curlywurlyfi

perhaps we can have a similar thing to the Costco-a-go-go cook off - pick a date when eGulls throughout the land band together in small groups for a pan-UK tatin cook-off. Then retire wounded four hours later, several stone heavier and lightly fragranced with apples and butter. Post the photos and comments on the morrow. Bags me at Moby's house. Let him put his pippins where his mouth is. we'd have to have a really snappy name. Tatination For The Nation? The Tarty Party? (Obviously neither of these ARE snappy, but I'm pointing you in the general direction.)

if you have time, go to Braidwoods in Dalry (about one hour south of Glasgow). here is a link to a review in this month's Waitrose magazine Braidwoods I still think about the quail stuffed with black pudding I had for my birthday here. Fi

oooooh such lies. are you setting out this morning to provoke me? Braeburns! Braeburns! God, Moby, who cares? I'm in! you can lay in the insulin supplies and the pancreas massager, I'll bring the cream and extra sugar and butter. Fi

I was told by the person I bought my last chopping board from that after washing it should be wiped over with vegetable or other flavourless oil (not olive oil - too sticky, apparently). I also from time to time fill the washing up bowl with a couple of litres of cheap veg oil and sit the board (plus any wooden spoons, spatulas, etc that I have lying about) in a bath overnight to really let the oil penetrate. but I wouldn't worry too much about having abused your chopping board. Scars are part of its history! Think of it as being on its way to being one of those wonderful butcher's blocks, that are hollowed to a curve through so many years of use.

I will never again try to peel two pounds of carrots in a hurry with my flatmate's new Good Grips peeler. Hold the carrot between finger and thumb of left hand, wield peeler with right hand. Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, AAAAAAAARGH - the razor-sharp blade has neatly removed almost half the thumbnail of my left hand. I can now see really quite a lot of soft pink nail bed. This was last Sunday and it's still making me feel EXTREMELY peculiar.

hear hear. One of the Books For Cooks compendia has a fantastic recipe for slow roast tomato tarte tatin with shallots and parmesan. which I would (a) attribute more precisely and (b) go into further details over IF ALL MY BLOODY COOKBOOKS WEREN'T IN A DEPOT IN ESSEX. wooo, rant over, more coffee now. Actually, I'm going to disagree with you on this one. If you make it with sufficient water-based caramel and then dot the butter over separately, the apples cook in the caramel and are beautifully translucent, then the butter melds with the remaining caramel and lo, you have sauce. But I do completely agree about the caramel. Must be live-on-the-edge verging on burnt. Mmmm. And, of course, the whole thing to be served with cream, "to cut the richness" (© Fi's Mama, circa all of her life). Fi

the last one I made was a bit hodge-podge but was so good I will make it this way from now on. Made the caramel in a saucepan (quite a lot of it, can't remember but maybe 4oz sugar), poured it into the bottom of the (metal, oval) baking dish. chunks of peeled cored Braeburns over that, dotted with quite a lot of echire unsalted butter and then a sprinkle of salt. Baked for about half an hour slowly, then tucked in puff pastry and blasted the heat up. Slow cooking made the apples tender and translucent. woo yeah. it's great for breakfast.

inspired by this comment in the thread about Mayhaw Man's mother's recipe book, I made pickled shrimp and served with steamed asparagus. Didn't have the recommended celery seed so substituted fennel seed. Absolutely delicious, thank you Fifi! (and Brooks.) I had the leftovers for breakfast...

ahhh, they are the sweetest dogs in the world!!! (apart maybe from dachshunds.) Lucy, this sounds great. Good luck with the programme. I recently went to stay with an ex-boyfriend and he and his wife have lost quite literally a quarter of their respective bodyweights doing the Montignac programme (Alex could never give up his wine, he said!) We had delicious food when I was there - my favourite was grilled salmon on a mixture of fried shredded Savoy cabbage, leeks + peas finished with cream + white wine. He also produced chocolate fondue for dessert - just high quality chocolate + cream, with cherries for dipping - delicious. Did you know that in London there is a Montignac restaurant (it is very near my office, not that I have ever been)? Fi

still in the throes of a hangover (who'd have thought 'come round for a plate of pasta' would mean 'oh look it's 3am and we're watching A Knight's Tale ), I mulched a tin of anchovies with some mint and garlic, spread the resulting paste on some lamb leg steaks and roasted briefly, finished under the grill. Served to me with healthy life-giving green beans. Mmmmm.

took the words out of my mouth. any place you go where people are whispering, they just haven't applied sufficient alcohol yet.

I'm just loving the fact that this thread is being posted to by an otter and a whiting. Fi

or, you could start by poaching or roasting (better) your rhubarb with a little sugar, then draining off the liquid (save it save it save it), sprinkle tart shell (previously baked blind) with a layer of semolina flour and continue. Delicious rhubarb 'gravy' can be used over cooked pie as fluorescent pink sauce; stirred into custard and used to wow small girls with ("look, darling, Barbie custard!"); or, best of all, mixed half and half with vodka, chilled and served with a sprig of mint. I love rhubarb...

have never tried it using a butter, but have in the past made a vaguely Spanish chicken stew where you slowly simmer browned chicken pieces in a sauce of finely ground almonds, dry sherry, chopped parsley, chicken stock and some garlic. Thicken at the end if needed with a couple of hard boiled egg yolks, pounded then stirred in. I'm sure you could adapt that to almond butter? also, I think a slice of banana bread would be pretty spiffy toasted and spread with hazelnut butter...

it's not all bad - from the looks of things you'd still be OK with, oooh, let's see - butter-poached lobster - grilled belly pork with thyme and garlic - baked sweet potatoes with lime, coriander + chilli butter (also good with corn) - prunes stuffed with anchovies stuffed with almond inside pork loin with red wine or port jus (because alcohol will cook out, no?) - roasted baby leeks with a dressing of cumin, lemon, olive oil, a little honey, black olives, parsley + chopped fresh red chilli (crumble feta over, too) - brown rice 'risotto' with courgette prawn + parsley (you can buy short-grain brown rice in Fresh & Wild from those plastic dispenser things and though it never does the 'creamy' thing that arborio does, it is not bad, if a little chewy - makes good rice salad too if you like such things) - which reminds me, Marie-Odile's Simplest Rice Salad - rice, peeled cucumber chunks, tomato chunks, tinned tuna in olive oil, quite a lot of red wine vinegar, s + masses of black p. that is all. do not gild lily with basil or peas or any other abominations. leave it alone! You can make fruit fools (with cream, admittedly, rather than custard); if a little honey is allowed you could make Nigella's honey semifreddo (I think - I can't remember the recipe off the top of my head)? speaking of Nigella, she has a fantastic recipe for pea and gruyere souffle which I think only has a modicum of flour if any at all, the rest of the ingredients are ok for you? I could, obviously, go on, but must work. I do hate it when my office life gets in the way of my real (ie virtual) life... Fi

so you need all the 'slow-release' stuff. hmmm. For an easy weeknight supper, you could do what gets called 'Many Treasures' in my house - basically, brown rice pilaff - brown basmati with any or all of the following stirred through: - leftover cooked chicken/duck/bacon (leftover bacon? yeah right ) or crumbled feta cheese - caramelized onions - toasted almonds or pistachios (could fry in butter, since dairy ok) - roasted cherry tomatoes or peppers or courgettes - chopped spring onions - chopped dried apricots (if dried fruit is permitted, it can be quite high in sugar) - spiced with cinnamon (not that I can spell it)/cumin/ginger/garlic/dried red chilli flakes - chopped fresh dill/parsley/coriander serve with tzatziki to be 'sauce', though sometimes when I make this I don't put in the apricots and tomatoes but roast them together with a couple of twigs of thyme and some garlic and stir all together for a lumpy (sorry, 'rustic') apricot + tomato sauce. other slow release things - what about No Added Sugar Alpen for breakfast (again assuming dried fruit ok)? good* with an orange sliced in and yoghurt stirred through. Or, I've got a recipe for banana bread in which I have already cut down the sugar from 5oz to 2oz with no discernible difference (thanks Mum for trying to give us all diabetes); I bet if you cut it out altogether and just zerbed in another black-spottedly ripe banana instead it would still work, and you really don't notice it's made with (shh) wholemeal flour - I have a brother for whom fibre = death, and he didn't even flicker. PM me if you're interested. But I'm sure there are loads of websites out there that will give you pointers - for now I like Jonathan's suggestion of an Austerity Lunch very much. god knows it will be in stark contrast to the last time we had lunch with Moby. Fi * though not, obviously, when compared to a marmelade + bacon sandwich

I think it's a great idea - both the menu ideas and the big lunch in! I'm in. menu to follow (must do work, must do work)

not just you, I'm the same, duck also (crispy skin + rendered fat being one of the main reasons for duck, in my opinion). Beef as rare as you can get it (this from someone who, aged seven, when my mother would prepare thinly-sliced strips of fillet for fondue chinoise, would eat them raw, just dipped in soy sauce). But pink lamb is too flabby, and raw game is just scary. Rare pork I would try - not sure about actually red - mind you, if you look at MobyP's discussion of his restricted diet thread, I'm not sure how red pork would actually be?? Fi

oh yes, they had some incredibly beautiful candy-striped beets when I was there last. and there's a man who does grilled sausage sandwiches which are definitely not to be missed.

christ. now you really DO have my sympathies. Agree that the organic veg in F&W (or Fresh And Wildly Expensive as I normally call it) is PANTS. curiously, Tesco's organic veg is not bad. Though, and I'm not sure if this is the place for it but by GOD I'm going to say it anway, how annoying is it that the organic-save-the-world-whales-and-dolphins-morally-superior veg in all the major supermarkets actually comes in MORE packaging not LESS than their standard veg? ooooh it makes me seethe. hmmm. what colour is pork? if you see what I mean?

Fortunately, Moby, so far as I can see, your hideous diet does not preclude alcohol. May I suggest you drown your sorrows in an ENORMOUS vodka martini and see how much brighter the universe becomes? Do tell me if this is the least helpful post you've ever read.

this is my favourite chocolate malapropism ever!! Fi

The Guardian newspaper featured this website in its media listings guide over the weekend, along with a couple of other food-related (kind of) sites: Zack's Bug-Feasting Page The World's Worst Food The Museum of Burnt Food Fi

sorry, Stigand, I don't agree! the contrast between the sharpness of the cherries and the mellifluous chocolate is too strident for me. their Maya Gold, on the other hand...

MMerrill, thank you for this - I took my parents and we had a really lovely evening - I see what you mean about the 'brightly coloured townhouses' (my god) but the place was full of local people who really do use the club as a club; lots of families; one enormous table of 20 people having fish soup (which looked wonderful). We had really superb prawns fried in olive oil + butter + whole cloves of garlic which I think had been softened in the oil prior as they were soft and delicious; there was a kick of chili to them. They were served with hot buttered toasted country bread - like we needed more butter - but very delicious for juice-soaking. We then had a whole grilled fish, don't know what it was called in English (or indeed in Portuguese) but big, flaky, like a sea bass but slightly bigger flakes, with the steamed potatoes (which my mother particularly enjoyed as they had, in the Scottish parlance, 'a bit of a bane in them', meaning they were ever-so-slightly al dente. Not haute cuisine at all, but simple fresh delicious fish - thank you for this reco!