Dubai’s first Spartan
As someone who usually spends weekends consuming vast quantities of cheese-filled baked goods, I’m not sure what possessed me to join in the UAE’s first Spartan race challenge. Let’s call it peer pressure, or a temporary moment of madness. It started with training sessions two weeks ago, where hulking great tanks of Schwarzenegger-muscle completed squats...
Why ‘This Girl Can’ is the best advert in sporting history
Sporting advertisements don’t generally fill me with joy. Fronted by swishy-haired, ab-crunching, green-smoothie-drinking treadmill unicorns, they serve no other purpose than to make me feel as useless as I did on school sports day. I am no athlete. If anything I’m the opposite of an athlete: Skinny, squishy, nesh and all too happy to sacrifice...
Fitness challenge: The gym alternatives
Sport was never my forte at school. Blessed with the coordination and physical prowess of a club-footed, Quaalude-stuffed donkey, I have difficulty getting my car out of the drive without sustaining injuries to myself or immediate surroundings.Combine this with an extreme dislike of ritual humiliation, cold weather and being told what to do, and it’s...
Homemade fish and chips with pea and lemon mayonnaise
Fish and chips must be one of the most glorious dishes on the English menu. Dripping in salt and fat like congestive heart failure on a plate, it’s one of the few take aways that requires a coronary stent after consumption. Whilst I have serious passion for the occasional battered treat (not a euphemism), recently...
Cheesy courgette and aubergine chips
One of the most difficult things about cooking (apart from clearing up the catastrophic mess that trails in my wake) is maintaining variety. Given the choice, I’d happily eat mashed potatoes with every meal. Like clouds of salty, buttery fluff on a plate they can pretty much be teamed with any food in the universe....
Chorizo, chicken and bean casserole
Like a bad date, low fat, carb free dinners tend to leave you empty, unfulfilled and desperately craving one of those 367 million calorie melt in the middle chocolate puddings. I can’t claim that my latest culinary favourite is *quite* as delicious as cheese covered chips, but considering how kind it’ll be to your thighs,...
20 minute salmon and lentils
The Clark Kent of the fish world, salmon is one the world’s greatest superfoods. Packed with Omega 3 fatty acid and vitamins, it’s not only good for your heart, it’ll also make your skin glow like one of those swooshy haired chicks in a Ralph Lauren commercial. (Fisherman’s Weekly didn’t pay me to write this, you can...
The health kick: cracked pepper mushroom omelette
After a gruelling few days on a (fairly ineffectual) health kick I have discovered three things. 1.) There’s a large part of me that would rather be eaten by a bear then get up to go jogging at 7.30am. 2.) Apples are not appropriate dessert food and 3.) Omelettes are a source of magical power....
