gingerpeachy

Pumpkin mascarpone ravioli with beurre blanc and brown butter amaretti crumbs.

We are in Paris this week and staying in Montmartre. We tried Mon Oncle last night on the strength of your report and had a lovely time. The cote de boeuf was excellent, as were the desserts, particularly the Mont Blanc. My 7-year-old has now added confit du canard to his favourite foods list. Thanks for the tip!

Thanks for all the advice. I ended up roasting it with the oven door propped ajar with a mitt and babysat it closely for five hours. Alas, my meat thermometer turned out to be less than accurate and after pulling at 60 and resting for an hour, the meat was still raw. As I had used the resting hour to cook all the sides, I just cranked up the heat and gave it 15 mins. Was delicious, but I could have achieved the same result with far less fuss. oh well. The bone marrow sauce that accompanied was the real star.

OK. And keep the door propped open for the whole cooking time?

Argh! Just went to calibrate my meat thermometer and discovered that my lowest oven setting is 170F, when I needed to put the beef in at 140F (60C). From reading around, I understand this may mean I can't achieve the Blumenthal result. Anyone have any ideas?

I do and I shall look that up. Many thanks - I'll let you know how it goes.

Recipe calls to cook at 60C and pull at 55C

Thanks - would have been awful to ruin a great piece of meat. My timing issue was really about having it up to room temp before putting in oven. Maybe I'll leave a not for Santa

Am planning to make the slow roast rib of beef for Christmas dinner, and confused on timing. The Guardian printed a recipe that called for 5 hours cooking and one hour rest, but I see elsewhere 20 hours of cooking called for. Is it the case that cooking the beef at such a low temperature means that once it's reached a certain point, it can be held in the oven almost indefinitely? It would be so much easier to stick in the oven on Xmas eve, as that way we could eat at something approximating lunch time. Also, for those who have tried this, any tips on serving? I have some concern about plate temperature vs meat temperature. Many thanks.

No British Christmas cake would be iced with buttercream - it's usually royal icing over the marzipan. Thanks for the note on the cake. I found the recipe in an old edition of BBC Food Magazine, so I assumed that buttercream over the marzipan was traditional. Do you think the buttercream would be too sweet and rich for the cake? I do. Also, part of the pleasure of a Christmas cake is the contrast of textures - the hard, sweet icing, next to the yielding marzipan and then the rich, boozy fruit. There would also be preservation issues - Christmas cake is so rich and eaten in such small portions, that it's often still being eaten through January. Royal icing is easy to make - icing sugar and glycerine- and you don't have to worry about making it smooth, as a snow scene is entirely traditional - with some kind of Xmas decoration added. Alternatively, you can use the pre-made ready to roll fondant icing, but that looks too darn classy for my taste.

No British Christmas cake would be iced with buttercream - it's usually royal icing over the marzipan. My cake was baked early November- Delia's- and I've been topping up the cognac weekly. Just marzipaned it and will ice it at the weekend. The Christmas pudding was made at the same time and awaits a second lengthy steaming on Christmas Day, to be served with rum butter. I am planning to make Heston Blumenthal's slow roasted rib of beef with bone marrow sauce. Butcher is dry aging for me. Wondering if anyone's tried his recipe and has any comments/tips?

Thanks! Just what I was looking for.

Thanks. My expectations are pretty low - that's why it would be great to get tips on best places to shop for fresh fish and produce. And I'll make a note of Haleiwa Joe's - everything tastes better with a beautiful view :-)

I have a beach house on Lanikai booked for March Spring break, and am looking for recommendations both for dining and shopping. We plan to sightsee, so I imagine we will be lunching out a lot, but evening meals I anticipate mostly cooking at home. I would appreciate any recs for sourcing great fish and produce. Any local specialty shops we should not miss? Any advice on which restaurants in our vicinity - Lanikai/ Kailua - are worth seeking out. Is there somewhere worth a splurge? Or are we going to do better with hole-in-the-wall spots? We plan to do the shrimp boats up North, and will visit Pearl Harbour/ Honolulu etc. Any recs for good value lunches near major sights gratefully received. Our first day is in Honolulu - at the Waikiki Parc Hotel. Looking for a great breakfast joint and any good ideas for a lovely lunch. We are a family of four, with fairly adventurous kids aged 13 and 6 who are used to eating out. (We live in Vancouver, BC, so fish/Asian influences are standard fare for us, and sushi a favourite). Many thanks in advance.

After years of struggling with my weight, I hit my nadir last summer. Turned 45 and 234 lbs and felt like I was falling apart physically, and that my lack of energy and growing health issues were undermining my relationship with my children (13 and 6). I was finally in the frame of mind to change my attitude, take the long view - as well as the responsibility for sorting this out. I have been on the Dukan diet since September - low fat, high protein and very low carb. What I like about it, is that it isn't about just dieting until you reach your goal weight, it's a structured three-phase plan that gradually reintroduces certain foods in a very controlled way. it's easy to be skeptical about diets when you've been on as many as I have over the years, but this feels right at the moment, and I am in a good place mentally. To date, I've lost 49 lbs. I joined the gym at the beginning of this month and am doing aquafit twice a week, plus Pilates. If nothing else, this plan is helping me eat mindfully, rather than every meal needing to be a gastronomical delight. We'll see: so far, so good.

We ate the traditional Scottish NYD meal of steak pie, peas and potatoes. With added non-traditional cauliflower cheese and Nigella Lawson's ginger jam bread and butter pudding for dessert.

Can anyone give an update of what's going on at Last Chance Kitchen? We can't watch it in Canada.

The recently opened Thierry on Alberni @ Thurlow is worth a look. The are putting out about 6-8 macaron flavours daily, plus chocolate, croissants and cakes. The coffee is excellent.

I don't understand why you don't just buy some. I use Ziploc bags sometimes - I buy them. I need liners for my kitchen garbage and, because I have switched to reusable grocery bags, no longer use the giveaway plastic bags, so I buy them. The notion that because something comes free with your purchase makes it ok to just help yourself to as many as you like is, I believe, unethical. It's not something I would do, nor would I model that behaviour in front of my kids. It's like parking in a disabled spot. Tacky.

Indeed. Weren't you once a lawyer?

Inspired by this thread - and particularly appalled at what passed for dinner on a couple of occasions this week - I spent today batch cooking. We now have 4x4 portion ziplock bags of Italian slow cooked sausage sauce (River Cafe cookbook); the same of Georgio Locatelli's bolognese; and another four meals worth of Moroccan beef tagine, all in the freezer. I also slow roasted a leg of lamb and made Nigella Lawson's Ginger jam bread and butter pudding for dinner tonight.

We arrived at 3.40 pm last Tuesday and there was already a susbstantial line up. As the clock ticked and the line up in front of us was bolstered with friends joining their placeholders, we started worrying that we wouldn't make it in the first seating. As it turned out we did - but only because two parties in front of us chose a 90 minute wait over a seat at the bar. We are not so picky - and had two kids (5 and 11) whose patience was already at breaking point. ("We're queing? For pizza?") As it turned out, everyone thought the wait was worth it. The antipasti plate was simple and delicious. And the pizza was the best I've eaten outside of Italy. (I'm a Brit living in Canada and crave the thin crust, lightly-topped style.)

Interesting, chips and cheese seems to be the thing to eat in Leeds. We could make Poutine if only we could get Lancashire and Yorkshire together. Oh well, nevermind. On a trip to Mayo in Ireland, the locals ate chips, curry sauce and coleslaw. Yes, it was as tasty as it sounded. My Lancastrian cousins introduced me to "chips with cheese and gravy" in Wigan. Standard fare, there. But here in Vancouver I have enjoyed many variations of poutine, some of them gussied up with blue cheese or foie gras, but others made very traditionally. The chef at Boneta is Quebecois and makes a dangerously good bowl full.

The best garnishes I've been served have been in Vancouver. Once an oyster on the half shell in the now defunct Metro, and a hard boiled quail's egg with a thick slice of crispy bacon wrapped around it and skewered with a toothpick at Boneta in Gastown. Dinner and a drink all in one.

Japadog now have two stands (the new one is on Burrard outside the big Cactus Club) and also a cafe style place along the seawall in Coal Harbour.