Duncan

Salmon are farmed in cages in open water (e.g. sea lochs). They tend to pollute the surrounding water. Also the salmon feed is made from fish, so lots of other endangered species become more endangered as a result. Rainbow trout are farmed inland in ponds. I'm not sure what they are fed on, but I hope it isn't sea fish. I don't know why they are in the middle category though. The table doesn't make any distinction between organic or ordinary farmed salmon. Anyone know if there is a significant difference there? The organic farmed salmon I buy isn't nearly as pink, so I guess less food colouring is being chucked into the sea, but otherwise I don't really know what difference there is.

The obvious sight is to go up Mount Ventoux. Cycling up it is not obligatory , you can drive instead (or even walk, ride a horse, paraglide down, ...), it is best to go early morning as it can get quite hazy later in the day. The Nesque gorge is also nearby (combine it with a visit to Sault: the Lavender should be in bloom about then). Otherwise for sights just list all the towns within whatever radius you want to travel: Orange, Vaison, Avignon, Isle sur Sorgue, ... and don't forget to visit some of the local markets (even if you don't want to visit a market, make sure you know when market day is in any village/town you intend to go through). There are some good suggestions on the hotel's website. There are plenty vineyards around, Chateau Pesquier (nr. Mormoiron) produces some of the better Ventoux wines, and in the opposite direction you have Beaumes de Venise, Vacqueyras, Gigondas etc. which makes for a nice tour round the Dentelles. Other less known sites which spring to mind: there is an interesting mechanical music museum which used to be in Crillon, but now I believe it is in Malaucene. The last few summers there has been a maize maze near Bedoin (if you like that sort of thing - we do).

We went there last Thursday. The aperitif was called Pousse Rapiere and was terrific. I think the menu must change quite often, although perhaps the themes are similar. Judy had a cold pea soup with thin shavings of pork belly. I had some white asparagus with just a touch of citron confit. Photography lesson #1, always remember to move the water glasses out of the way The menu might just about be legible: Photography lesson #2, should have turned the flash on I had the Magret d'Oie which was nicely pink and tender, Judy went for the Cochon Noir with stuffed peppers, but I still forgot to move those darn water glasses. The chocolate fondant was indeed very nice. It also came with the suggestion that a glass of Maury would be a suitable accompaniment, and I can confirm it was. Judy enjoyed her roasted cherries. It was very full when we went as well (21 seats, all filled). They obviously aim to get a good turn-round of customers (we had a table for 7pm, but we had to be out by 9). Someone turned up at 8:30 saying they had a reservation for 8:45. Madame's response was that 8:45 means 8:45, please come back later. Oh, and not only can she run a great restaurant, she also takes a decent photo.

We were in Paris last week, so we went to Casaluna on the Monday evening. For starters I had carpaccio of coquilles St. Jacques, Judy had the charcuterie. The carpaccio was really nice (I don't think I have had a scallop carpaccio before), soft and creamy and with a walnut oil dressing. The accompanying bread was crusty and well flavoured (a sourdough I think, certainly not baguette). The slightly odd thing was that they started by giving us a basket with 4 pieces of bread, and every time we managed to reduce it to 2 pieces they replaced it with a fresh basket. Main courses were (me) Baragoule de Rougets on a bed of cubed artichoke hearts, (J) Filets de Loup covered in very thin slices of potato giving a sort of fish scale effect on asparagus and served with something we think was a sort of smoked roe. (No photo---its a new camera and I think I managed to press the power switch instead of the shutter release ) For dessert, I had a very interesting plate of candied tomatoes stuffed with raspberries and served with a sorbet de mûres. Judy had a spoon (actually she didn't ask for anything, but they insisted). Then we both had the coffee with eau de vie. Very reminiscent of corsica, but perhaps without quite the same feeling that the eau de vie was homebrew that we've had there.

Yes, it reopened a while back. We haven't been yet, though it's on the list to visit sometime.

I think a lot of what Endless Autumn wrote above still holds true. We went to the Petit Blanc recently and it seems to have perked up a bit after going through a low spot. Certainly the service was better than it had been on previous visits, although Judy was not please to find a stone inside a morel, so there is obviously still room for improvement.Branca's is just across the road from PB, we've only been there once, but it was pretty reasonable, and there are several other reastaurants in the area. The Cherwell Boathouse is also worth a look, again its been a while since we went there, but the food was good as is the setting. But if you do go to the Trout, be sure to book ahead as they are likely to be packed out. If you continue a mile or two further along the same road you'll reach the White Hart at Wytham which is worth a visit. (I don't know if they have their own website, but here's a review.)

Judy says it was nougat. Is there a distinction between nougat and turron? I suppose it is more sauce than some places would use, but we'll need to go back to say whether this trend runs in all his dishes.

That's all right - we're booked for lunch on Saturday . Does anyone have experience of getting a taxi there from the station? Such as will they know the restaurant by name, or do we need to give them the address? ← As it happened we walked from the station, and the rain just about held off. (But we obviously weren't as hungry as Moby since it took us more like 25 minutes). Helen welcomed Judy with 'are you JudyB?', so I'm sure our thanks posted here will get back to them. I won't go through the menu in detail, much of it has already been covered above, but I think everything we ate was absolutely delicious. The amuse was a velouté of lovage, and also as a gift from David a wonderful foie gras royale topped with creamed carrot (as Tony Higgins noted, this comes in an egg cup perched at an impossible angle on a sloping saucer). Judy's starter was a fillet of cod, risotto of snails and pig trotter, chestnut velouté. I had the sautéd cock's kidneys and langoustines, langoustine tortelloni, langoustine sauce. The cock's kidneys were absolutely fantastic (although I'm a little bit concerned that either the apostrophe is misplaced, or it was a mutant with 3 kidneys). Main courses: Judy: Braised belly of Gloucester Old Spot pork, pig's cheek, chinese spices. Me: Roasted pigeon with cockscombs,parsley root puree, garlic confit (pictured) Deserts: Judy had a chocolate delice filled with caramel, with a salted caramel snap and malted milk ice cream. I had chicory cheesecake with chicory ice cream. We finished with coffee and petit fours (pictured below, although note that nibbling the petit fours took priority over getting out the camera, so there are a couple missing from the photo!) The petit fours eventually beat us, we had to leave one. Overall, a most enjoyable lunch, and we'll have to make sure and go back again.

I think those are two different wines. Both seem to be less widely available here in the UK than they were a few years ago, but as I understand it the 'in villages' applies to a slightly more expensive variant of the wine. There also appears to be a third wine 'Goat Rotie' which is slightly more expensive again (although still under £10) and which was also involved in the trademark dispute.

I've eaten there a few times over the last several years. Each time the menu has been subtly different and part of the enjoyment is seeing just how it has evolved over time. I do intend to go back again. Just not sure when.

Spot on there. If you were in Greenwich you wouldn't have a choice about it either. Today's Guardian has a follow-on article about Gordon Ramsey at Claridges, Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, Petrus, The Ivy, Sketch, Cinnamon Club, Momo, and Nobu. In all cases the 'faults' were minor and soon corrected. The full report from Le Manoir is also online. The main complaint in the article is that Westminster council are refusing to release their reports The important point they are trying to make is not in this article at all, but hidden in a separate leader: Personally, I don't care if a restaurant scores 8 or 9 out of 10 on a hygiene report. I do care if it scores 1 or 2 and would want to avoid such places.

Yesterday's Guardian had this article: Day the Fat Duck failed to impress about the Fat Duck failing to impress the health inspectors. It isn't clear from the article exactly when the health inspection was carried out, but it says they passed retests in May and July last year, so this isn't exactly hot news.

She was just on Saturday Kitchen and said she is starting working in a restaurant in Richmond from May, but is off to Mexico first. And publishing a book of soup recipes. And there may have been other things I forgot...

I found a website which, if you believe them, at least gives a plausible explanation how such devices might work. I have no idea whether it is any way accurate, but it maybe takes the device out of the realms of black magic. Basically they claim that the magnetic field induces precipitation and the resulting crystals having been prevented from attaching to the pipe wall when they form remain in suspension. See their website. It all sounds very plausible although the last bit: might be taken to imply that if nobody else can reproduce their measurements perhaps the effect doesn't exist.

Yes, it is still going, and yes, the Corrs do get some input into the judging, but it isn't as bad as that sounds. They have finished the initial 4 rounds, so they are now left with 4 'semi-finalists'. This week they are being given two or three 'tests' each program, the first of which is to 'prepare a classic restaurant dish' for which they are given a sheet of instructions (though it isn't clear how detailed the instructions are or how closely they are expected to follow them). the second test each day involves some sort of tuition and practical exercise of some sort, so on Tuesday after cooking a mallard they were given a lesson in filleting fish, and then divided into two pairs to prepare food for 'some people who have eaten in the best restaurants'. They were given 2 hours for prep and then had to pack everything up to go to Wembley where they finished cooking and found out who the guinea pigs were. They get 'marks' for each test (although we the audience just get a general impression of the relative rankings), and at the end of the week one of the 4 will be eliminated. Torode and Wallace are still the main judges, so the input from, say the Corrs, must be pretty minimal. Also, while it is an individual contest, a lot of the emphasis in the last part of each program is on teamwork. Yesterday's program involved making pappardelle with chicken-liver sauce, and then being shipped off to an army camp at Aldershot to prepare lunch for 40 squaddies in a tent with gas stoves and then dinner for 15 over an open fire.

Because what they were testing was teamwork and it looked as though he refused to discuss the pastry for the vol au vent with Thomasina. I'm not clear which of them was actually doing the filling: Christopher seemed to be spending all of his time producing some parsley flavoured charcoal. So far my money is on Mark: he's the least experienced, but he seems to be better at following instructions than the others and at this stage of the competition that looks to be the critical factor. Also he seems to be lucky, as when his dessert went wrong but still came out as the Corr's favourite.

That isn't the only variety of own-brand eggs which Waitrose sells. I'm sorry to say I prefer their Cotswold Legbar eggs mostly because they come in pretty shades of greeny blue. Maybe I should try doing a blind taste test sometime to see whether the interesting colour really does make them taste any different than the Colombian Blacktail ones.

The Consumer's Association recently reported that Tesco has stopped adding water to its 'Finest' Pork chops, so I went to my local Tesco and checked. It is true: their 'finest' pork chops and steaks no longer claim added water and don't have an ingredients list on the back either. My faith in Tesco was restored, however, when I noticed that they are now selling 'Extra Value' pork steaks with added water and glucose...

The most obvious thing that might be counted as a discovery is the use of low-calcium water to cook vegetables. See Bean there, done that. It isn't clear from this how far the discovery is Heston's as opposed to Peter Barham, or maybe Heston's discovery was Peter Barham.

Now you're talking!

Pinhead preferably. It benefits from being soaked overnight and then microwaved until glutinous. Add salt if you are a jolly Scot, sugar for the Sassenachs (no idea what you would do with it: probably you'd throw it away).

Are you implying a temporal relationship there? Surly early and jolly later. I prefer my porridge made with proper oatmeal, none of those flabby rolled oats for me.

It may be the same farm, but I remember one episode of Rick Stein's 'Food Heroes' where he got some butchers from Smithfields to blind taste three joints of roast beef. Highly unscientific of course, but the overwhelming winner was from an organic Guernsey herd. Of course it was up against supermarket 'finest' and high street 'cheap', so it may not have had much competition.

Judy and I found the restaurant (its opposite the station), but disappointingly it doesn't seem to have any kind of menu on display outside (at least none we could find). We like to have some idea of the style of food a restaurant serves and with so many other great restaurants to choose from in the area we didn't make the effort to book and return later. Maybe next time.

Judy and I are just back from another two week tour of the restaurants and vineyards of Provence. This time we made it down to Marseille so we thought that while there we should try a proper bouillabaise. It was hot, so we limited ourselves to choosing amongst the restaurants on the quay. Miramar was eliminated as too expensive (€50 per head), and we eventually chose Restaurant Oscar (24, Quai du Port) as their sign proudly proclaimed that they follow the bouillabaisse traditions, and indeed they were busy filleting the cooked fish by the entrance. The sign also listed the fish in their bouillabaisse, which if I remember correctly were rascasse, grondin, vive and lotte (we decided not to go for the more expensive version with langoustines). Pretty quickly we were served with a large plate of croutons, and bowls of rouille and grated cheese and couple of empty soup plates which they filled from a tureen of the bouillabaisse soup. Pretty obviously they must keep a lot of the stock ready as there was no way this was prepared to order, but it tasted very, very nice. We worked our way through the soup for a while and then just as we were finishing it the waitress bought out a large platter with the cooked fish for us to admire and a waiter then set about filletting it: The next bit of the process was slightly peculiar: having finished filleting the waiter took the two bowls of filletted fish and the plate of bones back into the restaurant and the waitress instantly brought out two bowls of fish. The changeover was sufficiently fast to leave us confused as to whether they had switched the fish (why?) or just taken them for a brief walk (I'm pretty sure it was the latter). Anyway, we were served the fish and some more soup (from a fresh pot) was spooned on top of it. The fish was nicely cooked, and pretty well filleted (there were a few small bones stil, I think in the rascasse). Apart from the listed fish the dish also included a few mussels. By the time we had worked our way through this feast of fish, we had no room left for dessert. The total bill for bouillabaisse (€28 each), wine and coffee came to €80.50 which seemed pretty good value for what we got.