Optima Magazine

• Drink
• Farming & Production
  • A French Connection
  • A Sparkling Success
  • First Catch Your Cocoa Beans
  • Holy Smoke
  • Look Beyond The Label
  • Made In Middlesex
  • Milked Dry
  • Much Ado About Chocolate
  • Pasture Perfect
  • Spoilt For Choice
  • Well-Oiled
  • Where's The Beef?
• Food News
• Healthy Eating
• In The Larder...
• Interviews
• Kitchen Gadgets
• Personalities
• Recipes
• Restaurants

Pat and Bob Middleton

• A French Connection 26 Oct 18

  Who among readers of a certain age enjoyed A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle (pub. 1989) and longed to move to the South of France to spend their days in the sunshine, with nothing more taxing to do... Read More

• Pasture Perfect 4 Aug 17

  The cows are cross. Affronted, in fact. Their owner, farmer Jonathan Chapman, has turned up with a stranger (me) in tow, walked amongst them, demonstrated how healthy and gorgeous and good-natured... Read More

• A Sparkling Success 20 May 16

  “And now, let me introduce you to this little chap here. This is Bacchus,” says Steve proudly. A tall man with a broad smile, Steve’s soft tan and broad shoulders bespeak a man far happier... Read More

• Holy Smoke 2 Jan 15

  “Once I’ve explained what’s gone wrong with the industry, you’ll spot it a mile off,” Lance Forman declares, pulling up in the backyard of an unassuming wood-clad building. It’s 7am, and... Read More

• Well-Oiled 28 Mar 14

  I’m browsing in a food market near Brindisi and I don’t speak Italian. A stallholder invites me to taste a black jam-like substance, made from grape juice. I buy a jar. He wants me to try the... Read More

• Made In Middlesex 28 Feb 14

  Middlesex. We love it, of course, but it’s not exactly a culinary hotspot. It hasn’t the heritage of Lincolnshire, say, or the aspirational feel of Cornwall. When the 2012-13 Great Taste... Read More

• Look Beyond The Label 15 Nov 13

  Recently I was chatting with an independent London baker who, the previous week, had received something of a spreading from a customer outraged that he charged over £2 per loaf. She’d told him... Read More

• Spoilt For Choice 5 Jul 13

  It all used to be so simple. A nice roast on Sunday; cold meat and salad on Monday; Tuesday – mince up the rest of the leftover meat and knock up a nice, comforting pie. A few staple recipes to... Read More

• First Catch Your Cocoa Beans 6 Jul 12

  Chocolate: Ask a European, and it’s confectionery made with the finest cocoa and butter and sold in chic chocolate boutiques. Ask a Brit, and it’s a bar of Dairy Milk or Galaxy from the corner... Read More

• Milked Dry 7 Oct 11

  The last farm in our Buckinghamshire village is facing closure. Johns Lane Farm, in Ashley Green near Berkhamsted, has been in Brenda and Kevin Fancourt’s family since 1937 but is now struggling to... Read More