The 2022 BFI London Film Festival (“LFF) was my first back in-person since 2019. These are my notes and observations about the films. These aren’t full blown reviews because I’m no film expert. Last year’s online selection was dire, super depressing themes – and I like depressing films – and no Italian films – deadly…
Are animal documentaries educational or speciesist?
Animal documentaries feel like a scam we don’t even think about as a scam anymore. They’re rationalised as educational and, arguably, they can be. Often, they’re ghoulish displays of supreme speciesism. On the one hand We often have scenes of natural behaviour from eating, including predation, to mating, nesting and taking care of young. At…
Freya the Walrus
Freya the walrus drew crowds and in the end that did her in. No different than what happens to the billions of land animals and uncountable sea life we kill each year. And the timing between this and what’s happening at Sfattoria, couldn’t be more ironic. Animals always lose. It doesn’t have to be this…
No refuge
What’s happening at the animal sanctuary Sfattoria degli Ultimi near Rome is tragic and infuriating. It also encapsulates what it means to be an animal in our world: animals have no rights to their own lives because they’re categorised as objects. They have no more rights than our phones or handbags. What’s happening at Sfattoria…
Vegan Options: Beyond the Menu – for Women in the Food Industry magazine
I’m delighted to have contributed this opinion feature, “Vegan Options: Beyond the Menu“, about what to consider when designing vegan menus for the latest issue of the excellent Women in the Food Industry magazine. Winter 2021 is a bumper issue and shouldn’t be missed. Below is an excerpt. Click the link above or the photo…
Neapolitan Classics: Struffoli, vegan and air fried
This Neapolitan Classic is a holiday favourite. Struffoli are little fried dumplings covered in honey, hazel nuts and festive sprinkles. They’re a typically Neapolitan sweet, also found all over southern Italy, and generally made around Christmas and New Year. In Naples, their texture will be crunchy. In some places and especially among the descendants of…
Neapolitan classics: Crusty bread
This is a recipe for a classic Neapolitan no-knead, crusty bread with a chewy crumb. You’ll want to eat immediately out of the oven. I like bread that has a significant crust and a chewy interior. It’s a standard in Neapolitan bakeries and it’s often referred to as pane cafone, meaning peasant bread. The basis…
Vegan Panettone Review 2021
We’ve returned for a third edition of our vegan panettone review. We’re doing it differently this year This year, we’re drawing from our 2019 and 2020 archives because there are fewer panettoni available. It seems the best ones have mede it through the wilderness somehow. Choice is more limited this year. Reasons? Ach, I’m not…
Vegan 101: My Favourite Vegan Cookbooks and Vegan Food Blogs
A few readers of our book, Think Like a Vegan, sent us messages asking about vegan cookbooks and vegan food blogs to help them learn about vegan food. I’ve written a few of these types of lists over the years. It’s time to pull them together properly.
Pablo Escobar’s hippos are … still only hippos
Truly transformational change for animals will come when the legal status of animals is no longer property. I long to see case law shifting in that direction. Despite headlines and online chatter, I don’t believe the recent court order about Pablo Escobar’s hippos gets us much closer. When I began seeing the headlines about the…
