and I haven't finished yet.

New recipes
trios verdes salad
pasta with olives and sun-dried tomatoes
croutons

New stories
A field of bees

23 February

I think this is the longest I've gone yet without doing an update but since it's not quite April yet, I would like to start by saying 'Happy New Year'. Been in Armenia for a while now...getting into cooking with pomegranates, capers, walnuts....some nice ingredients here. Despite the length of time since my last update, this is a relatively rushed job. I just started getting back into working on my site a few days ago and we're off travelling tomorrow...the Netherlands, then England.

As you'll have noticed, I've decided to change my home page completely. I was getting fed up with the old one. I've made quite a few structural changes to the site and apologise in advance for any broken or incorrect links I may have inadvertently created.

New recipes
green salad with capers and olives
olive, pomegranate and sweet corn salad
hot and sweet cabbage salad
lentil and coriander cutlets
Scots porridge
buckwheat,spinach and tofu pilaf

New cartoons
Yozhik the famous coconut part 3

New Photo pages
Armenian churches
Katchkars
The Armenian alphabet