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Showing posts from March, 2009

Only happy bunnies here at Roullier White

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Hop along to Roullier White's East Dulwich store to bag yourself one of these small, but beautifully formed, Liberty print bunnies or click here to buy online. Roullier White 125 Lordship Lane East Dulwich London SE22 8HU

Mown meadow - the uplifting smell of freshly cut grass - in a box

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The smell of freshly cut grass is nature’s ‘coffee-is-brewing’ equivalent. An olfactory sign that the dark, dormant days are over; it is time to get-up, put your best foot forward and spring forth into spring.  As I was prone to allergies as a youngster my father would always mow the lawn as the sun was rising, any stray pollen being damped down by the dew. The cut grass smell would be intoxicating and the whole house would burst with the fresh smell of optimism and energy.  As a child, lying in bed that last Sunday morning in March, mourning my lost hour prised from the clutches of British Wintertime Time, I would listen to the sounds of the lawn mower being heaved from the cobwebbed confines of the shed for the first time that year. I would know that summer was finally on its way, and bound down the stairs to help; quite literally full of the joys of spring.  Today, being fortunate enough to live opposite the gorgeous grassy expanses of Peckham Rye Common, my spring wa

Mrs White's old fashioned lavender laundry soap

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The gentlest traditional wash for delicates, cashmere, silks, vintage textiles and woollens. Perfect for baby clothes and sensitive skins, this lovely  cold-process soap is made without any petrochemicals or allergenic 'builders'. Made to a Victorian recipe, it's also a thorough yet gentle wash for very special textiles. Fragranced with nothing but lavender essential oil, it’s an absolute must for line-driers. We particularly love this for washing vintage silks, since dirt simply leaps out of them – and they regain body and gloss you might have thought was gone forever. We're now offering these circa 500g hand - cut blocks unpackaged and so considerably more affordable.

Moules for two, stove top moules pan with shell recepticle lid

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Prepare your favourite moules recipes on the stove top and then bring directly to the table in these simply wonderful enamel moules pans. The lid doubles up as a receptacle for the empty shells and the dish is deep enough to allow you plenty of dunking with fresh crusty bread. Perfect for moules for two for two to share, they look lovely placed on your dinner table between diners and make for a really sociable meal. Otherwise, if like us, you really enjoy your mussels they make fantastically smart individual serving dishes.  High grade enamel; ideal for hob use, oven and dishwasher proof. Moules à la Normandie 500 gm of mussels 20 cl of double cream 50 cl of sweet cider 1 finely chopped apple 1 finely chopped onion Flat leaf parsley – roughly chopped Knob of butter Discard any mussels that are open and remove the beards. Gently fry the onion and apple in butter until the onion is golden and starts to go transparent. Turn up the heat a little and pour in half of the cider, add the mus

Hot chili prawns - a recipe by Diane Seed

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I was given this recipe by my dear friend Diane Seed , who runs a wonderful cookery school in Rome and is the author of the definitive 100 Pasta Sauces. Take 500 gm of freshly peeled and veined prawns and divide into 6 ramekins, add half a clove of chopped garlic to each bowl with some crushed chili, drizzle with some olive oil and leave to marinade for at least two hours. Put into a preheated oven (250c) for 5 minutes. Serve immediately with hunks of brown bread.

Bougies La Française - non-drip dinner candles

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The world's only truly no drip domestic candle; made with internal bores to collect the wax. The first perforated candle was invented in 1900 by the soap manufacturer Fournier-Ferrier and was widely used in France until the advent of cheaper mass produced foreign imports. The unique structure of the perforated candled makes it the world’s truly only non-drip candle. Melting wax, instead of running down the outside of the candle, filters back inside the candle via the bores. Bougies la Française has been manufacturing in France since 1902 making it one of the country’s oldest candle makers. Today Bougies la Française is the last company in the world which is able to produce the remarkable perforated candle; not only being the only company still to have the expertise it also owns the world’s last two surviving machines.  Each candle burns for 7.5 hours. Bougies la Française uses identical packaging to its original Art Nouveau designs of the early part of last century. 20 candles 22

OXO Good Grips Can Opener - Can Do!

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It’s amazing what one puts up with, for years I have been using a potato masher, which was part of a utensil set my parents got as a wedding gift 50 years ago, until I discovered the Roullier White Smood . Similarly, and I know I am not alone in this, lurking in my cutlery drawer for decades has been a rusty and extremely temperamental tin can-opener with which I have been engaged in an ongoing war of wills, my loyalty never being rewarded. Every time a recipe calls for a tin-of-this or a-can-of that I sigh as I brace myself for the inevitable onslaught ahead. Working at Roullier White is a real eye-opener, and now can-opener, as we test everything to find the best of its type I am always stunned by how much time and effort one can save by the correctly selected implement. Tasked with testing the OXO Good Grips Can Opener I prepared myself for battle. A struggle which usually starts on the counter, one hand squeezing the utensil in a painful vice-like grip whilst the thumb and index

Mrs White's Flawless Floors; an all natural, handmade preparation for nights, not days, on the tiles!

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Transform the most neglected terracotta, brick or timber floors – plus panelling, doors, banisters and beams – with this creamy concoction of real gum turpentine and British beeswax. Your house will smell sensational, too! Distilled from pine sap, turpentine is actually absorbed by timber, rather than being a ‘solvent’, as used in cheap mass-market polishes. Solvents serve no purpose other than to help the waxes spread over the surface - and then they simply evaporate away. Thanks to our variable climate, British bee products are commonly more concentrated, powerful and fragrant than imported alternatives. They also have less impact on the environment in terms of the miles they travel to get to our 1950s polish-making boiler. We melt the wax slowly, so the full depth of the wax’s fragrance is preserved, and so the polish is creamy, light, and easy to use. Mrs White's Flawless Floors 250 ml. Pop along to our East Dulwich store: Roullier White 125 Lordship Lane East Dulwich London S

A Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

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This article appears in the March issues of the SE Group of Magazines. Years ago I was invited to do some work for the Houston Heritage Society, which protects the city’s monuments; the most charming of which is a 19th century clapboard church surreally located amongst the downtown skyscrapers. The Texas ladies were delightful and delighted to meet an Englishman from the land, it transpired, of their heroine. My first night I was asked to join them at their sundown Jane Austen book club. This was the early nineties, before Ophra’s, Richard and Judy’s and even ‘The Jane Austen Book Club’. I had no idea what a book club was. ‘Was Austen banned in this great state? Did her readers have to meet after dark in secret?’ I wondered as I wandered across the lawns to where my host, Lorelei, had gathered on her lanai with her fellow devotees. Approaching, the unveiling scene took on a more sinister coven-quality. On the table, around which they were seated, was a framed portrait of the author bu