John Whiting

Cyrus Todiwala is about as intelligent/enthusiastic/dedicated a champion of Parsee/Parsi culture as one could ask for. Not so much a credit to his race as a credit to the human race. The last thing I would suspect him of is colonialism. His clientele consists of good food lovers of all political persuasions.

We were close once but the relationship . . . crumbled.

There's a direct contradiction between US and European conventions for using a knife and fork, which I'm sure everyone here knows about. It's an indication that which hand you hold an implement in is less important than the modesty with which you wield it. My mother used to tell my father he shouldn't crumble his crackers into his soup. One evening he was a guest at a banquet with President Franklin Roosevelt, who, of course, crumbled his crackers into his soup. Mother lost that one.

Brogdale

As an old Chowhounder, I have a strange feeling of dejà-vu. . .

I presume that's on Sundays only.

23/24th April, 1st May. The weekends after the 16th of May are fine.

Doesn't everyone who is anyone?!

Welcome to Muswell Hill! We've been in the north part of Hampstead Garden Suburb for thirty years and my wife shops regularly at Muswell Hill. The old "dry goods" shop is Martyn's which has been there for a century or so. It's excellent for coffee, tea, nuts, dried fruit, Marriage flour, and the whole range of Cottage Delight condiments. No perishables. Go along Fortis Green Road towards East Finchley and in a couple of streets you'll come to Midhurst Butchers. A lot of free range and organic meats; we get our Christmas turkey from them (free range bronze) and last year's was the best we've ever had. Just before you get to the Finchley High road, on your left, is Maajo's (sp?). It is to Indian takeaways what Fortnum and Mason is to grocery stores. To the right up the hill a couple of doors is another excellent fishmonger, Scott and Son. Just beyond them is a good fish and chip shop, *much* cheaper than Toff's. Back to the corner. Cross the High Road and Fortis Green Road becomes East End Road. About a mile along is another butcher shop, Graham's, more expensive than Midhurst but excellent. Their Lincolnshire sausages are to die for and at Christmas time they sell the finest Christmas puddings in the world, made only for them. No one who has eaten one ever buys any other kind. All these shops are interconnected by good bus routes -- the 102 between Muswell Hill and East Finchley (and the tube), the 143 along East End Road. Both go all the way to Brent Cross shopping centre. If you've forgotten a vital ingredient, there's a large convenience store in the Hampstead Garden Suburb Market Place on the A1 (102 bus), run by Turks, open 'til 11 every night, with a large stock of Middle Eastern, Indian and Kosher grains, herbs, spices and condiments, as well as a greengrocer stock at the front with a lot of unusual fruits and vegetables. There's a large Waitrose in Finchley, just south of Tally Ho Corner. A little further afield at Temple Fortune, also on the 102 bus route, are three good Turkish restaurants within a block of each other. EDIT: Read the thread in this forum on the Parsee at Highgate and the decision of where to meet for a meal could be settled without further discussion. I've been to a demonstration/workshop given by Cyrus at Cafe Spice Nemeste and he's a genius.

Turnips is notorious. Anyone who shops regularly in the Borough Market for produce must be so naive as to need a minder or so rich that the price is immaterial.

The best place to write a protest letter to is DEFRA, whose email and snail mail addresses are accessible through their website. Also to your MP, if s/he is likely to be sympathetic. (Ironically, you're liable to get more mileage out of a Tory than a Labourite.)

TV Dinners create spoiled brats says a news item in the [London] Daily Telegraph

Do I understand this correctly? Will it be coming in frozen? If this is the case, Rick Stein joins Rick Bayliss in the Pantheon of Shame. Please tell me that I've got it wrong.

Spending a week touring Ireland in January, I found them quite laid back about it. Some restaurants already had no smoking areas, one was entirely no smoking, and in those that didn't have restricted areas the smoke was only occasional. This new law could have an effect on the rural pubs where traditional Irish musicians perform. But in such places smoke-free laws could be a custom more honored in the breech than in the observance. Let me tell you a story (as all Irish tales begin). Spike Milligan once told me about his last Irish tour. His small company was rehearsing in the afternoon in their Dublin theatre and broke for a drink. They found a pub near by whose back door was open. They walked in and asked for three pints of Guiness. "I'm sorry," said the bartender, but we can't serve you yet." They turned to go. He called after them, "But would you care for a drink while you're waiting?"

The policy is in place. If it is not altered, these orchard-owners will either grub up their trees or greatly diminish the capital value of their orchards.

Guardian

Objectively true, and I always use whatever resources I have available. Nevertheless, I have an especially soft spot in my heart for a handful of places I found quite by accident.

Patricia Michelson's main shop is now on Moxon Street just off Marylebone High Street in an area that is gradually becoming a focal center for fine food shops. She has expanded her operation to include a whole range of meats, condiments, wines, breads, and a dining area where you can sit down to a hot meal or just bread, cheese and wine. It's not just a shop, it's an experience. One look at her website and you're liable to plan your whole London trip around it.

If I could predict exactly what sort of experience I would have at every new restaurant, I would be condemning myself inexorably to perpetual boredom. Some of my happiest surprises have resulted not just from unexpected excellence, but from the contrast with other experiments that had failed. A mountaintop without its attendant gorges is merely a plateau.

From Fine Food Digest, 4-5:

I prefer restaurant reviews which spend more time in a general evaluation of the ambiance and the cuisine than in a detailed description of dishes which are unlikely to be available by the time I get there. I also like the reviewer to reveal enough of his personality so that I can evaluate his judgements, whether positive or negative.

I hope that you will regularly provide me with an up-to-date list of your properties so that I can avoid giving offense. To assuage the delicate feelings of indignant wallpaper-lovers, let me refer you back to my previous postings. At no point did I say that I had actually cut a speaker cable. It is a right which under certain circumstances I would claim but have never exercised. I have twice in my long hell-raising life unplugged a speaker cable that was easily reachable directly over my head; I hope that St. Peter has not added this to his list of my sins requiring purgatorial expiation. From “Perception, Good Taste, Quiet Music”, a talk given by composer/critic/restaurateur Charles Shere at an ecology conference in Aix en Provence in 1998:

The first lesson is to learn to observe how people react to you. It's ironic how many foreigners in France never learn to begin and end conversations with strangers in the proper fashion; i.e. Bonjour/Au revoir Monsieur/Madame. Those magic words inspire forgiveness for subsequent inadvertent gaucheries.

Or make water!

From Matthew Fort's slating of 8 over 8 in today's Guardian, giving it 4/20: