lapin d'or

These are the foods I would have on my must eat list: Really good white crusty bread just plain with butter - I can eat so much of that and the smell of baked bread is one of my favourite. The best crispy roast chicken Rare roast sirloin of beef with yorkshire puddings and lots of good beef gravy. A bacon sandwich Chocolate macaroons just like the ones we ate in Brussels from Pierre Marcolini's Vanilla ice-cream with fresh blackcurrant sauce- a childhood memory from a holiday in france A pizza cooked in a wood fired oven as good as the one we had on our honeymoon in Italy - thin, crispy and juicy at the same. Has to be eaten outside in the sunshine so I have to order the weather to go with that too. I love soups - so really good soups with bread for lunch. My husband's pea and lemon risotto made with peas from the garden. These are the ones that are high up on my food/memories list, maybe not enough here for a fortnight but a good start.

I left Newcastle two years ago but I used to buy quite a lot of foodstuffs at the asian grocers in Brighton Grove (Fenham) and also the Chinese supermarket in Stowell Street (city centre). If you are interested in cookbooks Appleby's bookshop in Morpeth had a good bargain section upstairs which used to have quite a lot of american titles at very good prices - I really miss going there. I can second Northumbrian Quality Meats - used to buy their produce at the Newcastle & Morpeth farmers markets - never disappointed and they did good mutton too. I always found the Grainger Market a bit of a lottery - too many disappointments but more of the shops were turinng self service which made them a safer option.

Thanks for the Hanbury's fish and chip recommendation - I'll warn people they have to book to sit down and eat. I'm really hoping the weather will be good enough for folks to eat outside - good fish and chips by the sea - magic. I know there is a large group from the conference booked into the Elephant for lunch one day - lucky them! I might console myself with a mushy pea fritter. many thanks

dharold - I am very grateful for your ideas for eating in Torquay, all very useful. The Grand Hotel in Torquay are doing the food for the ice-breaker party on the first night - they did a sample menu for us when we were choosing venues but that was a year ago now. We have been back a few times since but things can change so quickly - good to see them on your list. Can anyone can nominate a good fish and chip shop/restaurant in Torquay? I am expecting a few of our overeseas visitors, in Britain for the first time, to want to try this and would hate for them to get a really bad example. many thanks

I had a very good meal at Orestone Manor on 29th June 07, we stayed the night and were well looked after. My only, very small quibble was the rather small portion of turbot that was served for one of the mains but I know it is expensive so perhaps understandable. I had a very generous portion of guinea fowl which we shared to balance it off. The apple calvados souffle dessert was beautifully cooked and presented. The company I work for are organising a large 5 day conference in Torquay this September so if anyone has any recommendations for Torquay town centre I would be very interested. I have eaten at the Elephant and that is on the list of good places to eat but there will be over 400 at the conference all looking for evening meals!

Today I made the nougat montelimar. I only have a hand held mixer so things get a bit tricky when you are trying to whisk and watch the temperature on a pan of boiling sugar at the same time. I used all almonds for the nut inclusions and dried apricot, dried pear and candied melon for the fruit inclusions. I flavoured with a little orange flower water instead of vanilla as I was using orange blossom honey. I may have over done the orange water flavour for some tastes but I really like it. My attempts at wrapping in cellophane are pretty comical. I doubt I have air tight packages but I think it will get eaten fairly quickly. I halved the recipe but got the pan size a bit wrong so a smaller pan would have been better. The good side to that was there were lots of raggy edges that needed trimming off (and tasting) so the wrapping stage was quite a treat.

If the peppermint extract was an essential oil of peppermint then I would try making my own alcohol extract using vodka and fresh mint leaves. That should avoid the oil breaking the structure of the meringue. Not sure how strong a flavour you will get with just alcohol mind.

This recipe is very similar to one I remember making while at the Tante Marie Cookery School , Woking, way back in 1976. If I remember it was simply called American Walnut Cake. It was the first time I had seen the boiled icing which I loved then, but I think I would find too sweet now. Your post brought back happy memories of making this.

Desiderio your turkish delight looks perfect. I have tried several times and just cannot get the texture right. Often not firm enough to cut, and I have also had raw tasting cornstarch even though the water & starch mixture was boiled really well before adding the sugar. Did your recipe have a lot of starch or was it mainly set by the gelatine?

Gap, if you found you didn't like the texture you ended up with I would try remelting and adjusting the coconut percentage a bit. When I made one batch of meltaway I did not stir the mixture long enough so it set wrong. I just warmed it up and did the tabling process again. It turned out fine. I have only used half milk and half dark before not all milk. I wouldn't say mine melt like butter in your mouth but I would say they melt. I always keep them at room temperature.

Annachan, I have a 4kg box of Weiss milk buttons (37% cocoa) which I have used to make some mocha truffles and some solid milk shapes. I am having problems working with milk chocolate generally as it goes very viscous on me but I do really like the flavour of this particular milk. As you mention the chocolate has a caramel note to it. I can buy it in the UK cheaper than your US supplier so the cost is not such a big problem. (I paid about 6.50 uk pounds per kilo which I think is 6 US dollars per lb) It is cheaper for me than Valrhona but still a very good quality I think. I am going to buy some dark chocolate Weiss when I place my next order. I am encouraged that you tried several and liked them. I cannot buy this in small retail bars so I am having to get 4kg just to get a taste!

My coconut oil came from an asian store, it is actually in a bottle so you have to warm the whole bottle to get any out. This product is sometimes kept with the hair care products - you just need to be sure it is pure. I use half milk half plain chocolate for my meltaways and that gives quite a nice texture. I've tried them with lime oil and mint oil and like both, but the mint was more distinctive.

Rabbit with prunes is the only one I have cooked and eaten, there are some in that list I had never heard of.

Egg and bacon salad, lightly fried egg and crispy fried bacon (not too well done) on cos/romaine lettuce. Oil from the bacon dresses the salad . Egg yolk must still be runny. Hunk of good bread, I prefer white bread for this.

If your kitchen is not well ventilated or air conditioned you may well want to try and do a dry caramel. If I boil off a lot of water from a candy recipe the humidity in my kitchen goes up sharply as I do not have an extractor yet. It can make a big difference to my working environment and I have to keep a dehumidifier in the kitchen on high to try and get the extra moisture out of the air.

Marianne have you seen this site: liquorice heaven webshop, they are based in the UK and sell a pretty vast range of liquorice products. I often make a tea with liquroice root to soothe coughs - I really like the flavour of liquorice root and get quite upset when candy is sold as liquorice but just tastes of aniseed.

I was very disappointed with the guest list, a rather large number seemed to have travelled from Britain. The winning chefs probably serve more french diners in their own restaurants of an evening than were at this much hyped emabassy dinner. I wonder if the bbc realise there is a world outside of the celebrity bubbble and that footballers, pop stars and tv presenters do not by definition make good television.

I have just tried pedie's recipe above but I added cinnamon and a little bit of maple syrup as the flavouring. I am going to try and turn a few of them into stroopwaffels which is why I used cinnamon but I also want to try a chocolate sorbet soon and am hoping the cinnamon flavour will go with that too. I tried rolling one into a cone but it split instantly. When I used a recipe without baking powder a few months back they seemed to roll a lot more easily. I didn't find the biscuits too hard without leavening so I may try cutting out the baking powder next time. This recipe was much easier to work with than previous ones I have tried as the batter was much thicker, really more like a very soft dough.

I have only made these a couple of times and so far not sure I have the ideal recipe. A very kind colleague brought me back an iron from Germany as I could not find one in the UK. I have used a recipe in a book by Beatrice Ojakangas ' Scandinavian Cooking'. This was much more like a batter than a dough and I found they took a while on the iron to cook dry. However, the cookies kept well for several weeks once stored in a tin. I made a couple of cones but I was not doing a very good job of the rolling. The cookies that broke while I was trying to make cones were fine crushed up and used in chocolates. The Ojakangas recipe is flavoured with crushed cardamom. One tsp of spice to 1 and a third cups of flour. I was going to try making stroopwafels on my iron next after being inspired by the thread on those cookies.

Sorry about the broken link - I tried it last night and it seemed to work, but not now. If you go to the King Arthur website -http://www.kingarthurflour.com and then choose 'recipes' you can then search for the stroopwafel recipe. They suggest you use a mini pizzelle iron but I only have a basic 6inch diameter one so I guess I will have to make giant stroopwafels and hope I am not caught eating a whole one. Thanks Chufi, the picture in your recipe link look more like the ones I have bought.

I have not tried it yet but there is a recipe on the KAF website for stroopwafels, they look a bit chunky but it has to be worth a try! recipe link

Elderberry is a fruiting tree that produces clusters of tiny black berries that make a good jelly to serve with game. The flowers are used to make a cordial as well as fritters. I have also seen elderberry juice recommended to treat flu. I believe Queen Anne's Lace is the name for wild carrot, at least in England that name is used. I think they flower at the same time.

I have purchased cocoa butter colouring compounds in the UK from HB Ingredients but you have to buy quite large amounts (Vantage House sell the same products I believe). I would be very happy to send you some small samples of the red, yellow and blue colour powders (Deco Relief brand) that I have so you can see what you would be getting. I have not used them a lot yet but they were quite easy to work with. The home chocolate factory link sell much smaller volumes of colouring powders but these are relatively expensive for the weight you get. It all depends on how much you are going to need. As Kerry warned in another post, mixing a good green is very difficult, so you may prefer to get your colours pre-made rather than trying to mix them from prime colours yourself. Good Luck

I have ordered sosa products through wild harvest recently and they provided a very good mail order service.

My current favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe somes from a RuthWells post on egullet: CLINK I have made this a couple of times recently and it has been very good. I like the fact that it uses so much chocolate and I do not add nuts just extra chocolate chunks. This is a great way of using up chocolate that has become a bit thick from taking on moisture in my kitchen while making chocolates. I just pour the chocolate out onto parchment lined baking sheets and chop in into chunks when almost set. These cookies have been good from the freezer too, I just warm them a little in the oven. Not too sweet, particularly if you use a darker chocolate. I'm looking forward to trying some other egullet recipes but this is a firm favourite.