curlywurlyfi

Went to stay at the weekend with some friends who have an organic beef farm on the cliffs above Dartmouth. It's the most ludicrously idyllic spot - green rolling hills, blue sparkly sea, happy red cows - and has the most ridiculously bucolic name - Fountain Violet Farm. Emma + Ed have been living here for six years, and have been certified Soil Association Organic for four. Fountain Violet Top Field, with the day-marker for Dartmouth harbour just visible centre left, and the sea on the right Emma + Ed recently decided that the beef wasn't bringing in enough for them to live on (they have two small children), so they have opted to produce organic eggs for Waitrose. Waitrose's own brand are Colombian Blacktail eggs. This is what the box looks like: Waitrose Colombian Blacktail eggs and this is what the hens look like: They are very friendly and viewed my boots as a fabulous new food-source. The chickens live in here: Look at their fantastic view! over to the right, though it's not really visible in the photo, is the sea. Soil Association regulations allow for 1000 birds per acre. Ed has given them comfortably more than that. Oscar in the hen field While we were there, the hens were having a bit of a turn and had stopped laying. Was it bronchitis? Was it general grumpiness at the change of season? Not much telling with chickens, but since the farm is organic, no antibiotics allowed; instead, the hens were treated with homeopathic remedies and a little light encouragement. "Lay, you feathery wasters, or you'll be turkey twizzlers before I can say 'mechanically reconstituted'." Fountain Violet supplies 3500 eggs per week to Waitrose. This is about 60% of the eggs the farm yields: the rest, which are too small/too large/too misshapen/double yolkers go variously to local bakers or just into the willing tummies of family and friends. Their dogs have amazingly glossy coats, too. We had eggs benedict with hollandaise on Sunday morning - two eggs each, and each of those a double-yolker. It's OK, I always thought free-flowing arteries were over-rated anyway. The eggs are vastly different to battery eggs - yolks a deep glowing saffron-yellow; in fact, pretty much the colour of this smily: Waitrose sell about 120,000 Colombian Blacktail eggs a week, so if you buy a box, that means there's about a 1:34 chance that one of your eggs will be from The Paradise That Is Fountain Violet! And I like to support my friends. Fi (note: there is a chance that my numbers are off, so I'm leaving it to my factchecker to verify + amplify.) edited: because I can't upload images

Chinatown is about 10 minutes' walk from the London Transport Museum. It's not massive; about four streets (if you look at your A-Z, it's the little patch bounded by Shaftesbury Ave (north); Charing Cross Road (east); Leicester Square (south); and Wardour Street (west). There are other Chinese areas but that's 'official' Chinatown. I usually go to the Chuen Cheng Ku, bottom end of Wardour Street, where their pork slithers (or pork cheong fun, as I believe they are called in the real world) are the best I've found. You're also not far from Yauatcha (do a search for the many and varied comments thereupon), but it's not cheap.

not especially Chinese either but I use it most often when I'm stir-frying cabbage. Once you're past the initial stir-fry bit, add some crushed garlic and a slug of white wine and clamp a lid on tight so the cabbage steams/braises a little, then turn the heat up with the lid off to boil off the liquid. Lovely with ham and mashed potato.

I gave in and bought the white sourdough La Brea from Tesco today. Well. This stuff is really, really good. I had five (count them!) slices for lunch with artichokes in oil and some cherry tomatoes. I'm throwing the rest away or I will be in some sort of wheat coma by nightfall. And, whilst there, guess what. Tesco have added a Krispy Kreme donut stand to their bakery department. Dear god, what next?

Matthew Fort has a really, really good recipe for Swiss chard gratin here. It is really superb. I took a tip from our very own chardgirl and added a couple of teaspoons of Dijon mustard to it before baking, too.

Binkyboots, great thread. I'm always looking for cheap but devastatingly attractive recipes. You might find some ideas on this thread too? eating on a budget

NT is really meaty. for the most yummy veg Indian I've found, go to Rasa in Dering St, just off Oxford Street. Don't be put off by the allusions to Jamie Oliver in the window. Pickles + breads for inaugural noshing are particularly good.

Curses. This is my local Tesco (my office is across the road - or rather, across the six lanes of traffic jam on the A4, to be precise), the address is 100A West Cromwell Road, W14, and I can't believe Moby has given me this information the day after I bought three enormous Poilane sourdoughs, which will mean, since I live on my own, that I shan't need to buy any bread until approximately July.

hello all, happy new year, sorry for the recent lacuna in your recipe round-up, but normal service resuming herewith. Or whatever passes for normal round my way, at least. The spice of life - Caribbean recipes from Mark Hix Game on! Wood pigeon tart from Hambleton Hall American recipes from Gordon Ramsay - macaroni cheese with king prawns, anyone? Thre-e-e from Jill Duple-e-e. Do you see what I did there? Do you? Do you? Take three ingredients to make... tarte a la creme Lucas Hollweg gives us toasted teacakes, perfect for grim January afternoons Traditional Scottish breakfast? I think not! Smoothies and eggs Benedict from the Glasgow Herald Tamasin Day-Lewis gives us recipes with... spelt Good-tempered Sunday lunch from Matthew Fort - bacon + fennel frittata - mmmm Nigel Slater clams up - chowder and linguine alle vongole And finally, Sybil Kapoor in Waitrose Food Illustrated brings us seasonal dishes: vanilla-poached quince; cold pheasant with mustard-dressed chicory; Seville orange sorbet. Wot, no marmalade???

My god-daughter. Aged 14 months. Black olives.

oh, hear hear, it's the best, isn't it? I sometimes make it but leaving out the aubergine (so just use tomatoes, celery, raisins, onions, pinenuts, etc) then, separately, chargrill/sear slices of aubergine and top with a spoonful of caponata and maybe some mozzarella or just olive oil. mmmm. oh my god - is that deconstructing?? Aubergines are also very good in a recipe based on something Nigel Slater once published in The Observer. Fry onion/garlic, soften aubergine chunks, add chopped tomatoes, cinammon, crushed cardamom, red chilli, half a tin of coconut milk, simmer till tender, squeeze in some lime + chop in some coriander. Heavenly with basmati rice.

I was in Bolzano at the weekend (walking in the Alps - lovely!) and we had dinner on Saturday night at The Laurin hotel. The chef, Thomas Mayr, was sous-chef for a year at The French Laundry and he is, commendably, trying to bring a little excitement to the menu there. Unfortunately, however, in my opinion, he lacks the final degree of polish necessary to really make his dishes sing. His menu read very well - though I am never going to be 100% sure about a menu that has tuna carpaccio with avocado on it, in the mountains, in December - but the execution was underwhelming. We were given an amuse of carta di musica with aubergine puree. Delicious. And I don't even like aubergines. I started with fagottini with Savoy cabbage on a ragout of rabbit. Filling was sweet and good, but the pasta was undercooked and even a little hard/cold at the top edge (little bundles pinched together at the top). Rabbit ragout sensational and melting. Massimo had trofie with chicken + curry broth. Flavour was excellent, but, being Italian, he pointed out that trofie were not 'correct' with broth. Sabina then had duck breast with quince, which was slightly oddly presented as a large finger-shaped candied-looking chunk. Massimo had beef involtini with bacon - good, but humdrum. I had truffled John Dory with crosnes + salsify. Nice, but the truffle wasn't entirely convincing with the fish. I was too full of aubergine to have a pudding but Massimo managed raspberry roulade with blackcurrant icecream with pistachios (icecream excellent, roulade very ordinary), and Sabina had warm chocolate truffle cake with little cubes of pear and what looked like a lightning bolt made out of sugar. This would have been more impressive if the bolt had been perfectly smooth on the underneath instead of being patterned by the plastic sheet it had cooled on. Both puddings were ho-hum. Nice petits-fours with the coffee, though. So - disappointing, I thought. By way of contrast, we were walking near Soprabolzano the following day and had lunch at a little refuge called the Moserhof. Sauerkraut, spareribs and Kaiserschmarren with jam. Mountain people food, as Sabina said - completely without pretension and thoroughly delicious.

and lo, the recipes. Heston Blumenthal talks turkey Matthew Fort is a little sheepish and cooks up a mutton fest! It'll be roast pork with onion + marsala gravy chez Slater for Christmas this year (though he does talk about turkey sandwiches with watercress + crispy bacon - mmmmmm) Tom Norrington-Davies cooks a Delia Christmas Spice up your life! Mark Hix gives us saffron custard tarts, duck + pomegranate stew, pumpkin + ginger soup, Christmas cookies Wake up with Gordon Ramsay! Hangover cures Three from Jill Dupleix Take three ingredients to get baguette with cranberry + brie. I can't believe they are insulting us with a recipe for this. Local Heroes - Tom Conran + Mark Broadbent cook with local ingredients (smoked haddock rarebit with red chard, bacon + cockles, mmmm again) And finally, I know none of the eGullet community need this, but here are some foods to make you beautiful! Ciao (chow?), belli!

The new issue of Delicious has an article by Tony Singh of Oloroso on eating in Edinburgh. Covers restaurants and food shops. Can post to anyone who is sufficiently interested. Restaurants are Oloroso (obviously); Annapurna (run by TS's brother); The Apartment; Le Cafe St Honore; Chiang Mai; Duddingston Fry; Kweilin; Marmaris Kebab House; number one; The Outsider; Petit Paris; Rhubarb; and Vittoria Shops are: Caledonian Fish; Campbells Prime Meat; I J Mellis Cheesemonger; Pat's Chung Ying; and Polypack.

my god, Jason, that's astounding. Not really dinner, just a lunch SO BIG that I am only now able to eat again (she said, gnawing on a dry cracker). Was staying with some friends up in Nottingham + David pressed me into service in the kitchen as his sous for Sunday lunch with the vicar. Who, rather brilliantly, brought a bottle of red wine along called Holy Trinity. To start, little filo pastry cups filled with cranberry chutney + a blob of lancashire cheese. Served with champagne while everyone arrived. Spectacular leg of lamb, studded with garlic + rosemary + roasted. Roast potatoes. Carrots roasted with chili flakes + thyme. Mashed swede with cream and crispy bacon folded through (this was absolutely genius). Steamed leeks. Steamed mangetouts. Home-made mint sauce. Thick delicious gravy. This meat feast was followed by steamed treacle sponge pudding with proper custard (600ml double cream, seven egg yolks, vanilla pod, sugar, half an hour frantic work with wooden spoon over low heat). Fresh fruit salad + cream for the frightened. Stilton and some smoked cheese or other (couldn't actually focus by this stage). Coffee, and just in case anyone had a spare corner, Bendicks Bittermints. I drove back down the motorway to London with the car listing heavily to one side.

Kris, this sounds delicious. Did you part-cook the sweet potatoes before stir-frying?

indeed you did! and you were not wrong. with a spoonful of muesli it was very good. last night's dinner was super-amplified since I managed to sprain my ankle (no flowers please) whilst going home on Saturday night, so as I couldn't leave the flat all day Sunday (I'm up four flights of stairs) I had nothing to do but cook. Fortunately I had people coming over for vidspud anyway, so they got: shepherds pie - minced lamb with onion, thyme, carrot, red wine, garlic and my secret ingredient, two teaspoons of Marmite. also found some lamb stock in the freezer and boiled that right down and added it. Mash on top had mustard and spring onions through it. Served with mashed swede (or 'suede' as my friend Tom styled it) and buttered caraway cabbage. then the products of the afternoon's baking frenzy: coconut cupcakes inspired by this comment in the cupcakes thread. Hmmm. I was underwhelmed by these; didn't think the cream cheese icing complemented the cakes. Still, they were eaten. Also Anzac biscuits (coconut oatmeal biscuits with syrup, which I reminded myself of in the Lyle's Golden Syrup thread. and what are popularly called amongst my friends "Jane's Chocolate Brownies To Die For", after our friend Jane who hit upon the excellent notion of crunching up a bar (or more!) of both white and dark chocolate and stirring this into the brownie batter before baking. Outstanding, and I think she should get a Nobel Prize For Services To Calories. oh, and Roquefort and walnuts in case anyone felt they had a little corner left to fill.

a delicious Gewurtztraminer to start. and organic ginger beer for those not drinking wine! then chicken pie - chicken, bacon, leeks, carrots + parsley in a stock + wine sauce, topped with shortcrust pastry decorated with traditional leaves + egg yolk gloss. Buttered Savoy cabbage with caraway seeds. Green beans with garlic, parsley + olive oil. Boiled baby potatoes. Spiky Dijon mustard for those who like it with chicken pie (ie me). Cardamom panna cotta with sliced oranges + those horrifically addictive crispy thin almond biscuits for scrunching. we were very happy. And I can tell you that cardamom panna cotta is excellent for breakfast.

stir fry of pork tenderloin with onion, green pepper, celery + water chestnuts, thickened with cornstarch + a dab of treacle for caramelly flavour, sprinkled with roasted cashews + served with basmati + furikake. Followed by apple + blackberry pie (blackberries picked on a friend's farm) and vanilla icecream. Pie based on a recipe of Tamasin Day Lewis's in The Art of the Tart + severely disappointing. just realized we had Chinese, Indian, Japanese and English. can you say 'fusion'?? (more like con-fusion.)

have just had sweet potato for lunch - baked, split open + topped with guacamole, chunked tomato + some chopped red onion. really good.

I've got a fantastic tart recipe which involves a shortcrust base with chunks of unpeeled waxy potatoes, taleggio, caramelized onion, cream, eggs + nutmeg and lots of rocket (aka arugula). oooh yeah.

but surely the converse must by extension also be true? Let's pretend Andy's paragraph above is predicated on a positive not a negative review: "Imagine if it was your restaurant that was being talked about in this way, and the members of eGullet as one united in saying how fantastic a chef you must be, how incredible your food is and how professional the service at your restaurant must be for such an incident to have occurred. Wouldn't your reaction be "How can they say that, they weren't even there?" " I have a feeling that this post would be considered entirely unobjectionable on eGullet. So why can't pweaver1984 express his (negative) opinion? No-one has asked eGullet to throw up its hands and say oh god how awful poor you. Pweaver1984 has shared his disappointing experience with us, and I am sad that eGullet doesn't seem to have the capacity or the courage to allow that.

Brussels sprouts also excellent stir-fried till bright green (I sometimes put a lid on mine if they're getting a bit scorched) and then drizzled with a little walnut oil + balsamic.

can give you my tuppence worth on thinness of sauce - if you're using uncooked pasta, a lot of that moisture is soaked up by the sheets as they cook. as for the rest, I'm afraid you're on your own! because my answer to (2) is 'beats me', and my answer to (3) is 'so it looks right'. FWIW, I prefer shallower + wider lasagnes - more crackly topping per portion.

there is less flavour in tube-shaped veg (carrots, parsnips, courgettes) cut in coins than if they are cut in batons or cubes. Anyone else noticed that?