curlywurlyfi

mmm - can't really see myself queuing up to buy a book filled with recipes for 'fish offal'

... and a special bonus for you on this cheerless Thursday - from today's Independent review section, the ten best autumn cookbooks

you'll find both Ortolan reviews in the UK Media round-up (she says, bossily)

yesterday was cooking marathon since I am going to be manic over the next couple of weeks at work + I wanted breakfasts + lunches to bring with me. so I locked myself in the kitchen and made: cornmeal muffins; oat + banana bars; cinammon apple cake; chili; butterbeans with chorizo + chard; turkey burgers with rosemary + lemon; sort-of pork larb (just add fresh herbs!); slow-roast cherry tomatoes; roasted butternut squash; Matthew Fort's chard gratin; brown rice. Now all bagged and frozen. but for dinner, I actually had a bucket of popcorn whilst watching The Motorcycle Diaries.

in the absence of our glorious ottery leader who is on holiday this week, I'm doing the restaurants AND the recipe corralling this week, so send the brickbats my way. First up, the restaurants. Marina O'Loughlin is underwhelmed by Chez Kristof, but Charles Campion is in rhapsodies over Rhapsody, a South American place in W14 (reindeer pate anyone??) Victor Lewis Smith bets his testicles at Manze's pie + mash shop. No, really. Small, but perfectly formed - Jay Rayner visits 5 North Street and has an agrodolce experience Giles Coren compares Selfridges and Harvey Nichols Jan Moir gives L'Ortolan the bird, but Caroline Stacey rather liked it Terry Durack thinks Ottolenghi in Islington is "is a great package of food, fashion, design and romance." Blimey. Unfortunately (you might think) the Sunday Times's website is still featuring last week's AA Gill review, so I have not provided a link. Slackers. and, now, for your recipe pleasure: It's finger-lickin' good - Matthew Fort goes for hands-on food including spare ribs, grilled quail and piadine made with pork fat. Mmmm, hawg fat... Nigel Slater and his explicitly firm corn cobs (and other seasonal delights) A la mode? Gordon Ramsay talks about fashions in food - this season we will mostly be eating beetroot and lavender. three from Jill Dupleix - lamb chop curry with peas, anyone? Further slackery, this time from The Telegraph, who haven't updated their link for Sally Clarke's menus (third in a four-part series) either. Really, I don't know what the world is coming to. From memory, when I read Saturday's Telegraph, it was recipes for high tea, and the only one I kept was for... can't even remember, but it was on the right hand side of the page about half way down, does that help? no? they did manage to give us cheap student eats though. Berry, berry good - Mark Hix goes through the hedgerows Chantal Coady compares and contrasts the ten best chocolates. Why can't I get that sort of gig? And finally, this week's pun of the week award goes to The Independent, discussing a pink wine from Michigan called 'Sex'. See closing line

oh, that is really lovely of you both, my mama blushes. I used the last half inch of my last pot (I'm not counting the jar of her in my view ill-advised grapefruit variation) over the weekend on a polenta muffin. With bacon. (Yes, slacker, I know!) it occurs to me that if I give away enough of it I'll have to make Mum into a brand and put her photo on the product, like Uncle Ben or (god forbid) Ronald Mcdonald. We'll then have to call it (brace yourselves) mama-lade. Fi

first of all thank you to Bapi for organizing last night; it was my first trip to the NT and certainly won't be my last. My little Scottish heart is rejoicing - twelve quid for such a feast! Why can't it be nearer W2, is what I want to know. Particularly enjoyed the lamb chops, the dry meat (mmmm, gheeeeeeeee) and the cardamom kulfi. Good to meet everyone. Was slightly alarmed by the string of coincidences that revealed themselves: that David (Slacker) knows my friend Tom; that Robin had not only brought along a bottle of my ex-boyfriend's family's wine, but that he also knew friends of mine in Sheffield. Just goes to show one should never be nasty about anyone as it will invariably come back to smite you... Fortunately, absolutely no need to be nasty about anyone, since it was a great evening, and we bulged off towards the tube smelling faintly of raw onion. To paraphrase Governor Schwarzenegger, I'll be back. Fi

this is my mum's recipe for banana bread - this is the loaf-y kind. I have tweaked it to cut the heinous sugar content (cut from 5 to 2oz with no discernible drop in flavour - it's amazing my brother and I have any teeth left). Also, she makes it with white flour, I make it with wholemeal (only discernible difference is it is slightly less moist, but as I then either cover it in butter or toast it it doesn't worry me unduly). makes one 6.5x4in loaf 2-3 very ripe bananas (they must be seriously ripe, spotted with black + making your entire kitchen smell of banana. If not, the loaf is pallid and doughy. Don't say I didn't warn you.) 60g/2oz soft butter 60g/2oz soft brown sugar 1/2 tsp vanilla 1 egg 150g/5oz self-raising flour 1/4 tsp bic of soda pinch salt preheat oven to 180C and grease + line a small (6.5x4in) loaf tin. In the food processor buzz the banana, sugar, butter, vanilla and egg together till no more lumps left. it will look curdled. Do not worry. tip in the flour, bic soda + salt and buzz only as much as you need to incorporate them. Pour and scrape into tin, make the top as level as you can (but again, don't worry about it unduly). Bake for anywhere between 30-45-60 mins till a skewer poked in comes out clean. Watch it towards the end esp if you have a fan oven, as it does 'catch' on top. Turn out of the tin, peel off lining and cool on a wire rack. Nicest if you can bear to let it cool before eating. Keeps brilliantly wrapped in foil and frozen.

I've only had sweetbreads once and they came with a brown sauce with morels. which was actually amazing. Have to say, Moby, when I first read this topic, I thought it was going to be about sweetbreads with HP Sauce - which really did make my tastebuds curl.

inspired by this link in the UK media round-up, I made Matthew Fort's chard gratin - lightly cooked chard mixed with fried bacon, grated cheese and a little Dijon mustard (thank you chardgirl for your suggestion in the Weightwatcher's thread), topped with grated Parmesan and baked for about 20 minutes. Fort suggests topping it with a fried egg, but I thought it was absolutely amazing as it was, and only wished I'd had more chard...

somewhere else on the boards (dinner thread?) there's a mention of lasagne with butternut squash and ricotta.

doesn't Tim Wilson at the Ginger Pig supply quite a lot of restaurants with not just pork but other meats too? I know, for example, that friends of mine who have an organic beef farm in Devon which up till now has been pure-bred South Devon Red have started having their heifers covered by an Aberdeen Angus bull because they felt the SDR strain on its own didn't give enough marbling to the meat.

there's a (shhhh) Jamie Oliver recipe which I riff on - he calls it Hamilton Squash and it's basically butternut squash cored + halved then stuffed with rice, bacon, onion, thyme, rosemary, red chili, garlic. I riff on it by chunking the squash, mixing with the other ingredients (fry the bacon + onion first) and baking in a pan with a bit of stock. I put cherry tomatoes in mine but of course, you don't have to! Or my friend Teresa's Butternut Squash Soup - butter or oil, one butternut squash, one parsnip, one carrot, one onion, lots garlic, red chilli, veg or chicken stock, slosh double cream, puree, maybe add squeeze lemon juice. Freezes brilliantly. my favourite way with zucchini (or courgettes as we call them) is: cut in half lengthways then cut into 2-3in chunks, then roast in a pan with olive oil, rosemary, garlic and a couple of cut lemon quarters. Discard lemon quarters before serving. maybe chop fresh mint over. Alternative is courgette 'snails' - slice thinly lengthways + grill, put in bath of olive oil lemon juice chopped parsley basil + garlic while you do the rest of them, roll up round cubes of feta cheese + secure with toothpick. make great appetisers. you can also grate courgettes, fry in a little garlic butter and stir into saffron mashed potatoes. Speckled spuds! good luck! Fi

what about caldo verde, the Portuguese soup with kale (and sometimes chorizo)?

ooooh, me too, me too. did you try the chard gratin with bacon and a fried egg on top? can't WAIT to have a night in (2005 at this rate) Fi

there are various ways, but if you find a post by the person you want to PM, look at the bottom of their post, towards the left hand side there is a teeny button marked 'PM' - click there and you're all set!

peel pears, split in half, scoop out middles with teaspoon. mix up some mascarpone with brandy/vanilla/cocoa grains/grated orange peel/pretty much whatever you like, plus a bit of sugar. put a blob in the cavity, replace other half of pear. spread some brown sugar and cinnamon on a plate, roll pear in mix, put on a piece of silicon paper and fold paper loosely into packet, secure with paperclip. (I sometimes put a few drops of water or, better, pear grappa in the parcel). Bake for 30-40 minutes in a medium oven. serve with the leftover mascarpone. pear tart with cinammon walnut pastry? Anna N's saffron baked pears (mmmm)? sliced pear on watercress topped with Roquefort and grilled? couple of ideas from Gordon Ramsay in Sunday's Times have got a great recipe somewhere for a German style apple pie/cake with marzipan. And for a Norwegian three-layer coffee cake with a layer of apples and a cinammony crumble topping, do PM if you'd like them. And Nigella Lawson has a recipe I've never tried but which sounds yummy for translucent apple tart (basically you grate the apple into a heinous amount of butter). apple snow? toffee apple upside down cake? apple tart with cheese pastry? (edited to add Ramsay link + apple recipes)

Belly pork rubbed with salt + thyme + roasted till crackly. Carrots roasted with chili flakes. Steamed green cabbage. Boiled potatoes. Home-made apple sauce. Incredible pork. Three of us ate a roast that should have served eight people. Mmm - hawg fat... (actually, this was lunch, but I ate so much that I couldn't even fit in a wine gum in the car as I drove back to London)

I do this, then add lots of garlic, some cumin and some dried red chilli flakes or a squeeze of harissa, and then chop lots of fresh mint or parsley over. great with chicken breast chunks sauteed in honey, paprika + lemon juice.

once cooked they are very nice with garlic, double cream and a little chopped sage stirred in. this goes v well with chicken roasted with tomatoes round.

peppered smoked mackerel or smoked trout pate - take 1-2 fillets of desired fish, peel the skin off if you're using the mackerel, pull it apart with a pair of forks like you're shredding a duck, flake into a pack of cream cheese (can use low fat, it doesn't affect the flavour), mulch about a bit with a fork until you like the consistency (chunky is nicest), check for seasoning, add chopped dill or lemon juice or chopped parsley. delicious on crunchy wholemeal toast. This is, in fact, what I'm eating right now! this also freezes well.

went to Royal China on Queensway for dim sum on Sunday and frankly not impressed. The quail (on the specials menu) was good, but not great; the steamed baby squid in garlic (also specials) looked like boiled eyeballs in vitreous fluid and tasted similar; and the pork cheong fun, or 'slithers' as I like to call them, my absolute favourite dim sum, were too doughy. Pork puffs were very good, slightly sweet with sesame seeds sprinkled on, as were the steamed prawn and coriander dumplings. Service was surly to the point of rudeness - I actually got a hand held up to my face at one point when trying to ask for a menu to order some more food. Bill remarkably cheap - £15 a head (no alcohol though), but that wasn't enough to save the experience. Next time I'll stick with the Chuen Cheng Ku.

is his byline picture still like something out of the Blues Brothers-but-with-added-dreadlocks?

Hi Marc My friends who live in Dartmouth report that it's still child-friendly. great for brunch, apparently. Fi (edited to remove extraneous bracket)

Moby that's great. hurrah for the Mobilettes! or do you prefer the MobKats? or perhaps the miniPoms?