Carlovski

Hmmm, I've changed my sig haven't I. Just to recap Celery is the food of the devil I can't stand the stuff raw. I shudder to even think about it. Diced and cooked as part of a mirepoix or the 'Trinity' I can live with. But raw - No! It even taints the food it touches - If another vegetable has been laid next to it in a salad or crudite platter I can taste it. I'm no lover of cucumber either, but compared to celery it is the food of the gods. And whats with the string? Some time ago I posted that I was going to try a Simon Hopkinson recipe for cream of celery soup (Think it might have been in my bio thread), well I tried it. Don't think I'll repeat the experience.

Strange, But I'd say at the table - eating on the sofa etc always turns into a stuggle for balancing. But I very rarely do. I think my housemates would think I was a bit strange and antisocial if I did - it is in the corner of our kitchen, or we have one in the living room, but it is always covered in mail and an assortment of laptops. Oh, apart from ice cream. You eat ice cream on the sofa.

There is a definite food lover/dog owner correlation. Pierre Gagnaire, Jeffery Steingarten, Fat Guy, Andy..... Any others?

Strange thing about the uk commercial type which as has been mentioned are available in lots of brands and found with the crisps in the supermarket (And more importantly 24 hour shops and petrol stations!) and at every chinese takeaway - usually 'Free with every order over £10' is that although completely lacking an any redeeming culinary value (As Jack says, very little prawn in those versions) they are as addictive as crack. A friend of mine while a student discovered the remarkable taste sensation of putting a forkfull of sweet and sour pot noodle in a suitable curved and bowl shaped prawn cracker and eating the whole thing before it collapsed. Oh, alright I admit it, the friend was me.

I do eat a lot of chickpeas. I like to make a simple chickpea mash to go with stews - great for soacking up juices. A similar recipe but with some spicing garlic and a good slick of evoo served with plenty of toasted pitta is a regular lunchtime snack (Lemon juice helps too) I believe that hummus doesn't contain tahini - hummus bi tahini is a different dish. Handy hint - if you want the tahini flavour but don't have any to hand (As I rarely do) a drizzle of sesame oil gives a similar taste (And I do usually have that!)

I like my bacon hot on my BLT. It also helps with the issue of less than ideal tomatoes - briefly fry them in the hot bacon fat - not too long, don't 'cook' them, it just seems to help. No Mayo - I prefer it without, especially with hot bacon, if you insist use the lettuce as a sort of heat shield.

Last week I went to make myself a Ham sandwich so got the bread, slathered on the dijon and went to the the fridge to get the ham. Whoops, I had already finished. And lo, the mustard sandwich was born!

Catherine de Medici married the future king of France, Henry II in 1533. Without the Italian influence and the introduction of herbs and Italian produce..not to mention the hoardes of Italian chefs she brought with her...French cuisine wouldnt have evolved as it had... Keeping that in mind..almost half a century earlier, in 1475, King Matthias married the daughter of the King of Naples. In order to make life beyond Italian borders bearable(oh!!!...the suffering women endure to perpetuate the human species. and for world peace...within europe, that is), the bride brought with her ingredients not previously known in her new marital country..tomatoes, onions, peppers..of course, Italian chefs. Now...how often do you write home about Hungarian cuisine? ← That's a good trick - I didn't think tomatoes and peppers had been discovered then....

And for centuries in China....... But I digress, There is definite a different bias across the forums, the Indian cuisine forum is probably 70% or higher cooking related, where as the New York forums has very little (A fare few 'ingredient' type questions though) My home forum (UK) gets the odd one. I think there is a bit of difference, I'd say a fair proportion of the general eGullet membership would say they had a fair knowledge of french cusine and technique, but not so with other cuisines, hence the common situation where if a question is posted in the cooking or general forum on French cuisine, unless it is highly specialised will tend to get answered there wheras a question on Indian food for example will be answered with a suggestion to post it in the relevant regional forum.

Hampshire has farmers markets every sunday, they used to be at a different place each week, but last Friday of the month was always Winchester. They have changed to do Winchester every other week, as that one makes the most money.

Vegetables? Why would you want vegetables? Salsa Verde is green, that should do.

Hmm - don't think that is there anymore (And p.s, Durham isn't in Yorkshire!). Most chinese food comes under one of 4 categories in the UK Takeaways - These are quite often combined chinese/fish and chip shops, and unfortunately do neither well (with a few notable exceptions). I wouldn't really associate most of the food with anything authentic - most dished consist of some pre cooked meat (you'ld be lucky to get any fish other than battered) cooked in one of two sauces (A gloopy sweet and sour or a generic brown stock based sauce) with some extra vegetables/flavourings depending on the dish. Anything 'Szechuan' is usually sweet and sour with a spoonfull of chilli sauce. It can be done well though - and if so can be quite tasty and is cheap. Occasionally they do one or two 'specialities' which aren't quite as generic. And there are a few very good takeaways (usually ones from a restaurant) High street type restaurants They tend to offer a similar range to the takeaways - it is what people are used to. Normally a bit fresher and better prepared. Bit more of a chance of getting some seafood and the odd regional specialitiy. Nearly all the restaurants in Britain are Cantonese though (Well in name - don't think many of them adhere to the principles of subtlety and clean flavours!). There is usually a very appetising smell, usually because the most popular dishes come 'sizzling', and a heated metal platter (Some places allow any dish to come 'sizzling' for a small surcharge). There is also the strange fascination with 'value' we get in Britain, a lot of places operate on an eat as much as you like principle, not necessarily buffet style, they will keep cooking what you want to order. Actually some of these can be quite good - if you have a large group you can try pretty much every starter on the menu, and they are often the best thing(That's another point - thngs work on much more of a three/four course basis). Chinatown restaurants Lots of cities have a little chinatown. The food here can be good, sometimes great, but as a rule you need a bit of guidance. A lot of places havr two menus, and the english one is full of the high street restaurant standards. Very often it is hard to convince the waiter you don't want sweet and sour chicken and chow mein. I remember once eating somewhere where we tried to get some more interesting dishes - a treasures of the sea special, a belly pork dish etc. We then asked for any recommendations and we ended up with a horrible oversweetend cornstarched thing. Served in a hollowed out pineapple . Still much more fun than the high street option. Some places have modernised, made the menu more accesible and the whole thing a bit less intimidating (And upped the prices too!) which is a good thing. Destination type Looking at the high end places in general (Although also the odd cheap but good types). Mainly in London but a few others knocking around (Yand Sing in Manchester for instance, which is in Chinatown but I don't really class in the same way). Getting closer to real Chinese food I guess - probably still westernised and in some cases mordernised/fusionised (I think I made that word up) I terms of the food, I guess dishes are quite often oversauced (something we seem to do with every cuisine). Chicken is always white meat, off the bone and is by far the most popular meat. Pork isn't on the menu much (A family remember said on me mentioning this said 'But pork isn't very chinese really is it ). Showpiece dishes are always popular - the sizzling dishes plus crispy duck (shredded at the table) but you have to try hard to find a hotpot dish. Don't often see obvioulsy anglicised dishes though and I think genuine ingredients aren't too hard to come by here.

It's still a cut above markets in most towns - fine if you want cheap underwear and mobile phone covers, but even if they do sell some food, you wouldn't want most of it.

Wow - I never thought of Prawn Crackers as something you could make at home.

Good ideas Carlovski. Your post reminded me another dish I make quite a bit-- broccoli and anchovy. Similiar to what you post above, but with anchovy added. Mince anchovy, garlic, dried red pepper together, sautee in olive oil. Add in par boiled broccoli and sautee a bit longer. Drain pasta, add in to marry wtih sauce a bit. Add some pasta water if wanted. Serve with pecorino. Orecchiette pasta works well for this. (I cut up the broccoli stems and florets pretty small for this). edited to add: for an extra savory element and pork substitute: anchovy! (won't work in all cases of course). ← Yep - I add Anchovy too sometimes (Then again I do love the little things!) ← I actually had this twice at the weekend (I bought a huge bunch of purple sprouting broccoli!). Once with Anchovy, once without.

Waitrose in the uk sells a jar of Puttanesca ingrediants ready chopped (olives, anchovies, capers - don't know if they put chilli in as well) in oil ready to add with tomatoes - and I suppose you could use it for other things too. Not tried it - I worry the olives and capers may be a bit dried out, but I might try a jar and report back. My quick storecupboard fix is tinned sardines (Good ones, in Evoo - I get ones which are packed with a chilli pepper too sometimes) garlic, chilli, a little bit of tomato and white wine (Or quite often vermouth). Or bacon (Sometimes pancetta, but often good quality dried cured british stuff) cooked in butter with a little onion, garlic and peas. A little wine if I have any too.

I'll give it a go over the weekend - I rarely make lamb curries (Apart from the occasional Keema made from lamb mince). Give me a good excuse to go and get some fresh spices. I'd like to recommend Camilla Punjabi's 50 Great Curries of india book - It's a lot better than the title suggests. It's been recently republished in the UK in a much nicer format. It is about the only book I've read which properly stresses the importance of cooking onions (and what sort of onions) )properly in the initial stages. And it recommends you make the simple 'homestyle' curry first before tackling the regional specialities, which I think is great advice.

I wouldn't say he deserves to lose his reputation for one failure after the phenomonal success of his other ventures. Gordon Ramsay had to shut down Amarylis but whatever people may think of his more recent television ventures, or him personally no one doubts his credentials as a restaurateur. Didn't someone try a similar french concept in Paris (Joel Robuchon? Can't really remember) - 'Haute' cuisine, but canteen style communal dining and no reservations.

Whoops, submitted twice and now can't think of anything to say!

And what about wolf nipple chips?

Yes and it is a great shame - My search for a decent Sichuan restaurant turned up exactly nil. I've seen an add for one claming to be Sichuan somewhere in the New Forest - I might try a trip, but I'm not hopeful.

And if near the coast they should offer good prawn and crab sandwiches. Unfortunately your are more likely to encounter (Microwaved) nachos in a pub than a decent ploughmans, pork pie or roast. Not that I have anything against Nachos in principle - they actually make quite good pub sharing food, as long as they aren't glued together with far too much industrial grade melted cheese. Even the bit's on that 'Pub' menu that have any sort of british heritage are messed up. Roast beef yes, 'Au Jus' WTF? And Sausages and mash comes with onion gravy. No beans and no sodding apple chutney. Don't even get me started on garlic mash.

Also cut across the grain of the meat. I have had some beef in cheap chinese places that has been so heavily artificially tenderised it didn't even seem like meat any more. I think they use something more than just bicarb and velveting - some sort of commercial tenderiser (What's that enzyme in papaya?)

Can't believe no-one has mentioned James Bond yet. The Books were much better food and drinks wise though. I remember an article in a short lived foodie magazine in the UK where a writer tried to follow food and drink wise Bond's time in Paris. Quote 'A small carafe of vodka - very cold'. This as well as the champagne, bottle of wine, martinis and a couple of glasses of calvados. He was quite drunk and ill...

Here is a recent clipping from a Hampshire based review Being cheese freaks, my companion and I both opted for the superb Mozzarella in Carozza - deep fried, plenty of runny cheese served with a tangy pomodoro sauce - for starter. Our main courses were equally cheesy - a perfect tropicana pizza with plenty of pineapple, ham mushrooms and more mozzarella for myself and crespolina porcini or tasty rolled crepes filled with mushrooms, parmesan and a creamy sauce. For dessert, we chose a cheesecake and ice cream with hazelnuts and meringue from a long list of tempting treats. 'Nuff said