Shalmanese

As for actual ideas, given that you love the pig so much and you seem to be going a fairly traditional route, what about a giant christmas ham of kurobata pork for the meat? A braised dish like Osso Bucco can be made the day before and just gently reheated on the stovetop before serving. Maybe get a nice beef tenderloin and do some carpaccio as well, make ahead, stack in a giant tower of plastic wrap and it takes 3 minutes to plate and serve them all. Doesn't seem like enough seafood on the menu. You could probably just about do scallops for 40 people. Shrimp, boiled would be much easier. Do you have a salmon poacher? An entire salmon would be pretty impressive. You should consider renting or buying some induction hobs or mini gas burners to give yourself a bit more room. I don't know how seasons will work with regards to produce but I have a hankering for some fresh, hot fava beans on the crostinis topped with just a bit of maldon sea salt. Vegtables, I'm thinking lots of zucchini and eggplant. Can you do roast potatos under the ham or would there not be enough oven room?

Are you throwing down a challenge Daniel-San?

Are you getting the full leg? Shank 1/2? Leg 1/2? It seems like a 1/2 leg won't be enough for 10 people unless your planning to serve other stuff. Whole legs are tough because of the variation in meat throughout the entire leg. The bottom, shank 1/2 benifits most from slow braising or roasting while the top half is best grilled. About the best compromise would be spit roasting if you have a spit or barbeque. If you have the Leg 1/2, I would debone & butterfly it, marinate it in something overnight and then stuff it, tie it and roast it.

So some commentary Pancakes - Unfortunately, I just couldn't get my sourdough starter going in this weather so I had to drop back down to chemically leavened pancakes and yeasted doughs. Still, the results didn't suffer too much. The pancakes were light, fluffy and I finshed off the last of the Maple Syrup I got from Canada. Pita Chips & Dips - These were perhaps a little TOO successful because everyone couldn't resist noshing on them. The Red Pepper one was a huge hit which surprised me given how simple it was. It was just rep pepper puree, cream cheese, garlic salt and pepper but it went the fastest. The pita chips were brushed with a mixture of cumin, garlic, salt and olive oil and then baked until crisp and they were great as well, very crunchy. Bread - I was originally very apprehensive about the bread. It was made with a yeasted dough with no prefermenting, the first rising was overnight while I slept so I had no way of correcting for over or underproofing and the dough was quite slack when I got to it. However, it seems my preternatural good luck with baked goods has continued and the bread came out perfectly with a beautiful crumb and great flavour. The butter, from italy was also outstandingly good, it was like a different world from the butter I usually eat, closer in taste to a good cheese than butter. In fact, after seeing multiple people eat it straight, I had to tell newcomers that this was in fact butter and not cheese. Wow... what can I say. This was an inspired piece of work. I had some just spun navel sorbet and my friend in the picture had just made up a batch of margaritas and so I decided to combine them together. The first sips start off as pure margarita and then you swirl the glass a bit and you get a hint of orange flavor. Sip, swirl and you can taste the cocktail changing in nature as you drink. Finally, with the last gulp, the sorbet slides down your throat like an icy oyster and you finish with an intense hit of orange. Mmm... I can still taste it. Carrot Soup with Carrot Foam and Chives - I made this as a tribute. Thomas Keller's Carrot Soup with Ferran Adria's Carrot Foam, a homage to some chefs that I admire and it certainly didn't fail me this time. What I have always loved about this dish was the element of surprise. People would take a sip and then gawp at how intense a flavour could be produced from such a humble ingredient. Oysters with Verjus Granite - I had this at a restaurant called Balzac which is a great local place and I love this way of serving oysters. I have to admit the oysters were not the best quality but the dish was still pretty good. Because of my car being stolen, all the shopping was pushed back and we only got to the seafood market at around 3:30 when everything was packing up. On the downside, the oysters left had been sitting out for an entire day and were looking rather sorry. On the upside, I got 2kg/4lb of assorted sashimi for like, $15. Score! Duck Breast & Thai Salad - I was stressing about this all of the day before because I had almost no experience with proper thai cooking before and no salad dressing that I was making tasting of anything. Fortunately, my lovely cousin waltzed in at 8pm on friday night and pulled together what I believe Daniel would call a "totally money salad dressing". She was in charge of the entire salad and she did a superb job on it. I cooked the duck breasts my favourite way. Score the skin, S&P them and put then skin side down in a cold pan. Turn the heat to medium high and then spoon the rendered duck fat over the top of the breasts. It makes a luscious, juicy breast with a perfectly crisp skin. Braised Lamb Shanks with Polenta & Gremolata - Mmm... I guess theres not much I can say about this dish apart from that it was a solid execution. There was nothing special about the preparation and the flavours were all familiar but it was just a great example of a familiar dish made really, really well. I threw in some chunks of frozen corn into the polenta which served as a nice sweet counterpoint. Slow Roasted Wagyu Brisket with Coleslaw - Oh man... This was just absurdly, absurdly good. I used Col Klink's dry rub on the meat the night before... actually... I have a photo of that: The meat was just ridiculously flavourful and the ribbon of fat on the outside just had that clean, suppleness. This was the clear highlight of the day so far. The coleslaw was a bit of a serendipity moment. At the place I had breakfast on my wednesday shopping trip, I was reading the cookbook of that restaurant and they had a recipe for coleslaw which involved basically pickling cabbage in a cider vinegar/sugar mixture overnight. A mayo based coleslaw would have been far too heavy for the brisket but this cut through the fattiness of the beef beautifully. Wild Mushroom Risotto with Truffled Cheese Mmm... 6 kinds of mushrooms and an entire chunk of truffled pecorino went into this dish. I don't think I really need to say any more. Sunset Sadly, I missed out on seeing this particular sunset but you can get a bit blase about things like this when you witness them almost every day . Tuna, Salmon & Kingfish Ceviche with Ginger and Passionfruit - As I said, 2kg of sashimi, $15, where can you really go wrong? The passionfruit was a last minute addition but it was a damn inspired choice. Kiwifruit-Tamarind Sorbet & Navel Orange Sorbet - I have to admit the tamarind flavour didn't really shine through in this but the Navel Sorbet was spectacular. I love pairing kiwifruit sorbets with something other sorbet for the texture contrast. I deliberately undersugared the navel sorbet and left it slightly flinty and the thick, almost jammy texture of the kiwifruit sorbet made this work really well. Bread & Butter Pudding - One of the few relative duds of the night. I didn't make enough custard the night before since I didn't know the bread would absorb so much but the texture and flavour, while good, just didn't stand out in any way. This was the only dish I ended up not finishing. Coca Cola Chicken - For some reason, this seems to be the dish you people are most interested in and I have to say, they came at a perfect time. At this stage in the evening, we were all playing cards or chess or just lounging around and we had moved onto the beers and so I served these without any utensils and we all just dug in. Rack of Lamb with Spinach, Arugula & Walnut Salad and a Chimichurri Dressing - I was sad that I couldn't get a hold of Rutherglen lamb and I would have loved to try it. The lamb we did get was pretty good by Australian standards but I was really hoping for that one bite that would stay with you for years and I didn't get that. Still, the chimchurri paired really well with the lamb and the salad was great. Champagne - I just realised I didn't get any pictures of the drinks. I was pretty disappointed with the wine pairings. The guy at the shop seemed to prefer very acidic wines and I thought they were off balance and didn't pair especially well with the courses I had. Still, the champagne was probably one of the better choices. Fireworks - A friend from Canberra brought up some fireworks which are legal in his state but not in mine. Playing with fire while very inebriated was great fun. Chocolate Cake - Chocolate Sponge Cake with Hazelnut Dacquoise, Marinated Strawberries and Whipped Caramel Ganache & Sour Cream filling, Caramel Ganache glaze. Thanks to Ling for all her advice on the cake. She truly is the goddess of the pastry world. 1kg/2lbs of Valrhona went into the making of this cake. The cake was made from the recipe in the Best Chocolate Cake thread. The dacquoise was made mixing some finely chopped hazelnuts with Meringue and baking until crisp and the Caramel Ganache was from Pierre Herme. The plan was to take some of the strawberry marinating liquid and some berry liquid from the pancakes and mix it with some more Meringue and pipe some words on the top and then garnish with some more strawberries but nobody was in a state to do fine pastry work so we just had it plain. Granny Smith Creme Brulee - Annoyingly, my blowtorch was almost empty and so I couldn't get it to do more than a couple of brulees before it died on me so the rest of them were just Granny Smith Cremes. I got some of the smallest, tartest GS apples I could find and then juiced them and added them to the brulee mix. Even then, the mixture was very subtle in flavour so I cheated a bit and threw in some citric acid and the flavour just completely morphed. It tasted exactly like liquid apples but with the buttery, smooth texture of a custard. Wagyu, Truffle, Bacon & Fried Egg Burgers - Still waiting on a friend to see if he has any pictures of these. Cooking while inebriated was... an interesting experience. I found that I still had much of the gross motor skills intact although some of my fine motor skills were a bit hampered. I did, however, lose any nervousness about handling such an expensive ingredient and I probably lost quite a few dollars worth of truffles to the pan. I have to say I wasn't very happy with the quality of the truffles. They were from Western Australia and, while cheap, just can't compare to a real french black truffle in terms of pungency. One person asked if there was any ketchup in the house... one person didn't get a burger. Breakfast: Bacon, Eggs, Truffles - Well, I had to do something with the leftover truffles so why the hell not?

Yeah, I was actually worried for a while that there might not be enough food! A combination of things were to blame. I put the dips out early and people just kept munching on them and filled up quite a lot on that early in the morning. There was on average only about 15 people throughout the day as some people came and others left and I delegated a lot of the plating to other people so they were trying to portion them as if they were main dishes or appetisers rather than tiny bites. I'm just going to do a raw photo dump for now. I'll come back later and do a proper commentary: Pancake Mix Pancakes Pita Chips Dips Bread First drink of the day, Margarita with Navel Orange Sorbet. Quite spectacular. Carrot Soup with Carrot Foam and Chives Oysters with Verjus Granite This has to be the best birthday present in the world! Duck Breast & Thai Salad Braised Lamb Shanks with Polenta & Gremolata Slow Roasted Wagyu Brisket with Coleslaw Wild Mushroom Risotto with Truffled Cheese Sunset Tuna, Salmon & Kingfish Ceviche with Ginger and Passionfruit Kiwifruit-Tamarind Sorbet & Navel Orange Sorbet Bread & Butter Pudding Coca Cola Chicken Rack of Lamb with Spinach, Arugula & Walnut Salad and a Chimichurri dressing Champagne Fireworks Chocolate Cake - Chocolate Sponge Cake with Hazelnut Dacquoise, Marinated Strawberries and Whipped Caramel Ganache & Sour Cream filling, Caramel Ganache glaze. Granny Smith Creme Brulee Breakfast: Bacon, Eggs, Truffles. Unfortunately, everyone was too drunk to get a photo of the wagyu burgers but they were quite something.

Holy crap. I've been up 24 hours now, I've had 21 standard drinks over the course of the day so I'm extremely drunk. We only ended up making about 18 courses. The spirit was willing but the stomach was weak. Pictures up once I sleep this off an recuperate. I've eaten more good food in one day than anyone has a right to eat in 1 year.

Ergh, finished prep at 1am. We got about 80% of the stuff I wanted to do done but it included all the big stuff. The chocolate cake was the main hurdle. It looks like ass but it should taste delicious. I'm sure my second time at making a birthday cake will be more successful. Sweet sleep now. For 6 hours. See you on the flip side. edit: My feet & back are killing me. who would have thought making over 500 plates could be so hard? Much respect to those of you who do this every day.

The final menu: Amazingly, still very much similar to the original menu.

I drive to the location and then usually hit the greengrocer, then the butcher, return to the car with the goods, then pop into the other green grocer and finally the supermarket. The semi-snooty butcher is actually really nice and friendly and is willing to chat with you about what your about to make. The asian butcher is fairly standoffish and I've never been to the organic one. The very snooty butcher I didn't show really IS snooty and you feel like you should be paying them money just to stand in the store. Thanks for all your support guys. T -24 hours and my damn starter isn't coming back to life in this cold weather so we'll see how that works out. Don't know if I'll have much time to post before tomorrow.

Grr... ok. So the story is someone apparently managed to climb up onto the 2nd floor balcony from the 1st floor balcony, accessed the only unlocked door in the house which was the balcony door of my mothers room. They rifled through the room, took a bag, a digital video camera and the keys plus probably some other stuff we don't know about yet. We were all downstairs at the time and mum heard the car start up. She got up stairs to see someone drive off in it. Grr... We've spoken to the insurance people, we're getting a rental car tomorrow morning but everything's been pushed back about 3 hours. Hopefully, that wont affect much.

Our car just got stolen... from in front of our house. On hold with the police right now. More details to follow.

coz when you live in China it can be a nice thing to eat once in a while a roasted chicken with fork and knife. ← Sure, when your living in China for a while, it can be nice to experience a piece of home. But presumably ulterior epicure is not going to be there long enough to get homesick. It strikes me as the upscale version of taking a taxi from the airport to the Holiday Inn to McDonalds and then back and calling it a holiday.

ulterior epicure: Why would you want to go to JG in Shanghai when you can go to the one in NY?

Reload the page. Tony's comments appear on the bottom. I asked a question, lets see if it gets picked.

One should endeavour to distinguish the difference between a hen party and a cock party.

I doubt it. I really, really, don't like stores that prey on ignorant yuppies with inflated prices and I try my best to avoid shopping at places like that unless absolutely neccesary. Dinner parties are different because they're special but for my everyday, I try and avoid those places. Friday's shop will show me at my cheapskate best. Parents are paying for it as a sendoff present. I leave Sydney on August 22nd. Arrive in Seattle on Sept 4th.

I've uploaded an updated shopping list here Duck Breasts 6 Butcher Meat/Seafood $37.50 Italian Sausage 250 gm Butcher Meat/Seafood $3.00 Mince 1 kg Butcher Meat/Seafood $9.00 Speck 1 piece Butcher Meat/Seafood $10.00 Oregano 1 pack Coles Dried Spices $2.50 Fontina 400gm Fox Dairy/Eggs $110.00 Il Moro Cheese 1 block Fox Dairy/Eggs $0.00 Le Escuer Butter 1 pack Fox Dairy/Eggs $0.00 Mozzarella 3 balls Fox Dairy/Eggs $0.00 Bread Flour 25 kg Fox Flour $30.00 Lemons 25 Fox Fruit $5.00 Limes 20 Fox Fruit $2.00 Wagyu Brisket 1.8kg Fox Meat/Seafood $18.00 Wagyu Mince 1kg Fox Meat/Seafood $19.00 Baguettes 2 Fox Other $10.00 Wild Mushrooms 1kg Fox Vegetable $13.50 Total $269.50 Total spending so far is $269.50. It looks like I should cruise in pretty comfortably under the budget of $1000. Truffles and chocolate will be about $130 and $50 respectively, bringing the total to $500 or so. The rest of the meat should be less than $100. Seafood is another $100 and the rest is just vegtables and other cheap stuff. Total man hours spent: about 10 hours planning this thing + 3 hours shopping today.

I've created an eG album for this here. I may or may not put pictures up there which I don't include in my posts, I'm not sure yet. So I thought I would give you guys a look at some of the shopping around my local area. As a bit of a change from all you yanks whining about how hot everything is and how precious you all are, sitting inside, wilting from the heat, this is what it looks like on my porch today: First stop was Fratelli Fresh but it didn't open until 10 so I went across the road to Dank Street Depot, a Sydney institution of sorts which I also had been meaning to check out. I had the Poached Eggs with Bacon Hash and Toast: I was reading their cookbook which had just been released and I thought it was a bit hypocritical that the chef was advocating only buying perfectly ripe, flavourful tomatos in season and right there on my plate was what was clearly an flavourless, out of season hot house tomato but I guess consumer expectation trumps culinary purity in this case. Still, the hash was wonderfully flavourful and the eggs were deliciously runny. Fortified with breakfast, onto Fratelli Fresh: I'd never actually been here before but a friend twigged me to it and I'd been meaning to check it out. It apparently supplies many of the restaurants in Sydney. The produce there that was in season was pretty good and not too grossly overpriced for the quality. The produce out of season was insipid and horrendously expensive but I guess they have to get some credit for having a ridiculously wide range of produce for winter, even though I disagree with that policy. I'm going to do another big shop at Paddys market on Friday so I didn't get any produce. There was a nice range but not much that I couldn't get from other places cheaper so I didn't buy much. Just some Italian canned tomatos which I'd never seen anywhere else in Sydney and some dried herbs which I needed anyway. Next, was onto the Farmers market at Fox Studio: This is the mushroom lady: Wild Mushrooms are something Australia seems to do horribly badly and this is the only place I found with a decent range. I snagged some enoki, swiss brown and champagne mushrooms and I'll get some shitake and swiss brown on friday to fill out the range. This is the citrus guy: Lemons, 5 for $1, Limes 8 for $1. Incredibly good and really damn cheap. I picked up 25 lemons and 16 limes for just $7. This is my cheese pusher... uh... monger. I got some aged pecorino, some truffled pecorino for the risotto, some fontina for the burgers, some really good butter and some buffalo mozarella for the pizzas. It wasn't cheap but damn this stuff is good. This is my Wagyu guy: I got the brisket and the mince from him. He also had these insanely marbled blade steaks: That is just ridiculously over the top. Luckily, I had a list so I resisted temptation and walked away with just what I came for. Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the bread guy but heres a photo of him from the internet: He's grown a beard now which is kind of disconcerting. Anyway, I got a huge sack of bread flour, some starter and 2 baguettes from him. Finally, I decided to show you around my neighbourhood shops as I picked a few things up. Apologies for the blurry photos, the light wasn't too good. Bakery no 1 - Vina Bakeries, This one isn't actually very good, I never buy my bread here: Bakery no 2 - Bakers Delight, This is part of a chain and does halfway decent bread but not spectacular, I go here when I can't be bothered getting some sourdough at the farmers market. Butcher no 1 - semi-snooty butchers. They have quite good meat at decent prices and they're willing to do anything you want. I bought some speck here, slicked thick, some italian sausage and ground up 1kg/2lbs of beef ribs to supplement the wagyu mince. Butcher no 2 - Asian butcher. Has a lot of the cuts you wouldn't normally find in a western butcher. I don't normally go here as I get most of my asian meats in Chinatown but today, I got my duck breasts here and, in retrospect, I realised I paid way too much for them. I could have got 3 ducks for cheaper than what I paid for 6 duck breasts but I wasn't thinking clearly at the time. Oh well. Butcher no 3 - snooty organic butcher. I never shop here, the prices are too high for my blood. The chicken shop - only sells chicken and other poultry related products. This seems to be a uniquely Australian thing. They're present in almost every shopping centre but I don't really know how they can support themselves given that every butcher also sells chicken stuff. Still, they have 6 chicken carcasses for $1.50 so they're great for stocks. Deli - Oddly, theres only 1 deli here. There was another one a few years back but they shut down due to lack of business. The wait at this one is usually insane so I never bother coming here. Fishmonger 1 & supermarket 1 - This is the higher end fishmonger in the area. Again, prices are cheaper in Chinatown so I usually get my seafood there. In the background is the smaller of the 2 supermarkets. IMHO, it has a poorer range so I practically never go there. Fishmonger 2 - They do a nice fish & chips but the raw fish never seems really vibrantly fresh. Greengrocer 1 - This is a great greengrocer. The range is huge, the quality is great and the prices are quite reasonable. Their specials, however, are outstanding in value. If anybody remembers my last cooking binge over Christmas, this is where I got the entire crate of plums for $5 and went plum crazy (no pun intended). Greengrocer 2 - This place used to be rather dingy but they're refurbished it and it's actually quite nice now. Not as big a range as the other place but they have some nice specials.Their eggs are always reliably cheap so I usually stop by and pick up a few things here as well. Finally, my main supermarket - I usually just stop in to pick up some butter, yogurt, milk and canned goods. I've made the observation that anybody judging me from my shopping cart would think I have a horrendous diet because they don't see what I've bought at all those other places. Keep in mind, these are all within about 200 meters /200 yards walking distance from each other. Man, I'm going to miss that when I move . Anyway, apart from that, theres another asian butcher down the road a bit and another baker. About 5 minutes drive away is another even snootier butcher which I don't think I'll get a chance to visit before I go. edit: Oh yeah, theres also an ethnic grocer here and another ethnic grocer about 5 minutes drive away. So thats my neighbourhood.

You can avoid all risk of botulism with the chinese method: Heat peanut oil or any of the safer high temperature oils such as grapeseed, in a wok until just smoking. A high BTU gas burner (30-50,000 BTU's) is preferred, and it is better to do this on the patio, as there will be plenty of acrid fumes. Drop in two or three handfuls of chopped dried red chiles, or as much as the oil will take, and fry at high heat for a few minutes. Cool and drain. The resulting oil will be very hot, and last for several weeks stored at room temp. ← This is even easier in the microwave as long as you have a big enough bowl for it to not splatter everywhere.

Damn, Lilija just said everything I wanted to say as I was drafting my response. Read her post folks, it's much more clear and concise than mine.

Heres how I look at it. There are 4 types of food: Good and Good for you (Salads etc.) Good and Bad for you (Bacon etc.) Bad and Good for you (Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts etc.) Bad and Bad for you (McDonalds etc.) Increasing the amount of Good and Good for you and decreasing the amount of Bad and Bad for you is a no brainer. Everyone should be doing that and having an education in cooking and eating in often (so you can control exactly how something is cooked) helps towards that goal. I don't know anything in the Bad but Good for you that you can't get from Good and Good for you so I'll ignore that part from now. Just those alone is enough to substantial improve your diet but the real hard part comes from the Bad but Good for you category. You really have to look closely at each item and figure out whether the "goodness" in taste is worth the "badness" in nutrition. My general philosophy towards my diet is that I don't care about the actual amount of fat I put into my diet but every damn gram of fat has to count for something. As a result, I've cut out mayo, cream, ice cream, french fries, peanut butter, most pastries, all but the strongest flavoured cheeses and a few more things out of my diet. I fully acknowledge that they taste good, even great. But they don't taste good enough for the amount of fat they are adding to my diet because the fat is there mainly for textural reasons and not for flavour. I use vinagrettes rather than mayo, full fat milk rather than cream, sorbet rather than ice cream, roast potatos rather than fried and use well aged, pungent cheeses so I can use less of them. All of these are still, to some measures "bad' for you. But they're far less bad that what they replaced and they still taste delicious. The other thing I believe strongly about is that you absolutely have to understand how to make everything that goes into your mouth, otherwise you can fall into some very dangerous traps. It wasn't until I actually made mayo that I saw viscerally just exactly how close it was to pure fat. It wasn't until I made cake that I realised it's pretty much equal parts refined white flour, saturated butter fats and refined white sugar. These experiences haven't stopped me from eating either mayo or cake, but it has stopped me from eating a lot of bad mayo and cake. Until you can hold a piece of food in your hands and mentally break it down into it's component parts, you can't make an educated decision as to whether you should put it into your mouth or not. In general though, I've found my instinctive food instincts are pretty well honed with occasional splurges. left to my own devices, my meals are filled with vegtables, fruits and seafood and I tend to prefer good fruit for dessert rather than chocolate cakes. I'll eat steak, but that steak will be Wagyu and satisfy me for 6 months which is a lot better for me than 10lbs of shitty steaks over the same time period.

Theres a Wonderful article in the guardian about the history of tea in China, Britain and around the world.

I think that's the way forward - reclining in another room, glass in hand, occasionally barking orders to the kitchen and doing random spot checks/taste tests Drinks are tricky. For god's sake please do not serve rum & cokes - maybe it's just me, but it seems they're always the non beer or wine drink option. For during the day, what about having a bowl of sangria and then a sort of mix-your-own bar with a variety of juices and a few different kinds of mix-friendly spirits? Allows for a variety of tastes, and takes some of the pressure off of you. ← Right, so that was the plan in the first place. A pitcher of sangria, pitcher of lemonade and all the other drinks, people make themselves. There will be coke there and rum there so I can't really stop anyone from making rum and cokes but it certainly wont be the only option. I'm going to put in a seperate drinks table away from the main cooking area and heres what I'm thinking of having on it: 3/4 Bottle of Gin (already have) Bottle of Vodka Bottle of Rum House White/Red Beer Pitcher of Lemonade Pitcher of Sangria Pitcher of Water 1/2 Bottle of Cointreu (already have) Orange/Grapefruit/Cranberry/Pineapple/Apple juices Coke/Sprite/Fanta/Diet Coke Soda/Tonic water Simple Syrup in a squeeze bottle Whole Lemons Whole Limes Superfine sugar in a bowl with a spoon A couple of bunches of mint Ice with tongs A mini chopping board A paring knife A Lemon juicer A zester A mini mortar & pestle A few shot glasses A couple of printed recipe sheets with basic cocktail recipes on them. So my question is, with that stuff, what would be some good, relatively foolproof recipes that I can put down? A mojito, definately (using the mortar and pestle rather than a muddler). Vodka/Gin gimlets using fresh lime juice and sugar. Tom Collins. Sea breeze. Anything else? Should I provide a cocktail shaker or would that just be asking for trouble? I'm not much of a cocktail person so I'm flying blind here.

Sorry, I just saw this. Speck is a type of german bacon which is probably closer to lardo than bacon. It's smoked unlike most bacon in Australia so it actually tastes of something.

Hrmm... cucumbers are apparently absurdly expensive now. I'm thinking of switching to a vermecelli and roasted peanut salad with plenty of cilantro and mint. Don't know what to do about the sorbet.