Suzi Edwards

no, i didn't use any gelatin, the chocolate alone seems to set it. thanks for all the ideas; am almost tempted to have another barbeque just to try them all out :-0

It looks like it was on the back cover of Cook's Illustrated magazine. I went to their website, but it doesn't seem to be one of the ones they have on sale there. thank you katherine :-) i think it might look quite nice next to the two chilli plants i bought yesterday. that said, they'll probably be dead by the time it ships. i am a better cook than gardener.

cheers for the websites guys. the bayless book makes a big distinction between sauces and salsas made with dried chillis, and those with fresh. i'll just have to get started on the dried ones. can anyone shed any light on which "breed" the chillis you find sold as "mixed chillis" in the supermarket are?

thank you! where did you find that? might be useful to have in my kitchen.

OK. Three questions: 1. I've just bought a mexican cookbook (rick bayless) and I am somewhat perplexed that I can't think of anywhere to buy the variety of fresh chillis the book talks about (serrano, jalapeno, habanero etc) I know you can get a lot of dried ones at Borough, but any ideas on fresh? Also, tomatillos. Any ideas? 2. Answers to the first might suggest what the answer to this one is....But why are there no good Mexican places in the UK? Have you eaten any good Mexican here? 3. The chilli's that you get in the supermarket, the ones they sell loose. What type of chilli are they? I'm assuming jalapeno, but am prepared to be very wrong... Help. Please. :-)

tarka and partner and the hob nobs are coming :-)

i have a magamix le glacier 1.5 and and a separate fridge freezer and have had no problems. my previous problem was that the icecream maker didn't fit into the top freezer bit on my fridge, but we have no problems now. it's easy to clean, my only complaint is that you can't really make that much ice cream in one go.

amaretto truffle cake: i took 150 grammes of digestive biscuits and 100g amaretti, crumbed them and mixed them with 70g of melted butter. squished this into the bottom of a 20cm springform tin. then i warmed 400ml of whipping cream and added that to 250g of 70% chocolate, stirred well and added 75ml of amaretto (you could probably get away with more or less depending on your taste) pop in the fridge to cool for at least an hour. while it was cooling i roasted some blanched marcona almonds (25 minutes on 150) and then decorated the cake with these (good for portion control) the cake is really rich, so you really only want small slices....

i made amaretto chocolate truffle cake in the end as everyone loves a chocolate desert (and it went down a storm and took 10 minutes. bliss. let me know if you want the recipe) but i would love the recipe for pink lemonade pie. my partner is american and we have these funny sachets of pink lemonade mix that i have been threatening to throw away since i moved in :-) that said, i have no idea what cool whip is...enlighten me!

Out of interest, could anyone recommend a knife skills course (i'm assuming that's what it would be called)?

ah, kebabs. i made vegetable kebabs at my last barbecue and spent the WHOLE morning chopping veg and putting them onto skewers. this time i am having my hair blow dried :-) you've all given me such great ideas, i'm really, really torn now. i'm going to sleep on it and i'll report back!

I'm having a barbecue for 30 people and I'm a bit stuck about desert. I'm planing to make tomato and goats cheese tart to start, barbecued leg of lamb with sauce vierge and then..... I was thinking about Summer Pudding but I would need to make a couple of really large ones and I'm worried they'd collapse when I turned them out. And I really can't make 30 individual ones. And I only have a small fridge :-( Does anyone have any bright ideas for either a way to make Summer Pudding, or some sort of alternative easyish desert? I don't mind it if needs to be prepared in advance (in fact that might be a good thing) The tart is very cheesy so I'm looking for something with a bit of a tang to it to balance the richness. ANY help appreciated!

Spent the weekend in Bath at short notice, here are a few thoughts (most of them not new)* Accomodation: we followed Thomas's advice and stayed at Eagle House in Bathford. It is a very pretty village but not ideally located if you don't have a car. It's £8:00 one way into the centre, but there's a very regular bus service too. Eagle House is lovely but I thought it was quite expensive given the location and the fact that you have to pay extra for a cooked breakfast :-0 Friday night: arrived at 9:30 and everywhere in Bathford had closed. A very special mention must go to the waitress at the Waterside restaurant (who serve until 10:00pm) who refused to give us a table despite the fact that we arrived at 10:02pm and my explaination that I had a broken foot and had been slowed down. We went to the Loch Fyne place in town instead. The oysters were distinctly small and not very well flavoured, but a main of wild altantic prawns had lots of prawns (and hence lots of prawn heads for sucking) and was pretty tasty. Saturday lunch: Moody Goose. I was really looking forward to this but left a bit disappointed. They do a lunchtime set menu with about five choices for each course. We chose scallops and asparagus and tomato and goats cheese tart to start, followed by pork with an apricot tarte tatin and mustard and cheddar souffle. The cooking was hit and miss with a tendency to over complicate the plate, and hence over power the ingredients. For example, my starter was scallops and asparagus layed with deep fried onion rings and topped and tailed with a pastry lid. It looked a bit like a burger. I didn't really see the point and felt that the scallops were completely overwhelmed. Jack's tart was much simpler, and hence nicer to my mind. My main also suffered from over-complication with a perfectly delicious mustard and cheese souffle perched on a potato rosti and "glued" to the plate with some sweet potato mash, but oddly drowned with a vegetable broth that soaked into the rosti and the mash making everything very runny. Serves me right for ordering the vegetarian option i guess :-) The Moody Goose is closed on Sundays and they suggest booking 1-2 weeks in advance. Lunch and pre-theatre menu is £13 for two courses and £17 for three. Saturday drinks: The Lounge. 43 St James Parade. Really good cocktail bar, not crowded, not smokey, music not deafening. Why can't all bars be like this? Saturday supper: FishWorks. Despite the fact that the waiting staff remind me of a group of children playing at running restaurant (our reservation was lost, 40 minute delay between courses, missing dishes, unordered dishes arriving) the food was good. The oyster selection was a million times better than Loch Fynes, my salt baked bream was really moist and flavourful, the tuna was "really rare" as ordered and the mussels plentiful. It wasn't expensive as suggested on these boards previously. I really enjoyed the food, but then, how wrong can you go with covering a fish in salt and baking it? The service means I probably wouldn't go back. Which is a shame. *new to me, obviously :-)

what did the veggie eat? i haven't been there yet, but i can't imagine there's a huge veggie choice.

i'd be interested to hear what people think. i wrote a longish post about my last meal here and i don't think i'd go back unless everyone got very excited :-) although, we did go on the hottest day of the year and we were indoors so that spoiled everything. they even had screens on the windows to let less light in. why are there so few nice places to eat outside in london?

believe me, when you are as clumsy as i am, washing them by hand comes frought with danger. i ended up with only two riedel burgundy glasses left from a set of six.

i don't believe the non-chocolate ones deserve the name "hob nob"

i was once in a pub, asked the barman what wines they had by the glass and was told "merlot, rioja, chardonnay and kumala" still, at least it wasn't stowells of chelsea.

hummm. i'd been thinking for a while that i probably shouldn't be putting my riedel glasses in the dishwasher. that said as long as my partner doesn't see (he throws a fit) and as long as they are placed in carefully with no other dishes, i haven't had a problem :-)

my first larb post! i made larb tonight after being inspired by your postings. i'm currently cooking my way through a wonderful book called "Vatch's South-East Asian Salads" by a chef called Vatcharin Bhumichir so i picked out the larb stuff. i made two laotian receipes "laap moo" (i love the fact that what i think must be the laotian word for "pork" is "moo") which is pork laap and yam kai dow which is a spicy fried egg salad with a dressing that is slightly less sweet than laap dressing and without ginger/galangal. they were both great. the egg salad dressing emulsified slightly with the runny egg yolks (the receipe said to cook until hard but i was having none of that) my laap itself (made with home ground jasmine rice toasted to perfection (in case he's reading) by my partner) will have more sauce next time as it was a little dry. YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH SAUCE. i would strongly recommend you all order this book as it rocks :-) he has a couple of restaurants in london that do his style of food (he says the salad is the bedrock of se asian food, not the curries that are the mainstay of restaurants here in the uk) but it is the perfect way to wind down after a hard day and a really great way to create sharing food.

milk or plain chocolate for preference? or is she like me and perpetually unable to decide between both? has she tried hob nobs?

get your requests in for british stuff and we'll come prepared. would also LOVE to help out with any cooking/buying/preparing/catching of foodstuffs :-)

i read a good book called "cornucopia - a gastronomic tour of the uk" by paul richardson earlier this year. i have a funny feeling he ferrets out some interesting places "oop north" but i can't guarentee he mentions gateshead. either way, it's very well worth reading.

i went back through the years and there was one in london (the fresh food company) but i called the number and they'd never heard of them. abel and cole suggested that we get a spare green bin (islington council gives them out, i believe) and they would just upend it over the veggies. i can see this working, my only concern is that in the summer, my soft fruits may perish. still, if anyone finds a good company, keen to hear reports. suzi

having just had a sneeky peek at the other providers, i am thinking that abel and cole win hands down for choice and variety. simple organics don't seem to tell you what the weekly selection is, for example. i don't know if it's just me and my obsessive compulsive disorder, but i ration myself to not looking online at what's in my weekly box until tuesday and then i plan from there. this has become an important part of my week. i hear what you say about supermarkets but i am really, really trying not to use them unless in dire circumstances. this is for both ethical and seasonal reasons: how can you know what's fresh and in season if you're constantly distracted by green beans from kenya? where's that high horse? :-)