endless autumn

hmmm, haven't heard anything about morels and alcohol before - do you mean the verpas not the morchellas? (And only common ink caps - which aren't great eating contain the antabuse chemical.)

Thanks - the Terroir de Mailloles looks like serious stuff.

False morels can be very poisonous but are eaten in eastern europe after extended boiling. They have lobes instead of pits and don't really look too similar. I'm going to the Pyrenees to look for morels where they grow below our village at around 1100m beneath elm and hazel. In a good year (and no year is ever as good as it used to be, according to the locals) you can collect pound upon pound of them. I've only ever found about forty (in total) in my life.

I'm going down to visit my parents inthe Pyrenees Orientales and will be coming back laden with wine. I have some favourite (obvious) producers: Domaine Gauby, Domaine du Mas Blanc etc. but wondered if anyone had any particular recommendations...

greenish Chinese lizard spirit and goldschlager with a floating layer of peptobismol.

I am with you, Brenna. It pains me. Cheese offers almost as much scope for I-SPY trainspotterishness, pretentiousness and oneupmanship as wine - it is so varied, has such a sense of place and is another miraculous product made from stuff which has gone off. I just don't like the taste of most cheeses. I only take pleasure from Parmesan, Pecorino, Mozzarella and Feta. Anything else is liable to make me retch. I occasionally pretend to be allergic to rennet so as to have a legitimate excuse to pass on cheese but then I inevitably have a particularly emetic goats cheese forced on me. I wish I didn't suffer from this affliction but there's nothing I can do. I am utterly unsqueamish about eating anything, but I simply won't eat cheese. I know I am missing out on so much but my tongue is simply wired wrong.

Cliff Richard's rank, confected, jammy wine is on sale for a wee snip here If only I'd been clever enough to get there first myself. (Do you think it would work for Gerard Depardieu, Nick Faldo, Greg Norman or Francis Ford Coppola's stuff?)

good (though formulaic) barbecue in Homer My favourite dish in the world in The Sea, The Sea (Iris Murdoch): eggs poached in (rehydrated) powdered egg

mail order company: here you go

The man who sells Herdwick Lamb and Galloway Beef at Borough (Farmer Sharp) told me that his stuff had been hung for about five weeks but was probably trying to show off. It tasted of socks - no acidity whatsoever - though it was tender enough. Restaurants area llowed to hang beef for an additional period after the 28 days we usually see boasted about: somewhere fairly awful whose name I can't remember and which has since gone out of business used to hang its beef for six weeks in total.

I want to try the beef from Perridge Farm (click) - you can order direct or get it from Lidgate (where you will also have to order). It is bizarre: beef from a dairy herd in Somerset which can't stop winning awards.

I look up whatever it is I am interested in on winesearcher and then buy from wherever stocks it. A good little merchant with Jacquesson champagne (my favourite) is Mayfair Cellars; I also like Adnams, Ravensbourne Wine Company and Andrew Chapman.

there's a butcher in blackheath which does outstanding veal: gg sparkes 24 Old Dover Road London SE3 7BT 020 8355 8597 give them a go...

I'm not a great fan of Rodizio Rico: they are stingy with the meat, bring around less expensive cuts more often, serve caipirinhas from a pre-mixed bottle and don't (I think) cook over wood but over some great big toaster element or something. It's ok once but you wouldn't really want to go back a second time.

According to Restaurant, young Tom Conran is going to open a Mexican place on Westbourne Park Road. He is currently 'testing recipes at home'. Doubt it's anything to get excited about

Just another quick moan about Morgan M... I went last night and had the Autumn menu which was superb. Service, in spite of previous complaints was good enough - they once forgot to bring more bread when requested and did not bring us our 'truffes' at the end of the meal but we were bored of waiting and wanted to leave in any case. The reason we were so bored is because we were completely sober. We were encouraged to choose pre-selected wines to accompany each course and gladly agreed. I am not someone intimidated by pseudo-sommeliers and bookish wine lists, rather I thought that an ambitious restaurant might have chosen some interesting wines to complement the food. However, we were served four quarter-glasses of house wine - the four glasses available by the glass on the menu. There is no way that any of the 'glasses' constituted the minimum 125ml serving of non-fortified wine; the wines, except for a perfectly palatable Vouvray, were unexciting, served at the wrong temperature and accompanied by senseless descriptions from the well-meaning waiter. (e.g. 'this wine has a very strong flavour', or 'this wine is very, very nice, or 'this wine is light: it is an excellent aperitif' (why then serve it with an earthy turnip and truffle soup?).) In total, we were served around 300ml of wine each. The most expensive wine which we were served was £17 a bottle, so we paid £38 for what was worth (according to their wine pricing) around £14. I think it an immense shame that a restaurant which produces such good food should let itself down in so many other ways.

Re: hares Borough should be able to sort you - the place with the fish and game. Otherwise Manor Farm Game (all farmer's markets just about: see www.londonfarmersmarkets.org.uk) sells them for £10 a pop I think. They were definitely at Marylebone, Islington, Ealing, Pimlico and even Whetstone last time I visited. They have a website, so ring for availability if you like. edited to let you know what I was on about

The O2 centre: four slices of saddle (imported, farmed) for a pricey £5.50. (To tell the truth I much prefer the sweet little nuggets to the tainted, tough old meat which you often get from Farmer's Markets and even Borough.)

Sainsbury's sell rabbit too (at least the Finchley Road one does). Most rabbit you get in England is wild and much gamier than French or Spanish supermarket rabbit - if you want farmed English rabbits try Woldsway Foods. I've got some confit rabbit in my fridge a the moment. yum.

Now I'm not an expert (so just who you want to turn to for authoritative advice) but I can tell you that: Collar of pork is indeed the neck-end of the shoulder. Collar of ham is not, I don't think, the top of the leg but rather a brined/preserved collar of pork. Bacon knuckle is from the opposite leg from the hock (front not back?) and I guess it would be smoked and/or dry-cured. I think you should wait for corroboration before taking any notice of this, however.

Know it's a little boring to repeat myself constantly, but you could always try Incognico on Shaftesbury Avenue - they open at 5.30pm and are close to a Northern Line tube to take you to Waterloo. Should think you know what sort of food to expect: very straight-down-the-line Francophile classics, concentrated flavours, lack of adornment. Sober, but delicious.

I went to some Slow Food shindig on the products of Le Marche - a website about the producers (wines, oils, pasta, sapa etc.) is here. It lists the details of the various places if anythign catches your attention. From the slow food tasting, I thought some the 1998 Camurena was pretty special, an aged (and oaked) Maceratino which tasted of hay; the people behind the vineyard seemed very kind, too. I think they'd love a visit.

I went on a school trip to Istanbul a few years back led by a tricky vicar addicted to gentleman's relish. We stayed in the Pera Palace which is a hilarious old place: grandeur as faded as it comes. Each room has a plaque which tells you who has stayed in the room before: I was in King Zog of Albania's room (which was surprisingly small). They had just about removed traces of his residency - I believe he was just about the heaviest smoker in history, regularly consuming over 100 cigarettes a day. I think the hotel might be part of the Orient express group, but I don't think it is outrageously expensive. It is almost certainly a tourist trap, but I greatly enjoyed being ferried up and down its ancient open-cage lift and eating breakfast in the old ballroom.

Went to Ciao Bella for a friend's birthday party once: not a good night, though the fault was not with the company. I think the food's quite foul, but it is an amusing place. I'm unlikely to return, however.

Give their PR company a call - I should think Mr Lynes knows who they are. They are spreading Krispy Kreme doughnuts throughout London, giving them out by the boxful. You'll be a popular man at work.