Adam Balic

Ron - it seems to be a regional thing in Italy. Arborio was the first risotto rice introduced into the US, so it tends to be most popular there. For some information on the rice types and there uses: click

Miss J - I tried this as a teenager. I ate three whole nutmegs. Threw-up for hours, no other effects.

Who are you and what have you done with Steve? Steve - I'm glad of your great joy. I have been thinking about this British food-crapper thing. I reckon that it really declined in the late 19th C. Which is strange because this is the period that much of the "New British Classic" type cuisine is coming from. Edit: Is this Mayfair on the way to Damascus and will we have to call you Peve now?

Miss J - Wow! That sounds wonderful. What is "Strange Flavour"?

Saffy - there has been much talk about Absinthe on this site (use search function). From what I can gather authentic - state-of-reality-altering Absinth, doesn't really exist. Much of the stuff sold as Absinth is just green dyed booze. Even stuff made from authentic recipes don't have enough wormwood naughtiness to actually do anything. If you want to get well stoned cheaply and legally, order some mexican sage leaves of the web. Strong stuff, it may permenently alter your personality though. Click

Has anybody experimented with risotto rice other then arborio (eg. Carnaroli, Roma, Baldo, Padano, and vialone nano)? I have been using carnaroli and seem the prefer to aborio this in terms of "bite". But this could be delusional. Risotti of the moment: Smoked chicken breast and red peppers. "Plain" risotto with petit pois. Risotto with puy lentils (surprise guests, not enough rice or lentils to make a meal). Chanterelle. Jaybee - I have used bone marrow to make risotto a la Milanese, it did lend a certain richness, but also a certain greaziness. I prefer to use butter to give the richness factor now.

Sure, the gentle kiss of orange-wood smoke that lent its savour to each meal is a thing of the past. As is ricketts.

Confit du schmaltz .

yep. Schmaltz I like, but I like the little cruncy crispy bits that form when you make schmaltz even better.

Oooh. The Roux brothers have a recipe for a tart using these fresh hazelnuts. Lucky bastard. Spoke to my dad last night about stuffed cabbage. Yep has to be pickled. He also recomends some pork in the mix to add fat, but I guess this would take it to far away from the Jewish version.

Cobnut? Is that a hazelnut? In Edinburgh there is a farmers market every second saturday. We always go as they have spit roasted pig, which goes very well with saturday morning hangover. THe veg is a bit sad (cabbage, kale, potato, turnips), but the meat is great (rare breeds, plus venison, wild boar etc) as are the smoked fish. Well worth attending.

Haggis, 'neeps, cabbage with bacon, all on a white plate. Drink - some weird homemade Croatian walnut and wormwood wine.

Will have to review some of my views on peasant cooking in light of a surprise visit from my father. My father unexpectedly turned up in Edinburgh after visiting the fatherland (Dalmatia), amounghst all his happy snaps he had a few photos of my grandmothers home (my grandmother is the best home cook I know of), it is basically a one room, semi-subterranean) stone building. What was interesting was how they cooked meals (until ~1950's). A central fire (smoke leaves via hole in the roof), most meals cooked in a cauldron, some things (fish) grilled on a iron plank. Bread was baked by placing the dough on the plank and placing the inverted cauldron over this, and heaping ashes around this. Pretty basic stuff, but a great cuisine - damn it. Still my grandmother tells me that cooking is even better now that she has a eight burner stove with three independent ovens.

Bourride (Fish stew, soup) with Aioli, steamed new potatos and roast baby Zucchini, tomato and peppers. Fig and walnut tart.

Suvir - Water Buffalo are quite different to Domestic Cattle. Lucky for you they have started milking Buffalo in the USA, so you should be able to source milk if you wish. http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2002news/waterbuffalo.htm My Indian friends tell me that Buffalo milk has much less sugar then Cows milk and that it was always sugared before drinking in their home, is this your experience? Simon's recipe sounds similar to making "fake ricotta" (lemon juice to make the curd, rather then rennet), could use use very good grade fresh ricotta to make the Indian desert?

Or you can beat the blood, which will make the fribrinogen (clotting agent) drop out of solution.

Does this mean you don't like these wines?

I can't wait either. If it takes that long will not Suvir have developed, oh, several hundred new recipes? THen they well have to go into the book, further delays, more recipes. We may never get this book!

Does "Ready" = "Optimal" or "Suitable"?

Black Pudding buttie with egg and brown sauce. Irn Bru to drink.

Matthew - in regards to the Australian wine, both of those wines types are massively oaked, so very strong vanilla flavours predominate when they are young. The Wynn's sometimes can taste of "coconut" due to the oak loading. It comes down to personal preference, I'm not sure what yours is ( ), I prefer the aged reds, so I wouldn't touch them until they are 8-10 years old. The primary fruit will have died down and the secondary flavours will have kicked in and (hopefully) have tamed the oak.

Vietnamese noodle salad (sans Vietnamese Mint ). Vietnamese grill pork.

I have the breast cups and like them (I have no problem with bubbles as I don't wash them with detergent), but they are a bugger to clean. She must have had very long nipples though. Mostly we use flutes.

Billecarte-Salmon, Grosset, Charles Heidsieck. Plenty of small producers in Champagne produce excellent fizz at low prices, but are rarely seen. Go to Champagne and find out exactly how over-priced the produt is.

Gav. - Newky Brown man are you?