I can report that getting covid in 2025 is still really shitty and still involves cancelling all your work because just making a cup of tea makes you need a lie down. On the plus side, I watched all of Riot Women, which otherwise would have taken me weeks.

In my experience no.s 5-8 tend to coexist and are where I am at rn. Mainly 8, but it is not linear.

Well done to everyone who remembered to vote. Once again the Restore Trust group were seen off. Let's do it all again next year.

The last couple of days have been brilliant - meeting the inestimable Tom Herbert of The Long Table in Cirencester, doing a thought-provoking event with Mary Portas for Ciren History Festival (which is just brilliant - kudos to the organisers) and curating my very own display case for the museum.

All of this. I keep telling @adobe.com to fuck off as it offers helpfully to summarise everything from my own books to train tickets, but there's no 'stop draining the world's resources for nothing good' button. It's like the Microsoft paperclip got supersized VERY BADLY. ETC.

Mild Monday Pimpathon: next week I am in Cirencester for a Past/Future of the High St discussion, with Mary Portas, as part of Cirencester History Festival (I am getting a hair cut for this, because Portas still has really good hair). cirencesterhistoryfestival.org/event/mary-p...

My take on the Lenny Henry reparations news item today profcorinnefowler.substack.com/p/reparation...

Ok. But are there any downsides?

Anyone who has written cookery books (or published recipes where people can comment) will now be nodding furiously and saying uh huh, and 'that's a very measured response'

A rather wonderful jolly to Jersey for Jersey Festival of Words. Great food, a chilly but highly invigorating swim, live music and a really engaged audience. Books and book people are wonderful.

Happy paperback release day to me! This beauty is now out, and available in all good bookshops and also some which you really should avoid because, especially given the topic, your best bet is to toddle off to your (or someone else's) high street to shop at an actual shop.

This is not OK www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/how...

One of the effects of writing The Bookshop, The Draper... is that I've become even more anti-shopping and even keener to support businesses keeping quality craftsmanship alive and doing very nice things very well. Bye bye my beloved Doc Martens, hello Solevair, based in Northamptonshire. 1/

A few online spaces are still available on the what can be done to help save our #pubs event. Event is free & open to those who work in pubs, those who campaign for them, or anyone who is passionate about #pubs. Contact me for more details

More pudding content. This one's lamb steak and kidney and was very nice thank you yes please none of this death of the pudding crap around here.

Early modern breakfast: pain perdu / poor knights + white puddings (sweet, the best one made with macaroons) and a bonus rice pudding, all in guts. #foodhistory #skystorian

I'll be on the Beeb tonight trying not to say that the whole DEATH OF THE BRITISH PUDDING thing might be a little bit contrived so that English Heritage can publicise a baking book. On the other hand... entirely coincidentally I made C17 white puddings. They were not entirely a success.

A box of bird feet, neatly labelled.

It's a terrible picture, but I can report that Elizabeth Raffald's heavily plagiarised 'to barbecue a leg of pork' is incredible. (It's 90% in the sauce, and of that, quite a lot lies in the quality of your lime pickle). Obviously it's a complete and utter bastardisation of the original concept 1/

New event! Celebrating the paperback launch of The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker: www.waterstones.com/events/an-ev...

Horribly true. Usually in my field ends up being Some Victorian Bloke Down The Pub. Or Dorothy bloody Hartley.

This is a proper good book and a cracking offer- get ye to the interwebs-->

Anyone out there know Vancouver? (& Vancouver Island). I've got a holiday coming up and am keen for restaurant or other eating recommendations (other stuff too, but I'm realistic about my interests which centre on books, food, swimming, food and food. And ice cream. But also food).

The 1980s called.... (This is a pear salad, apparently. Supposed to look like bunches of grapes. Cream cheese is involved. Yes.)

That the incredible cognitive power of the human brain and body takes only 2000 calories a day to fuel, and occupies quite considerably less than the space of Manhattan, suggests there is something catastrophically wrong with the design of AI.

I love crepes suzette. Particularly enjoy the ferocity with which a very tiny group of late C19th chefs argued over who created it and who it was named for. Will we ever know? 'Course not. (My money is on Escoffier, but that might just be because I rather adore him).

Solid work here. If we can branch out into Emma, Mrs Elton would be all over Mumsnet, especially the politicians eating biscuits stuff. The level of opaque acronym in her life would be immense.

V pleased with this. V pleased indeed.

The end of June is in sight, hoorah! Poss should have posted this self publicity alert sooner, but - June. Anyway, here's what's left: -what makes a classic @ Fortnums (tonight) -Austen & ice cream in Dorchester (tomoz) -Chalke HistFest (Fri/Sat) So if you're keen to tell me trifle is OK etc, come!

🍴 Food History at Chalke. Starter: Ancient loaves to stargazy pies with @neilbuttery.bsky.social Main: @dranniegray.bsky.social shops the historic high street Dessert: Royal recipes + scandalous suppers with Tom Parker Bowles & Annie Gray It’s history you can almost taste: chalkefestival.com

🚨 CHALKE SPECIAL🚨 📖 That elegant old cookbook? It was more lifestyle mag than meal planner. @dranniegray.bsky.social unpacks aspirational food culture at @chalkefestival.bsky.social . Listen now 🎧 pod.fo/e/2d8afd Tickets: www.chalkefestival.com #Chalke2#Chalke2025 #HistoryLovers #AmazingHistory

🚨 @CHALKE SPECIAL🚨 🇮🇳 Curry powder on the shelves in 1711? Believe it. At @chalkefestival.bsky.social , @dranniegray.bsky.social busts myths about British cuisine with spicy facts. Listen now 🎧 pod.fo/e/2d8afd Tickets: www.chalkefestival.com #Chalke2#Chalke2025 #HistoryLovers #AmazingHistory

Ealier today BUT ALSO ON BBC SOUNDS.

🚨 CHALKE SPECIAL🚨 Discover the truth behind British cuisine at the @chalkefestival.bsky.social ! Join renowned food historian @dranniegray.bsky.social to debunk long-standing myths about historical food. Listen now 🎧 pod.fo/e/2d8afd #Chalk#Chalke2025 #HistoryLovers #LiveInHistory #AmazingHistory

I have finally reached the halfway point of the book that is taking as long to wrote as my damn PhD HOORAH. it is, I should point out, 3x as long as my PhD thesis so this is quite a reasonable feat.

Pope Fool V (gooseberry, since you ask).

I have zero regrets about making asparagus ice cream at the weekend. (Agnes Marshall, 1894, mainly tasted of cream and sherry).

I was quite ragey.

Donned a corset and that pink frock to say goodbye to Mrs Crocombe and the live interpretation (and therefore the award-winning, long-running, weirdly viral, globally popular youtube series from @englishheritage.bsky.social) today. End of an era. Seventeen years the team has been there. 1/

10 years after the project finished we have finally found our longitude! All the c.18th seafaring and boardroom drama you could wish for in one expertly written volume! Only £32 from @cambridgeup.bsky.social

100% THIS - plus the ereader associated with the legal deposits was absolutely horrendous and rendered them almost unusable anyway. Real books, folks... always the best bet. @britishlibrary.bsky.social

Join me and the fabulous food historian Dr Annie Gray from BBC Radio 4's THE KITCHEN CABINET for our live video chat on Sunday, 7pm London time. It's free to join us, just make sure you're subscribed to MY LIFE IN THE PAST to get a reminder when we begin. lucyworsley.substack.com

Off to @foodmuseumuk.bsky.social yesterday for the launch of their new exhibtion on School Dinners - a very clever mix of nostalgia, politics and community involvement. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It’s the last episode in the current series of The Kitchen Cabinet today at 10.30am on BBC Radio 4. After a series that’s taken us to Belfast, Bradford and Newark, We’re in Camden, North London talking bouncy food, Somali dishes and corn among other things.

Another one I didn't think I'd have to explain when I referenced it in The Bookshop, The Draper... bites the dust. Having worked in the York Monks Cross branch, and shopped in quite a few others, it is hardly surprising. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Still ill, after two bloody weeks. Am extremely bored. Also, reading the Cazelet chronicles when lurgified may not be helpful as it leads to a tendency to melodrama (but O, they are magnificent). (End of venting).

This week's vibes. (Am on holiday, am ill, this sucks).

Idk quite what is going on here, but for any of you who listen to The Kitchen Cabinet but haven't (yet?) made it to a show, it is pretty typical. New series starts recording April, tix via the BBC be in the audience website, & there's a postbag ep for all your Qs submitted via the email/socials.

Off to give a talk. Which I finished writing 30mns ago. Good to see I still have those academic creds when I need them*. *ECRs and students, this is no way to behave. Don't do it. I am not a good example to follow.

Out of curiosity, if you were reading about mince pies and thought a recipe might be forthcoming, would you be more interested in: Oyster mince pies Egg mince pies Meaty mince pies