An extraordinarily fine dinner at Pelegrini in Šibenik

Pelegrini is a lovely little restaurant in Šibenik with a BIG reputation! Listed in the exclusive list of the Jeunes Restaurateurs D’Europe, it’s just leapt from being the Best Restaurant in Dalmatia, to being the Best Restaurant in Croatia! This accolade is voted by Croatian chefs, so it’s a significant achievement and when we visited Šibenik…

Layered petals and sugar

Homemade rose syrup – the Dalmatian way

The roses are in bloom early this year, so I thought I’d get started on the rose syrup. It seems a shame to waste all those fragrant petals! I’ve made it for the past couple of years and I love adding it to summer desserts, and making rose cordial on a hot afternoon. In Dalmatia,…

Red roofs in the sunset glow, Vrboska

Red roofs in the sunset glow

Since I wrote my article on Red roofs as part of the landscape last month, I’ve been looking with different eyes at buildings – and paintings of them. So many artists over the years have taken architecture as their subject, including red roofs (Camille Pissarro) and even blue roofs (Paul Gaugin). So let’s have a…

Reflections on an island life

My mother-in-law never really thought much of us getting a house on an island. Far too inconvenient for her liking. Ferries are such an unreliable form of transport, not to mention dangerous. And of course she was proved absolutely right within a very few months of us getting our house when the pride of Jadrolinija’s fleet,…