Blether

Doesn't the catering trade buy frozen pre-cooked rashers, packed in exactly that way, with the bacon on a sheet of parchment or sheets of parchment inside the zip-bag ?

The breakdown of types in your first post is striking. Rounding slightly, I believe David Keirsey's breakdown for the population (I guess the American population) as a whole was: 25% N 75% S - with about 37.5% each SJ and SP.

When it comes to chicken, I don't expect to rinse shop-bought meat. There's nothing on it that will survive cooking to cause health problems. In fact, even if processing has smeared the meat with spilled chicken-shit, it would still be safe to cook - but unsightly. That, I'll rinse off. Many of the vegetables we buy are washed before they hit the supermarket - potatoes are an exception, the dirt helping them to stay fresh. There are organisms in dirt that'll produce deadly toxins if you let them, but the same organisms are generally present on any unwashed vegetable, or uncleaned hand or shoe for that matter. We survived as a species for tens of thousands of years before soap came along. There's certainly room for using modern knowledge in food hygiene, but at the same time it's sensible to recognise the realities.

I agree with what's been said. When I'm pot-roasting I expect to keep some of the experience of eating browned meat - http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/gallery/image/84981-dscf0037jpg/ - of course, by the nature of the beast, it's not crusty, but not being submerged, it does stay there.

Sweat some chopped / sliced onion in oil with the sliced fennel - 10 mins or so. Add chicken (or your preferred light) stock, season & simmer till the fennel is tender. Liquidize. Optionally stir in some cream, or serve with a swirl of the same.

Watercress makes a lovely summer soup; as do tomatoes with or without cream and with or without garlic, depending just how tired you are of gazpacho. A little sugar balances the acidity. Fennel is another choice.

I'm not convinced trout needs all those other flavourings - you'll get a very good product with trout, water and salt. You can dress or season at table - some lemon juice & ground pepper; a plain, garlic or herb mayonnaise; etc.

I don't have a big five. Probably most often I pick up horse mackerel (aji), sea bream (tai), yellowtail (inada/buri) and baby clams. The high-pressure (and high-priced) item here is the bream. I used to buy more salmon, but I've lost my enthusiasm for the farmed variety, and I find yellowtail fills the same place in the menu, cheaper and with better quality. In fact I brought home a 4lb yellowtail earlier this evening, and I'm grieving in my heart 'cos I had to chop the tail off so it'll fit diagonally across my oven It's a shame about mackerel's image. It's popular (well, was when I lived there) in the UK, hot-smoked (and sold cold), in which form it also makes a great pate. Here, fat autumn mackerel, salt-grilled, are a delicious treat.

The cover of my copy says 'Jane Grigson's Fish Book'; inside it's copyright to her, 1993, and it's published by Penguin. A tremendously thorough piece of work it is, too. She describes Bismarck herrings as pickled cold in spiced vinegar, and rollmops as rolled up and pickled cold in jars, in spiced vinegar. I have to confess I dropped the roes into the pickle tub over the first night, for want of better ideas. Otherwise I'd have been more tempted to try 'friture de laitance' which she describes as 'one of the best dishes in the book'.

It seems I'm doing a lot of the replying here, but I'm not tired if you're not This last one is a good picture. It's better than most of the pictures I've posted on eG. Photo technique - it's sharp. The focal field (depth of field) is nicely demarcated to take in an appropriate part of the subject. You've got a great red colour in the salsa, and all the colours look correct. The key light (main light, from the left here) is good, if maybe a little hard (you've got bright reflections in places on the meat and salsa). The fill light (preventing deep shadows from the key) is fine. Exposure is fine. You've found an angle, distance and length of lens that cuts out distracting background. Food arranging technique - you've filled the frame nicely, whilst keeping some context by showing parts of the plate. Nice combination of the-same-but-different arrangements in the foreground (salsa) and background (undressed meat) tortillas. Nice feeling of depth from the two, too. It's a shame about the pool of liquid coming off the front of the salsa, and the bruising on the cilantro - particularly since it's heaviest in the very piece of cilantro that features in the sharp-focus plane. (Speaking for my own photos, I have found myself pretty rubbish at arranging green garnishes recently). Maybe you find the previous pic more dynamic because of the lower angle of shot and the greater sense of depth and perspective from that ?

Longer cooking will finish off the bottom crust; and one of the advantages of glass is being able to see when that happens. But if you don't believe me, mosey on over to YouTube and confer with .

Can you at least give one or two examples ? You're right that someone has taken the trouble over 'sandwich'. Hmm. I run the risk of pissing you off, but why is it so easy to find time to talk about how bad it is, and so difficult to find time to actually do something to make it better ? You don't have to take ownership of the whole project, a whole subject or even a whole entry. One phrase or sentence makes a difference. You don't even need to register.

By a unanimous decision, then, raw-pickled herring: I didn't refresh the onions as directed (Jane Grigson's method) - I like the ones from the pickling tub. Lovely fish, and I was delighted to be able to leave out dill pickles and indeed dill in any form. On the other hand what I did use for pickling spices - black & white peppercorns, mustard seeds, chilli, coriander - is maybe too subtle in the prescribed amount. Next time, more. This is a pretty huge herring, by the way - two of them filled a square 1.1L tub. Both turned out to be cocks, and luckily the roes were still around when I got to reading a little further and finding several approaches to preparing them. The last week featured lots of soft-roe paste (pate, with butter, cayenne, lemon), on toast.

Grilled meat again, this time beef hasina kebabs. I picked the recipe up twenty years ago from Pat Chapman's Curries; it's a long time since I looked at it. The beef is a lean and tender cut that was going spare after a barbecue yesterday. I altered Pat's hasina recipe by using a lot of knife-minced garlic in place of most of the onion; otherwise it's marinaded in salt, chopped fresh red & green chillis, peanut oil, a little lemon juice and some home-blended curry paste. Onion segments marinaded together. The tomatoes came off the plants on my dearly-cherished balcony

Thanks for that. That's a good idea. Mind you I'm not asking so I can snaffle your technique, so much as just asking - I'm an oil-spooner myself, but that leaves a different finish to the top of the egg. Which is what made me curious.

Thanks, Kim. What goes in the lamb hash ? Soft yolk, all the white cooked, and a crispy base, too - what's your method for that fried egg, percyn ?

I don't think it's the board. The pinkish shade is probably how it should have looked overall. Was there incandescent light around ? Yeah, - particularly with over-exposed skies. I could choose to go back to film; or to buy an ever-more-expensive camera. As it is, I do get an instant playback, so if I'm alert I can retake a shot that's not worked. Some better shots from the same series: Using reflectors and diffusers can get to sound like a lot of work, though it's the textbook answer. In my own place, I found by trial and error that right next the window gives too much light from one side; on the table halfway across the room is a better compromise, where the window light is a little weaker, and the reflected light off the wall on the other side of the room begins to tell.

Now that you've said what it is, the pinkish area on the right, and the rest of the cutting board up to the cyan-out, looks exactly like you'd expect one of those plastic cutting boards to look. In the end there's software between the image the lens projects on to the sensor, and the image the camera records. Did your camera confuse the blue plate with a piece of sky ? Did you read Philip Greenspun's commentary on light in photography ?

I really liked your shrimp ceviche picture; great colours, again, even if I do spell it funny. I was hoping someone who knows about these things would comment about the blue-out. My own digital camera gives a patch of exactly the same cyan sort of colour from time to time, especially in shots of the sky. It bugs me too. At least in this case it wasn't distracting against the colours in the shot. On the latest tacos - you've got plenty of light on the subject overall. You could say that the shot's overexposed - the coriander leaves are whited-out in places; there's no detail in the white plate rim; the leading edge of the taco is whited-out, and the face of the lime is going the same way. In compensation you've got a bit more definition in the shaded meat in the foreground, but that in turn is blacking out in the depths. Did you think about placing a sheet of tissue paper over the window to soften the light ? putting a white surface - the same tissue; a piece of white cardboard or large sheet of paper; whatever was to hand; on the opposite side of the subject from the window, to reflect some light back into the shadows and bring the whole image within the cameras range ? You've got cut-off at the white end and cut-off at the black end. Alternatively, are there still placements in the room/house that you haven't tried, or better (cloudier, earlier or later in the day) times for that placement ? How did you choose the exposure level, and what do you think of the result ? Even on auto, you can train the centre of the frame (assuming spot-metering) on a lighter or darker part of the subject and half-press the shutter to lock in an exposure level (and, typically, focus point too), can't you ? It isn't a bad picture, in the end. It depends how you want it to look. For myself, I want to eat some of those tacos !

Grilled lamb kebabs. Good chunks of meat set aside when I butchered the lamb leg for Syrian meatloaf the other day, salted 0.5% w/w, and bagged in the fridge. 'Marinated' for 15-30 minutes with some onion in a little olive oil, generous ground black pepper, a very small splash of kombu ponzu. Seven minutes under a stinking-hot grill/broiler, turning once, and the juices poured over from the foil covering the grill mesh. *So* juicy and lip-smacking good.

Two fat herrings await in the fridge. Pickle and cook a la Marguerite Patten (1.5 hours) or cold pickle only a la Jane Grigson (4 days) ? We're easy as far as the timing's concerned.

Because I got as far as forming it last night - - (twice, in fact, because I forgot to mix in the nuts. At least I hadn't applied the butter (smeared rather than dotted, it's July) before I realised) - - and wrapping it in foil, but decided to cut and run on the baking, got a good sleep and woke at oh-dark-thirty, this morning I had fresh-baked Syrian meat loaf, once again from Christine Osborne's Middle Eastern Cooking. Minced lamb, onion, tomato puree, egg yolk, ginger, allspice, salt & pepper. Sliced almonds substituted for pine nuts (you want how much for those ?), but sauteed to a nice colour in the same way. Dang good. Accompanied by a fresh-bread sandwich of fresh tomato, and a tall glass of good coffee, kept chilled from yesterday, served over ice.

Hey ! Don't blame me for the plastic bags !

Plenty of choice of innocuous oil-holding glassware at the pharmacy, isn't there ? You just need a reason to go on a baby oil rampage...

Yes, can you explain why you think a bain-marie is a good idea ? I grew up in the land of crumbles and never heard of or considered such a thing. There's always the traditional fool, i.e. cooked down and mixed with custard / whipped cream, depending how much of a change you consider that to be.