Like many viewers of the Last Tango in Halifax on the BBC, I cannot help noticing the extent to which kitchens feature in this series, almost to the point of being characters in their own right. In the complicated lives of the two leads Gillian and Caroline, the kitchen is the social hub for their large extended families. Gillian’s is a ‘4D’ family – four generations sharing the space – and Caroline’s a fine example of the ‘blended’ family that includes steps and exes. Both t

In the last few days I have been lucky enough to visit Milan 2014, two design shows that set the year’s interiors agenda: Salone del Mobile and Eurocucina. There really isn’t anything like these adjoining trade shows in England, or maybe anywhere else in the world. Approaching them on a metro line with thousands of others as if we were travelling to a football match, I emerged into full sun, dazzled first by the light and then the exhibits. Incidentally, as an English speak

The relationship between cooking, creativity and the kitchen environment is one of my big interests, not surprisingly. I love experimental cooking (my family aren’t so sure… home fermented sauerkraut, anyone?) and view food as a vehicle for bringing other cultures into the home kitchen. The effects of a holiday can and should be prolonged by the simple trick of food shopping while away and then recreating dishes with the ingredients you enjoyed, eg, spices from Sri Lanka, or

Andrew Solomon’s new book Far From the Tree: Children and the Search for Identity is book of the week on BBC Radio 4 and all over the review pages, here and in the USA at the moment – excitingly for me because I had the great good luck to design not one but two kitchens for Andrew, first in London and then in a New York brownstone. For his Notting Hill house he asked me to focus the design around a versatile table on which he could write, entertain at least eight people and

“Cooking is an art. By art I mean a lot of creativity and some necessary chaos. Food is a natural product and whatever is natural comes with surprising and unruly elements.” So wrote Jeanette Winterton in Saturday’s Guardian in an article entitled “For the Love of Food.” She continues: “Our culture has endeavoured to make food as artificial and synthetic as possible – then it is predictable and can be controlled.” This statement is applicable to our entire food culture, inclu