Latest Edition
Wake up
Time to beat energy slumps
You didn’t go to bed late, so how come you’ve woken up feeling tired – again? Whether it’s due to overwork, stress, family demands or a medical matter, fatigue can affect your health. Healthy Food Guide experts help you get your energy back.
Tired all the time? It’s a modern-day ailment, which, unless you’re a chronic insomniac or a new parent, could be a sign you’re over-stressed, over-stimulated and find it a struggle to relax and recharge. Despite technological advances and time-saving devices, our busy lives mean there never seems to be enough time. That feeling of being overwhelmed and overloaded can easily become a permanent fixture.
‘We’re always switched on: we can be accessed any time, anywhere, by phone, text, email or Skype,’ says HFG expert and GP Dawn Harper. ‘Many of my patients tell me there’s always something to think about or worry about – some other thing they should be doing, whether they’re lying in bed, driving to work or meant to be relaxing on holiday. It’s mentally exhausting.’
You can read the full article in the Winter 2015 edition of CuiZine.
Your room awaits @ The Swan
Private dining and more
Make the short drive out to the pretty village of Salford, just ten minutes from the centre of Milton Keynes or Junction 14 of the M1, and you’ll find The Swan.
This wonderful pub set inside a lovely tile-hung Edwardian building combines a bustling bar to catch up with friends over a drink after work, a smart eatery serving outstanding quality food, and beyond it a sunny terrace which is an idyllic place to relax.
PRIVATE DINING
The Barn sits just by the entrance to The Swan and offers a lovely venue for all sorts of events. Enjoy the same attentive service as in the eatery but with the menu, layout and whole experience tailored exactly to fit your needs.
This beautiful country pub has undergone a transformation inside and out to make it an even more stunning place to enjoy fantastic food cooked by its award-winning head chef Stefano Boi and warm hospitality from its friendly team. For memorable dining, whether you come for a family celebration, an intimate wedding breakfast or an elegant dinner party with friends or colleagues, The Swan is the perfect place.
You can read the full article in the Winter 2015 edition of CuiZine.
Cocktail shaker!
A surprising history of the cocktail
With the Christmas party season approaching, the sensible advice is to avoid mixing our drinks. Unless, of course, you enjoy a good cocktail. Here’s a brief history of how the drink came to be such an integral part of having a fun time.(more…)
Previous Editions
Italian Job
A visit to an Italian cookery school
All the ingredients for a great day
Want to create fabulous homemade Italian dishes? Then you may like to spend a few hours with Giuliana Cortese at her cookery school in Cuddington. Alison Isherwood of the Thame Food Festival reports.
You love Italian food. You love cooking Italian food at home. But you would like to venture beyond pastas and pizzas. Me too. So that’s why I signed up for a day course at CiCi CoCo.
CiCi CoCo is a home cooking kitchen run by Giuliana Cortese. Giuliana first came to the UK to work with fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. While in London, she would recreate her mother’s lasagne recipe and bring it into the design studio. Earning her the nickname of ‘Lasagna’.
Later Giuliana, who grew up in Friuli, her mother a northern Italian and her father a southern Italian, decided to make her passion for great Italian cooking a career in itself. In 2010 she set up CiCi CoCo in her own kitchen in Cuddington on the Buckinghamshire-Oxfordshire border. Her aim was to introduce people to the joys of fantastic artisan Italian dishes. “Although the philosophy and style of the kitchen is Italian,” she explains, “we used local products and ingredients.”
The CiCi CoCo kitchen soon won not just customers but awards as well. In 2011, it was given a Great Taste Award for its Lasagna Alla Bolognese, and another three – for its speciality Lasagna, Caponata and Heritage spelt and Rivet Wheat fresh pasta – in 2012. It was also voted best independent producer in the Muddy Stiletto Awards in 2013.
School Dinners
The Buckingham restaurant started by three school friends
Charlotte Collins visits Nelson Street Restaurant in Buckingham, an establishment that caters not just for its own diners. But for other restaurants and catering firms.
Nelson Street Restaurant, which has been winning itself quite a reputation for its imaginative, beautifully prepared dishes, is owned and run by three school friends. Louis Myhill is the head chef; Josh Sheppard is a chef and in charge of new business; while Mike Norris is the restaurant manager.
The three had all embarked on different careers. Josh was a broker in the City. Mike was working in an office. Louis was the only one in the restaurant business, a chef at the prestigious Ivy in London. It was Louis who first mooted the idea that they set up their own restaurant
