culinary bear

Hee hee... I've briefly met Robert Owen Brown and he seems like a nice fella. From the couple of reports I've had back from the place, the problem seems to be consistency - a case of "while the cat's away"... I hope you enjoy it, and do try the mash. :)

good bread... A friend of mine had a wonderful word - 'mouthgasms'...

Try VERY gently blowtorching the surface - works splendidly with custards. tart fillings and other semi-liquids, and might be of use to you here.

:) The casks can be hugely influential on the character of a malt whisky. You can get a good idea of the natural variations by comparing some of the single-cask offerings available nowadays. Distilleries have a wide variety of casks to use at any one time, and the 'brand' is vatted between these casks in much the same way as a tea-blend is formulated, in order to maintain the same profile year upon year. Sometimes a little older whisky is incorporated - for a while, Ardbeg's 10yo contained a large proportion of older whiskies due to the distillery haing been mothballed for a period and thus having insufficient actual ten-year old whisky to meet demand. Whether the current trend for 'designer' finishes continues is yet to be seen. The Famous Grouse now bottle a blended whisky which has spent some time in old beer barrels, and in a delicious twist, Innis and Gunn have brought out a beer matured in whisky casks! It's particularly fine.

...and I think you're extensively projecting your personal values on to a culture which quite probably has much more of a history of hippophagy than your own. What about the responsibility of her husband to make reasonably clear if he didn't want to eat a particular food? They're husband and wife; this isn't cooking for random strangers here. How much of the cooking does the husband do in the home? I'm respectful of the fact that this isn't altogether akin to not liking cilantro; this is, however, much more involved than the somewhat inflexible judgement you appear to be passing down on the original poster.

As regards the bridge, a colleague of mine (whose judgment I trust) once worked there. I'm quoting him pretty much verbatim : "Allan, it's fucking shit. When I went on my split [at 2:30pm] they had the potatoes for dinner's mash boiling on the stove. When I cam back [at 5:30] they were still fucking there. They drained them, put them through the mash machine [a big mouli], no seasoning, no cream, no butter, just sent them out. Shit." This was one of a few instances of, how can I put it, spur-wearing behaviour? It should be noted that I haven't eaten there. It should also be noted that I now have no desire to.

People have been hanged over that 'e'... :) I'd thoroughly recommend Pip Hills' book; it goes into a great deal of detail about the chemistry of whisky (and indeed, whiskey) production.

I had a commis whipping a half-gallon of cream for chantilly with a whisk which measured about 5" in length (half was handle!) and whose four (count them, four) spokes made a bulb about an inch and a half across at its widest part. I told him that the smaller the whisk, the smaller and finer the bubbles in the finished product, and that we had to make an exceptionally fine chantilly. Fifty minutes and much changing of arms later, we relented. :)

I quite like the concept of a week-by-week reviewer; Granleese gets my vote thus far.

You may disagree with me on this point, but here's the question of the week: Do you find it, as I do, slightly patronising when a reviewer tries to give you a final-small-paragraph precis of the restaurant in question, one which tends to gloss over the highs and lows and reduce it down to an ad-executive's tag-line? Case one : Belinda Richardson's review of Anthony Worrall-Tory's Angel Inn in Wiltshire. The food, frankly, is hit or miss (steak good, scallops lovely, lobster '0/10') so why is this inconsistency not mentioned in the summing up? I know it gets flak, but the 'out of 20' rating system used by Fort and latterly Durack at least gives the reader guidance while giving them room to read around the rating. I've noticed it a lot in the Manchester reviews, especially MM magazine, where a typical review might be "I wouldn't have done that with the foie gras, and this was badly executed, and these two things don't go together, and the lamb was overcooked" followed by "I'd recommed going, the food's pretty good" as the last line. Speaking of Durack, his review this week (was there one?) is absent from the IoS website, as is Tracy McLeod.. Did anyone catch the paper edition? Giles Coren manages to set himself a new record of not mentioning the establishment he's reviewing (Hunan, on Pimlico Road) until the last sentence of the first page. I have decided, therefore, to link to the second page, as this will probably be the starting point of any salient information given. Don't worry about the last paragraph, it's meant to be ironic... Nothing from Gillian Glover in the Scotsman this week either... is the BBC strike spreading? Jay Rayner goes to Brighton (were you there, Andy?) and has a rather characterful time at The Gingerman. Anthony's gets a visit from Katharine Viner, and while not quite matching up to her experiences at The Fat Duck, nevertheless pleases her greatly. Mind t'salt on mother's portion, though. I have thought long and hard about including AA Gill in this round-up, because while I sometimes find his writing witty, erudite and thought-provoking, it can equally be arrogant, asinine and self-centred. On probation, here's his "review" of Silk (columns passim). Can anyone find a reference to how the food tastes? No Michael Winner, I promise. I couldn't do that to you. Restauranteur Edouard de Broglie waves away preconceptions about a restaurant for the voluntarily blind, from the Evening Standard. Bit late for an April Fool's wheeze, I'd have thought... Fay Machler reviews the same place as Belinda Richardson, with not-too-dissimilar results, though no mention is made of the service. She also goes to "contemporary portuguese" restaurant Tugga on the King's Road, and declares it a fairly mixed bag. Pane Vino in Kentish Town gets the thumbs-up from Charles Campion, who loves the homely atmosphere.

So something like a really heavy linen oven cloth, the herringbone-weave type?

That truth of that statement depends on two major factors : 1) The mass of the chips you drop into the oil. 2) The mass of the oil into which you drop the chips. If you put a lot of cold chips into enough oil at 190C to just cover them, then yes, the temperature of the oil will drop alarmingly. If you put a modest amount of cold chips into a professional deep fryer (capacity 20 litres), for instance, then it's better able to withstand the chilling effect of the chips, and doesn't lose much heat at all. It's the same principle we use when blanching green beans - a huge cauldron of very salty water on the strongest stockpot burner we have, and the beans blanched a handful at a time; the water, ideally, shouldn't come off the boil.

Ha ha ha... I swear, hear someone say 'rouget' and it's almost certain they're in the trade.

I think cooking to show off is a major motivator for senior chefs these days, too. This is not necessarily an entirely bad thing.

Eeep. Right, assuming the cake tins are all 1.5 inches deep, the only varying factor is the diameter, in this case 9, 8, and 6 inches. As the volume of any cylinder (essentially a standard round cake) depends on the sqaure of the radius, that gives the following : volume of a 9 inch diameter cake = 9/2 x 9/2 = 81/4 = 20.25 units 8 inch = 64/4 = 16 units 6 inch = 36/4 = 9 units. If your original recipe made enough for 3x9 inch layers, that gives a hypothetical volume of batter of 60.75 units. 3x8 inch layers would need 48 units, adding your 6 inch cake would take you to 57 units, and you'd still have enough left over to give you a good go at licking the bowl afterwards.

Yep... put the drained wings on a cake rack or similar and let them drip dry for a couple of minutes before tossing them in a bag of seasoned flour, then deep fry at a moderate heat for about 8-12 minutes.

That's how I've done them in the past, but I lightly coated them in seasoned flour first, just to absorb the excess milk and ensure cripsness - not enough to form any sort of major coating on them.

...because everyone wants to look like Victor Lewis-Smith, didn't you know?

Bugger me, that's a hell of a price. Three or four years ago, I paid almost exactly the same amount for a five-bone rib from my local butcher in Edinburgh; five week hang and nearly seven kilos in weight. Glorious beef.

I understand that editing and word counts mean you can't be as comprehensive as you might like to; it just struck me as odd that your summarising statement seemed not to tally fully with the majority of your review (which I did enjoy ). What were the bits you didn't like? I'm afraid I can't pay you your normal rate. The most I can offer is marmalade. Oh, I know there are bound to be many instances where people review the same place within a small timeframe. When you're working a few weeks ahead of press it's bound to exacerbate that. The alternative, of course, is to have reviews of visits to obscure fish and chip shops and Little Chefs in a fright wig; I think I know which I'd prefer.

Best I've managed is about 20 seconds, which was only achieved with the aid of a primus stove in the garden!

I hate you all... I would saw off both arms (though admittedly I would need help with the second) to live near the Boqueria. The fish is the best I have ever seen. *weeps*

Are you drawing a direct correlation between the ability to critique restaurants and the ability to cook? Down yonder path lies the dark side...

The sous chef at work told me of an incident that took place a year before I got there, of a waitress who used to carry an atomizer around with her and used to 'top herself up' every hour. One customer stood up in the middle of a Friday evening service and shouted at the manager to, and I quote, "Get that fucking woman away from my table, this isn't a fucking florist's shop!". Stef, I've had to tell one of the porters at work to shower before coming in to work - sometimes he truly stinks - and yes, I've come across the odd chef who sprays themselves from head to foot in Lynx. It not only means they can't taste the food properly, it's unfair on the rest of the staff as they're affected too.

Okay Moby... PM me your address and I shall despatch some :)