Adam_Balic

BLH - Glad you enjoyed the Australian restaurants. I agree that at the Bistro and lower level they are great, especially since a lot of them are BYO. My personal favorite type of Australian restaurant were the smaller ethnic places in Melbourne (such as Vietnamese and Middle-Eastern). But, while many of these places has great food, if you were tourist you may over look them, especially since the vast majority are not in the city centre. Australia now has one of the highest sales tax on wine in the world (about 48%), but when I was last there the wine was still much cheaper then in the UK, or at least the quality of the wine at a given price was much better. Try getting a good quality wine in a UK restuarant for ten quid :(. A great pity about the yabbies (fresh water crayfish), the are generally very nice (I spent a large amount of my childhood catching and eating them), but like all their kind, if they aren't fresh they are not worth eating. What exactly was horrid about them?

Darwinfish - "Poire William" is made by putting crushed up William's pears into a neutral grape spirit, then after a bit, removing all the pear (oh, sometimes you can get those tacky bottles with an intact pear in side though). All the pear goodness goes into the alcohol, all the alcohol evil goes into the pear. It tastes mildly of William's pear (the smell is stronger). Depending on the base alcohol, it can taste of grappa/marc. For a much better, but similar alcohol try Eau de vie de poire william. It is a true fruit brandy (eg. distilled, not just soaked in fruit as above) and is like drinking the soul of the pear. Yum. There are a lot of good brands from Alsace, you may be able to find a brand called Trimbach. Also, look out for other fruit Eau de vie, such as Mirabelle (yellow plum). Avoid the Eau de vie made from pine needles at all costs, blarrgh!

Interesting. I have a French friend who comes from Grenoble. On of my favorite liqueuers is a home made one of hers, which is called "Alpine tea". It is basically Eau de vie flavoured with various, very localised, Alpine herbs. It does taste similar to Green Chartreuse, I wonder if there is a connection other then location?

Oooh, I nearly forgot the best kitchen item of all. My Microplane. This is the grater that God uses.

Meat thermometer. Electric kitchen scales. Bottle opener. Cocktail shaker (I have been experimenting with Martini's as an aid to cooking. Works well for most items, but is disaster for deserts). A large wooden work surface. Pasta maker. Chinese cleaver. Mandolin.

Here, here! Haven't we ridden this particular hippo into the ground? Have we learned so little? Look, it is all rather simple. French food is "Magical" (like Montrachet). Any American or English cooking that is also Magical is therefore French-American or Anglo-French cooking. Any cooking that is lacking in magic (like St. Veran) in America or England is therefore, native cooking! ;) Or at the very least French-Syrian or Anglo-Syrian cooking. As, Monsieur Merlan pointed out in his comments about "Fushion" cuisine, it is all a continuum. :) Still, if we could start up another meta-discussion I would be very happy.

I have always liked Enid Blyton's "Faraway tree" series of books for there mention of food. In a nut shell, these poor English children slave away all day in their parents garden, where if they work extra hard, as a "special treat", they get a baked potato and salt. The then fall into a starvation induced coma and dream of going to meet elves, pixies etc in the forest ( who give you special food treats) which also contains a magic tree which grows all manner of fruit and takes you to magic lands where you can eat all sorts of amazing goodies. The cynical old cow was really cashing in on the desires of all those poor ration starved English kids. damn funnny though.

See! English = no caul :D .

Bux - remember these are English faggots (therefore, by Plotnicki definition, rubbish), hence they will not be as refined or "magical" as the French version. ;).

Yeh, well if you start a topic on "mincing" for "faggots" thats what you get. I suspect that this whole egullet crash thing was just a way of shutting down my bio-thread. I'm hip to that game though. Either Jane Grigson or Elizabeth David mentioned the double bladed Mezzaluna thing, I can't remember which one.

Sure lots and lots, what else would you use for kindling?

Was it the black skinned or white skinned type? I think that it is also know as 'Oyster plant", did it taste of oysters?

Wilfrid - I had the same problem making French pie (Pate), the mincer/food processor ends to crush the rather dice. Any Pate/terrine recipe worth its salt will tell you to use a knife or better still a double bladed mezzaluna, which is the specific tool for the job apparently. Do you have faggots often?