curlywurlyfi

Megaira, I can help you, then, with a strange avocado serving suggestion - try it with Worcestershire sauce instead of vinaigrette. oweeeee.

leftover catered office lunch (caterer brought one extra - hurrah!): - plaice fillets with tomato basil + kalamata olive salsa - the most delicious Puy lentils in the WORLD - so good I had to ask how she made them - for four people, she pureed a hunk of ginger with two cloves garlic and a whole de-stalked red chili, then fried the paste in a spot of oil just enough to take the raw edge off the garlic, meanwhile cooked the lentils separately and then tossed them in the ginger mix with a bit of fish sauce, some spring onions and chopped fresh coriander. just heavenly. - raspberry creme brulee I am never going to be thin at this rate.

agree totally with the dry-cured black olive scenario (olives in brine? pah. I spit on them). for me, adding chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley at the end is key. and plenty of garlic to start with. and if you do have to use tinned anchovies, you can fry off the onion in the olive oil they were tinned in.

in the UK, if you buy organic produce in the supermarket, it is invariably forty times more packaged than the equivalent non-organic, eg shrink-wrapped cauliflower, apples on polystyrene trays... which is clearly the opposite of the honourable organic intention.

West coast. And she did talk about them pouring it into the drawer to set, but I dismissed that as clearly rubbish - ha, shows what I know. Thanks for enlightening! And now I'm trying to imagine a worse lunch than cubes of cold porridge, and not really succeeding.

baked till squadgy then served with butter beaten with grated lime zest, dried red chilli flakes and chopped fresh coriander. oh yes.

someone, I think it's Jane Grigson, has a recipe for oatmeal pastry, which she uses for a tomato tart with Lancashire cheese. I think. will go home tonight and check. my dear ole mum (yuck) used to talk about her grandparents letting leftover porridge cool, cutting it into strips and frying it. this would be savoury/salted porridge, them being Scottish. sort of like a Scottish version of polenta? god. it occurs to me (only now) that this tale may be apocryphal.

thanks, vytoh! armed with my new-found knowledge I will stun them at the Chuen Cheng Ku this weekend.

salad of wild rice, Puy lentils, celery, green onion, roasted peppers + tomatoes, walnut oil dressing, then a piece of leftover apple frangipane with vanilla creme fraiche.

Villandry on Great Portland Street W1 (10 mins north of Oxford Circus) is a fantastic deli/sandwich place/traiteur. They also have a bar + restaurant where the food is wonderful, but I would recommend going at lunchtime, it's a bit dead in the evening. have a look here http://www.villandry.com

butternut squash with garlic and ginger and a drizzle of creme fraiche - tastes like velvet

Sarah's Peanut Butter Cookies delicious and chewy and, bizarrely for something which tastes this good, gluten free! (not, sadly, calorie free.) 6 rounded dessertspoonfuls peanut butter, crunchy or smooth, it doesn't matter 400 g tin sweetened condensed milk 175 g chopped roasted salted peanuts (not dry roasted) 125 g smashed up milk or plain chocolate 125 g chopped dates Preheat oven to 200C (sorry, not sure of F equivalent). Line a couple of baking trays (cookie sheets) with silicon paper. Mix ingredients and glob in smallish spoonfuls onto the trays (they spread out a bit when cooking but not a lot), bake 10-15 minutes till toasty golden. the peanut butter mixes with the condensed milk to make chewy stuff from heaven. Keywords: Cookie, Easy, Chocolate ( RG735 )

Sarah's Peanut Butter Cookies delicious and chewy and, bizarrely for something which tastes this good, gluten free! (not, sadly, calorie free.) 6 rounded dessertspoonfuls peanut butter, crunchy or smooth, it doesn't matter 400 g tin sweetened condensed milk 175 g chopped roasted salted peanuts (not dry roasted) 125 g smashed up milk or plain chocolate 125 g chopped dates Preheat oven to 200C (sorry, not sure of F equivalent). Line a couple of baking trays (cookie sheets) with silicon paper. Mix ingredients and glob in smallish spoonfuls onto the trays (they spread out a bit when cooking but not a lot), bake 10-15 minutes till toasty golden. the peanut butter mixes with the condensed milk to make chewy stuff from heaven. Keywords: Cookie, Easy, Chocolate ( RG735 )

go here. http://www.smws.com/about/index.html they have a great little bar in London, which has approx 150 whiskies under blank labels but with tasting notes (though the staff will always nod wink nod wink 'tell' you what you are drinking). I've never been to the Edinburgh one, however. One is supposed to be a member or the guest of a member to go, but I suspect if you threw yourself on their tender mercies you might be able to wing it. Certainly they can give you a good steer on where to find the good stuff. Have fun, sounds like a great trip (and am not partisan at all, being from the home of Johnnie Walker!! My dad gives us a celebratory glass of Blue Label only when Kilmarnock (local football team) wins. So that's not very often, then.) I

this is hardly news but you could serve it as the French do fromage frais: really cold and completely unadorned in small portions, with proper crunchy sugar for sprinkling (or good runny jam, esp redcurrant, to drizzle over). or, get some smoked salmon trimmings, not too much as you don't want to overpower the cream, fold them into the creme fraiche with lots of ground black pepper and let it sit for at least half an hour at room temp, then toss into really hot tagliatelle with some chopped fresh flatleaf parsley. probably won't need lemon juice if you've got such good tangy cream but worth checking for taste anyway. am very jealous!

it's very good chilled then poured over sliced ripe finger bananas or raspberries for breakfast.

was at Aquagrill in NYC yesterday for farewell meal (just three of us). the waitstaff kept filling our wine glasses whenever we took a sip, to almost halfway up a tulip-shaped glass, ie more than three inches full - this with a really nice Chablis that we were already on the second bottle of. pet peeve one, I do not care for warm white wine and would rather have an inch poured at a time so it remains cold. Pet peeve two, there were three of us, we had had between us two bottles of a very nice and not particularly cheap wine, so there was absolutely no need for the waitstaff to drain the second bottle into our glasses and announce loudly, 'this bottle is done'. we felt it was extremely gouging.

go dim sum. it's as cheap as pants and completely delicious. Chuen Cheng Ku at the Leicester Square end of Wardour Street is great. the pork slithers are the best. (and, maybe someone can tell me what they're REALLY called - the rice noodle pancakes wrapped round barbecue pork or prawns, drizzled with oil and soy - squishy and slippy at the same time, hence 'slithers' in my parlance sorry for digression but would love to know real name!)

I usually go the rosemary/garlic route when roasting squash but sage sounds delicious, thank you Brad S! Ginger + chilli goes well too, especially if you then sprinkle the roasted cubes with some crumbled feta cheese. Squash is also good stuffed with some sort of riff on wild rice/bacon/onion/bay leaf/mushrooms. And indeed chestnuts.

definitely agree with the stir frying and charring thing - and when they're done, toss them in a teaspoon or so of walnut oil.

peppered smoked mackerel cooked skin-side down on the griddle pan so the edges went crispy and some of the fat drained off (bit of a grim smell in the kitchen this morning, unfortunately) salad of roasted beetroot, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion + parsley tossed in EVOO, lemon juice and a little cumin chocolate fondue with marshmallows + strawberries

oh hurray for fellow Campareans! I think I've just invented a new star sign. The Venetians have a mad cocktail called a 'spritz', which is Campari, white wine and soda water in equal proportions, to be drunk pre-lunch. for some reason, it is absolutely lethal. I had one and was completely gaga, and I'm a long-time drinker of (a) Campari and (b) white wine (and soda water, obviously). But my all time favourite Campari cocktail is called, bizarrely, Mary's Knees. No, I have no idea why. My mum used to make it in industrial quantities for beach parties in the 70s. I have posted the recipe somewhere else - someone was looking for what to do with blood orange juice so forgive me if you've seen before but really, it's too good to waste! you need an empty 1.5l water bottle orange juice to 2/3rds of the way up the bottle add an inch (approx) of Campari - or more of course since we LOVE it add an inch (approx) of orange liqueur eg Cointreau, Grand Marnier add the juice of 1-2 juicy lemons top up with vodka, shake well and chill. the Campari takes the edge off the orange and adds its own particular hum of bitterness. not to mention colour from heaven. I want a Campari soda now and it's (a) raining and (b) 10am in London.

vserna, you are making me nostalgic! I lived on the Rue Amelot, right down at the Bastille end, when I was a student in Paris (15 years ago, eeek). All there was then was a couscous place downstairs. We're planning a Paris reunion and we might just have to go here! thank you!

the egullet UK Digest has just posted Jay Rayner's review of Gordon Ramsay's Boxwood Cafe saying (a) it's great and (b) they love kids. that might work? (sorry, I don't know how to post a link to the thread).

two words: mashed potatoes. mmmmmm. also, Brussels sprouts stir fried with a little walnut oil.