danlepard

Was it still good, Daniel, on reflection? A chef friend has just told me "you must go to Prune". Dan

Ann, they look like great baguettes. And after only 3 weeks, congratulations, really open texture in the crumb and that blistering on the crust is a good sign of a long cool rise. Dan

Danno, it sounds great, but I might leave out the madelines and have: a duo of warm chocolate cake with buttermilk gelato, a saffron poached pear with date ice cream. Dan

Your bread looks really good. It's quite amazing really, thinking that you've taken it from this: to this: Now if only we could get the high street bakers around the UK to do the same. Dan

Geoff, I'm of the view that we have a glut of things in our lives and there is very little that we need in our comfortable Western world. So when you ask "does the world need...?" I'm certain the answer is "no we don't!" But we publish, not to fill a need, but according to whether an editor believes an individual has something fresh to say on a hunch that enough people will to pay to read those views. For Italian cookbooks, Marcella Hazan (unless you read Italian) is probably enough. The Locatelli book is unashamedly a chef book and has at its core the story of a cook travelling from a small town in Italy, via Michelin kitchens and old-school cooking in Paris, through to the London and finally owning his own restaurant and becoming a chef. The cooking of Lombardy is at the heart of the book, a region in Italy not written about that often perhaps because it isn't the most obviously beautiful or balmy place. It's cold and a bit industrial, the architecture a bit brutal (all things I like, but I'm a bit odd that way) and the food is plain and unassuming - a simple saffron risotto or some fried eel - and not so overtly glamorous. What the book adds to the basic Italian canon is one view of how traditional Lombardi cooking can influence the top-end restaurant menu, take on French haute-cuisine influences, and pop out the other end as balanced and reassuring food. D

I really can't see it as the kind of book you'd throw away. But then, I'm utterly biased. Anthony Silverbrow on the blog Silverbrow has just put up an interview with Giorgio here. Dan

that's not true, Andy, the sad fact is there are many publications around the world that pay little or nothing and get excellence in return. It's only excellence and reputation that attracts the same. Nor is it true that one bad article in PPC, even if it occurred once an issue, is a sign that the slender budget attracts shocking writers.

in the interest of fair comment, not everyone liked it. Philippa Davenport in the Financial Times on how the book was a little too heavy to be taken seriously.

but not as catchy as "The plane! The plane!"

What would be the sort of article mix you'd like to read in OFM?* Dan *Assuming it still has to have those pop-edged stories that are popular with many readers, sell on the newstand, and stay young and lively without knocking readers into a noble slumber? If you were king?

I never did supply them, Nimzo, a bakery I used to work for called Baker & Spice did. I left there about 6 years ago and haven't a clue if they still do supply them; I guess from your comment they don't. D

Ask for Antoinella, she speaks English

Sort of, it's about a 5 minute taxi ride from the center: Googlemaps for Antiche Sere

Hadn't heard that, Matthew. I stayed at the Turin Palace, a sweet but slightly faded grand old hotel. To get into the racetrack simply to to the shopping mall on the ?? floor, and buy a ticket to the gallery: http://www.pinacoteca-agnelli.it then you can just walk outside afterwards. I went on Friday afternoon, the sun was beaming down (so much for the BBC 5-day online weather forecast and the expected rain) and the view was clear. The racetrack is impressive, imagine driving around the rooftop tarmac at topspeed, flying around those ramped corners. D

Hello Gilb3rt, I know I always bang on about Antiche Sere, Via Ceniscia 9, 011 3854347, but was there again on Thursday evening and the food was just spot on. The menu hasn't changed really in the last 7 years, and the food is utterly simple, just good home cooking. I had (off the top of my head, I didn't take notes so my spelling and grammar might be a bit off...) Tomino con salsa verde - a little fresh cows milk cheese with a drizzle of a dense dark olive green herb sauce Salame di pate e maiale - a pork and potato salame, very soft fried fresh eel and lemon gnocchi with sausage stinco di maiale - shin of pork cooked until falling off the bone pannacotta, zabaglione, and grappa all with a great baraolo and a little grappa. I've eaten there a dozen odd times, and always have been happy and left contented. Do go up to the top of the Fiat building to look at the small Agnelli painting collection and walk around the rooftop car racetrack. Very relaxing. regards Dan

wow, devlin, what a beautiful community you live in. it's like something from a movie (well, one of those breadhead films playing in my head). The loaves and cakes looks very good, with a handsome oven too. Some people have the best life... regards Dan

sshh, Maison Berteaux is a secret place. Now the world will know...

my top pics (chemical-free, fresh each day): Ottolenghi, 287 Upper St, London, N1 2TZ - great viennoiserie, tarts, cakes Peyton and Byrne, The Heal’s Building, 196 Tottenham Court Road, London W1 - the British hub for Roger Pizzey, MPW's longtime pastry chef Clarkes, 124 Kensington Church Street, London - just the pastry (not talking bread), the fresh-baked tarts and bars, good nougat. and from Jon's list (omitting the chocolatiers) Sketch Laduree Konditor and Cook

Went to a dessertcentric restaurant in Helsinki at the weekend, http://www.postres.fi excellent, so much good food there. Though at postres the starts and mains did seem stronger, a crab ravioli with a foam (of some sort , you see I went drinking with the Finns and you where that leads) and a braised ox cheek dish. Desserts of tart tatin (a little frilly) and a a choc assiette (a bit of everything, not a good idea). I wonder whether pastry chefs bring a new eye to starters and mains, and that is the magic? Dan

Ed, is your stone quite wide? Where is the heat source in your oven? I'm wondering if it's blocking the circulation of heat in the oven...

Peter, thank you for the offer but I dashed off without looking over the weekend. So I didn't get a chance to look for any bakeries in Leipzig. But I did have excellent food, really good quality simply prepared, heavy on the meat. By chance there was a local Oktoberfest in Eisleber where I was working. I hadn't been to a fair like this for years, and never one where the food was so good, great beer and wine on tap, ending with an extraordinary firework display that went on for about half an hour. Quite wonderful. I'm going to try and go again next year, if only for the large pork steaks grilled over a wood fire and served with slices of dense rye bread, pickled cabbage and cold beer. http://www.wiesenmarkt.de/index.php?task=Home&vs=1 regards, Dan

I do understand. I didn't take a picture between 1992 - 2002, everything just too expensive and the memory all a bit much. Though I still shoot on film, 6x7 and 35 mm, it's now possible to scan, the film at home, make a sized-tiff and have it printed at snappy-snaps for 60p. What this means, getting back to your topic, is that it should be possible for anyone to record the food they love, the technique they use, and though this may not create the most dramatic images, they be full of meaning for the reader, explaining just how something is constructed. We should start to see, soon, a different approach to reportage in food publishing where characters right in the middle of situations can be given a camera to record what they do. regards Dan

But this applies to every photograph, the moment you frame it in the viewfinder. I used to spend a great deal of time arranging things for the camera, and now I consciously make the effort not to. But the result now is sill a kind of artifice, just less laboured. In the old days (before food took over my life), whether I was shooting a still life cover for an interiors magazine, a fashion catalogue or an album cover, everything went through layers of meetings and decision making. On my books this doesn't happen; on Giorgio's, absolutely. Alastair styles more than I do, and to my mind they're his least successful images. When he takes a more journalistic approach he's remarkable. It's not the publishers, though. It's a condition we set as authors, rather than a push by the publishers to save money as we're paid photography fees as well. Why doesn't your blog contain images? Dan

Hi, Most of the food photography I see in books and magazines is still about artifice and control even if the result attempts to suggest a loose and casual approach to "food on a plate", simply because of the constraints of the commissioning and editorial process. Though the photography used on blogs appears similar to magazine or book photography, the way it is produced makes it rather different. The home cook records what they've made in response to the pleasure (or anger ) they feel towards it and a need to both capture that, then edit it and upload it to a website for immediate viewing. No other opinions affect this process. And as you know, Tim and Austin, this is rarely the situation a commercial photographer will work in. On a commercial shoot time is limited, the commissioning is right up against the deadline, often there will be a number of people keen to make their impression (valid or otherwise) on the photograph, and earn money in the process. Fine when everyone is working to the same end, with similar opinions on what they want from the photograph. Dreadful when they pull in opposite directions. I'd careful about describing photography 20 years ago into "the good old days". I see more dreadful work from then than now (and I'd include a lot of my own work from 20 years ago in that), many old images that neither contain detail about the method of making the food, nor any sense that good food has a softness to it. On books, photographers are rarely brought in until the manuscript is delivered, food will be prepared by a food stylist rather than the author, and after the film is submitted the final image choice will often be made by the graphic designer. So when you see an unhelpful image in a book don't blame either the photographer or the author. They probably had no say in it. On a blog it's one eye, one opinion, and often the photographer is the author, chef, food stylist and designer "all in one". They are able to record personal discoveries, moments only accessible to an insider, without any distraction. It may not strive towards the stylized ideal that Penn or Hiro aimed for, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. regards Dan