Andy Lynes

As a resident, I probably don't appreciate the place as much as I should do. Perhaps documenting the food shops and cafes etc in this blog will help me see Brighton through new eyes.

Not sure if its usual for British people to eat flapjacks for breakfast, it just happened to be in my line of sight and seemed like a good idea at the time. The mug order form says to enquire about price and shipping rates for the Rest of The World.

You'll need to get hold of a copy of my appeareance on the 1997 Masterchef TV show for that. And no, I'm not letting you borrow mine.

I forsee a "two nations divided by a common language" theme developing to this blog! Wet fish meaning just out of the sea as opposed to smoked, tinned or dried I suppose.

Disco Biscuit (a pre-club bar?) has gone I believe, but will check next week for you. Food For Friends, one of Brighton's most famous veggie restaruants is still there after 24 years but has just been sold by its founder Simon Hope.

Credit is due to eGullet member Marlyn4K for approaching Michelin about the idea.

2005 Michelin rankings will be available at Michelin.co.uk from 9.00am on Thursday 20 January. The guide will be in the shops the following day. Head of the UK Michelin Guide Derek Bulmer will join us online for a forum chat between 24 and 28 January. Full details of this exciting event next week.

I'm planning to visit the retail outlet of a rather good wet fish supplier tomorrow morning so at least I can share some pictures and a recipe or two with you if not the flavours.

An excellent idea. Sunday morning I think.

Further info on the mugs from Art Meets Matter. Further info on Britians best known cookery writer and broadcaster (now retired) at Delia Online. More on the great LKJ here. (Obviously any discussion of music must be in direct relation to the activity of cooking and its not my intention to encourage off topic chat. I believe that my mood has a great impact on how well I cook and my mood can be influenced by music. I think it will be interesting to assess over the coming few days if that is in fact true.)

Linton Kwesi Johnson could well get some airtime this week.

I've been labouring under the impression that flapjacks were something we'd got from the US. I'm almost certain that it was the Sainted Delia (Smith) who popularised them in the UK back in the 70's.

The flapjacks are made in the traditional way (i.e. melting the butter, sugar and syrup together then adding the dry ingredients) , but I think its the addition of pumpkin seeds, sesame seends, raisins, currents and figs that has made the result look a little different. There's also some peanut butter in there as well. It's my wife's take on this recipe.

Lets hope my mug doesn't turn out to be the most interesting thing about this blog! It is nice though isn't it? It was a Christmas present from my kids. The mugs are quite widely available in the UK, but I'm still looking for a "The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett" version.

Friday 14 January: Breakfast Cup of instant coffee, homemade flapjack Generally speaking, breakfast is not a big deal for me. I don't get hungry until later on in the day, so I just have my caffine top up and some cereal or toast. Today I grabbed the last of my wife's homemade flapjacks made with various seeds and dried fruits (including some rather nice figs given to me by eGullet member Che Guevara, thanks Che.) I don't like instant coffee very much at all. Its tasteless muck, but a habit of 25 years or so is hard to break. I'll make some proper stuff later, I promise. I'm working at home this morning and then heading off to the office this afternoon, stopping off at the health food store to get the ingredients for a rather special granola which I'll be preparing for tomorrow's breakfast. I've also got to decide what my wife and I will be eating this evening. The kids will have had a meal at school (poor things) and will have eaten again before I get home, so its just for the two of us. We have a ton of vegetables in the fridge and a store cupboard busting with rice, lentils etc, so maybe I'll just use what is to hand.

My name is Andy Lynes and I am a Site Manager for eGullet. I live in the village of Patcham, just outside of the seaside resort of Brighton and Hove on the South Coast of England. I'm 39 years old and married to Gill. We have two kids, George (11) and Alice (7) and a German Shorthaired Pointer named Lulu. My entire life revolves around food. Apart from my duties here on eGullet, I write about it for a living, I cook most days at home, I eat out a great deal and I read everything I can lay my hands on that is food, drink and restaurant related. My interest in just about anything else (apart from music and Uma Thurman) is limited, which can make me tiresome company for the non-food obsessed people in my life. However, I think we're all on the same page here, so this week I'll be documenting everything I cook and pretty much everything I eat. I won't pretend that its going to be a normal week in the Lynes household, I'll be making a special effort in order to make the blog at least readable. So I'll be visiting my local butchers, fish mongers, markets and supermarkets to give you a flavour of what its like to live and cook where I am. I'll be sharing recipes, techniques and general food-musings with you and I'll document the soundtrack to my cooking (there's always music or the radio playing when I'm preparing a meal). I'll tell you how I'm feeling in order to judge if mood can affect what I cook and how well I cook it. I'll be exploring what food means to me and who and what has influenced the way I cook. This week is a particularly interesting one as it will include a visit to Bray to chat with Heston Blumental and a gathering of UK eGullet members for a winter feast in London. I'm looking forward to it.

As far as I am aware, Heston Blumenthal consults Herve a fair amount ← Heston mentions Herve several times during his egullet Q&A from 2002: here and here.

Isola closed its doors on Christmas Eve and will now become a Brazillian restaurant. Peyton has said that ""I will be changing the focus of my business to non-restaurant-based projects" according to theCaterer.

100's of column inches have been devoted to Heston's work at the Fat Duck and his various collaborations, a quick google should sort you out. His book Family Food is also worth a read, as is the Q&A he did for eGullet back in October 2002.

I live in Brighton and I'm a 10 minute walk from the South Downs Way and some of the most beautiful countryside in England. Also, when I'm in the city centre, I'm very careful not to walk too far South as I can't swim and I'm told that the sea is very cold this time of year.

Lizzy - is there a Vancouver trade magazine that would carry this sort of story that might verify the facts? If so, a link would be much appreciated. A change of ownership of a hotel or restaurant can often spark staff changes, especially in kitchens. And if a head chef resigns, then his brigade will often follow. Could that be the case here? In light of this thread, I would ask that all members review eGullet's Defamation Policy which states that "What you post on eGullet.com must be true to the best of your knowledge. If you make factual statements, you represent that you have confirmed their truth."

I have in the past, but not so much recently as I suppose my relationship with the industry has changed a bit. I wrote a fawning letter to Marcus Wareing when he was at the original Petrus a while back and got a personal response from him which I very much appreciated at the time. Another chef has told me that very, very few people write to say how much they have enjoyed a meal, mostly its people with a complaint that put pen to paper, so when they do get a complimentary note, they really appreciate it. I would definately encourage the practice, its a nice, considerate thing to do.

The Guardian story linked to in the first post of this thread quotes Shaun as saying just that, so yes, its true. It will be a real blow for Ludlow if that happens.

No luck with Taillevent through the concierge, but I have now booked the main restaurant at Le Meurice for dinner on Friday night. This does mean having two out of three meals in our hotel, but the lunch at Jardin D'hiver is part of a package deal we have obtained and is too good an offer to turn down. Although I have reservations about the dining room, everything I have read or have been told about the restaurant and the food leads me to believe that Alleno is the man on form at the moment and that it would be churlish of us to pass up the chance to experience what he can do. In addition, by Paris 2 and 3 star standards, at 170 euro, the tasting menu is "reasonably" priced. I can't wait.

Deeply unfashionable I know and could be total rubbish these days, but what about Odins or Langan's Bistro in Devonshire Street. Lovely rooms and very reasonably priced , especially at lunch.