jackal10

Its easy. Its basically just potato slices cooked in stock instead of boiled in water. They will sit, warm, for a long time. You can prepare ahead of time and just reheat in batches, which is why restaurants like them Alternatively do in plastic bags (sous-vide) which can sit in a warm oven for as long as you like. Pretty bomb-proof. 20 people, maybe 10lbs raw potatos. Choose a waxy variety like Nicola. Peel, slice well ahead of time (lunchtime?) and hold in cold salt water Personally I'd cook them, if you have the oven space, in the oven with the stock and fat (goose, duck or butter) and seasonings, in a couple of baking pans covered over with foil, medium oven. I'd put them in about an hour and a half before needed, and move them to a very low heat when they seem nearly done. If you have to cook them on top of the stove use several smaller pans rather then one big one, and be careful they don't catch on the botom. Alternatively put them in roasting bags with the stock and fat, then in the baking pan, Don't completly seal, unless you want an explosion, and make sure the bag is of the type that can take the temperature.

Can you ship to the UK? If so how much will the shipping (e.g FedEx) cost?

Its basically adapted from a standard 4 bed rotation roots/peas and beans/brassicas/other, such as in the Royal Horticultural Society's "Vegetable Garden Displayed" by Joy Larcom. I should have added leek seedlings in bed 4 to go into bed 1 after the early potatoes are out.

Seems to stay put: a) Don't dig the bed. Comfrey spreads by pieces of root, so don't disturb the ground b) Gets cut down and composted a couple of times each year c) Glyphosate

Tell us more about Chile con carne...the best I've had was in the canteen at the University of Chicago in the sixties, when I was a summer student there...

All the Chile con Carne I've ever had was mostly beans...

Its not classism, just terminology. You used the term "Cassoulet", which has a specific meanings, culture and strong beliefs associated with it. Call your dish something different: "Pork and Beans" or "Beanie Weenie", even "Ragout inspired by Cassoulet" if you like. I'm sure it was delicious, but it was not the true Cassoulet. Describing it as Cassoulet would be like describing roast beef as "Texas BBQ" just because it was served with tomato ketchup, or describing what you had as Chile Con Carne, since it had beans and meat in it. Some Trailer (and traditional and peasant cooking) is among the worlds finest. I apologise if I accidently insulted anyone.

Talking of planning, this year I plan as follows. Its based partly on what gorws easily, and by what we tend to eat, and cannot buy easily. For example it is not worth growing onions or garlic, as I can buy better in the market. There is an Asparagus farm down the road, so its pointless growing our own Bed 1: Potatoes: Arran Pilot, Pink Fir Apple, Salad Blue (only worth growing first earlies or rarities. Late varieties are prone to blight here) Jerusalem Artichokes (self seeded) Hamburg parsley (I keep trying, but not successful) Carrots (various colours) Bed 2: Broad (Fava) beans: Purple flowered, Epicure(red seeded) Peas: Purple Podded Runner (Pole) Beans: White Lady, Painted Lady, Polestar Bed 3: Red brussel Sprouts (if we can keep the rabbits out) Purple Broccoli Savoy cabbage Sweet corn Chinese mustards Rainbow chard Bed 4: Lettuce (slugs permitting) Radish Outdoor tomatos (Fireworks II, Sungold) Vegetable Spaghetti squash, pumpkins Flowers for cutting: Sweet peas Dahlias Gladioli In the greenhouse: Malmaison Carnations Tomatos Peppers More lettuce Alpine strawberries Basil There is a seperate herb garden, in no particular order: parsley,sage, rosemary,chives, garlic chives,oregano,marjoram, thymes, mints, violets, old roses, lemon balm, feverfew, tansy, verbena,verbascum, lavender, sweet cicily, comfrey,borage Comments, suggestions please! The land is deep heavy alkaline clay.

Salt Pork and beans come from a quite different tradition of long keeping foods for the American Wagon trains, and in turn from sailing ship cookery (I hestitate to call it cuisine). I guess trailer park cookery comes from cans. Cassoulet on the other hand....

Care! You are treading on strongly held beliefs here. What you have may be a fine meat and bean stew, but it is not a Cassoulet, anymore than baked beans with sausages are. Where is the breadcrumb topping, stirred in at least seven times? The pork rind? The confit of goose (if from Toulouse)? The leg of mutton (if from Carcassone)?

I wonder if the rose is Rosa Gallica Officinalis, the Apothecaries Rose. Claudia Roden in the Book of Jewish Food discusses Sephardic Fruit Preserves. On the same page as Bimbriyo (Quince paste) she mentions Dulce de Rozas - rose petal jam - symbolic of good luck, and mentions it is made by simmering the petals in a syrup made with the same weight of sugar.

I sow a seed tray of lettuce every two weeks or so. Transplant 10 into a growbag, and eat the rest as young plants. Don't see any reason why they should not be grown in pots, just not very efficient and hard to keep watered. Sowed more tomatos "Fireworks II" Here in the UK sweetpeas are sown in pots indoors. Nearly time to sow outdoor peas. I'll be sowing heritage purple podded peas that can be eaten young as mangetout (tho they lose their purple colour when cooked) or grown on for traditional peas.

As an angel investor, you are right. Its a crazy business. Capital intensive, labour intensive, top-end limited, and worst of all fickle. You are only as good as your last meal (or last review). It also takes time to establish and get into the guides. Very roughly: Food and drink costs 30% Overheads (heat, light, power, insurance, linen, flowers, breakages etc) 30% Staff costs: 30% Leaving 10% for profit, tax,(VAT/sales tax at 17.5%) and payment on the capital. Not much need go wrong to eat into that 10%. A few bad nights, someone dropping an expensive bottle, two slices instead on one on the plate... Bear in mind it can cost up to a million to start a new upmarket restaurant, its a wonder anyone does. Few restaurants can consistently clear six figures per annum - thats roughly needing 500 per session, or 10 per cover in clear profit just to pay the interest - whatever currency you choose. Not surprising that restaurants need to charge 100+ per cover. For many the sums only work because the capital has been sunk in previous generations, and the family work for a pittance. Most of the money is made from spin-offs, like the books or the TV appearances, or the increase in property value rather than serving meals in the restaurant. It might be full on Saturday night, but the problem is geting bums on seats at slack times, when you still have to pay fixed costs, even if you wind down the staff to a bear minimum.

Jerusalem artichoke soup Long cooked boned and stuffed shoulder of lamb Roast parsnips and potatoes, cauliflower Roast Onion Icecream Balsamic and honey glazed carrots Broccoli, garlic crumbs Treacle tart and custard

Chef swearing audibly. especially if drunk or an open plan kitchen. Come to that open plan kitchens are bad, anyhow.

[irony] Surely not! Would a professional restaurant could do such a thing [/irony]? Who ordered theirs well done?

Dried bananas. Looked like dog turd, and had a unique taste and a sticky chewy texture. Haven't seen them in an age

Prof Kurti used to demonstrate: Inside-out toast: Microwave a thick (one inch or so) slice of bread. Inside-out Omllette surprise: Inject runny jam sauce or fruit coulis into the middle of a block of very cold ice or sorbet. Microwave, The jam adsobs the radiation preferably, so boiling sauce ( care) in an ice shell.

Don't forget these are retail DPD prices. Alas in the UK we pay outrageous tax and VAT on wine

I just made some. I follow Florence Lin's method, but added leeks instead of scallions. I'd post a picture if I could figure out how to upload (any help?)

Here in Cambridge UK we are blessed with several excellent merchants. I would include with links, in no particular order: Alex Riley Alex Riley [alex.riley.wines@dial.pipex.com] Cambridge Wine Co Noel Young Wines Jenkins and Beckers (fine Clarets) Jenkins & Beckers [jb@childerley-estates.co.uk] We are doubly blessed in that many wine merchants come to Cambridge to show their wines to the colleges. There are professional wine tastings, mainly for the Wine Stewards of the colleges, often weekly in the Michalmas and Lent terms. Entrance is by inviatation of the particular wine merachant. More wine links

Yes, they are both Rosemary and Sage very tough plants and will re-sprout. They are pratically unkillable.

I grow cardoons, both to eat and as decorative background to roses. You must blanch them late august/early September for 4-5 weeks, otherwise they will be unbearably bitter. Cut out anything old and woody, and wrap the stems in something lightproof - old newspaper or black polythene or geo textile. Treat like celery. I like them braised with bacon. Sweat some onion and chopped up bacon until golden. Add the cardoon stalks blanched and tied in bundles. Add some stock, season well. Put in a low oven for a few hours. Swiss chard stalks can be done similarly. You can eat the heads like small artichokes, if you catch them early, otherwise they are a flower arrangers delight. Cut them long and hang them upside down to dry so the bright blue colour is preserved

That's Samphire! Here in the UK the season is not until midsummer's day. "Half-way down Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!" Shakespeare, King Lear Its a sea- margin palnt, not an underwater vegetable. Also known as glasswort or sea asparagus. The stuff has a stiff glass-like core. Cook like asparagus, Eat in the fingers, sucking the succulant outside off. Full of minerals. Can be pickled, but that rather loses the point.

I think the comparison with Escoffier is not entirely fair. Remember he was at a time just about at the changeover from traditional buffet style service in "removes" to our modern "service a la russe". The dishes would have been alternatives at each course, although they may have been placed on the table at the same time Traditionally small and large course alternated The traditional menu was: 1. Amuse (or frivolities or hor-d'ouvres) 2. Caviar with blinis, or oysters or clams or melon 3. Soup, choice of thick or thin 4. Salad or small dishes, like olives or nuts or amuse ---------------------------------------- 5. Fish course 6. Sweetbreads or mushrooms or truffles or pasta or the like 7. Artichokes or asparagus or something in pastry 8. Roast meat 9. Sorbet or palate cleanser 10. Game -------------------------------------- 11. Pudding or cream based sweet 12. Frozen sweet, biscuits 13 A savoury ---------------------------------------- 14 Cheeses 15 Fruits and petit-four 16 Coffee liquers etc The dotted lines correspond roughly with the old "removes". Often (at least in my college) the desert (courses 14 15 and 16) are served in a different room, or else the table is "turned", so people sit next to different people. Of course each course comes with its own cutlery, and there should never be the cutlery for more than three courses on the table at the same time.