A view from abroad

                                                                                                ©Maureen Kane

Recreating the smells and flavours from a trip abroad can trigger happy memories.The most obvious and simplest way to achieve this is through a photograph, something you can take home and cherish for your lifetime.
I am always encouraging guests to respond in this way on this blog.Maybe they´ve taken one of my recipes home and then sent me  a picture of their own interpretation,or maybe like this example (above) a restaurant dish photographed by one of our guests, recording a memorable culinary moment We shared this moment with her, enjoying a lunch beside the beach at Cha Com Agua Salgada.She has now submitted this photo to the Observer Food Monthly awards in the category "Best food photography." Not only is this a photo that entices you to eat the subject but is recording an innovative way in which the food is cooked,on a salt stone.Cha com agua salgada is renowned for its modern approach to traditional Portuguese cuisine.Here she has recorded for  posterity an unusual dish that she had never tried before.If you like this photo as much as we do, please vote for it.
Yes,  Nuno Mendes  brought his vision of modern Portuguese food first to to Viajante then to the Chiltern Firehouse in Chiswick and now he´s wowing diners with his latest venture, Taberna do Mercado in London’s Old Spitalfields Market.But there is nothing that can replace the `real experience´ (above) of tasting modern Portuguese food in its natural environment, under sunny blue skies  beside the lapping waters of the Algarvian coastline.There is a growing interest in Portuguese produce.Around 2.1 million British visitors now head to Portugal every year, with numbers up 15 per cent in 2014. It seems the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance (the oldest in the world, dating back to 1373) is stronger than  ever.Perhaps now is the time to visit Portugal for that hands on experience.