Lickedspoon with Debora Robertson

Welcome to my Substack. I’m a food writer living and cooking, always cooking, in a village on the water in South West France.

In late 2021, I swapped my London life for a less frantic existence on the banks of the Étang de Thau, a salt-water lagoon in the Hérault department of the Languedoc, South West France. I’m a British journalist, writer and editor specialising in all matters domestic, from food, homes and gardens to modern manners, dogs and decluttering. I write regularly for national newspapers and magazines, including The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian/Observer and Delicious magazine, where I have a monthly column on what I’m thinking about, and thinking about cooking, each month.

But most of all, I’m a home cook just like you – or you wouldn’t be here, reading this, right now, this second, I guess. I grew up in the North East of England, and from the least promising of culinary starts, I built a life and a career around food. I began this new chapter in France almost on a whim, when a house I’d fantasised about and spied on for more than a decade was suddenly on the market. As soon as I walked in the door, I knew that this was my house, improbable and impossible as that seemed at the time. A year later, we hauled our worldly possessions, two dogs and a cat 1,200 kilometres south to begin this new life in this house and village of my heart.

I began my Substack because when I started living in France, each Tuesday I posted what I bought at our market on my social media and people responded so enthusiastically, and often wanted to know what I was going to do with what I’d bought. Here is where I share with you my week’s shopping and what I cook with it, not just French recipes, but recipes made with French ingredients which you can replicate wherever you are. I am an instinctive and practical cook. I like easy. I like quick. And sometimes I like to show off, so sometimes there will be more complex recipes too.

Why subscribe?

Free subscribers receive a weekly email on Wednesdays with my latest market haul and a recipe inspired by that day’s ingredients. Coming soon, join me for Ask Me Anything, to ask about food, France, local life - or, in fact, anything.

Paid subscribers get an additional recipe each Saturday, designed to be the centrepiece of an easy but impressive weekend meal. You have access to the archive of all previous posts and recipes. You’ll also receive occasional house renovation posts - for those who are as fascinated by romantic-if-broken French houses as I am.

Lickedspoon with Debora Robertson is a reader-supported publication. To become a paying subscriber click below.

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Subscribe to Lickedspoon with Debora Robertson

Welcome to my newsletter. This is where I share stories from my seaside village in the South West of France, my trips to the market, weekly recipes, and updates on our house renovation. Most of it’s free, and will always be free.

People

I write about dinner, dogs, houses, gardens, and French Exchange column in @Telegraph. Renovating a house in SW France with my whole heart