Kikujiro

Might try this today.

Sandra, yes please. We really need this.

V, when frying them, I used a flat pan, not a wok, and having browned them very lightly on the other sides I leave them sitting on their bottoms until I think the latter have crisped up sufficiently. However, I still think yours sounds better. My concern is -- how do you control timing if you let the water boil away? Mine are only boiled 5 mins from frozen before I fry them. Also, do you use any oil?

Heston's TV prog this week incidentally confirmed (I believe) that Artisan use imported couverture.

Was there tonight. Last couple of visits to the SA, there's been one thing out (a failed icecream; an oversalty salt cod starter). But tonight it was all on great form. Had, I just realised, exactly the same as Simon (well, the skate fried in chickpea batter, with a cucumber relish; veal chop with lentils and greens [and lots of butter, I think]). Got a table on wandering in; place only half full; staff (with whom my friend flirted) lovely; only one loud table; proud to have it as my local.

Not at all. For once you're right. I mean: it's fine, but I stand by PM as best in London by a margin.

The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman.

I've eaten at Spiga several times.

Awbrig, try searching on Nahm (his London restaurant). He was brought over from Sydney to open in the space left at the upscale boutique Halking hotel when Stefano Cavallini's restaurant there closed. My understanding is that he has collected family-heirloom handwritten recipes all over Thailand (the traditional way they are disseminated over there) and is the only non-Thai to have cooked for their royal family.

Thomas, there are several non-chain as well as chain bars on Northcote Road and others. (There are also a few very good food shops.) However, the majority of them tend to be loud and heaving and full of drunken Battersea thirtysomethings. I have in the past grabbed a table in the bar area of Buona Sera and downed a bottle of wine quite happily.

Matthew, sorry to hear this. I can't account for the complete disparity between our experiences. Although (like Peter ...) I often have non-pizza options, I have been to (and taken away from) PM many, many times over the years and have never wavered from my sense that it is by far the best pizza in London. Indeed, as I mentioned before, I think quality (overall, not pizza in particular) has been raised recently. But then I'm addicted to those mushrooms.

I'm glad someone finally started a thread on this important subject. My yoghurt container collection recently got too large for the small store room it had recently been occupying, but luckily the old woman in the apartment next door died and I closed a quick and very advantageous deal with her grieving relatives. I've had the walls removed and the place fitted out with large steel drawers of a kind originally designed for image libraries -- they keep the yoghurt containers at the right temperature, in low humidity, and free from dust. The main taxonomic principle I've applied is diameter, followed by depth; within this are grading systems for different qualities and thickness of plastic. Containers that are not circular in cross section are kept in their own area, while non-plastic containers are not admitted. Of course, uses are too myriad to fully recount, but my favourites include taping them to my ankles to catch water splashed from the sink when I'm washing saucepans (and thereby protecting the floor), cupping them over parts of my body as armour when cooking with fresh chilli, and making tall towers as centrepieces for the dinner table on formal occasions.

I'm not a fan. I like the style (although 'cwoffee' on the menu is a bit overegging) but while it's basically not much better than your average American diner, when I visited it was bursting to the seams with models and other Beautiful People. All felt like a huge fuss over nothing. I'd rather go to Tom's.

Thanks. They parted. I feel like Moses.

Help. Boston shaker hell. I can't separate the parts. They got stuck together when I was making cocktails yesterday and I gave up and started again with another shaker. Now I want to sort out the mess but I assume what's happened is, the ice having well and truly melted, we now have a real vaccuum in there. I've tried and tries but can't get the bastard open. Any ideas?

How did I miss this thread? Vanessa, thank you. More to follow, almost certainly, given that one of my new year's resolutions involves making a lot more cocktails.

This thread needed bumping. My 'martini' glasses are really oversize margarita glasses. They're simply too big to serve martinis in unless you want the chance to rifle through your guests' wallets. I need proper 'tini glasses. What size should I be going for?

'Mexican' scrambled (organic) eggs. Home fries. Blueberry muffins. Squeezed (organic) blood oranges. Coffee.

Hmpf.

A small part of me is tending towards Tony's side on this. But so far just a part.

Spelt makes great salads, but that doesn't help much as you were asking about baking.

One rule I have incorporated into my practice from Stefano Cavallini's excellent book (I linked it on another thread). He says, when you add the wine or vermouth, don't stir. 'If you stir before it has had a chance to boil, the grains will become cooked on the outside but not on the inside.' So there you go. Stirring starts with the stock (and of course still happens during the tostatura before liquid is added). edit: he doesn't say 'or vermouth'. That was me.

Hallie, hi

Nasu dengaku is one of my favourite dishes of any kind. But I can't make it, so someone else will need to tell us how. (Jinmyo described a version with the tiny asian eggplants on another thread once). Also: pasta alla norma.

Indeed. I'm still not sure you can beat The Tenant.