Jon Tseng

>Youre a cherub!! The concept of Andy wearing a nappy and playing a harp fills me with endless amusement. Maybe he could come to the next dinner in role? on Caprice I hear from work colleagues that the lobster is to be highly recommended (though they are over-broked city types rather than foodie types) cheerio j

good gig what's the booking situation for EB? how/how far in advance &tc? j

Well I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to serve peas au natrel, although perhaps there should have been some advance warning. And the slug probably broke several health and safety bylaws But I see no problem with serving a bowl of peas. After all a perfectly fresh pea is a beautiful thing; if that's how it tastes best seems very suiting to Fergus Henderson's minimalist philosophy to serve it as it is. Very suitably, er, what's the term... idiosyncratic have a feeling that the mark-up is probably in-line with other stuff there, especially on the offal size. Can't imagine the bowl of chicken necks I've had in the bar cost more than a fraction of the six quid I paid. Ditto the welsh rarebit (er, cheese, worcester sauce, bread, salt & pepper...) come to thing of it there's all manner of foods which we eat throughly un-mucked about with. caviar, smoked salmon, crudites, sashimi, heck oysters are a great example. so why not peas? what's the difference? If I had an objection it would be more culinary - fresh peas are notorious for having their sugars break down rapidly after picking (the whole birds-eye-peas-taste-better-than-fresh thing), so unless the peas were picked that day (preferably that afternoon) I'd have thought they'd be better of boiled. cheerio j ps oooh, the feasting option on the website looks yummy!

oak room has (had?) trotters too, also attributed I believe the PK version bones them out first, then braises in red wine/stock for a few hours, then cool, stuffed and poached to order a modern classic - much imitated but seldom bettered. The black cod of the eighties, perhaps? cheerio j

yes, when we have tried peking duck at home always hung to overnight outside the fridge from a frame (need bowl beneath to catch juices) a quicker and dirtier method is to blast it with a hairdrier, although results not so good cheerio j

>we both wanted to try a full first course of Michel Roux's(and now his son >Alain's ) signature dish of Pan fried lobster medallions what what? has michel hung up his toque? does this mean a gavroche-post-albert-ish downgrade is on the cards...? j

haven't roasted a whole duck for quite some time. my advice would be to cut the b*****d up and treat it piecemeal, though of course depends on whom your cooking for. Foolproof way to do legs and guaranteed to avoid dryness is to confit them. Only downside is you need quite a bit of fat to do it - which you need to get in tins or roast a duck to do it - sort of chicken (or duck) and egg really. There was some mention of it recently on this thread recently: http://forums.egullet.org/ibf/index.php?ac...bb7b7683ae3bea6 For the breasts I cut the duck up, keeping the breasts in one piece on the bone (slice through the ribs to get the breastbone off of the carcass). Then score skin, brown (poss rub with honey) and roast at 190c for fifteen mins til medium. Rest then carve (if a little underdone when you carve them off can always brown the bottom half in a frying pan). The other advantage of cutting up the duck is that you've got all the other goodies to play with seperately ie carcass for stock/soup, rendered fat from carcass for general frying duty or roast potatos, giblets (if included) for soup or for stuffing an omlette (esp. the liver) Alternately if you're roasting a strategy to avoid dryness could be slow-roasting (About 150-175c for 2-2.5 hrs). Good write up in Gary Rhodes "New British Classics" but haven't got round to trying this one out. Breasts cook slower (or are eaten more medium) than legs; the french sometimes carve the breasts off the roast bird early and finish the legs in the over for an extra 20-30 mins. cheerio J

- Yes confit definitely a good one for dinner. Was doing some over the w/e (to stuff ravioli). Make ahead... easy... (apart from having to salt in advance) and very difficult to get wrong. Only problem getting the fat (according to a Roux brothers book if not enuff fat you can top it up with water, though haven't had to try it yet). - Other bankers guaranteed to impress are syllabub for desert (double cream, lemon juice, sherry, sugar whipped together - do a google search on "everlasting syllabub" for the canonical Elizabeth David recipe) and chocolate truffles (half and half 70% dark chocolate and creme fraiche, melted together, cooled, rolled in cocoa). Both are delicious and deceptively simple. Truffles especially good for send your victims - sorry, guests - off on a high note. - The Peking duck in peking is suitably memorable, though wouldn't like to try it at home - difficult to get a hot enough oven so always end up with fatty, scraggly bits under the skin. Also a bit of a pain doing the blowing up thing (have done it with a straw - but do you really want someone's phlegm inflating the skin of your supper?). Would be interesting to see how it comes out in an italian wood-fired oven, though. cheerio J

ooooh, Brain Jacques Redwall books are full of stories of creams, cakes, pies, pastries, buttercream, honey and manner of teatime goodies. man cannot live on patisserie alone, but Jacques has a pretty good go at it... there's also a wonderfully evocative passage in Mary Stewards "Ludo and the Star Horse" (olde kiddy book) where after a long trek the hero Ludo comes across a boy frying the most wonderful pan of fat, sizzling, succulent sausages. yum j.

I'd agree with Priscilla that there's a big difference between "classic" & "most used". In the latter category I'd punt in further suggestions such as the Patricia Wells/Joel Robuchon book or Gordon Ramsays Passion for Flavour. However I wouldn't necessarily count these as classic books. For classic's I'm looking for books which have stood the test of time, or innovated in some way, or made some significant contribution to the genre. Not that this doesn't necessarily have to be an excellent cookbook! (and conversely, many excellent cookbooks are not classics). anyhow, would also suggest the first Charlie Trotter book and/or Marco Pierre White's White Heat - both pioneers in the big, bold gastropornographic style which is now commonplace ie one recipe per page, big full-page close-up colour illustrations, glossy, cheffy, coffee table rather then kitchen table. Plus the MPW perfectly captures all that was wrong about 80's excess - not an excellent cookbook but nonetheless a classic. cheerio J

Oh, on the chinesey front Fu Pei Mei's Chinese Cook Book (sort of self-explanatory) esp. vols I-II. Definitely old-skool on the presentation front, but nonetheless an absolute classic from the big mamma of taiwanese food tv. Ken Hom eat ya (thai-stir-fried) heart out! j

If you're mentioning the roux sauce book you //gotta// to mention James Peterson's "Sauces: Classical & Contemporary". One of the few books which speaks to the professional and the amateur alike... J

Nothing really springs to mind. Off top of my head One Blossom Street (run by a nico old boy) near Liverpool Street. Don't know if the Brasserie Rocque on the Broadgate Circle is any kop at all. Cafe du Marche in Charterhouse Sq is just out of cityland but has a //very// french ambience (food only ok, alas - wrote it up here in march). bleeding heart perhaps? (although lawyerland really) other than that the cupboard seems somewhat bare. errr, steak hachee a la mcdonalds anyone? cheerio j

not convinced about the patricia wells bistro cooking. always struck me as a. n. other french bourgeois cook book. fernand point's ma cuisine Culinary Artstry; Dornenburg-Page Quentin Crewe Great Chefs of France (something of a hagiography for the Bocuse crowd, but quite important in launching the whole three star chef peronality cult thing) Of the Elizabeth David books, French Provincial Cooking & Omelette and a GLass of Wine will think of more as/when they occur j

ask. beaten to the punch again by the big man. should punt in more websites though; get very irritated that google never throws out the website when you put the restaurant name in; you only get random reviews... spurious "online booking services" (er, how hard is it to pick up the phone and dial a number???) or, or, well this place! (similar problem applies to hotels) cheerio J

as ever, "trendy" is in... (errr... tautology?) anyhow, what's the sunday deal at the square? price? lunch or din dins? and has anyone managed to track down a website (note to self: knock up handy page of restaurant website links when have a spare minit; cudgel lynes into hosting it) cheerio J

had a friend of a friend who was contributing to the timeout bars and pubs guide a couple of years ago. their brief was basically to visit as many pubs as they could in the Islington area expenses paid... ... does work get any better? cheerio j

the bacon/maple syrup is yummy. try punting in mashed banana and pecans too, like they do at providores. banana and bacon works - it really does! best bacon have found so far is the Duchy Originals bacon available Sainsburys. crisp it up and you're halfway to heaven... cheerio j

Better late than ever but thought would chuck in my paen to the divine liz dav. Thoughts (as ever) in no apparent order... i) Elizabeth David is the most beautifully balanced cookery writer I have yet read. Two important things I've always noticed. One, she always uses the right amount of words. Never too many, never too few. Every phrase she writes has a point. This is a rare and underappreciated talent (see myself as an counter-e.g.). Two, she evokes rather than describes. Step through the pieces in Omelette & A Glass of Wine; she evokes the feel of 60's France without ever getting bogged down in turgid detail. If I could half that then I'd be twice the writer I aspire to be... ii) As a pioneer, so far ahead of her time she could give lessons to Marty McFly. Take a flick through some of her stuff (on Italy, for example)... then cop a look at the front cover... yes, that really is the 50's... when Gavroche was a muppet out of an obscure French novel and ainsley hadn't even been born (thank god!) iii) Yep, probably not as reliable on the recipe front (qv evokes rather than describes). Having said that her recipe for Everlasting Syllabub (do a google search) is the best way to get easy dinner-party-brownie-points yet invented. iv) According to the bios a terrible snob; doesn't sound at all a nice person. But then again, we don't visit Gordon Ramsay for the chat, do we? (having said that, the big man is perfectly charming in the flesh) ED rocks! cheerio J

don't think its same reasons as clams oysers, mussles - remember reading about how lobster meat goes wooly and tasteless quickly after the beastie is slain. This would imply the reason people don't eat it is "doesn't taste as good" rather than "its likely to give me the shits"... dunno why this doesn't apply to prawns, scallops (or langoustine come to think of it) (but then again some of the fresh, dead langoustine have cooked ended up quite woolly too. but that could just be my cooking...) cheerio j

"Crumbing down" after the main course ... will a few breadcrumbs really put me off my desert that much? J

andy... noticed the heston blumenthal apple ice cream recipe has no custard - just mix fruit puree and whipping cream and chuck it into the machine - have you tried this method for ice cream? what is the different? does this count as a "parfait" or "sundae" and on a related note, does anyone know the difference between an ice cream and a sundae? (i think parfait has beaten egg white or beaten cream or something. although as ever i could be wrong) and the hb recipe also reminds me: soaking/heating smoked salmon trimmings in milk gives a lovely quick and dirty smoked salmon soup (cf the haddocky milk you get when you use it to poach smoked haddock). if you substituted whipping cream for the milk and dumped it into an ice cream machine, you might get a half-decent ice-cream. (then again you may just get frozen fish gunk) cheerio j

the only ice have tried making outside of the ordinary was rose water and lycee sorbet. chucked some rose petals in as well. couldn't quite get it to work... the rose water adds too much bitterness and the petals were a bit stringy (can we candy them?)... but am sure there is mileage in the idea... rose and lycee are very complementary (ok, similar) flavours also chocolate sorbet (as opposed to ice-cream) is also lovely, if you use top-quality bitter chocolate... there should be recipes around (used one from gordon ramsays passion for flavour)... basically its sugar syrup is dark chocolate dropped in otherwise savoury ice-cream? try dropping some gazpacho into the machine and see what comes out (you may want to put it through a blender first). let me know if its edible... cheerio j

Oh yes, GBK excellent burgers... can also recommend the chorizo, sweet potato and rocket... a cut above the brindisa chorizo roll (if poss). crispy, spicy, toothsome, sweet. what else d'ya need? can't be beat! (interesting chorizo, sweet potato, rocket has also turned up on the providores brunch menu... antipodean fusion incest in action!) the kiwi burger isn't bad either, although it looks a bit wierd on the menu (pineapple and egg i think, though memory failing) also Stefano Cavellini (sp)'s trattoria/deli joint is, apparently, just up the road from GBK battersea, though have not yet managed to track it down... cheerio j

Tim, do give us more details about your expeditions to the Vineyard; also how get to-able is it from london? cheerio j