Duncan

No, that's just foie gras. The ethical stuff is described here. When it comes down to it though, I'd worry about the battery chickens first. At least the foie gras geese and ducks get to spend part of their lives outside.

It depends what you mean by "ethical". There is a form of foie gras which claims to be completely cruelty free: no force feeding at all, it just depends on the geese to gorge themselves as they do naturally in the autumn. That means it is only available December to February so even if a restaurant can find someone to supply it they'd have to either make it seasonal or substitute with the standard stuff the rest of the time. I can't really seeing a restaurant trying to publicise themselves as 'we are ethical for 3 month of the year' There are also different methods of force feeding: the industrial versus the artisanal. I could imagine a restaurant pushing the fact they use artisanal, hand fed foie, but that isn't likely to placate the vandals. What gets me about the people who protest against foie gras is that I never hear them objecting to, say, duck confit even though every duck or goose liver produced necessarily also involves the production of breasts, legs, heart, gizzard, pillow &c.

If he is just using the old magicians trick then yes, yawn, boring. However I'd expect from his past record it is more likely that he's come up with what he thinks is an interesting new variant. Perhaps its the same water whichever you choose but is carbonated or decarbonated as it pours? Or maybe you get an iPod with the sound of bubbles if you wanted carbonated

Well it did take long and has just gone live, better late than never i guess? The Goose Matt ← It's been live for a few weeks, Judy found it sometime in mid January.

For those interested, these are the (exacting) Label Rouge Standards : Breeds: Only certain breeds are allowed and these are slow-growing breeds suitable for outdoor production. Buildings: Area of buildings must be no more than 1324 square metre with no more than four buildings per farm. Each building must be a minimum of 30m from each other. Stocking Density: The maximum stocking density is 0.3m square metre per bird. No more than 4400 birds per building. Approximately 1 kg of bedding material is required per bird. Access and range size: All birds must have access to the range from 9:00am until dusk after six weeks of age and must be outside for at least 42 days of the grow-out period. Range area per bird should be 6.5 square metre. Approximately 2 acres are required per house. 0.37m of pophole exits are required per 31 square metre of building. Feed: Ration must contain at least 75% cereal and be non-medicated. Starter rations can be 50% cereal due to a higher soybean content. Rations cannot contain animal products, growth stimulants or other additives. Fishmeal is not permitted. Synthetic amino acids are permitted. Veterinary: Coccidiostats are allowed but must be withdrawn 5 days before slaughter. Vaccinations are allowed. Antibiotics can only be prescribed by a vet. Other: Beak and toe trimming are not allowed Slaughter age: Birds must be grown for a minimum of 81 days Minimum dress weight: 1kg without giblets Sanitation period: Minimum period is 21 days between flocks Transport: No more than 2 hours or 64 miles to processing plant Processing: Air chilled post slaughter Shelf life: Sold fresh within 9 days post slaughter Inspection: Annually per flock (twice a year for hatcheries). Each visit includes bacteriology tests and process control inspections. Taste tests occur five times per year. One article in my Google search suggested that lack ( therefore high cost) of space is an obstacle to rearing chickens to similar standards in the UK. ← It would be interesting to have a similar list (or lists) for organic chickens for comparison. For example Soil Association Organic chickens are more stringent than the quoted Label Rouge in some areas (maximum flock size is 1000 and recommended size is 500 compared with 4400 above, and I can't see any rules quoted above about resting the ground between flocks), and require the birds to be outside for 2/3 of the growing periods (against about 1/2 above) but only require 4 square metres per bird rather than the 6.5 above. Edit: Ah, I spotted the '21 days between flocks'. Soil Association is 2 month a year + an extra year in every three, so I'm not sure how directly comparable that all is.

I try only to ever buy organic chicken (Sheepdrove usually), falling back to free-range if I have to. However, I don't generally insist on asking in every restaurant if they can tell me the lineage of the chicken. We were in our local butcher this morning: someone was asking about their chicken to be told: "It's grade A, so not free range but nothing like those ones you saw on telly last night. We've sold out of free range this week." One thing I find quite frustrating about this whole chicken thing is the defensive reaction of the industry: surely they realise that people aren't going to be put off buying chicken, so the worst that can happen is that more people will start demanding the more expensive (and therefore more profitable) chickens. Whether or not people change their eating habits the publicity can only be a good thing for the industry.

I called them about 4:30 today and got through after about 10 minutes of trying off and on. I was then on hold for another 10 minutes (mostly a recorded message telling me about the Christmas closing, but that was replaced by a different recorded message half way through). I finally got through to someone who told me they had no spaces available on any day for the next two months but put me on a waiting list for the days I wanted.

You don't need much guidance: just choose whatever you fancy from the menu, or ask Erica what's nice. If I was choosing from the menu on the website, the "Assiette of Lucy Muller’s Texel Hogget" sounds good.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you on that one. We went to the Lemon Tree in August and I wouldn't recommend it. The chef seemed to have a sugar fixation: one of the starters, both the main courses and the desserts were too sweet, and most of the dishes lacked balance. I'd say avoid the Lemon Tree, but your other suggestions look good.

I was just reading next week's Radio Times. On Wednesday 19th December BBC2 is showing Heston Blumenthal's Perfect Christmas and there's a writeup of this in the Radio Times (sadly so far as I can tell it isn't available online, so for those people outside the UK you'll have to make do with what the RT website says and my summary). The 8 course menu they are served includes such delights as 'Gold, frankincense and myrrh': langoustine, onion and vermouth free-dried stock cubes wrapped in gold leaf to look like gold bars and then at the table dissolved in frankincense water and stirred with a spoon carved from myrrh, and 'Hand-reared roast goose' fed on apple powder, Paxo stuffing and essential oil of Christmas tree accompanied by sherbet fountains made from the powdered goose feed with vanilla straws (of course the guests are not told in advance that they are eating the goose feed). It all sounds totally surreal.

Some news on this morning's local radio: The Crooked Billet is to stop cooking school meals for the Stoke Rowe primary school. Currently about 70% of the pupils have a hot lunch every day prepared by the Crooked Billet from local ingredients (an example given was honey from the pub's own hives). New legislation is apparently coming in from April next year which will require samples of every ingredient from every menu to be sent off for nutritional analysis, and the pub simply cannot cope with the paperwork involved. I don't know the details behind the legislation but it sounds completely crazy (or perhaps just an excellent lobbying job by the producers of bulk mush to force all schools to buy in on big contracts instead of sourcing food locally).

The first year I went, I didn't get my acceptance until right before Christmas. ← I just got my reply: we're off to el Bulli for Judy's birthday in June. Has anyone got any recommendations about where to stay?

Lamb neck fillets from the middle neck would match your description of looks, size, and cooking. Are you sure the word 'end' hasn't got into the recipe by accident? Sheepdrove have a list of lamb cuts on their site:

I'm still waiting as well. I don't know how long to wait before I have to assume the rejection went astray though.

I think the best supermarket eggs are from Clarence Court, but maybe I just like the pretty colours.

Does this mean you sent an email and got a "regret" automated response already? ← The bookings page (http://www.elbulli.com/reservas/index.php?lang=en) says: I'm hoping that 'all the reservations are confirmed' is shorthand for 'we have so many reservations that we know we can fill all the places even though we haven't yet contacted any of the lucky people yet'.

Is that a typo, or some food term I haven't come across before?

Ok, so it was clearer on Friday's program. The three judges had allegedly spent the evening before 'agonising' over which pair from each group of four would be allowed back to cook again and after a brief summary of the four dishes in consideration one of them explained the reasons for their decision. In the case of the puddings John Burton Race said how disappointing they had found the standard (nice guy!) but they had selected Monday's Frangipane and raspberry tart and Thursday's Sticky date pudding. The Friday winners got a cheque and the chance to appear in the national final, although whether that means they all appear or the judges perform another off-camera cull isn't yet clear.

Well of course it would: most of the readers won't have visited many (if any) of the 'top' restaurants. I can claim to have eaten at 8 of their top 20, but I expect that is comparatively unusual. Their 'readers restaurant of the year' is the much more down to earth Yorke Arms, Ramsgill (I haven't eaten there either). To have any meaning at all, the ratings have to depend largely on a system of inspectors with some attempt to make the ratings comparable, not on a popularity poll on a website.

As far as I can tell, Jeremy and Jane have consistently pulled in the largest profit each week. Also they have frequently said that he can actually cook. Granted he is a bit on the strange side, but I think that is why they are still in. There aren't many Scottish restaurants outside Scotland. I think Grant and Laura have finally realised that to stand out they need to push the Scottish side as a USP rather than be another faux-French bistro. The deep fried Mars bar isn't exactly traditional Scottish, but as a tongue-in-cheek sample of their 'cuisine' to a local radio station it's an act of marketing genius. Just so long as it is paired with good Scottish food for the other courses (as I'm sure it was), and not more of the coronary specials. As for the girls, I'd agree that there doesn't seem to be anything unique. I think they've been the most consistent. That meant they stood out in the early rounds, but they've failed to improve on that position.

Ok, that episode was surreal. Raymond asked the teams to put eel on the menu and motivate the front of house to sell it, so several of the teams seemed to be competing to try and be eliminated. Almost universally the reaction was "I've never tried eel because it tastes disgusting". Amazingly Jeremy and Jane escaped the challenge despite the chef having not bothered to actually taste the eels at all, but I think only because they actually managed to make a profit. Emma went out of her way to try to tell customers how horrible the eels were, Ed and Mike told Raymond how swimmingly the evening went despite some customers waiting outside to tell the inspector how bad everything was, and Lloyd got upset when Adwoa tried to sack one of his waitresses. Addictive.

We went to La Tupina when we were in the Bordeaux region a couple of weeks ago (I've written about our visit on my blog). Perhaps we were lucky, but even though we ate inside the range was in another room entirely, so apart from an impressive display as we came in the door it played no other visible role during our visit. La Tupina doesn't do dainty: make sure you are properly hungry when you go there as portion sizes are quite large. The restaurant has its own valeted parking: Judy wasn't sure about trusting her right-hand drive car to some unknown parking system so we went for the nearby underground car park which was fine except that we missed the correct turn out to the main road on the exit and ended up trundling through the centre of Bordeax at 11pm behind a garbage truck. Interestingly when we ordered some wine the waitress asked if we were parked in their car park: I'm not sure if we'd have been allowed it if we had been (we got the rest of the bottle stoppered at the end of the meal).

Snail porridge is definitely very moreish. You may have already found it, but there is a recipe for snail porridge on the BBC food website.

The good food guide asks for feedback from readers either by post or by the form on their website. The catch is that you have to agree to a disclaimer: I don't know at what point interacting with someone through eGullet would prevent me from agreeing to that disclaimer, but Basildog is my friend on facebook, so even if he explicitly asks me not to contact the Good Food Guide I'd feel uncomfortable about filling in the form.

By the way, anyone who missed yesterday's program and actually wants to see some of the action, visit the BBC Restaurant webpage. If you click on the 'Sam and Jackie' link then you get the Ostrich in full flight (and including our cameo).