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I can't fault the blueberries and whipped cream, but two thirds of a pav remaining after a few days?!? Really, Jo, you're not trying hard enough ...

I understand the water gives extra bulk to the whipped egg whites - refer Khymos.

Marius, don't be concerned about your English. It's beautiful, with a nice grasp of idiom ('route', 'hassle', 'refresh my ... game'). Don't rule out 36 hour times - put it in at breakfast time on Day 1, eat it for dinner on Day 2. My favourite in that sort of time range is beef cheeks; 70°C for (theoretically) 30 hours, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind 36. There are some good discussions of cheeks on eG.

Beige is fine - it recalls the colour of the New Zealand cricket team's uniforms some years ago! Mine are spectacularly white when they go in the oven but always pick up a bit of colour before they come out. I'm not sure about the powderyness. Compared to everything else the cornflour makes up a fairly small element. It's possible there are regional variations; I had understood our cornflour = your cornstarch, but perhaps there are differences. Leftovers are never a problem for us! If by chance there is some the next day, it won't be as crisp on the outside and may not be as pretty, but will still taste just fine.

Mr Google, if asked for 'polenta thermomix', offers several possibilities. This page seems to have the most basic instructions - I quote: Follow measurements from the recipe on the back of the packet and then put all ingredients into the TM bowl and cook on 100 degrees for 12 minutes on Speed 3-4. But I particularly like what I found here.

Legal considerations aside, this could be either a lot of fun or a lot of work, and quite possibly both. But to concentrate on the fun side, have you thought about a theme for the enterprise? Maybe just serve drinks containing gin. Or only gin drinks one night, rum drinks the next, and so on. Mojito Mondays, Tiki Tuesdays, Whiskey Wednesdays (or has all this been done already?). I'm having great fun just now making a lot of my own ingredients - orgeat, falernum, allspice dram, vermouth, amari. I'm not sure what your inclinations or capabilities are in that line, but 'I made all the additives' could be another point of difference for you. Good luck - I hope it comes together for you.

Yeast in a pav? Now there's a concept ... They can get a little stroppy (must be the colonial heritage; we're all a bit like that sometimes, but Australians are worse). My worst experience was when I put the mix into metal tubes, trying to make very tidy little cylinders. Total disaster; they stuck solidly to the inside of the tubes. One great pile in the middle of some parchment paper on a baking tray is almost guaranteed to work. No promises if you fiddle with it! I like the idea of using different vinegars. Might have to try that to see what difference it makes. And 'pavlovae' is inspired!

Thanks, Olemoelisa. That looks like being worth a try. I attempted my first vermouth over the weekend, using wormwood, cloves, a bay leaf and a few other things I've forgotten (my notebook with details is at home) in a bottle of Pinot Gris I'm not terribly fond of. Not convinced by the results. I have a murky yellow liquid which tastes like an even worse version of the Pinot Gris itself, although the herbs/spices smelled delicious during the 'boil to infuse' stage. (Don't misunderstand; I like Pinot Gris generally, just not the particular one I used for this. Maybe there's a lesson there.) It's possible things may come together over the next few days, but I'm not holding my breath. Further experimentation is called for. On the dry side I'll be very happy if I can approximate Lillet or Dolin Blanc; on the sweet side my holy grail is Punt e Mes.

It's here! No activity for a while, but I have plans to do something about that ...

How about the Hearty Joke? Must try some Cynar one day ...

Hi people. Sorry, been away on a training course for a few days, but it looks like you're managing just fine without me! Yep, the recipe as quoted by Bojana is how I do mine. As I said, it's a doubling of everything from the original, so halving mine to make a smaller version, or a bunch of little ones, is (almost) guaranteed to work. I can't help with an internal temperature, but it sounds like 10 minutes extra would have been plenty for Bojana's. Jo, I guess the yolks can be pasteurised separately so they won't be an issue. Maybe that's a project for you - test the internal temp of a pav at the end of 'powered' cooking time (before leaving it in the oven to sit) and see how close it is to pasteurisation temperature. Inquring minds are waiting. Diana, don't worry about how they look. Mine go into the oven looking amazing, huge, high, all those good things, but invariably crack and collapse before I take them out. That's what the whipped cream is for - camouflage! I'm not sure if you can use the words 'elegant' and 'Pavlova' in the same sentence, unless perhaps you're talking about the dancer.

We can't have a pavlova topic without a New Zealander involved (and I'll get in before the Aussies claim it. Again). I wrote about my particular version in my eG foodblog a couple of years ago, starting here. The recipe I use is a doubling of the one in the NZ classic Edmond's Cookbook, but my secret ingredient is my stand mixer and really beating air into it. The substance that comes out of the mixer onto the baking tray is the most amazingly white thing I've ever produced in the kitchen. I cook at 150°C for around 45-50 minutes, then turn the oven off. The result is everything a pav should be - crunchy on the outside, squishy in the middle. And of course terribly unhealthy. This latter problem is addressed by smothering in lots of whipped cream and dropping on copious fruit. There are those who say you can't have a pav without kiwifruit. I don't insist on that; kiwifruit is good, but so are the mixed berries I used in the foodblog version. And a tip for those of us who make our own ice cream - pav's a great way to use up your spare egg whites.

But they'll know that just by looking at the shelves! The way our supermarket works, the weighing machines allow you to select what you've bought then print a price label based on the exact weight and type of fruit/veg. Granted not evrey market does that, but even the ones that don't generally give you the means of writing a product code on the bag. So stock control is based on the checkout registering that I've bought, say, 1.5kg of Granny Smiths or Fujis. Individual stickers don't help that at all. Yeah, I know, lost cause ...

I'm not sure if this is an international trend - it's certainly not entirely local, judging by some California oranges I bought recently - but I'm increasingly maddened by the little stickers on my apples, oranges, tomatoes and various other individual items of produce. These things seem to serve little purpose other than to tell me the variety of fruit and/or where it came from. I already know that; I can read the side of the box, or the sign at the market. The little beasts are a fiddle to remove; they won't break down in the compost if I don't take them off, and they're not fun to bite if I miss one. And surely they must add (albeit slightly) to the cost of bringing the fruit to market. Consumers of the world, rise up. You have nothing to lose but the stickers on your tomatoes. I hope ...

Bit of a postscript to this topic: I've recently acquired a still and I'm making my own spirits (it's legal here, unlike most of the rest of the world). Quite promising after the first batch. I came across a recipe for Liqueur de Laurier on this home distillers' site (scroll down a bit). Of particular interest is it calls for the seeds/berries rather than the leaves. I shall report after I've made some more 95% raw ingredient!

I have to try one of those! Got a good recipe for cinnamon syrup, Hassouni? (I'm sure Mr Google knows one, but while we're all here ...) I'm out of falernum, but it's on my list of things to do next weekend.

Glad you liked it. It's a fascinating flavour in ice cream, isn't it? Andie: You're right, the size of the leaves can be all over the place. Looks like you have some monsters, though. Ours are most commonly maybe 5-6 cm long - less than half your biggest one.

Now, Mr Amirault, you touch on a regular (maybe every week) discussion between Wifey and me when we have a new cocktail to try (original or from a recipe): "Is it in the Top 10?" Problem is, we're a bit vague on what our Top 10 actually is. It certainly includes the Negroni (plus one or two variants) and the Mai Tai, but after that both of us would struggle to list the other eight or so, let alone rank them. We may also differ on the composition of the list; I like some things more than she does, and vice versa. However, in the spirit of the topic as you've raised it, I'm going to go for my particular Mai Tai recipe as being in the 'there's none better' class. Two measures Appleton VXTwo measures Wray & NephewOne measure Smoke & Oakum English Curaçao (made locally to Jerry Thomas's recipe)One measure orgeat (homemade)One measure falernum (homemade)Float a spoonful of Smoke & Oakum Gunpowder Rum on topBliss.

I dunno, it's hard to beat post 12. Imagine dropping this, completely out of context, into a conversation: eGullet will make me go bankrupt yet. I'd read several things about W&N here, so of course last weekend we had to buy some. First drink last night - wow! (White Witch - rum, Cointreau, crème de cacao, lime)

To coin a phrase ... if it looks like a duck (breast) and tastes like a duck (breast) ... Imagine using 3D printing to produce 'raw' ingredients, which of course you could then cook with all the traditional skill you possess. Then imagine the reduction in emissions from all the cows you wouldn't then need to keep on farms. Yes, it's a while away (which makes it a little far from being the 'next' great kitchen tool). But will anybody really be surprised when it arrives?

Hi Emily. Welcome to eG. We seem to have drawn a blank on dry sherry for you. You're probably not going to do much better (in bang/buck terms) than Tio Pepe, but there I haven't really seen that many cocktails that use it. If your budget is limited (and whose isn't?) you might have more fun with, say, a bottle of Campari. On the subject of brandy/Cognac, let me throw a curve. Have you tried Spanish brandy? Not sure how the price shapes up in NYC but down here it's (relatively) cheap and tastes great. It's almost worth buying for the names - I like one called Esplendido, and I've also had Fabuloso.

Let's invent a Foie Gras on Toasted Sourdough diet. Accompanied by Madiran wine, 'cos that's good for you

An emulsifier is an interesting idea. I finished my last batch of orgeat last night, so when I do a new one I might include a bit of lecithin. Any thoughts on the amount? It wouldn't be much - I'm thinking half a teaspoon or less for the size batches I make.

Looks good, Simon. I'll have to get some more cheeks now ...

Thanks, Kyle. Glad I'm not imagining it! Seems to me it has to be either the acid (from the limes) or the alcohol that's doing it, but how come only you and I have noticed? [Edit: 'limes' doesn't have an 'n' in it ...]