jackal10

Read this and weep: No fat profits at Fat Duck HE is a celebrated chef who charges upwards of £85 a head for a meal. His restaurant has just been awarded three Michelin stars, making it one of an elite 47 in the world. The Fat Duck at Bray, Berkshire, chef and owner Heston Blumenthal, 37, has proved how tough it is in the restaurant world. Accounts recently filed at Companies House show he has gone heavily into debt to reach the top. Blumenthal's company, Fat Duck, showed a profit of less than £19,000 on turnover of £1.2 million in the year to March 2003. Blumenthal also took a pay cut. Directors' salaries were £129,000 compared with £143,000 the year before, when the restaurant made an £18,000 loss. Jamie Oliver's restaurant Fifteen was the subject of a TV series and is booked months in advance. But it still made a loss of £679,000 in its first year. However, Fifteen is forecast to go into profit next year. Others have been less lucky. Jean-Christophe Novelli ran into terrible financial trouble when he launched a chain of restaurants in the UK, France and South Africa. Despite rave reviews, he lost money and the bailiffs were called in And Gordon Ramsay, another holder of three Michelin stars at his restaurant at Claridge's Hotel, Mayfair, is also feeling the pinch. Due to lease complications, he closed his London restaurant Fleur, which only opened last year. And Ramsay also had to shut his Glasgow restaurant, Amaryllis, after three years.

No, no. London is the Great British Breakfast, or possibly Roast beef...or Pea Soup (London Peculiar).

Dried apricot jam Stewed, with cream Rehydrate and cook like fresh: tarts, pies etc

It's easy and decorative to grow There is a book: Quinoa, Super-grain that advocates its use for almost everything

OOOH Please, please report on Le Buerehiesel!!!

Stunning! Love the miniature devilled eggs. I wonder if the deep-pan method works with quail eggs? A favourite salad is faux-breakfast: spinach leaves, crumbled bacon, fried potato cubes, black pudding and poached quail eggs, with a hot dressing. Hard boiled quail eggs on their own make great appetizers. However I particularly like them tea-marbled.

Some bone the pigs trotter raw, some cook it first. Its much easier if you cook it first (long slow braise), then bone it out, stuff it, wrap it (cling film or muslin), then poach. You'll tear the skin a bit when boning, but the stuffing forcemeat will hold it together when cooked. Otherwise bread crumb and grill the cooked trotter...

Don't give up! Strangest potato soup recipe I've seen in a while. OK lets try and figure what went wrong, and how to fix. The variety of potato won't effect it much. Yukon gold is low starch anyway, and a good variety to choose. I'd say you've much too much potato; 8oz would be more than enough for a quart - see recipes for Bonne Femme or Vichyssoise. You've got more like 3lbs in there Basically you've much too much starch. I guess the baked potato is only really added as a garnish, but you've added it early and its broken down. You may have over-pureed the potato first as well - I make my potato soup from chunks of potato (and leek), than then lightly puree when cooked. What to do? You need to dilute by a five parts or so Take a quarter of the soup (a cup full) and dilute it with 5 cups of ideally milk, or otherwise stock or water. You will also need quite a lot of salt and pepper - taste as you go. Reheat, but don't boil if you can avoid it. Then continue as in the original recipe. Personally I'd put the cheese on a croûton of toast, and melt that under a grill separately. Easier to handle.

I think that there are remnants of French courtly and monastic cooking - for example Gefillte fish might be derived from quenelle de brochette (pike), which was a way of making the bony fish edible; pike were raised in monastic fish ponds as a cheap protein source. In the UK in the 50s Olive oil was something you got from the chemist in small quantities for medicinal use, not as a Major food or cooking medium; my Mother never enjoyed garlic, so did not cook with it. These were not uniquely Jewish or even Ashkenazic. I'm sure garlic and olive oil did not feature in many American homes of the time - maybe on Pizza and Italian American households, but not otherwise.

In the Diaspora, the migration out from the Middle East, Askenazi Jews went north, through Easter Europe, Germany, Lithuania, Poland etc and acquired or adapted foods such as gefillte fish, lox, bagels etc, and the Germanic Yiddish language, while Sephardi Jews went south, through Egypt, North Africa, and particularly Spain and Portugal, acquiring and adapting foods and language from those areas. Observance varies between individuals and families: in the Jewish tradition it is up to the individual conscience and personal interpretation of the law, unlike the more authoritarian Christian tradition of appointed priests. A Rabbi (Rabbi means"Teacher") is appointed by the local community. Their authority is only a personal one of their scholarship and personality. I think taboo foods are very local customs. Also what is regarded as Kosher varies dramatically from one community to another. For example I can remember when (according to the mainstream UK Ashkenazi) Turbot has been sometimes Kosher and sometimes not, depending on the interpretation of whether it has vestigial scales or not (fish must have scales and fins). Of course the strict would avoid it in case there was doubt. My family kept kosher (although I do not). We always ate white bread, and mayonnaise, for example together in a salmon or egg sandwich. In fact I can't think of anything we could have eaten, that tasted good, that we did not. It was more that, coming from an Ashkenazi tradition, and growing up in the 1950s, we ate northern European food, based on dill, schmaltz, fried onion range of flavours, rather than garlic, olive oil, tomato, herb-rich Mediterranean tradition. In this we were no different to our northern European Christian neighbors. Edit: I see Marlena has already said it better than I have.

The no bubbles is the key, and indicates that at some point the cork dried out and leaked, probably because the bottle had been stored upright. If the CO2 could get out, the oxygen could get in. You were fortunate no other bugs gt in as well. Otherwise champagne ages like any other white wine; it will get toastier and dryer, and eventually end up as vinegar.

In yesterday's "The Information" section of the The Independent, the "50 Best" feature was on Gastropubs. Doesn't seem to be online though

My french is not much better but I think it says Thinly sliced marinated wild salmon, with minted quinoa (tabbouleh style) and a salad of sprouted grains. Scallops, salad of jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) with trufffles (from Richerenches), creamy risotto Pheasant breast stuffed with foie gras with stewed dried fruit and mango, meat gravy with port Molten chocolate cake <Guanaja>, whie chocolate mousse, blood orange sorbet, spiced wine sauce

This week he deep fries and liquidises the ingredients (he quotes quail) first.... http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,...1146720,00.html Liquidising I understand, except for anything bigger than quail I find it gives too much "bone-taint" falvour. Deep frying I'm more doubtful about. HB says it doesn't lose so much flavour as roasting/deglazing, but I would have thought the flavour just dissolved in the oil instead. However, he is a three-star chef and I am not.

I'd seriously like to do some egCI units using a webcam.... or maybe with an interactive chatroom The problem is that much cooking is waiting about, compared to TV shows ("here is one I prepared earlier")...FIve hour leg of lamb is pretty dull for 4 3/4 hours...

The Gomes Lecture and Dinner in honour of The Revd Professor John Gomes DD, a greatly admired figure in both the Cambridges. The dinner followed the lecture given in College by The Rt Hon Sir Edward George, an old member and former Governor of the Bank of England. He spoke on "Reflections of a Central Banker". In Hall Potage de moules epice au safran (Velote of mussels and saffron) Trio de champignons sauvage (WIld mushrooms three ways: crostini, mousse and stuffed) Magret de canard roti infuse de gingembre et rhubarbe (roast duck breast with ginger and rhubarb; chateau potatoes, braised fennel and pureed cauliflower (!)) Tarte aux amadines avac abricots poche aux cognac et une creme glacee aux amandes roties (Almond tart on apricots poaches in cognac, with a roast almond icecream) Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses 1995 Nuits St Georges Domaine de L'Arlot 1995 Kreuznacher St Martin Riesling Berenauselese 1989 In the long gallery Desert (famhouse cheeses, fruit, petit four, chocolate truffels) Coffee Grahams 1977 Ch. de l'Angludet 1990 Moulin Touchas 1985

Splendid work! You have made an important contribution to the world's knowledge and chicken soup induced happiness! Overnight in the oven wins! Especially if you boil it down by half...

Any LBV - Late bottled Vintage. The chocolate will kill it anyway.

Hot lemon and honey - strong Add plenty of rum or brandy or whisky... Saintsbury (Notes on a Cellar Book) says: Serve as hot as possible in a rummer, as an ordinary tumbler will be too hot to hold. Drink in bed, preferably with a sympathetic attendant/companion.

Roumieu-Lacoste is a good Cru Bourgeois from Barsac (not Sauterne) and offers light and fruity sweet wines. 1999 should be about $25/ 75cl bottle, maybe $15 for halves Plenty on offer on the web if you do a quick google

I'd stay with Simpsons..but only for the beef

Does the long-time low temperature method worked for poached eggs as well? Might be the answer for quail eggs, that I can never manage to soft poach

The all-time classic hard-boiled egg film sequence has to be the egg-eating contest from Cool Hand Luke

Great lesson! Eggs Benedict is only one of a large number of classic variations on a theme. Andy has kindly put up my The Big Egg List on the Wit and Wisdom thread. Try some - you may like them...

A few days in the fridge. They won't freeze: freezing punctures the cells. You can dry them, however - that is how dried mashed potato is made, but you will lose some taste as the volatiles escape and they oxidise slightly. The dry product has a long life.