jennahan

William Curley in Richmond and Sketch (the downstairs bit) are very good. You might also like to visit the Laduree ourpost in Harrods.

They now sell marmite flavoured crackers. Haven't tried them yet.

In terms of Markets, do Borough Market on a Friday, if possible. Saturday is a zoo. If you go to Borough, have lunch at Magdelan...new place that opened on Tooley Street. Food is great and so is the atmosphere. I'd also recommend going to Marlybone High Street on Sunday. The farmers market is in the am, then you can browse down the street (great boutiques and food places...also really close to Selfridges, so you can stop by afterwards). In terms of High teas, i think that the Pret-a-port tea at the Berkley hotel or the tea they do at the Wolesley is better than the Ritz. For finer dining, try Maze (GR's tapas place) or Aubergine (great set menu for lunch). The Greenhouse is my absolute favourite, but is is also very pricey. Try oysters at the Bentley or at Scotts. Lower key dining, I second Tom's Kitchen, Arbutus, Anchor and Hope (althouth they don't take reservations), the Salt Yard. I'd say to skip St. John, and go instead to St. John's bread and wine (I know this would be contententious advice, but St. John's is equally likely to dissapoint as to please, and I like the atmosphere at the B&W place better. Columbia Road flower market on Sunday am, Spitafields market on sunday (great for funky fashion) Cream filled choux buns at Beard Papas (Berwick off of oxford st). Oh I could go on... Hope this helps.

After being extremely sceptical about the whole concept of Marmite, I finally tried it for the first time last March (after living in the UK for 5 years). Well, I'm hooked. I always have 2 jars in my cupboard...1 which is open, and one spare. I use the squeezy version (less hassle, and don't have to worry about scooping out the dregs at the bottom). WHen I first tasted it, I had the gustatory version of deja vu (deja goute?). I thought about it for a bit, and realized that I probably really liked it because it had some similar flavours to dwenjang (I'm Korean). For those who don't know, dwenjang is Korean fermented bean paste...a kind of crude miso. It isn't surprising as both have the salty, fermented thing going on. I haven't gone much further than marmite and butter on hot toast, and marmite grilled cheese sandwiches (even my French husband is a fan), but would be curious to try. Maybe I'll try to substitute it for dwenjang in a recipe and see how it goes. If my mother only knew....

Received the foie this am. Not sure what grade (not graded here in the UK), but seems to be A (no bile stains, no blood sploges). I deveined as best I could, but ended up breaking up the big lobe to do this. It's marinating in the fridge with Jurancon wine, fleur de sel, and pepper. Problem....the foie is 700g, and I have a small Pillivuyt terrine mold. What should I do?

I decided to make my own foie gras terrine this year. I have the fresh whole lobe ordered, and have questions for those of you who have done this before. -What is the best method to devein the foie gras...and is it necessary to remove every vein? -What is your favourite recipe, cooking temperature, times? -How long will the terrine keep for in the fridge? -What are your favourite accompanyments? Many thanks in advance

Forgot to add the Salt Yard E & O/ 8 over 8 Tom's Kitchen

Anchor and Hope Galvin Bisto de Luxe Aubergine for lunch St. John's Bread and Wine

In 2007, I will finally go to restaurants outside of London. I will make a larger variety of dishes at home. I will find a better system of organizing my recipe clippings. I will learn to make my own shortcrust pastry and puff pastry. This is the year I will try and start a vegetable garden. I will taste dishes outside my comfort zone (offal, blood sausage, and the like) I will use more local ingredients. I will give away all the cookbooks I don't use. I will not buy any more cookbooks, instead I'll try and master the ones I already own. We will eat more often as a family. My kid will have an interesting, nutritious, and fun packed lunch daily for school. I will continue to teach my child a love of cooking, and tasting food. I will read, finally, my Larousse.

I always have 2 types of honey on hand, one runny and one creamy. The creamy is to put on toasted and buttered bread and the runny to drizzle on yogurt, porridge, in tea, and to cook with. I use honey in braised lamb and pork dishes and various other oriental dishes,

Will you eat cold cooked foods? Like, cold chicken? Pasta salad? That's one of my favorite summer things. One of my favorite anytime things, really. Judging by the inclusion of "bread" in your list, I'm guessing not, but I'm not sure... ← No to chicken or pasta salad. Salad yes. I pretty much survived during the day on cold vegetable salads and cold cereal. I did eat, but only after 10pm. Thank goodness that it's been 10 years since i've been in sweltering heat (only gets properly hot for about 3 days in the UK).

What is the difference between Wiener Schnitzel and Veal Milanese?

I agree with the person who said cooked food. Anything raw I can do, but cooked...no go both in restaurants or at home. When I say cooked, I mean anything cooked, including pasta, rice, bread. My threshold has to do both both % humidity and temperature. The extreme of no cooked foods kicks in at high summer DC temp/humidity. At 80F and 60% humidity, I can still do rice and pasta. Probably why I used to drop 5 pounds over the summer. I also avoid any hot beverages (duh), including my morning coffee.

Equally as annoying are servers who make you feel unwelcome just because you have a child in your party.

My family spent several summers at a posh and very WASPy summer club (kind of like the one in Dirty Dancing, but not Jewish) on Lake Huron (as guests of friends...there was no way they would ever let an Oriental family actually become members!). Dinners were communal. Mon thru Sat, it was breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with the most formal meal being dinner. On Sunday, though, it was breakfast, dinner, and supper, again with dinner as the most formal and substantial, and supper less substantial and more casual. I just thought it was some wierd WASP quirk.

What irks me more is when I watch a cookery show with accompanying book (or recipes available on the web), and the recipe is different from what the chef did on the program. Don't the chefs proofread the recipes prior to publication?

What was your family food culture when you were growing up? I grew up in an immigrant Korean household in Pittsburgh, PA. My mother had come from a well-to-do family and had never even boiled water prior to marrying my father. After their wedding, she took some cooking classes and learned some rudimentary Korean cooking. Unfortunately, my mother is not a natural cook, and due to lack of desire/interest, her cooking skills never really developed. My father, being a tradition Korean man, did not cook (although, now that he is retired, he is really keen on learning how to cook). When my mother immigrated to the US (2 years after my father did), one of our neighbors was a lovely Italian-American family. The mother in the family befriended my mother and taught her how to a) make lasagne, b) make tomato sauce, and c) make cherry cheesecake. Normally, all of our meals were rice, various banchan, and a protein (typical Korean meal), but on birthdays, my mother would prepare her Italian meal: lasagne and cherry cheesecake. In fact, she would also cook this same meal anytime one of our Caucasian friends would come over. I think she got tired of cooking the same meal over and over because sometime in my early teens the lasagne and cherry cheesecake dissapeared for good. Hmm, must ask her about this... If my mother had to branch out beyond the lasagne and cheesecake, it was to grab something processed (Cambells soup, Kraft Mac & Cheese, frozen pizza, etc). My mother, as I mentioned above, is not really a skilled cook, and my father encouraged me to cook in my teens (probably to get a reasonably edible meal once in a while). The first thing I remember cooking is Betty Crocker's Boxed potato gratin. After I made the boxed thing a couple times, I wondered why no make it from real potatoes, and it started there... Another strange thing I only discovered after leaving home...we never ate chicken at home. I thought it was just because they didn't eat chicken in Korea. Turns out that my mother refused to eat chicken because she was born in the year of the chicken, and also refused to cook it! Was meal time important? Very. Although we would have dinner together as a family most nights, dinner time would vary anywhere from 6pm to 8pm. My mother insisted that we wait until my father came home from work to eat, but as he was an OB/GYN, we were never sure what time that would be. If by 8pm he wasn't home, we started dinner without him. Was cooking important? Ummm, see my answer to the first question. What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? No. My parents didn't grow up with Western table manners, so they weren't instilled on us. This is not to say that we ate like barbarians, just that the nuances weren't considered that important. Who cooked in the family? My mother. Later, I contributed. Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions? Restaruant meals weren't common. If we did go out to eat, it was Korean or Chinese. We would go out for Christmas and Easter brunch to a nice hotel. Actually, the first "restaurant" meal I remember enjoying was when I was 4 years old. It was Thanksgiving on my father was on call in the Hospital. My mother thought that we should have a family dinner on Thanksgiving, despite my father's call schedule and brought my brothers and myself to the hospital to have dinner in the cafeteria. It was the first Western Thanksgiving food i had ever eaten. I marveled at the rubbery, dry turkey breast swimming in the plastic gravy, the reconstituted mashed potatoes, and JELLO! I loved it! Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over? Yes, simply because there wasn't enough space to the table. When did you get that first sip of wine? I don't remember exactly how young I was, but it was Champagne on New Years when I was in grade school Was there a pre-meal prayer? Yes, my parents are avid churchgoers (although even they admit that it's more for a social outlet than a religious thing). Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? Yes, the same thing every day...pretty much. How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? Very little. We have few family meals as my husband works late, and my son's bedtime is 6:30. My goal for this year is to instill more family meals into our routine, particularly in weekends. We all eat the same thing, just at different times. I cook all of our meals from scratch, and love to cook all cuisines...except Korean. I actually don't know how to cook any Korean dishes, and as the only Korean dish my French husband likes is Bulgogi, there aren't too many reasons to learn. Also, unlike my mother, we do love roasted chicken, and I usually roast one a week.

Here are a variety of suggestions: Comptoir Gascon The Lonsdale (good drinks, buzzy, decent food) E&O/8 over 8 Le Cercle Vinoteca

Humph. Call me cynical, ornery, and/or disgusted, but this kind of food is under the category "f*&k you food". In other words, I eat these ridiculous things just because I can...and you can't.

I've tried many ways to roast chicken, often successfully, but my favorite way is using the Romertoff (?spelling), as previously mentioned. What I do prior to putting the chicken into the soaked Romertoff (I usually soak for 30 minutes) is to lightly brine it (throw the bird into a pot of seawater-salty water for 1.5 hrs). I place the chicken into the Romertoff, into which I have placed a head of cauliflour florettes (I find this the best also to roast cauliflour).drizzle EVOO, throw a cut up lemon into the cavity, add S&P and a couple cloves of garlic. Place the Romertoff in a cold oven and turn the temp to 220C and usually cook a 1.5kg chicken for about 1 hour. The breast always is moist, and the legs perfectly cooked.

When we get a bit closer to the day, I'll try to find out what sort of festivities are planned and PM you. Also, I'll let you know where I'll be with my stall of second hand cookbooks, so you can come visit me if you like! ←

Hi Chufi. What a well timed thread, as i will be in Amsterdam for Queen's Day (not for that reason, but serendipidously...). You mentioned above that it is a big food day...can you elaborate? What are the big events, and where will they be taking place? What is a definite not-to-miss, and what is a hidden jewel? Thanks in advance for the advice, xxJ

Some ideas: Crudites and dip Pita strips and humous pita pockets with grilled veg and tofu falafal mini quiches mini samosas risolles mini spanakopitas cheese and veg sandwiches

My food aspirations reflect my general approach to life...live deliciously, and savour it to the max. When i buy ingredients for my day-to-day cooking, my goal is not necessarily to fill my basket with the most chic ingredients, but the most flavourful ones. I refuse to buy asparagus, strawberries, tomatoes, etc out of season because they just don't taste very good, but I will pay extra for lettuce that tastes of something. I aspire to make my every day cooking full of love. My cooking is not necessarily beautiful to look at (which is why I would never post on the dinner thread), but that is not my goal. Nor is it multicourse or always very sophisticated, but I insist on cooking every meal at home from scratch with the best ingredients I can find, and cooking it in a way to try and enhance the intrinsic flavours of the basic ingredients. Often, if I'm alone, I simply have a cheese plate, but I insist on really good cheeses with poilaine toast or homemade bread, and a glass of decent wine. I don't turn up my nose at fast food...hey, McDonalds sometimes, in certain moods, really just tastes good. I really like going to starred restaurants, but I also like going to a nothing local place with great food. I grew up with a mother who was a terrible cook. I had to learn how to cook growing up just to eat something that wasn't processed and was edible. I have a son and one of the most important things to me is to fill his memories of his youth with flavour. Yes, he eats osso bucco, braised lamb shanks, valrhona chocolate, etc...but my goal is that he remember a kitchen filled with enticing aromas, and food with flavour. I have him help me prepare food everyday. He is only 27 months, and when he sees me start to cook, he immediately pully his toddler chair up next to me and says "Help Mommy!". We make bread, make home-made pasta, pound pesto, make cookies and cakes together. He is a gourmet in the making, but that is not why I'm proud of him. ;I am most proud of him because he really ENJOYS eating, and actually realizes the difference between food with integrity, and bland, pre-packaged sources of calories. This is my greatest aspiration.

I adore Waitorse. When we first moved to the wasteland that was Canary Wharf, my only local supermarket option was the Tesco Metro...pretty dire. Then the Waitrose opened in Canary Wharf...suddenly, my quality of life seemed to improve 100 fold. Granted, this is a souped up version of Waitrose, even by Waitrose's standard (Moshi Moshi sushi bar, steak and oyster bar, a decent fish selction, fine wine cellar where you can enjoy a glass/bottle of wine and nibbles while doing your weekly shopping, as well as a mini John Lewis all amalgamated into one lovely shopping experience). We desperately have to move out of the area now due to BBs impending starting of school, but it will be really difficult to leave this Waitrose.