I ain't yellow, I ain't mellow

I've always hated mellow. Even the sound of the word. It's so wet, stoned, passionless. What use is mellow? "This is your Captain speaking, if there are any mellow passengers on board could they please make themselves known to the cabin crew immediately". I don't think so.

But age distorts so many things and the black dog currently nibbling at my shoulder is the terrifying realisation that I'm mellowing. Take this one time Christmas stocking filler.

Written as a series of letters to a daughter just off to university. Snippets of a family's history intertwined with recipes and signed off 'Mummy'. Excruciating. Everything about this book got me ranting and raging. It seemed the embodiment of conceited middle class smugness writ large. Even the title was embarrassing. So it sat in a darkened cupboard for years, in case anyone thought I'd bought it.

I can't remember when exactly, but gradually, bit by bit, I started dipping in. A pasta recipe here, a risotto recipe there. I still couldn't go the 'letters' but it quickly dawned on me that the food was good. Many books claim to reveal family recipes handed down through generations, most are either lying or their family's food must have been a bit shit. This book was the real deal.

It's the subtlety of the tastes that really impresses. Little techniques that impart so much flavour. Combinations that compliment and never overwhelm. Do not be fooled by the apparent simplicity. One of my favourites is 'Poussin with an Orvieto style stuffing'. I eat it once a week. This is all you need. Plus some rosemary.

First bash two unpeeled garlic cloves with a heavy knife. Let them gently fry while chopping the roasting potatoes and fennel bulb.

Pop them into the pan once the garlic is golden. Fry for 10/15 minutes till they colour a bit. I always find they stick, so just before finishing add a little water and scrape up the tasty brown stuff.

Fish out the garlic and add a tablespoon of chopped olives, the dry 'stone in' ones are best, salt and pepper. Stuff the birds, pop in a sprig of rosemary season and rub with a little olive oil.

Into the preheated oven, 220c for 25 minutes. Remove, baste, pour in a glass of white wine and add any left over stuffing to the roasting pan too. Then put everything back in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes. It's divine.

White wine probably suits this dish best, I guess something from Orvieto would make sense. But I fancied red wine.

£7.99 from Sainsbury's. Made utilising a technique developed in Beaujolais to extract all the nice things from the grape and less of the difficult stuff.

It's now used to great effect in the Languedoc when some of the rougher grapes need, err, mellowing. Oh hell, why fight it? I may even try reading those letters.

'Dear Francesca' by Mary Contini

Ebury Press. First published 2002.

If you see it, buy it.

Or just visit her family's original 'Valvona & Crolla', 19 Elm Row, Edinburgh EH7 4AA

Pricey, but by some way the best Italian deli in Scotland.

The poussins came from Sainsbury's: £4.50 for 2.

Waking the Dead

Working till two in the morning meant I was determined to drive in the evening. If I started to droop, an escape would be easier. Persuasive powers and the pop of a cork melted that resolve in minutes. I'm glad.

Tattinger's Prelude was gorgeous. Honeyed praline reviving juice that bundled me into the cab. We drove towards Paisley in the drizzle and finally found the place. A splendid Victorian villa whose owners put their own art in the basement to make way for art to sell. A proportion of the money raised goes to charity.

Best in the sale for me looked like a fucked up Amelia Earhart. Unfortunately my art purchasing fund couldn't stretch to the £5000 asked. Instead I spent more time gazing upon my favourite piece, it wasn't part of the sale, so I felt better coveting it.

Flaking after the taxi back I was given an elixir to sip. This stuff could wake the dead.

Immense mineral refreshment. It's probably wrong, but I like Grand Cru Chablis young, unfortunately my wine purchasing fund rarely stretches to it's asking price either.

Thank you Jo.

Run rabbit, run rabbit, quick, quick..... oops too late.

Picked up a wild rabbit for £5 in Alan Beveridge, the fishmonger on Byres Road. Jointed then soaked in water with a drop of vinegar for a few hours. This blanches the meat and gets rid of the 'rodenty' flavour.

Used the trimmings to make a stock which cooked while I fannied around making the rest of the dish.

It came with the liver and kidneys intact. Rabbit liver is one of the best and the kidneys, well, if another animal produces a tastier one I'm yet to eat it.

This is what I did:
Cut a piece of pancetta into cubes and fried it gently for 5 mins. Added two cloves of garlic and continued frying until the garlic turned golden. Strained it reserving the pancetta and garlic and keeping the fat.
Put a tablespoon of the fat back in the pan and browned the rabbit. Put the pancetta and garlic back in the pan, poured in a glass of white wine and reduced it to almost nothing. Strained the trimmings stock into the pan to just cover the rabbit. Brought everything to the boil, then simmered very gently with a lid on for about an hour. The simmering could have taken longer if the rabbit was older.
Once the rabbit was tender I poured the juices into another pan and boiled to reduce by a half. Then I added a a few tablespoons of cream and boiled for a few more minutes. Finally I added about a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, some fresh chopped parsley, a minced clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Popped it all to one side while I quickly fried the liver and kidneys in some of the reserved fat. About 2 minutes on each side, no more. Served with potatoes, cut into slices, parboiled, rubbed with olive oil then roasted in an oven @ 200 c for approx. 40 mins.

In my time I've done some serious poncing around with rabbit... marinades, stuffings, waterbaths, boning and wrapping... but I reckon this was the tastiest rabbit dish I've eaten. Next time, if I'm flush, I reckon a few morel mushrooms would really make it.

Drank this with it. The name was so nearly so right...

It came from Sainsbury's and at £5.49 it's a good price for white burgundy. It tastes pretty typical too. But it does have a rustic edge, a touch of rough, a hint of rodent perhaps? Archie the fox terrier was uncontrollably excited after his first bite of rabbit, so I took him out to calm down. Spotted this on the walk and thought it looked a bit like a fossilised dinosaur rodent.

Music & wine: Chew Lips 'Salt Air' & Muscadet

The motorway was dreadful, "Slow for 6 miles" read the sign. I decided to take an early exit, and, as the lights turned green at the top of the slip road, pressed down on the throttle. What followed was the loudest snapping sound ever. The car wouldn't budge. Fellow motorists honked horns, shouted, gesticulated and implied that my parents weren't married when I was conceived. Their initial anger transformed into amusement as I took the warning triangle from the boot and placed it in the road.

I've always wanted an excuse to use it, unfortunately this wasn't an excuse. After that I stood on a traffic island for an hour being ignored by police cars, waiting for the RAC, singing a tune I couldn't get out of my head and imagining what I'd be doing if the car hadn't broken down.

I decided the best bet to go with Chew Lips 'Salt Air' would be a Muscadet. Grown near the ocean and great with seafood. Also, over the past ten years, it has transformed from being one of the most unreliable names in French wine to being one of the most consistent.

To eat with it? After much deliberation I settled on Moules Frites. My thinking was to combine the quintessential elements of being 'seaside' on both sides of the Channel.

Well, the car's still gubbed, but tonight's the night. Moules frites, muscadet and Chew Lips. Can't wait, but whether it goes or not, I'm sure it'll be better than standing on a traffic island.

Smuggler's delight

Cornwall was once synonymous with rum coves and hidden passages. These days, thanks to global warming, there's little need to sneak it in through the back door. Niven and Sabeen were justly proud of this souvenir, so much better than a plastic pirate's patch.

It's light, aromatic, invigorating and very similar to a Loire sauvignon. Apparently it sells out every year and costs about £10. So is that too expensive?

Well, if it was from the Loire, yes, it's not quite Sancerre. But for one of the best wines in Cornwall? Clearly that's what you have to pay.

Niven and Sabeen are getting very close to producing something else they'll be proud of...

To help them celebrate, and given the scarcity of Cornwall's finest, I'm suggesting this little beauty. I love it.

Melony, limey, sherbety and totally refreshing, it's hard to stop drinking this wine. A cracker and best of all, yours from Oddbins for just £5.99! Total bargain.

Click here for the Camel Valley Vineyards

I have been to a very dark place...

There was an amazing night last week. It was filled with the incredible tension that comes from when it should be pouring but somehow never does. The threat, and the wind, keeps everyone indoors, those who venture out get the city to themselves. It's the best time to walk.

What goes up must come down. All buoyed up and back in the flat I'm heading for a crash. One I've adored since first meeting is about to let me down terribly...

Of course, it's all my fault. Convinced I know something I don't, and that macs can do no wrong, I dive in. Trying to fix a glitch with email I manage to delete everything on the hard drive and can't find anything on the back up. What follows is shock and I'm not prepared for it. A week spent coming to terms with my own stupidity and thick headedness.

Salvation came from a very nice man in work. He pressed the right buttons and found what was missing. Which was everything. I had no idea a computer could become this precious. It's wrong. To help pull me out of the abyss I cracked open my last bottle of Condrieu.

Years ago a famous wine writer said Condrieu was best drunk young from a jug in the regions cafes. He described it as a heady mix of mountain streams and wild flowers but said it didn't travel. Back then the appellation was dying out and the grape it's made from, Viognier, was almost extinct. How times change. This wine even spent time in oak. Gorgeous stuff, but beneath its now serious structure was a haunting reminder, a whisper of youthful exuberance, of what it was like before going inside that dark place.... the barrel that is.

Condrieu 2006

Les Vins De Vienne

Bought from Tesco two weeks ago. Reduced from £24 to £11.50 a bottle.

Tour de France

Sometimes only steak frites will do. Way back, it's what we got for enduring my father's determination to drive the length of France non stop. After 14 hours squashed among the camping gear, our reward was something with frites from a roadside van. I still love it.

Frites are tricky ones. My attempts to cook them never quite work and the smell lingers. So it's always M&S Frites now, my 'supermarket food product of the year'. 15 minutes in the oven et Bob est votre onlce. Picked up the wine at the same time for £5.49. A steal.

French green peppercorn sauce, not essential, but ideal. This stuff transformed limited camping stove fayre into restaurant like splendour... to a ten year old at least. Nowadays I never visit France without picking up 20 'Poivre Vert'. It always gets a comment at the till.

Another tip is to rehydrate the sauce with half water half wine. Other than that, who knows why it tastes so much better than the packets bought here? It just does.

Finally, the steak shouldn't be too posh. It never was in France. This was a great lump of popseye cut from the beast by Andrew Reid Butchers on Great Western Road.

Mmmm, I could almost hear my mother's voice... "Slow down or you'll get indigestion..."

M&S Piedmont Barbera

Juicy, slurpy, sour cherryness.

A very good wine for £5.49.

Funky Porcini

Some mornings are just right. It's hard to explain, almost mumbo jumbo, a feeling of warmth, sensing the unattainable will soon be attained.

'How come I was walking that way? Why did I stop when I did? What made me go in?'.

I envy people who know exactly what they want, I rarely do. A vague notion, perhaps, an idea of something, maybe, even my cravings are often unfocused. Often that is, but not always...

The early bird catches the worm, and if so inclined, the unblemished porcini too. Good job, saved me getting up.

Sauted the Italian way. Garlic and a handful of chopped parsley fried in oil first, porcini in next, more parsley at the end. Salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Served on toast. My hearts desire... for this morning at least.

MacCallums

71 Holdsworth Street,

Glasgow

G3 8ED

0141 204 4456

[Mainly fish but sometimes they do mushrooms too]

Of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

Green's an overrated colour. Those who live in the wettest places deceive themselves of it's beauty. The truth is, nature often looks best when it's dying.

Cottiers, once a church, was memorably described by a friend as 'full of loud c**ts with kitchen brochures sticking out their back pockets'. Not any more, recessions aren't all bad.

Outside, inhaling sweet hops, there's a sense that something dreadful just happened. The stunned calm borne of shock. That sinking-in feeling.

It's shattered when a visiting businessman stands and shouts into his phone... "Jeff? Ah THE Jeff, ha-ha-ha, what is he like!". As another leaf falls from the tree, I'm reminded that we all die alone.

Cottiers

93-95 Hyndland Street,

Glasgow

G11 5PU

Divine intervention

Ordinarily I'm with the Woodlands Road box ticker. But then, later that evening, something truly amazing appeared before me...

I felt elated, overcome with wonder, the senses enveloped by pure joy. Hallelujah, for my cup did overfloweth with fermented gorgeousness.

To sup of this, is to drink the very body of the earth that created it. Rolling Burgundian hills, golden harvests and a mellow sense of time lapping gently at your feet. I was led to it by a prophecy...

"Try this, it's very good", he said.

Fingal Rock

64 Monnow Street

Monmouth

NP25 3EN

01600 712 372

(Omnipresence via mail order)

Eating out in Lytham St Annes

There's a great series of promotional films from the late 1970s featuring Telly Savalas professing his love for some unlikely places... "So long Aberdeen and here's looking at you". Though it's suspiciously short of any footage of Kojak actually in the Granite City. I'm not sure Lytham St Annes would have been Telly's sort of town. Actually, it's two towns that roll into each other and they're more Des O'Conner's sort of towns.

You wouldn't be surprised to bump into 'Little and Large' in the local Booths supermarket or 'Keith Harris and Orvil' having a quickie in the pier toilets. It's a place that has everything old entertainers like: sea, fancy golf course, Blackpool next door and best of all, lots of people old enough to remember who you are.

If you should find yourself in Lytham and can remember that you haven't had your tea, you'd do well to head to Portofino. Our very kind friends, and Lytham locals, Colin and Sarah took us.

It's bustling and Italianesque with some Portugese leanings. Good competent cooking, generous 'northern' portions and some decent bottles on the list.

Picks for me were steamed clams 'Portugese': palourdes clams, with loads of garlic and olive oil. Delicious. Seafood linguine with a lovely shellfish flavour and rabbit in a sweetish sauce tasting of burnt sugar, in a nice way.

Drank a perfectly mature bottle of Italian Morellino with the mains.

Here's looking at you Lytham. But just in case you fancy somewhere else, might I be so bold as to suggest...

Click here for Portofino's website

It's pronounced 'B-A-R-G-A-I-N'

There's a great scene in the one of the Harry Palmer spy films where Harry opens a bottle of Portugese Dao and announces, in his best Micheal Caine voice, "It's pronounced Down". Until that scene, I think it's fair to say, not a lot of people knew that.

Rioja never seemed to cause pronunciation problems. It may not be exactly how they say it in situ, but for English speakers a very oaky wine called 'Ree-oak-aah' makes perfect sense.

Sainsbury's have this one on sale at the moment, down from £15.99 to just £8.00 a bottle.

£8 for a quality ten year old Gran Reserva is a serious bargain. It's only available in some stores so worth calling ahead to check they have it. The store on Glasgow's Crow Road had about 10 bottles left last night. I'm planning for there to be less tonight.

At times it seems beautifully mature. All cedary sweetness. Then a few swirls later and it's back in it's youth. Stroppy, brooding, slightly out of balance. Weird, but very enjoyable. You get two phases of a wine's maturity in the same glassful. Can wines have a late 'teenage' phase? Increasingly I'm aware that many things do...

How to BBQ like a Basque

Try shooting magpies in Kelvingrove Park and pretty soon you'll realise there are many things you can get up to in the countryside that tend to be frowned upon in a city. Take for example this interesting article in the Observer Food Monthly about Jay Raynor's visit to BBQ aficionado Bittor 'charcoal is the enemy' Arguinzoniz. Bittor only barbecues and only ever over wood. He claims his method doesn't smoke the food, instead it imparts it with a complimentary essence of the wood. Charcoal, on the other hand, destroys the flavour and brings out expletives, in Bittor that is.

How could I resist? Well, attempting this in Glasgow would end in three fire engines and an ASBO, luckily I was in deepest darkest Wales, where as it happens, some years ago my brother spent a summer labouring for a builder. Convincing himself he could build, he set about constructing a barbecue and laid concrete foundations two feet deep. A few stones appeared on top and for months that's how it stayed until my grandfather, then in his 80s, turned it into a barbecue one afternoon. It's still going strong, frankly with foundations that deep it could probably survive a direct hit. This was my improvised Basque BBQ.

I chose logs from the wood pile based on whether they smelt nice. Think they were oak and applewood, but I've no idea really. The article doesn't give away much about technique. I decided to split the wood into pieces that would burn down quickly but still leave decent chunks of hot smouldering ash.

Ribeye steaks came from George the Butcher in Talgarth, "We slaughter 'em out back", he told me with rather more glee than was strictly necessary. Local grass fed beef hung for a minimum 4 weeks.

They went on when the wood was a smouldering grey and the smoke had died down.

A beautiful smell as the meat juices hit the hot wood.

Had to lower the grill towards the end just to finish them off. Except the grill doesn't lower...

Made some chips as the meat rested.

Now I'm sure this was not a patch on Bittor, but wow, what a revelation. Credit must go to the beef, it was superb meat, but what a great way of cooking it. It really brings out the flavour, it works with the beef, not on top of it... if that makes sense? Delicious, can't wait to try cooking seafood the same way. We drank a bottle of Porcupine Ridge 2008 South African Syrah with it. Currently on offer at £4.99 in Waitrose. Probably the red wine bargain of the year so far.

A word of caution though. Whilst the meat, as Bittor explained, doesn't taste at all smoked, indeed far from it, I did. It impregnated my skin and I smelt like a smouldering log for two days.

Click here for the Observer Food Monthly Article

Click here for W.J.George Butcher Talgarth

Fashion Whine

There's an old saying that goes 'the more fashionable the party the more unspeakable the drinks'. Well there isn't, but there should be.


In fairness, fashion shows are about clothes so the drinks are probably an afterthought.

The white wine at the L F Markey Show was so utterly, totally inoffensive and completely forgettable I've forgotten what it's called. Imagine if it was the same for their clothes? Then I had a fashion moment...

Of course, the wine's perfect!
Later on I met some very nice people at Digitaria's end of London Fashion Week party.



One of them suggested visiting the basement for a spot of graffiti and a snifter.... of a strange Thai drink they'd got their hands on. How old school Soho is that!

Mine came with lime and the warning, "That's lethal". It had the weirdest taste. I couldn't quite put my finger on it... then I remembered....

Years ago I was staying at a friends house in the wilds beyond Brecon. We were off to a 16th birthday party and, as we headed out the door, his mother, a hippy type, said, "Now boys, will you have a glass of something to get you in the mood, I've just brewed it". It tasted utterly odd but I managed to drink it without gagging. As we left I asked her what she'd made it from,"Mushrooms my love" she replied...

Thankfully, weird taste aside, Mekhong did exactly what it said on the bottle, nothing more. Wonderful party, super, gorgeous, fabulous, talented people.... mmm, maybe it did do a little something after all.

Click here for Digitaria

Click here for some Mekhong cocktail recipes

Mauled in the Mall.

After a week centred around the Abergavenny Food Festival, non stop tastings, cookings, meals and even an attempted Basque BBQ, of which more in a later post, we decided to head off to London for a respite.

A cunning plan that immediately fell apart when our very generous friends announced we were off for an evening of wine in Pall Mall. It's a tough life.

The host for the evening was Akos Forczek. He runs Top Selection Ltd who supply wines to many of the country's best restaurants. He told me the most oversubscribed events were always what he calls his "extreme tastings". Like his all 'Grand Crus' or, tonights, with 150 wines accompanied by many of their producers. Our friends had bagged the last four tickets.

We arrived with an hour to taste before dinner. No-where near enough time to taste so many wines... but I gave it my best shot.

Dinner was in private rooms upstairs.

We were greeted with a wall of wine left over from the tasting and told to help ourselves.

With it some fabulous food. Someone said the chef here had previously taken over the cooking at L'Aubergine when Ramsay famously walked out. Lobster ravioli with cauliflower, cauliflower cream and a delicious shellfish sauce. Generous chunks of lobster too.

A daube style piece of beef was exceptionally well executed. With it drank a great Crozes Hermitage that I'd missed at the tasting. All purple, peppery, syrah juiciness.

Excellent Creme Brulee and a chocolate and vanilla ice cream for desert.

With this we drank the best Pedro Ximinez I've tasted. Only 600 bottles will make it to the UK, and Stephane sitting opposite, had already bagged a hefty allocation!

It's an incredible wine. Nothing like the usual overtly sticky stuff best poured on puddings. At the tasting I'd had it after a top Sauternes and an Austrian Eisewein. It was miles better. A sublime combination with the salty chocolate sugar puff things.

Stephane told me something I didn't know. Apparently Pedro Ximinez owes it's origins to the Germans. They wanted to make something akin to Esiwein in Spain but lack of frost meant instead they dried the grapes to concentrate the sugars... and the grapes they used were from home...Riesling. Yes, Pedro Ximinez is the Riesling grape. That's news to me.

It was a great night, Arkos was a super host. And a big shout out to Tio and Ed for inviting us.

Click here for Arcos Forczek's:

Top Selection Ltd

16 Conduit Street

London

W1S 2XL

Click here for:

Stephane Davaine's:

Restaurant Associates

Coutts & Co

440 The Strand

London

WC2R 0QS

AND:

Click here for the St James's Hotel and Club

A few notes on the wines:

There were some crackers and I didn't have time to taste many, missed some splendid looking Italian and Spanish wine. Of what I did taste the following really stood out:

Andre Jacquart Grand Cru Le Mesnil. Pure chardonnay foaming creamy lushness. The Belle Epoch in a glass... bring on the dancing girls. Andre's daughter does the marketing and explained that all their wines are aged on the lees for 3 years. The vintage for 4. You could taste it too.

Christophe Coquard Saint Veran 2007. Super Burgundy class for the money. The same negociant's generic Macon was also very good.

The Gem range from New Zealand. Particularly the sauvignon blanc (bone dry, how refreshing) and the pinot noir. The wine maker explained he is using a technique that allows some alcohol to evaporate during the fermentation process. Fascinating. Thus he manages to ferment ripe grapes to a more acceptable 13% abv rather than the often standard 14.5%. As consumers seek out lower alcohol wines that has to make sense.

La Ferme Du Mont's Hermitage was my favourite wine of the night. Fabulous dense syrah nose and a real power that came from strength of flavour rather than over extraction. Reminded me of La Chapelle.

The Walnut Tree

The Walnut Tree has been a part of my life for longer than I can remember. In the 1970s my parents came here to sit in the bar, eating what back then was considered exotica for such far flung boondocks. They recount overhearing neighbours send back a chilli con carne with the instruction to, "Tell Franco it needs more chilli powder, it's not hot enough".

As the clientele grew up so did Franco's cooking. By the time my brother and I made it through the door there was little sign of the chillis and spag bols that helped make the place. Lasagne had mutated into a dish of fresh porcini in bechamel, layered between fresh pasta with copious amounts of white truffel on top. God it was good. It was here that I got my first tastes of woodcock, porcetta, bresaola, samphire, laverbread and fresh cockles. The Walnut Tree was where we came for big birthdays and celebrations. When Franco sold up just after the millennium we were a family in mourning.

There have been several incarnations since then and the latest has Shaun Hill on board. I've been lucky enough to go three times in just over a year. The previous two visits were sublime- the food was knock out- so I was very excited as we arrived here to eat two days ahead of the Abergavenny Food Festival.

We had a kir in the bar. It's what we always do. And read the menu. It hadn't changed much since my last visit back in January. Still it made me hungry. The interior is perhaps best described as 'nouveau Presbyterian'....

More polished than in Francos day, but lacking the charm. The wine list wasn't quite as interesting as I remembered it, not bad, but pricey. We got a large 'little' something to go with our drinks.

A courgette flower stuffed with ricotta and this years fave cheffy ingredient, beetroot. Really good, light cripsy batter and almost sweet tasting centre. I'd happily scoff a plateful.

Our starters were smoked eel with brandade and horseradish cream and griddled squid with chickpeas.

The squid was over griddled and the chickpeas were chickpeas. The eel however was sublime, I've no idea if they smoked it themselves. The brandade appeared to be made with more smoked eel rather than salt cod. Good starter, really appetising, and worked brilliantly with the wine.

Delicious stuff. Minerally, not something I normally associate with Gewurztraminer, and with a lick of oiliness that complimented the fish. A really well balanced wine with nice acidity too. Will search this out again.

Main courses were venison, partridge, veal- escalope, kidneys and black pudding.

The venison was super. Perfectly cooked. Full of iron and tasting of the fields. The partridge was excellent too but I've had my fill of confited birds legs. And the veal.... well, it was nearly very good indeed.

The escalope was a bit overcooked and the crumb coating was dripping in fat. It may have been the kidneys dribbling theirs over it. The kidneys themselves were nice, but had a tad too much of a whiff of their original purpose. The sauce was a bit greasy. In fact the whole dish had a sheen, like it was varnished. It was off putting and underneath there was some lovely food struggling to get out. The black pudding was the exception. Utterly delicious.

Chose a bottle of Allegrini's 2005 to go with it. Apparently this has been on the list since Francos day. Fabulous wine. Plum, oak and polish. More Bordeaux than Italy.

Puddings were chocolate marquise, white chocolate and cherry pot, damson fool, Hungarian trifle.

All very good...

... except the damson fool, so sharp and acidic it could strip the enamel from your teeth. Can't believe this was tasted before sending out.

On the previous two visits Shaun seemed omnipresent. Like a reincarnation of Franco he'd pop up behind the bar for a quick slurp, then, on going outside to the loo I'd catch him through a window directing frenzied activity in the kitchen. A few minutes later I'd spot his bobbing head shed bound for ingredients. He was nowhere to be seen this time.

In an interesting interview with 'Silverbrow on Food' recently, Shaun Hill explained that it was necessary to be at The Walnut Tree much more than he'd originally anticipated. On tonight's evidence, I'd say he's right. There were some real highs on this visit but there were quite a few mistakes too....but without a doubt, I'll be back.

The Walnut Tree,

Llandewi Skirrid,

Abergavenny

Gwent

Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger always annoyed me. They used to show it on Saturday morning TV. It was in black and white, seemed to last forever and even a child could tell Tonto was getting a bum deal. Well, here's a Lone Ranger that didn't disappoint. From the Gimblett Gravels district of Hawkes Bay in New Zealand.

It's a Bordeauxy blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon. Lot's of plum and licquorice with a deep smokey vanilla nose. It has that lovely sheen good wine gets from good oak. I think. It's a pretty sophisticated drop, far from perfect, but with £4 off, as Cilla might say, "A lorra lorra wine for five ninety-nine".

It screams out for a chargrilled steak. How the hell you char grill in most UK abodes is beyond me. But if you can, do it. Having said that, I drank it just looking at pictures of food. Worked a treat and saved a few calories.

Lone Ranger 2006

Gimblett Gravels Red

New Zealand

Marks and Spencer: just now down to £5.99: what a bargain!

Chanterelle Risotto

Apologies for not posting this sooner. It wasn't poisoning, just a bad dose of work, the curse of the blogging classes. These are all the ingredients other than chanterelles and Parmesan. And this is what I did.

Sauteed the chanterelles in a bit of butter and garlic over a fast heat for a couple of minutes and set aside. I reckon there was nearly a kilo. It's a big frying pan.

Next sautee a finely chopped shallot very gently with pancetta cubes in some butter and olive oil for 10 minutes without colouring the shallot.

Add the risotto rice, 300 g for 4 servings, and gently fry for a couple of minutes until the rice starts turning transparent. Add half a glass of white wine and keep stirring till it's all absorbed. Do the same with a ladle of hot stock and then keep repeating the process with hot stock until the rice is done.

I like it to retain a good bite. A couple of minutes before it's done stir in the chanterelles and their juices. Finally add some finely chopped parsley, Parmesan, a knob of butter then stick the lid on and leave it stand for 5 minutes.

I tasted for seasoning then had one of my 'ideas'. These can go either way, normally the wrong way.

Thankfully this one was right. A tablespoon of white balsamic vinegar over each portion. It added a gentle fruity acidity that cut through the richness and really complimented the chanterelles. The quantity of chanterlles made for a magical, enveloping scent. Apricoty yes, but so much more besides. It was ethereal. I would say that, but there was a witness, honest.

My plan to serve a viognier (apricot flavour like chanterelles) also went awry when I spotted this reduced in Tesco.

Bargain. And boy was it good. It went pretty well too. Lots of nougat on the the nose and palate and nice acidity too.

In a slight aside I've started realising that certain wines suit certain music. I'll develop that idea in later blogs, but for now, might I suggest a Mirwais 2000 to listen to while drinking Meursault. Not just because he's French with a similar name. It's a perfect combination. How could one listen to anything else while supping Meursault?

The Prelude

One of the great things about Glasgow is how quickly you can get out of it. After weeks in the rainy city, I was seized by a Wordsworthian urge to flee man's inhumanity and seek solace in a rural idyll. That's not true, but if asked I'd have come up with any old crap save the truth. It wasn't aeolian visitations I was after, but something far more elusive, and secrecy was paramount. In the car-park it seemed man's indelible mark was inescapable. Vandals.

Mr Pikey seems positively cheeky from this description. Perhaps they should add, " I like eating children's fingers too". Which they probably do. 'Edgy Woodland Walks', much more fun than 'Educational' ones. Still, there was a helpful map and guide.

Wow, that's a long way in a little time, well if the kids can do it, so can I.

Heading off, and just around the corner from the place where me and a pal once found 4 kg of fresh porcini, I spot a good omen.

Too far gone but smelling gorgeous and a sign they're about. Lucky slugs. Rounding the bend I get excited in anticipation, then...

Aaargh, what was the best porcini spot ever now looks like a WW1 battle ground. Bloody foresters. Nothing to do but carry on.

Although I've not been here for a few years I still recognise bits and spy a copse that always seemed perfect for mushrooms, yet I've never found anything edible there. I almost walked past this time too, while wondering what the squishy yellow things were...

wait a minute, bright egg yolk yellow squishy things...

Bingo! Lucky too because I've never seen chanterelles this submerged before. There were loads and they absolutely reeked of, as they should, apricot. Loaded up, I head off. Some time later I spy this. There are quite a few in this picture. See if you can spot them.

I pick a few more and leave the rest. Cycle of life and all that.

A little further on a sign suggests that I'm just two miles from the car-park. At this rate it'll take a lot more than two hours to cover ten miles. Oh well, it's a lovely day for a walk.

My feet are getting rather sore by the time another sign lets me know there's still some way to go. Kids must have more stamina these days.

I spot another porcini, what a cracker this would have been in it's prime.

It's possible to cut out the good stuff and dry it on racks. Perfect for cooking. I used to, before rashly admitting what the wriggly white things that fell out on to the kitchen worktop were. So that's not allowed anymore.

By now I'm no longer convinced walking is all it's cracked up to be. My feet are blistered and I'm starving. Eventually, after considerably more time than advertised, I'm back at the car-park. This time I take a closer look at the sign.

What a plonker. Anyway, back home my booty was washed and laid out to dry. As I mentioned, they have a pronounced apricot aroma. So my plan is to make a risotto and get a bottle of either viognier or albarino to drink with it. They're the only two wines I can think of with apricot tendencies, but other suggestions gratefully received. If I haven't made some dreadful 'Horse Whispering author'-like mistake, the results will get posted later this weekend.

Click here to find out what happened to the author of 'The Horse Whisperer'... as opposed to 'The Horsemushroom Whisperer'. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Oops I did it again.

"20% off 6", said a big cartoon poster as I strolled purposefully towards Oddbins for a bottle to go with dinner. 20 minutes later, and £48 lighter, I was heading home. Why do I always fall for it?



First out of the box is Perrin's 2007 Cotes Du Rhone Nature. An organic wine that appears to have been endorsed by the butterflies.
Made mainly from Grenache grapes. At first it's quite sultry with hints of childhood... Blackjacks, wood smoke and raspberry ripple.

But it grows up quick. Pretty soon there's eucalyptus masking the smoke, white pepper, powdered chocolate and the fruit seems more mature, bruised even. With a couple more swirls in the glass it transforms into a heady, herby, gobby wine. I love it. Probably best with grilled meats and vegetables but it's damn good on it's own.

Look, it even shed a tear for the polar bears. Not that innocent.

From Oddbins:

Normally £9.99 but about £7.99 if you buy any 6 bottles. Buy, buy, buy.

Coffee Comrades

These days the biggest challenge facing any aspiring left wing revolutionary must surely be coming up with an iconic image. All the best ones have been taken: Lenin's goatee, Stalin's 'Uncle Joe', Mao's sociopathic stare, Fidel's Freudian cigars and Che's berets. So balaclavas off to Subcomandante Marcos, public face, or rather not, of the Mexican Zapatistas.

Of course, any well schooled revolutionary will be only too aware that if their predecessors hadn't been quite so, err, revolutionary, they'd have ensured a copyright legacy the Hendrix family would envy. No doubt with such thoughts in mind and to turn a buck for the Chiapas cause, they've come up with this rather splendid idea. I spotted it in 'Roots and Fruits Organic' store on Great Western Road.

Stick that in your Fair Trade pipe and smoke it!

Still, as anyone who ever tried drinking Nicaraguan coffee to support the Sandinistas will tell you, fighting for them would have been a hell of a lot easier. Their coffee was shit.

Well, hurrah, because Cafe Rebelde Zapatista is anything but butt. It's really good. Clean, fruity, acidic and even verges on refreshing. It's not as complex as some coffees but neither is it as heavy. It also has a really nice caffeine hit. Lifting without gibbering. Mind, after finishing the jug I was pretty lifted.

By a remarkable coincidence a few days later in work, Julie turned up with a present from her holidays... and, no escaping it, this really was shit coffee.

Civet shit to be precise.

And they say it was a brave man who first ate an oyster.....

A great cup of coffee. Complex, chocolaty mouthful with an earthy finish.

Roots and Fruits Organic

455 Great Western Road, (just past Kelvinbridge)

Glasgow

G12 8HH

0141 339 3077

Click here for the distributors of Cafe Rebelde Zapatista

And click here for wikinfo on Kopi Luak / Civet Coffee

Monks just wanna have fun

Apart from the abstinence bit, being a monk doesn't sound too bad. You're watered, fed, given somewhere rather grand to live and never have to worry about what to put on in the morning. And, let us not forget, it's only sex they're supposed to abstain from.

Chanting's thirsty work. To quench it, monasteries have been fermenting and distilling for a millennium and they don't do things by halves. Monky drinks pack a punch that hints at a whole lot more than just their generous alcohol content. There are 27 plants and spices from across the globe in that Lancashire nurses favourite Dom Benedictine. Who knows what lurks among the 130 different plants that go to make up the 110 proof Green Chartreuse? And monky beers regularly have an effect that approaches the psychedelic.

Alcohol and abstinence are not natural bedfellows. So let's look at the evidence. A bunch of men who 'just say no' build a great big palace in the middle of the impoverished countryside and stuff it with enough booze to slay a crusade... Build and they will come. And, by all accounts, for hundreds of years, they did and awful lot of coming.

There have been some changes... the Reformation, Dissolution and French Revolution mean monking ain't what it was. But it says something for the resilience of their drinks that many are still with us. This one's a cracker, Angus brought it round last night.

Lovely citrus nose, lots of little bubbles and a complex, refreshing flavour that cloaks it's whopping alcohol content. It was half way down the second bottle, when, what I can only describe as the 'monky effect' kicked in. Wow... this could become a habit.

Click here for Westmalle Tripel Trappist Beer's monksite.

It came from Oddbins and I've seen it for sale in bigger Sainsbury's too.

Crabshakk

Crabshakk's a great little place. New England meets New York via the Isle of Lewis in Glasgow. On my first visit here, my dinner dates were very late and we were all going onto a Fashion Show. By the time they arrived, I was making good progress through a bottle of white wine. Ambitiously they ordered another. After wolfing down lobster and chips, most of the next bottle was still left... and we had to go. What's a chap to do? To spare the ladies embarrassment I tried my best. In hindsight, consuming a bottle of white wine in minutes is not big and it's not clever. It hit me about half way there in the taxi, as we pulled up outside the Art School I couldn't have told you my name. I was flying.

So I've been itching to come back for a proper paced sit down meal ever since. Then last night the opportunity presented itself, in a rather bizarre way. Grith, pronounced 'grit', over on a visit from Denmark, picked this up in Oddbins after going berserker in T.K.Maxx.

All raspberries and orange blossom. A few years back, passing through Gigondas, I noticed it reeked of orange blossom. The town actually smelt of it's wine. Weird. This was a good bottle, still young, with the unmistakable taste of the soil. Yes, Grith's wine was gritty. Nice. But beware Vikings bearing gifts. From some sort of Blackberry contraption this emerged.

A reminder of my great prowess at prediction and gambling.

No getting out of that, so I offered to buy lunch at Crab Shakk in settlement!

The wine list is short and quickly gets pricey. This was the cheapest bottle on the list and did the trick.

I can go for years without eating an oyster then suddenly crave them like nothing else on earth will do. At the moment it's intense. Oysters and me are having one hell of an affair. I can't get enough of them. They're always on my mind, when will I next see them, taste them, have them? "Maintenant" they whisper in my ear.....

God that was good. The girls had squid tempura and crab cakes. Both excellent. Light crunchy batter, tender squid and small but intense cakes full of crab meat.

Next up we ordered whitebait, fish club sandwich and sardines on toast.

A few Sundays ago perched at the bar here, eating oysters of course, there was some confusion as to what whitebait actually is? Rarely over £7 a kilo's the answer, so frankly this was a measly portion. They were good, as good as baby herrings and sprats get, just wish there were more. Nothing scrimpy about the fish club sandwich.

A triple decker of hot and cold smoked salmon, crab and pollock. With very nice fries on the side. Happy Viking.

"Wait a minute....you're not a sardine!"

Chef dropped one of only three sardines left and gave me this langoustine in compensation. It was delicious. Succulent, sweet, perfectly cooked. The sardines were spot on too. I love sardines but I'm not allowed to cook them anymore. Something to do with everything smelling of fish for a week afterwards...which, in fairness, it did.

Panna cottas for desert. Very correct but not quite sweet enough for me. The coffee was great. Good attention to detail. Nothing tarnishes the memory of a good meal so swift as shit espresso.

So that's Crabshakk. The best bet I ever lost. Angela, front of house, is impressive. It's cramped but that just adds to the buzz. And, whitebait gripes aside, the prices are frankly incredible for fresh Scottish seafood.

Go, go, go. But please leave a space at the bar, just big enough for one man and his current obsession... I'm missing the little iodine scented rascals already.

Crabshakk, (NOT: Crab Shakk or Crab Shack).

1114 Argyle Street,

Finnieston

Glasgow

0141 334 6127

click here for their website

click here for Jay Raynor's review in The Observer

click here for the surprising success story that is Stoats porridge bars

Wrong

Some things in life don't seem right, they just shouldn't go together...

Another is tomatoes and wine...

All that sweet acidic mix. Just for good measure, I threw in some hot kiln smoked salmon. Smokey, oily pungency.

Then the wine. From a single vineyard in Rioja: 5.5 hectares, 46748 bottles, this one was bottle 617. Not necessarily problematic...

Though aging in new french oak barrels for 17 months could be. Surely too long for any dry white?

Well, it almost worked. The wine had nearly enough acidity to cut through the salmon and nearly enough flavour to stand up to the tomatoes. But it was just too oaky.

This was tea before heading off to the Liquid Ship...

... for another tricky match, acoustic nights and crowds.

Between songs, Nairn (Naz) is very funny, that folk club style patter. Afterwards I asked him, "Why is so much acoustic music so bloody mournful? Someone fresh from their bedroom wailing 'I don't know why she had to leave me', to which the obvious heckle is 'We do, she couldn't stand it any more!'"...

Turns out he'd just split up with his girlfriend. So there's another bad match, me and small talk. I'm off to the bedroom to write a song about it now. In the meantime, just to prove my point, here's some video from the night demonstrating the attention span of your average boozer.

Despite asking them twice I can't recall the band's name. Probably the result of something else that doesn't mix... beer and wine, unless you're German of course.

The Free Candy Sessions @ The Liquid Ship on myspace

Naz on myspace

Virtual Prose

Cripes, wasn't expecting that. Actually meeting up with a proper blogger. Strewth.

All sorts of nonsense started running through my head, after all, où exactly est Wine Splodge? After the initial shock I warmed to the idea and was actually very flattered.

We arrived 10 minutes early and, by sheer fluke, bagged the best table in Stravaigin, for 4, because a journalist pal was accompanying him. The Bloody Marys were top drawer. The menu was on form too. Perfect... too perfect.. because then this chirped up.

Awe, bums. Anyway by now, rather fuelled up with adrenalin and vodka, we decided to go ahead regardless. So, this is for Douglas, his virtual three hour visit to a bit of the West End of Glasgow....

First of all what to drink? I am after all 'Wine Splodge', the wines read all so, err, conventional. Quickly squinting around, my eyes spotted and like my camera, nearly focussed, on this.

What I read was: " Mekong Sparkling Pinot Noir, fertilised by an Austrian and his brother Angus from Aberdeen, to create a bionic wine for his wedding"... now that's definitely not run of the mill!

Gorgeous, light, effervescent loveliness. Like cavorting with an alpine maid in a flower strewn meadow.

The Nasi Goreng was also excellent. Lightly spiced and with a poached egg that had been cooked to look like a testicle, how clever.

Squid with OK sauce, or was it KO sauce? Anyway, just what I was after. Spot on. Didn't go with the wine at all though.

A stroll up Great Western Road past Mellis where, of course...

...the best, ripest, runniest Gorgonzola I know, was on special offer. Next, popped into Heart Buchanan for some espresso sustenance.

A quick look for cravats and interesting shirts...

Then next stop, Ashton Lane.

Avoiding horrendous blots like 'Nude' we headed for the Ubiquitous Chip, also part of the Stravaigin family. Founded in 1971, possibly the world's first gastropub?

Alasdair Gray recently touched up his own mural, making the route to the toilet rather decorative.

Before heading off to the airport, just time for a glass of South African viognier on the new roof terrace. Thank God for the smoking ban, so many nice new spaces outdoors these days.

Cheerio Douglas, hope you enjoyed it!

Click here for Douglas in Arran on 'Intoxicating Prose'.

Click here for Heart Buchanan

Click here for Alasdair Gray

Click here for the Stravaigin website

And click here for the Ubiquitous Chip website

Recreationism

So my plan was to recreate a Ligurian meal, or rather my interpretation of one, and drink wine I'd brought back, served alongside other nice wines to compare. Was it really as good as it seemed on holiday? Then, after a few cancellations, I realised four of us would never make it through all the wines, and since I was determined everyone try this one, my Vermentino lives to be blogged another day..

This isn't of course Ligurian, but it's the best white I've drunk this year. An absolute belter and it's worth joining Costco just to buy it- a perfect dry Riesling. One word of warning though, it absolutely reeks of petrol. The old fashioned stuff that me and my brother would wind down the window to inhale at garages. Mature riesling is supposed to smell of petrol. Mary didn't like it, but she loved the taste. For me it was like a complex lime sorbet with hints of mint and ginger. Perfectly balanced, it danced down my throat.

What makes this wine even more stunning is the price... £8.95 for the 2005. Incredible. We drank it with a herb tart.

Herbs are big in Liguria. This was spinach, sorrel and fennel. An adaptation of a recipe in 'Leaves from the Walnut Tree'. Ann and Franco's time capsule. Franco's actually from the Marche but by some way it's the best Italian cookbook I've got so it's a good source.... probably long out of print but worth tracking down.

Despite having a big coastline, fish is a relatively recent addition to Ligurain cuisine. One article suggests this dates back to when Genoa was the biggest port in the Med. Away at sea sailors ate dried food and fish. When they came home they craved to taste the land- rabbit, herbs, baking- they gave the world pesto. Rather weirdly, now thinking about it, I didn't make any.

Main course, again inspired by both Liguria and 'The Walnut Tree', was quail stuffed with sage and wrapped in bacon, served with lentils on roasted polenta... I even made a focaccia.. supposedly a Ligurian invention too. Sage has an incredible affinity with quail. Try sniffing a raw quail, you'll see what I mean.

With it drank one of the three Rosseses reds I brought back with me.

This is a really good wine. Like mixing Burgundy with Barolo and adding a hefty splash of Bandol. Now there's an idea!!! Wrong in so many 'wine' ways, but I'm going to try it soon.

Back to Rossese, Ka Mancine, Galeae, 2008. To me the bouquet is a mix of raspberry and sherbet. Like the moment you hit the middle of a sherbet centered sweet. The palate is full, floral and oh so moorish... that's not a typo. Think rose water, hookah and hooker. It's all in there. One big souk of a glass. Gorgeous. It was in some pretty good company too.

Ross and Mary's Chianti and the second wine of St.Emilion's Chateau Grand Mayne. Both top bottles. I thought the Rossese was best. Top marks.

Finished off the meal with a chestnut and chocolate pudding which should have been decorated with strawberries and cream... but by now I couldn't be bothered.

Chestnuts are big in Liguria and Marron Glacé was apprently invented here back in the 1790s... though I'm pretty sure the French will dispute that.

Now, for anyone reading this in Glasgow, who shares my craving for seafood after drinking slightly more than necessary on a Saturday night, some really good news.

Crab Shakk in Finnieston is now open on Sunday from 12-5. Nine oysters for £11.95 washed down with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Job done.

For Mary Harper paintings click here

For Ross Harper photography click here

And click here for a very interesting (honestly) article on Ligurian cuisine.

Crab Shakk,

1114 Argyle Street,

Finnieston

Glasgow

G3 8DT

0141 334 6127

Didn't see it coming...

There's always a slight frisson when you eat with someone new. This was the exact moment when, let's call him Dave, because that's his name, told us about running over a gypsy in Romania. For the next five minutes I wasn't sure if he'd done it on purpose or not. It was a strange limbo... was I eating with some bizarre right wing gypsy hater? I'm rather partial to gypsies. Well, the idea of them.

Anyway, turns out he was just doing a good job of story telling. It was an accident. Gypsy through windscreen, could happen to anyone, though probably not the first excess waiver you'd think of for a car hire.

Initially arrested, then told, that despite the enormous amount of blood involved, the gypsy had survived. The police said this was a bit of a shame, because he was a very bad gypsy... and sent them on their way.

I've always thought there's something of the gypsy in chefs. A disregard for borders and paying taxes. Quasi mystical practices and a way of life that exists in parallel to our own. They all know each other, help, steal, sleep and feud with each other. The one thing they don't have in common is dance. Chefs can't dance. It's a fact. If you don't believe me, just find out which nightclub kitchen staff frequent in your town of a Sunday night, and watch. For commis chefs and kitchen porters it must be a joy... like seeing the boss naked.

Alan's a chef. Frankly if I'd spent all week cooking I'd buy food in. Alan didn't and as a result we had a splendid meal, assisted by his commis chef, and wife, Issi, so presumably, she really does get to see the boss naked.

Duck in consomme with little mushrooms. Incredible depth of flavour. Made using 8 duck carcasses. Strewth. A massacre. With earthy, bloody beetroot seeping through.

Warm smoked haddock tart. When cut into, it oozed creamy lushness. Perfect consistency.

Lamb, ratatouille, fried polenta and an delicious potato dauphin. Mmm.

Forgot to photo the chocolate mousse, sorry Issi, it's one of my favourite deserts. Lovely. With it we drank one of the few wines that's supposed to go with chocolate.

And it did. They'd brought this one back from the region a few years ago.

Swirling in the glass it made a beautiful version of what the French call 'legs' and the Germans 'church windows'. I know which I'd rather see.

It was lovely- a rich orangey, figgy sweetness with a lick of benylin cough syrup and a touch of varnish. It really went well with the chocolate and, also, it brought out the pinch of chilli that was in the mousse. Didn't even know it was there until a sip of the Banyuls. Gypsy magic.

Alan and Issi's baby, Hamish, was very easy going, positively laid back. Until, that is, we started talking about gypsies. Now gypsies have a bad image among the young... what with all those tales of curses and swapping.. but Hamish seems to like them and got very perturbed whenever they were dissed. Maybe he'll grown up to be gypsy? Or a chef.

For an explanation of the "tears, legs, church windows" phenomenon click here.

For Banyuls click here.

How to kill a crab

Fairground goldfish started losing their appeal by the time I was six. Even a child could see, from the size of the bulls-eye, missing wasn't really an option. I'd take my prize home and in a matter of days, have to bury it. Then, about to chuck in the towel, I picked a belter...

Tim, incredibly, lived for 5 years and made me rethink everything I thought I knew about goldfish.

Tim remembered stuff. Like dinner time. And, he could dance. He'd swim different patterns to different tunes. His favourite was, I kid you not, "Don't Stand So Close To Me', by The Police.

Then we got cats.

They didn't care about Tim's longevity, impressive fishy memory, or unique dancing style, they just flung him onto the carpet, tormented the little orange gasper, then ate him. Harsh. It took a long time to forgive them.

Hey, times change. Now I choose to buy my fish dead.... but my crabs alive! There are many good reasons to buy them live, this is one of the best...

Some people pop crabs in the freezer for a few hours before cooking to 'slow them down' and make their passing easier.

Or, you can plunge a skewer into the hole, found by lifting the "apron" underneath the crab. That kills them pretty instantly.

In my experience, so does plunging them into fiercely boiling water.

The water should be really salty- seawater strength- and, if you want, can be flavoured with onion, peppercorns, wine, herbs etc. Putting them in upside down helps keep the claws on.

Return the pan to the boil, keep on a gentle boil for 15 minutes per kilo. Turn off the gas and leave for another 15 minutes per kilo. Then plunge the crab into cold water, drain, and leave it to cool.

Now for the bit, where, if the eventual plan is to share, you'll have to try really hard not to eat it all.

Prize off the top. Inside is the brown meat. Scoop it all out, even the sloppy stuff. It's all edible, but avoid the stomach sack if you see it. I normally don't. The white 'tendrils' are called 'Dead Man's Fingers'. They're the gills. Discard them.

Mash all the brown meat together. You can add soft breadcrumbs if you want. Not just to increase volume, but to alleviate some of the very rich taste. Lemon juice helps too.

This is what's left once the lid and all the claws have gone. Do not discard! This is where the majority of the white meat lurks.

Cut it in half with a heavy knife.

And get poking! Carefully though because the shell here is brittle and you can easily end up with fragments throughout the meat. This part of the process takes a bit of time.

A sharp bash with a rolling pin... and hey presto.

Loads of lovely white meat.

And a great big mess...

There's an incredible amount of flavour in the shell bits. Fry them in oil for 5 mins, add onions, garlic, tomatoes, white wine if you've some left over and simmer for an hour or two. Strain, season and add cream if you want. A delicious crab 'bisquey soupy' sort of thing.

As for the meat, well, when a crab's this fresh you don't want to piss around with it. I served mine on a bed of Scottish tomatoes (that's not a misprint), sprinkled with tarragon, a few drops of lemon juice and a tablespoon of top notch olive oil....

The Scottish chanterelles in the background went with the sea bass. But that's for another post. Mmmm, this was utterly delicious. Thanks crab. All washed down with a seafood classic combination wine...

Very nice. From Oddbins. Lot's of buttery, minerally flavours- from all those fossilised oyster shells in the Chablis soil presumably. If it wasn't over £12 a bottle, I'd say, snap it up!

Earlier, before boiling, I'd been admiring my big cock crab and noticed he had the perfect arms for tattoos. An 'anchor' with 'Mum and Dad' underneath perhaps? In the end I decided against drawing one, it would make me no better than the cats who ate Tim. Silly reasoning though, because I'm pretty sure crabs don't comprehend humiliation. Then again, who'd have thought a goldfish could dance...

On the Trail of the Smokey Grail

This is one of the best pizzas I've ever eaten. In a restaurant in a small town in Italy called Isolabona, that only opened at night to produce a seemingly endless stream of pizzas from it's huge wood fired oven.

Places selling pizza near me are legion, but none are very good. So occasionally, at a loose end, I'll join the throng on the growing, quasi religious quest to reproduce that wood fired lushness at home. Last weeks effort wasn't at all bad, so I had another go tonight...

This is what I did:

Combined 75g of spelt flour with 175g of strong plain flour. All plain's fine. Dried yeast, about a third of the pack. A teaspoon of salt. Stirred it all together then added A LOT OF LUKEWARM WATER, over 300 ml, so that it was pretty liquid, and stirred for a minute. This technique seems to make the dough more liable to bubble and blister in a wood fired oven sort of way. No idea why.

Then gradually added more plain flour and kept stirring. Eventually using my hand to push down.

Once the dough was nice and firm, popped it onto a floured surface and kneaded until it was elastic. I find the Doves organic flour is much less kneady than others... about 5 minutes does.

Back in a bowl, covered with cling film and left for 2 hours.

You can stick whatever you like on a pizza, experimenting is surely part of the fun? This is what I used.... mainly because it was in the fridge, cupboard or garden.

The Spanish smoked paprika went in my tomato sauce- to impersonate the wood smoke aromas! The oven went on it's highest setting with a baking tray inside getting hot too.

This stage in the process is an excellent time to pop out for wine. Might I suggest....

This is not a sophisticated wine. It's rustic but tasty, of elderberries I'd say, and even nicer if you have a glass and leave the rest in the bottle for a day. Most important of all, it's £3.99 at M&S. Perfect for things like pizza which murder good wine.

After two hours rising, the dough was knocked back to a ball shape, divided into 4 and rolled out. They need to be very thin, so should fit onto something you can use to 'flick' them onto the very hot baking tray. Like the paddles in proper pizza places. I use Ikea chopping boards. Odd shape but it works.

Provided they're thin enough these pizzas take about 5 minutes to cook... and they came out, well, not bad at all... but don't take my word for it, join the quest!

Pizzeria Del Vecchio Forno
Via Roma, 53

18035 Isolabona

0184 208187

And if you're heading to New York, here's Frank Bruni's audio/visual guide to 8 of the best new 'artisanal' pizza joints.

Inn at the Deep End

Some things do exactly what they say on the packet. I'd always presumed that was the case with this place, so was surprised when friends suggested dinner here on Friday. Awe, poor things, they've had a funny turn, best play along though... one toasty or two I wondered?

It's a beautiful building and maintains a lot of it's original Victorian interior upstairs, the restaurant however, is below...

Inside, away from the whiff of chlorine, the decor's reminiscent of Brittany Ferries circa 1995. Not too hopeful, we ordered some cocktails. They were made with care and tasted good, no mean feat in Glasgow. Even better, the pricing was contemporary with the decor, £3.95 each! Then the menus arrived...

Again, at this price, I'm happy if it's edible. It was. Very.

Scallops with chorizo. Both very nice, but not really a match, the chorizo was too spicy.

Mussels were plump and fresh. It wasn't mariniere as billed, but a cream rich sauce. Good all the same.

The waitress was great and used to work at the Chardon d'Or on West Regent Street.

For mains we had a lovely piece of halibut, a huge, very tasty fillet steak and delicious lamb chops. All at prices that were hard to comprehend. Not flash, but good competent cooking.

We had the two most expensive wines on the list for £16 a bottle. A Chablis 2007 from Brocard. Lovely- bracing, minerally and I'm sure my teeth are whiter today. And this rather good Montagne St Emilion...

Clubs often need to look at new ways to generate income. Apparently this restaurant's part of the Western's strategy to do just that. It is great value but the numbers just can't add up, I was about to say go quickly before they do... however, there's a problem. I've just called to check and you need a member to sign you in to eat. How absurd is that? It explains why there was just one other table there on a Friday night.

If they ever open this eatery to the riff-raff then go. If they don't, it'll be gone before the autumn. Restaurants with more staff than customers do not survive. Especially when they're serving top quality ingredients at mid 90s prices.

The Western Baths Club

8-12 Cranworth Street,

Glasgow

G12

0141 576 0294

Bargain New Zealand Pinot Noir

How has New Zealand managed it? People I know who normally baulk at spending over a fiver a bottle will happily drop £15 for a Kiwi pinot noir. Apparently it's because, "That's how much it costs". Great for their wine industry, not so good if you happen to like drinking the stuff.

I do, so hurrah, finally, a NZ pinot for £8.99. Crucially though, it's also delicious. Buy, buy, buy... and if you buy 12, Oddbins will give you 20% off. That takes it down to just over £7. Bargain, and believe me, you'll drink it...

(wine revealed in the video below)

Rossese Report

I'd been meaning to write my Rossese report up last week but couldn't after an encounter with a date palm...

These are viscious plants. There I was, pulling up weeds, making it's life more tolerable when whammo, take that. Spiked in the eye. Of course I left it two days before visiting the GP. She took one look and sent me straight to 'Eye Casualty'.

After three hours and three examinations involving various things being shone, squirted and poked in my eye, the doctor's informed opinion was... that it needed another doctors informed opinion.

"His clinic's on just now but the wait's two hours"... "Ok, is there somewhere I can get a coffee or a sandwich?"... "Err, you can't eat or drink anything, you see, this may need an operation"...

Great. So instead, with a pupil the size of a golf ball, I went for a stroll in the blinding sunlight, down past the virus laboratory and up around the cancer wards. So far, not a good day.

Back in the waiting room people on the cusp of death were being wheeled in to see the eye specialist, I wondered why they bothered and if they'd mind letting me in first?

The informed opinion of Dr Cox, 'small and sharp like the apple', his description, was that I'd lacerated my eye to just before the crucial bit. Two days of squirting in drops should do the trick. And it did. Phew.

Anyway, back to happier times, just a week before...

The wines from this part of Liguria are really worth getting to know. Some are world class, particularly among the Rosseses. But the region's beautiful landscape makes for difficult farming. The wines are produced in miniscule quantities, and even there, many are in short supply.

The main wine of note here is the red Rossese di Dolceacqua. Reputedly a favourite of Napolean, it's named after the attractive town at the heart of the region. On the main street of Dolceacqua, left hand side, after all the trattoria and heading towards Isolabona, is a fabulous wine shop. Helpful, knowledgeable staff with impressive local wines and spectacular bottles from further afield. Annoyingly I've accidentally deleted my photo of it.

We sampled extensively and thought the following particularly worth mentioning:

This was from that great wine shop. Superiore means it spent longer in barrels, think the minimum was 9 months. Not normally new, but some growers are now experimenting with French barriques. This was a serious wine, lot's of complex flavours and a great lasting aftertaste.

Maixei is a cooperative of twenty growers with a nice little shop in the 'even older' town's piazza. Co-ops here make a lot of sense because individually many growers don't have enough vines to justify the investment needed for modern winemaking. Anyway, the results are great. Their Rossese Superiore is super. Really pleasurable to drink, especially with the local rabbit. Also their Vermentino was one of the best we tried. Refreshing, sherbet lemon flavour with a sort of sweaty, slightly cheesey tang. Nicer than it may sound, honest. Brilliant with grilled fish and prawns.

This came from a tiny touristy art gallery just over the ancient bridge illustrated on it's label. Delicious, very hand made tasting, and tiny quantities. Went back for some more, and...

Bumped in to the very man who'd made it!

This one came from the village shop in Apricale. Organic and a more straightforward interpretation of the grape, but very quaffable, and at 9 euros one of the cheaper bottles.

This is something you see on a lot of bottles...

It's something familiar from my, ahem, own wine making days (see profile) and I reckon it's the mark left by a hand corking machine. That gives some idea of the scale of production here!

Ka Mancine, 'Beragna' 2008. Not a Superiore but together with the same growers Galeae, among the best we tried. Really strong, forceful flavour of plum and blackberry with a delicious almost refreshing acidity. This is worth searching out. Went surprisingly well with olive oil based pasta dishes.

The pick of the local white wines were definitely those made from the Pigato grape. Again, if only they could make it in bigger quantities...

It's refreshing and lemony but with a complex, minerally taste in the mouth that demands you immediately take another slurp. Quaffalicious!

Onto a Winner

Manchester's sadly defunk Sunset Radio featured, among many characters, one DJ with a thick Jamaican accent and a penchant for Dub. Occasionally caught short after over indulging between records he'd splutter out the immortal catch phrase, "If it's nice, play it twice", then pop the needle back to the start!

If he hasn't gone the way of his old station that DJ would enjoy this bit of Italy. Liguria's very laid back and down the narrower medieval streets the air's often thick with his favourite herb. When the hunger kicks in there's quality pizzerias, masses of respectable trattoria and, if royalties from a remix ever materialise, there's Ristorante Apricale Da Delio.

It's hard to believe somewhere like this survives in a village whose permanent population struggles to reach 500. But the last 2 kilometers aside, it's very well connected. Ventimiglia, San Remo and Imperia are a short drive. Monaco and Nice are not much further. Add to that a growing reputation and it's connectivity is not without risks...

Yes, MW dined at Da Delio in 2005 declaring one dish "terrific". On the Winner scale I reckon that's just below "historic". Amusingly, next to the original review they've stuck this Italian article explaining exactly who Michael Winner is. A shame my Italian's so poor because I'm rather curious myself.

Front of house Daniel, son of chef Da Delio, recommended a delicious white from the local pigato grape. A real cracker, Mauro Feola's 'O Mai Ben' 2007 had similarities with Albarino but more gentle aromatics.

Perhaps egged on by the wine's refreshing lemony bite we decided to go for the full Italian... then the antipasti arrived. These were big appetisers.

What the menu called warm potato and poricini 'made like lasagne'. This was really good. Like a light potato dauphinois infused with scents of the forest floor.

'Rombiole et Tomini', fresh Piemonte cheese wrapped in leaves, vine I think, with pears layered between white bread. This was sublime. The warm melting cheese cloaking the cold terrine.

Primi piatti next.

Rabbit ravioli in a rabbit sauce scented with thyme. One of their 'signature' dishes. Perfectly executed, the ravioli filling had an almost bovril like intensity.

And luigini d'oro with spring garden vegetables. Pasta disks made without egg. Tasty alright, but bound by a tomato sauce that didn't really hold it all together.

Time for some red wine. Chef Da Delio was out front now too. This is an 'all hands on deck' family run place and service was a little stretched at times, but when it's so warm and friendly, who cares?

Picking up on our obsession with all things local he recommended 'Maccario Dringenburg's Rossese di Dolceacqua Superiore 2007' saying it best combined 'the old with the new'.

Splendid stuff, light colour belying it's strength with a lovely balance of fruit and acidity. Reminiscent of Burgundy and Barolo, like Barolo, I find a scent of roses in many rossese wines. But it maybe the name playing tricks with my palate.

Alas, no room in the stomach for young goat stewed with white beans from Pigna, a little town just up the road, so went for the olive wood grill options.

Wow. Fassone beef, another import from Piedmonte. Incredible, the texture of tuna loin with an understated beefy flavour and great minerality. You could taste the iron.

Lamb chops, pink and sweetly caramelised. Both dishes accompanied by unassuming looking potatoes. They tasted divine... infused with local olive oil, a hint of rosemary and smoke from that olive wood grill. We shared a desert and aided our digestion with a huge glass of incredibly smooth Pigato Grappa. They're obsessed with digestion in Liguria... can't imagine why!

It wasn't hard to decide where to go for our last night... "If it's nice, eat there twice".

This time, among yet more delicious plates, lurked one of the best pasta dishes I've eaten. Up there with those of Franco Taruschio when he still had The Walnut Tree. Made from spelt flour it came with potato, French bean, the dreaded sun dried tomato and a pesto that hadn't been pounded. Deconstructed if you must.

It was beguiling, each taste perfectly complimenting and balancing the other, to create a new whole. Truly historic...

Ristorante Apricale Da Delio

Plazza Vittorio Veneto, 9

18030 Apricale (Imperia)

+39 0184 208 008

35 Euros for anti, primi and secondi. Prices include cover and service. For cooking of this quality a real bargain! Nice wine list too. Good selection of local Rossese, Pigato and Vermentino with very reasonable mark-ups. How refreshing!

Read some chap called Michael Winner's review here

And here's a translated interview with Mauri Feola, winemaker at Specchiodivitae

Arriving in Apricale

"Come on, you have to admit, it's incredible. Just 40 minutes from Nice. Parking right outside Edinburgh terminal. A pittance for car hire. The place has bars and restaurants. Flight times are perfect. There's even a wine we've never tried before....".

So it continued and by the time we were in the air I was sick of myself.

The night before we'd been treated to dinner, and, as usual just before a holiday, drank more than we should. Now the after effects of that indulgence helped shut me up, and drifting in and out of sleep I imagined what would happen after we landed.... pick up car, easy journey, nice Italian food, new wine..... then at 39,000ft over the Alps......

... I suddenly realised I didn't have my driving license. Aaargh, the shock was horrendous, the perfection was shattered. What a bloody idiot. Images of smiley faced winemakers, restauranteurs and olive squeezers were instantly replaced by those of reluctant taxi drivers and endless queues for busses. As the initial shock slightly subsided, we tried convincing ourselves that this new reality, although very different, could be just as good.

At Hertz I went through the motions, "No, neither of us has a driving license". After a look only the French can give she said, "Ah, well, in that case...(pause, here we go, it is all over)... your only chance is for the DVLA to fax a copy". Mon Dieu, a glimmer, a faint hope, could it be possible?

Two hours of tension, calling Swansea and staring at a fax machine, but eventually it came through. What followed was the sweetest drive of my life. It was like sighting the promised land..

We parked up then made our way through the cobbled streets and understood why cases with wheels were a recent invention.

It was dark by the time we'd freshened up.

At the Piazza.... one place was still open and blasting out Frank Sinatra tunes.

By now I'd have eaten anything and declared it manna. What I got was their 'special'.

It lived up to it's name. Soft polenta and fresh porcini dribbled with grassy olive oil, flecked with pecorino. The soft mealy polenta infused with the woody, funky aromas of the porcini. Delicious. And, a first taste of the local wine, Rossese di Dolceacqua. This one a 'superiore'.

Enzo Guglielmi's 2006 was a lovely old style Italian, real strength of flavour- bruised plums on the nose, very minerally, a sourness too but balanced by a richness and sweet black fruits. All was once again well with the world... very well in fact.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Old fruit...

College fashion shows can be hit or miss affairs, and sometimes they're a hit entirely unintentionally. I'll never forget a show at the Glasgow School of Art, held in an intimate auditorium, packed with students, family and friends.  As the show got underway it transpired the theme was Adam and Eve. One of those brilliant ideas that should have remained just that. Suspending disbelief for art students masquerading as models is one thing, but when they start acting as well...

It was brilliant! Side splitting hysterical scream out loud funny and we had to hold it in for thirty minutes. Tantric laughter!

This year Cardonald College staged its end of year bash at the Old Fruit Market in Glasgow's Merchant City. We were late arriving after a cock-up on the cocktail front. 

The venue should be great for fashion shows, but they had a stumpy catwalk, so along with the majority of the crowd, we were miles from the action. 

Now, in a previous blog I'd said the most unfashionable thing you can ever think of is simultaneously the most fashionable... it appears there are exceptions...

A man in a kilt and a Canadian woman compèring for one. They had to read off cards... and couldn't. At certain points, accompanied by keyboards, they'd belt out songs like "I'm every woman". 

Who on earth thought this was a good idea? It was excruciatingly naff. The students must have been raging. I was, and the £4 gin and tonic with no lemon in a plastic glass didn't help.

Afterwards we popped into Black Sparrow for a debrief and drink. Overall the consensus was, this year, the Art School Show won... unfortunate circumstances mean I've no pictures of that.

Corona's back on my radar. They must have a push on because it's everywhere again. It's the perfect beer if you're thirsty and don't fancy a beer. But you simply, absolutely MUST have a wedge of lime! And this summer, Brazilian Limes are THE limes to be seen with.... they're just so fabulously, adorably... yellow.

Black Sparrow

241 North Street,

Glasgow

0141 221 5530

Here comes summer...

So I'm sitting at home, reading one of my favourite books and contemplating a rather dull weekend when this pops up.

Surely that's a near perfect text message? 

Now safe in the knowledge something's happening tomorrow, I settle for a quiet night in and pick up this from Oddbins. Buy it, it's £6.99 and absolutely belting, a black cherry fruit bomb with a lovely streak of acidity.

A few hours later and I'm wrestling over whether it is actually black cherry or, in fact, blackberry that this wine most reminds me of, when this pops up:

Sometimes truth's not necessarily best, so to avoid any risk of my reply getting passed around for laughs, I say, "Err, not much, come round". So pretty soon this pops up.

Who needs telly? Using only a cigar as an improvised mustache Angus (or GUGUG as he's known to his YouTube fans) entertains us with a Sparks impression. He also turns up with this:

From a brewery founded before Harold got shot in the eye, it's delicious, and according to the label, is "one of Roger Protz's 300 beers to try before you die". Great, that means I've got 299 to go! On the back it says: "... tempting aroma of banana, clove, nutmeg and gentle hop resins". It came from 'The Doublet' on Park Road. 

Next day, it's Mary and Ross's BBQ.

First up: haloumi cheese with vegetables. Delicious. My contribution next, Scottish langoustine bbq'd whole then covered with lemon juice, lemon rind, olive oil, garlic and parsley while still hot.

After that it's monkfish kebabs- with croutons, ham and rosemary. Thought these were really good. With the lid on the bbq they picked up a really nice smokey flavour too.

With the offer of a lift Jo and Andy persuaded me to leave the car so I got stuck into this. Very tasty- lemony, minerally, complex. From Oddbins apparently.

They then said they were also having a bbq later and invited us to join them. I don't know, you wait all summer for a bbq then suddenly...... 

Actually, normally you wait all summer for a summer. Mind, when you get one, Glasgow's West End looks almost foreign....

More lovely food including giant prawns, sardines and a delicious lobster. 

Late on and Andy produced a bottle of rose picked up on holiday in St Tropez some years back. 

'Rose de Bertaud Belieu', from Gassin, made by M.Coencas in 2000. Conventional wisdom dictates that few roses merit keeping. This was nearly 9 years old and exceptional- a delicious drink- bizarrely reminiscent of very old chianti. What a surprise. 

Lobsters have an unusual nervous system, this one was dispatched hours earlier by the fishmonger, but check out this clip of it's claw in action on the grill... freak out!

Saint Cirice 2007

Vin de Pays du Gard 

£6.99 Oddbins

BUY BUY BUY

GUGUG

Gus and Fin and ukuleles

Sparks

Seminal stuff, does anyone know where online I might find the original video for "Now that I own the BBC?"

Chablis and Gypsies

This post started off along the lines of: "I often forget how much I like Chablis"... but fortunately I caught myself just in time. What was I trying to say? That I've drunk shed loads of it in the past? That because it's so well known I tend to ignore it? That I'm too busy drinking other expensive wine? None of this is true, a crying shame in the latter case, and if not kept in check, who knows what guff could spew forth ....."I will never tire of Chablis, be it with oysters, sea trout or simply unadorned, as 'al fresco' refreshment sat 'au jardin' with the first rays of summer tickling my newly shorn lawn".

I'm becoming increasingly aware of certain pit falls with wine writing. It's hard to ignore what has been written before, and a lot of my wine formative years were spent gleaning information from lifestyle magazines. Part of the problem is a lack of vocabulary. Things have to smell or taste "like" something or perhaps "evoke" something from the memory. One writer's description of a certain grape variety will never leave me:

"Flowers in the boudoir, ginger biscuits in the oven".

How fabulously laden is that? But here's a thing, try and guess which grape variety, because, and this is partly my point, despite never having seen a boudoir or baked a biscuit, I get it. 

(Answer at the end of this post). 

A friend invited us to dinner this week but asked to remain anonymous, so I'll call him Mr G. We often look after his dog, let's call him Dog A. We had some lovely food and wine at Mr G's. These two Chablis for starters. The straight one was good: minerally, buttery and no oak. I don't like oak in Chablis, it's just wrong. The premier cru Beauroy was more intense with a mid palate taste of what I can only describe as a boiled pineapple sweet. It has a finer acidity than the Chablis and is altogether more 'nervy' and complex.

Next up we had a 2005 Burgundy from a famous Cotes de Nuits village. Pretty special this one but still young. It's all there, but still developing the gamey, manure flavours pinot noir gets as it matures.

Finally a real cracker from St Emilion.

I love the idea of a "contemporary wine-maker". This is marvelous stuff from the 2004 vintage. Every time I drink something from this vintage I'm impressed, it's seriously underrated..... Right, stop, "Every time.... I'm impressed"...... 

I'm doing it again. Here's the truth: I've drunk 4 bottles of Bordeaux from the 2004 vintage, they were all very nice and I've probably read elsewhere about it being underrated. 

Anyway, Chateau Quercy 2004: "Lying by the campfire being fed plums by a ravishing gypsy, she tempting and dark, you, curious but afraid, the music starts up, wild and intoxicating, resistance is futile".

The answer is : Gewurztraminer.

If you want to try for that boudoir/biscuit experience go for M&S's own label Alsace. It's particularly good at the moment, but I'm afraid they're all out of ravishing gypsies.

Stravaigin 2 for brunch

It's easy to forget about Stravaigin 2. The sibling to Stravaigin on Gibson Street. Tucked away down a lane off Byres Road. The advantage for punters is that seats are available outside long after everything else in the West End has been taken. Why are there so few places to sit out in Glasgow?

It's not a bad spot. You get to watch thin people trying on clothes in the Commes de Garcon Guerilla Store next door. Which, despite the name, doesn't stock much for the, ahem, larger sized. Still, while they flaunt their physique, or rather lack of it, we get to do something they can't.... eat food and keep it down.

We ate from the brunch menu. Other offerings looked tempting too. When they arrived, my eggs benedict were a bit, well, more than a bit, suggestive....

Nice hollandaise but the eggs were slightly overdone. I prefer mine gushing with runny yolk, these created more of a smudge effect and there was a strange dangly bit that shouldn't have made it to the table. That said, they were pretty good to eat. 

The French toasts with bacon and maple syrup caused instant dish envy.

Smokey maple syrup and bacon with the crunch of eggy toast. All washed down with coffee and a ginger beer.... that's Sunday for you.

Competent cooking, I'll come back to try the evening menu and wine list soon.

Stravaigin 2

8 Ruthven Lane

Glasgow

G12 9BG

0141 334 7165

Commes de Garcon Guerilla Store

10 Ruthven Lane

Glasgow

G12 9BG

0141 339 2315

Dublin and Guinness

Just back from Dublin. My first time. You still see signs of the confidence born from what was, until very recently, one of the world's fastest growing economies. This is the Dublin Spire, 390 ft high, locals call it the 'Stiffy on the Liffey'.

But visually Dublin is most like a miniature London. Lots of Georgian and Regency architecture. There's even a mini Thames, House of Lords and..... 

Another thing about Dublin was the sense of being watched... and it didn't take long to finger the culprit..... 

You're never more than an arms length from a pint of Guinness. Look in any direction and you'll see a sign for it. 

Now I've never got the Guinness thing. It's not as strong as hating it, I just wouldn't choose something that thick when it's a drink I'm after. But so many people insist it's nicer in Dublin, and, the bombardment from such an intense advertising campaign makes it impossible to ignore. Could a drink really taste that different?

Well, this one slipped down a treat. Mmmm. Made a bit of an effort to think about the taste of the next one. It was creamy, complex, fresh and incredibly, actually thirst quenching. Surely though, I'd been intoxicated by the charm of the place and it's people.... I wanted to like their drink, be part of them, join in. Could this taste so good back in dank old Glasgow? Had I been missing out all these years? I would have to find out. Before that though, a visit to the Guinness Storehouse.

Claimed as the most popular tourist attraction in Ireland. It's where they used to brew the stuff. It's still brewed on site.... a site the size of a suburb. Three million pints a day. 

It's impressive. Apparently this year they've been getting loads of Italian tourists for the first time, no-one knows why. I wonder if they've asked them?

Seven floors up visitors enjoy a complimentary pint of the black stuff. No mean treat, this is a place where the price regularly tops 5 euros a pint. Ouch. They get to look out over a city dominated, and as far as most tourists are concerned, defined by it's brewery.

Dublin's a lovely place, but expensive, may have to wait till we join the euro before returning. 

A late flight back to Glasgow had me pelting to Stravaigin to try a Guinness here while the taste of the Dublin one was still fresh in my mind. The barman was Irish, so was the waitress speaking to him.... weird, am I still being watched? As he poured I explained what I was up to. He looked at me like I was speaking gibberish then said, "I never drink it over here", and added, "Next time, forget about Dublin, go to Ireland".

The Guinness tasted neither as fresh nor as complex. Far more of a bitter flavour and not very thirst quenching. But I'd have been disappointed if it was any other way!

The Guinness Storehouse

St James's Gate

Dublin 8

+353 1 408 4800

Stravaigin

Gibson Street

0141 334 2665

Glasgow

Mutton dressed as mutton

It's in the nature of revolutions to reject what is and sweep all before them. That was the fate of British cooking as the UK began it's foodie revolution. Instead, in turn, the cooking of just about every other country was eulogized. Even Delia forced a nod to foreign shores.

We were food sluts, happy to try anyones once, globe trotting pick-ups bringing back more than we'd bargained for. Poor old 'British' sat cuckold while we flung our affections across the globe. Then, by the millennium, having had every available dish, and just to prove we really were up for anything, we started coming on to our own grub.

But you can't undo what's been done.... and we'd done a lot. The temptation to elaborate is now too great. Does steak and kidney pudding really just have steak and kidney in it? Surely it should be browned first? What about frying a star anise with some onion too? A little red wine? Some soy sauce? Some thyme?

Boring old British was going to need a serious makeover if we were to be seen about town together.

This is the downside of embracing everything. Where do you draw the line? Food that has evolved over eons being tarted up beyond recognition. "Mutton dressed as mutton", that's my new motto! But it's a hard habit to kick, I'm taking it one stage at a time.....

So when friends came to dinner on Saturday I didn't all together hold back on my leg of Scottish spring lamb.

Recipe:

Three cloves of garlic crushed to a paste with salt. That was rubbed into the meat which I'd scored all over with a diamond pattern. Next chopped rosemary was rubbed in- from the garden, lots of it, it grows well in Glasgow but is nowhere near as intense as that grown in warmer climes. I grated the zest from a lemon, set aside, and squeezed the juice over the lamb. Finally a good rub of olive oil and black pepper. With it, Herefordshire asparagus and Cornish 'anya' potatoes in their skins, both roasted in olive oil.

This is a really good tip I picked up from Heston of Fat Duck fame. Soak anything green in water for as long as you can before cooking. It rehydrates it and makes an incredible difference.

The lamb weighed 2.3 kg and got 20 mins at 220c then another 80 mins at 160c, it was on a rack above the grill tray which I'd filled with water. A technique the Chinese use a lot that combines roasting with steaming and stops lots of smoke! After cooking it was wrapped in foil and rested for an hour. Then I made a gravy from the tray's juice filled water, a teaspoon of dashi stock powder and some cornflour.

The lemon rind was combined with olive oil, salt, the juice of another lemon and then poured over the lamb and potatoes.

This will sound like showing off, actually it is, but the effect was sublime. There's enough going on.... but not too much. In the past I'd have been smearing all sorts on it... cumin, smoked paprika, other herbs... so this was progress of a sorts. These were the wines....

The Pinot Bianco I've blogged about before. It's now just £5.99 in M&S and at that price is a serious bargain.

The Sancerre Rose, made from pinot noir grapes, was very summery, but not worth the normal price of £10.99... though it's on offer at £7.99 just now.

Mikey brought the Chateauneuf du Pape, Les Closiers, 2006, also from M&S. Really nice peppery, sweet grenache fruit and quite structured too. It went really well with the lamb.

Niven and Sabeen brought the Chianti Reserva 2003, it was very good, quite oaky but with a lot of ripe fruit to balance it out.

And finally, nearly the last of my delicious Leitz Auslese also mentioned in a previous blog. We drank that with Eton Mess - a mix of strawberries, meringue and cream- simple but delicious. By now things were getting a little hazy...

We finished the night off around the corner at Uisge Beatha. I think it's brewery owned these days but they've kept the eclectic interior of the woman who first furnished it. She combed sales rooms for cast offs from country houses that had been stuffed with souvenirs of colonial adventures... old paintings of men in uniform, antelope heads and other oddities.

Nowadays it's seen as a quintessentially Scottish experience, a tourist 'must see' on any visit to Glasgow.

Uisge Beatha

236-242 Woodlands Road

Glasgow

0141 564 1596

Pictures at an exhibition...

Just back from the Recoat gallery's opening night of 'Crystal is the New Wolf'. An exhibition of work by Will Barras and Rue Five. The weather's awful, pouring rain and it's the first time I've been to an opening here. The space is 'intimate', 'compact and bijou'...... tiny. They seemed like a nice crowd. Actually, a bit too nice. Surely great art requires at least a sprinkling of suffering? A pinch of pain? A teensy bit of torture? This lot looked far too healthy. 

We were even offered a complimentary Corona beer ... chilled and with a wedge of lime! Lovely, but did anyone ever create great art after a night on the Coronas?  They had other nice sounding drinks too, but shouldn't drinks associated with art have more of a whiff of toil? British Sherry or large plastic bottles of cheap cider seem more appropriate. There's just not enough 'struggle' in quaffing a delicious limey refreshing beer while pondering pictures.

Will Barras's picture 'Pearl Fisher' was best for me, no photo I'm afraid, but thought these were good too, and I like the Japanese influence in some of his work.

Earlier today I went to see 'Synecdoche New York', a great film. One character's an artist whose work is so miniature that you need a magnifying glass to see it. Rue Five's work almost warranted the same treatment.

Click on this to see more Will Barras work at his own website.

And click here for Rue Five.

The exhibition runs till June 6th and is open Tuesday-Sunday 12-6pm.

Recoat Gallery

323 North Woodside Road

Glasgow 

G20 6RY

(right next door to the Woodside Social Club)

0141 341 0069 

Saturday was brill...

And what a magnificent specimen, weighing in at over a kilo and costing just £10. Also, the fishmonger had something I'd never seen before. He said it was called sea spinach and came from France. I get over excited when I spot new food and this had me positively shaking....

The sea spinach got washed and left on the side. Later I noticed it had what looked like a grey sludge on the leaves. God, the thought of wiping each one... then I sussed, it was salt leaching out. Phew. I tried a few.... mmm, seaside! Even more intense than samphire.

As I filleted the brill it became obvious it was stuffed full of roe. Finding it always brings on mixed emotions. All those potential new fish that won't make it......

Then I remember how good it tastes... and bonus time, because I spotted the liver too.

'An improvised lunch' as they say. Fried roe and liver with a few water biscuits, some chopped parsley, squeeze of lemon and dash of tabasco. Seriously good.

After lunch I made stock from the bones and head. The only other ingredients were an onion halved and a large piece of kombu (dried kelp). Boiled, skimmed then simmered for just 15 minutes. Strained, then reduced over a low heat for 2 hours. The result was an intense flavour with a gelatinous texture, maybe from something agar-like in the seaweed? Just before serving I whisked in a little cold butter and 2 teaspoons of mirin.

The sea spinach was steamed for 5 minutes. It was more robust than normal spinach and held it's shape quite well, but it was a strong flavour- spinachy and quite like lava bread . So I mixed it with new potatoes, a bit of parmesan and popped it under the grill. Very nice, but really a dish on it's own. Next time I'll try it with fresh pasta and parmesan.

And to drink? Well, I went for this and it worked well. 

I'm a big fan of Spy Valley's pinot noir and this is pretty good too. It reeks of papaya and passion fruit, has nice acidity and a fair wallop of residual sweetness. That worked with this dish but it may cause problems with shellfish.

They sell it at my local mildly eccentric off sales, The Cave, where it's £9.99, and you get to hear some really good music while browsing. Not a big selection, but always a couple of good bottles in stock.

The Cave

421 Great Western Road

Glasgow

G4 9JA

Che Camille Fashion Show

It's hard not to be impressed by Camille. That it took a New Yorker to do what she's doing is telling. In return for a commission on sales, Camille provides space, equipment and marketing for a select group chosen from the creatives flooding out of Scotland's art schools and colleges. Fashion's the main business but she also associates with various artists in most mediums. 

Her latest venue, many floors above Argyll Arcade, doesn't have any signage and the lift is erratic. So when we turned up for a fashion show on Saturday it wasn't just the anticipation that had set my heart pounding. Still, no pain, no gain.........

Over the years I've noticed a few things about fashion.....

For example, at any one time the most unfashionable thing you can possibly think of, is, simultaneously, the most fashionable.

Also, fashion too often lacks any sense of humour, finding it as hard to laugh at itself as others find it easy. 

No such problems for The Niallist seen performing here. His tongue was planted firmly in his cheek, and I'd wager, by the end of the night he was hoping it'd be planted in a few other cheeks too.

One of the designers 'Rabii' makes made to measure denim. The emblem's a small embroidered silhouette of himself in his trademark cap. Recently he secured a rather spectacular order to make jeans for the Man Utd team. Just before the show he told me he'd been, not surprisingly, a bit nervous at the prospect of measuring Ronaldo and Co. But when the time came, bizarrely, the soccer stars were just as awestruck.... "No way, you're the actual guy on the jeans!"

Walking home after the show I spotted a young chap in some incredible get up. As they say on Project Runway, "Very fashion forward".

In the years after Communism, via telly and travel, we got to see what the ordinary people in those countries actually looked like. Isolation had left them ten years behind the times with a unique take on western styles. Into the mid 1990s men sported perm topped mullets and patterned jumpers that even M&S, by then, would have been ashamed of.

Well, that was 'the look' that walked past me, and I've coined it..... "Sarajevo Chic". 

If you think that's a bit tasteless, well, to quote Julian Macdonald.... and you must read this in a camp haughty Welsh accent, "This is fashion, and fashion has no mercy".

Che Camille

Floor 6

Argyll Chambers

Glasgow

G2 8BD

0141 221 9620

(It's first on the left as you walk in off Buchanan Street)

The Niallist

somewhere in cyberspace

Real pleasure

Another exceptional present from Gordon for looking after Archie. "It's seriously yummy", he said, while gathering together his dogs increasingly odd toys. He wasn't kidding!

It smells smokey and creamy with a whiff of dried herbs and, to me, an unmistakable blast of 'forest fruit' squash. You almost expect it to be sweet.

At first it tastes of red fruits like cherries but that develops into darker fruits, reminiscent of creme de mure. There's also white pepper and a hint of eucalyptus. All beautifully integrated with that fabulous tannin / acidity mix which makes slurping such a pleasure.

It came in an Oddbins bag, but was a present, so I didn't check the price. Frankly anything under £30 would be good value, it represents what wine drinking's all about, a real pleasure. 

Now here's a thing. This is Chateau La Nerthe's second wine, I've had their first wine a few times too, but it was never so enjoyable to drink. Yes, it was more concentrated, more age worthy and undoubtably more "serious". But even if it had been left to mature (not much chance right enough) I'm not convinced it would ever be more enjoyable than this. More cerebral yes, more pleasurable? 

Archie numbers among his toys a large polar bear, an increasingly disheveled Dennis the Menace and various purpose bought items that squeak....for a bit..... but the one that gave him most pleasure this time around......

Can you guess what it is?

I just can't get enough..

This is a cracking wine for the money that I've been buying in dribs and drabs for weeks. Tonight I asked the woman in Oddbins how much she had left..... "Oh, funny you should ask, I had loads but a guy came in today and bought 3 cases and someone has just left with two, so I'm running low". That did it, especially since you get 20% off any 12 bottles. 

So, I popped out for a £5.99 bottle to have with dinner and struggled back carrying a case. Oops. The discount makes this wine £4.79 a bottle. A total bargain! 

It tastes to me like the best of old and new worlds, ripe but not too rich, a subtle lick of oak, licorice and I'd swear gravel too.... in a nice way, like Graves. And, it's only 12.5% alcohol.

Perth... the original one.

Our friends Alan and Issi invited us to Perth. Their son Hamish is just 4 moths old, so it's a much safer invite than it perhaps once was. We leapt at the chance. 

Perth sits on the River Tay, one of the world's most famous and expensive salmon rivers. In recent years, almost reluctantly, they seem to have acknowledged the association.

Though as we strolled along the rather barren river front the locals seemed more keen on swimming than fishing. Bracing!

Perth boasts the oldest hotel in Scotland. But it's not a proud boast. Perhaps, in the best presbyterian tradition, that would be sinful?

So, like a lot of the town's residents, it gently crumbles away. Another interesting feature of Perth is it's businesses' names.

From the 'a spades a spade' school of nomenclature, to what Alan says is the town's second best Mexican restaurant. I think you can guess how many there are.

Alas, my favourite was closed so my mind stayed boggled.

Surprisingly, in a town of such Georgian gentility, I've never found a decent wine shop. So I stocked up in Costco before coming. It's a great place to buy wine, though the selection is very 'Parkerized'. I also picked up squid and John Dory from the fishmonger, Alan had butterflied a leg of lamb. All going on the BBQ. Alan's a chef, in fact he was head chef at one of Glasgow's best restaurants for many years. So no pressure there then!

We kicked off with a German, from Costco, under £9, and utterly delicious. Spring flowers and ripe pears. Only 8% alcohol too.

Once the sun set it soon got cold so we went inside, popping out now and then to cook the food. 

It was a great night, lovely food and wine and the evening had a star.

A sweet Austrian eiswein  Alan had been saving for some years. 

It was absolutely incredible. A myriad of flavours. Including my favourite, glace fruits. Beguiling and perfectly balanced. 

The next day, also a stunner, we recovered slowly over breakfast. 

I made those responsible watch.

The wines were:

An Albarino, forgot to ask Alan how much, Lagar de Pintos. 

Very sophisticated with a flavour of peaches. Probably quite expensive.

Spy Mountain Pinot Noir 2006. 

Delicious, surely one of the best value New Zealand pinots of the market? Normally about £10.99.

Peter Lehman, The Mudflat Shiraz 2004. About £9 in Costco. Very nice, has some of the white grape muscadelle added to the blend. It lifts and lightens the shiraz.

Mitolo Jester Australian Cabernet Sauvignon. About £9 in Costco. Very rich, bit too much so for me. A proportion of the grapes are dried on racks as for Amarone.

And, of course, the Weinrieder Eiswein riesling. No idea how much, but it can't be cheap.

If you're not fast, you're last.....

It can be a bit of a battle finding good German wine. So I was taken aback by this little temptress in Springburn's Tesco. Even better, it was reduced to clear. I grabbed the eight remaining bottles but immediately felt greedy so put two back "for someone else". 

God knows who, but then I wondered the same thing about the Taylors 1977 Vintage port they were selling for £99. It sat on the shelf for over a year. I kept my beady eye on it, eventually it went down to £79. But I gambled on another reduction and someone scarfed the lot during a 'buy 6 get 20% off' sale. Gutting.

I got home and tried a bottle of my new bargain. It was seriously delicious. A beautiful piercing bouquet of spring flowers, mango, papaya and a lovely flavour like the juice from tinned mandarins. Acidity just about balanced the intense sweetness... and all this in a 7% vol. wine. Incredible. Should've scarfed the lot!

Leitz, Rudesheimer Kirchenpfad, 

Rheingau

Riesling Auslese 2004

Tesco: down from £11.99 to £5.99

Carnal with Carmen

Friends couldn't make the ballet and kindly gave us their tickets. I'm no aficionado and last time, actually the only other time I've been, I had to leave early. Back then Scottish Ballet weren't the lightest on their feet, and someone leant into my ear and whispered "Morecombe and Wise". It shouldn't have been so funny, but it was, and I couldn't stop. The more I tried to hold it in the more it built up until a bellowing roar burst out and I followed it through the exit.

So, this time, it seemed a smart idea to steady the nerves with a spot of food and wine first.

 

Michael Caines @ Abode on Bath Street have, what they call, 'An Amazing Grazing' menu. For £19.95 they'll give you three courses with matching wines. For £14.95 you can have the food on it's own. Both menus are £2 cheaper at lunch. Apologies in advance for this pun, but judging by the empty spaces, not a lot of people know that.

For starters we had a recession staple: terrine of ham hough with rhubarb. Very nice. Came with a glass of Malumbres Tinto, red wine from Navarra. Great pairing.

And, tartare of organic salmon. Even better. Paired with a Chilean take on the Oz classic Chardonnay Semillon. Worked well.

Pick of the mains was black bream. It came with what looked like road kill tomatoes and cat sick. Ugly as hell but it tasted great. Accompanied by a glass of rose. Ah, memories of lazy lunches on the Cote d'Azur.

Best desert was 'caramel thingy' with an amazing passion fruit sorbet. It came with a LBV port, something I don't normally like, this was exceptional. I could drink this by the thimble full... which is fortunate because that's exactly what they gave me.

The wines come in something called 'split 175ml servings'. Why don't they just say 87.5 mls? Anyway, it's a small amount of wine. Desert wines are even smaller. But it's also a small amount of food, so it works. 

The food was good, sometimes very good, but don't eat from the 'amazing grazing menu' if you're hungry, or for that matter, if you want a drink. History teaches that innovators survive, even thrive, in recessions. Here they've invented a whole new meal, the pre-dinner dinner, brilliant, and perfect if you're going onto something afterwards, like dinner.

We went to the Theatre Royal and popped into the Cafe Royal for a proper sized drink. Despite the name, it must be a long time since anyone royal came here.

Extensive offerings included 2 types of bottled beer and 2 wines, one red one white. All the charm and appeal of a cross channel ferry. 

 By contrast the theatre itself is a belter.

Carmen was great, loved it. No laughter fits. Really exhilarating. 

The second part of the evenings entertainment was a 'contemporary' piece. The orchestra started up... 

The portentous chimes and electronic raspberry sounds let me know this would require total self control. Sure enough the flaming sofa, funny outfits and giant pointy towers were testing, but I had it under control. Until, suddenly, the pointy towers started to move. One by one they glided across the stage. It was the culmination, the camel's straw, suddenly transforming it all into ballet's very own Spinal Tap !

Luckily for me this turned out to be the finale. The curtain came down and I clapped like I'd never clapped before. Bravo.

Michael Caines 

ABode Glasgow

129 Bath Street

G2 2SZ

0141 221 6789

If you go down to the woods today...

"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now". Bob Dylan

There are many things I know now I wish I'd known before. There's the practical stuff, there's the more esoteric stuff and then there's the other stuff.

For example, why didn't anyone tell me about the pulling power of cute dogs? Archie's a regular visitor these days and strolling through Kelvingrove Park it's amazing to watch women visibly melt as they lay eyes on the wee scamp. Also, rather incredibly, I'm suddenly transformed into an attractive proposition for a conversation. This would have been priceless information to a young chap.

A spot of blossom photography helped cement my new fey image. But just before turning my toes inwards and humming a Belle and Sebastian song something happened.

Irresistible wild garlic popping it's wiggy head above the ground and a mystery oniony thing that smelt very oniony. Phew, that was close. I could be wrong, but as far as I know, fey men don't leap fences, rip up plants and stuff them into doggy poop bags. 

Things happen in city centre parks that would make a pirate blush, so everything got a good wash.

One thing I was told when younger was to never eat certain things. Toadstools, berries and anything Mrs Evans offered us. But I'm more reckless now and despite failing to identify the strange oniony things, I ate one. It was delicious. Like the sweetest spring onion imaginable. After another three I decided to wait a bit and see if anything bad happened. In the meantime I chopped the wild garlic and stuffed some lamb (delicious) and made a pesto (tasty but sludgy). All very intense flavours so a tricky wine match. Then I had a brain wave. Summer = Cider. And it worked rather well. Proper stuff from Herefordshire. You can buy this in Sainsbury's and Morrisons. It's cheaper in Morrisons.

Since I'm writing this it's fair to say, so far at least, four strange oniony things isn't enough to kill, but my stomach was upset the next day. Coincidence? Or possibly the toxic heavy metal legacy of Glasgow's industrial past.

"Funny the things you think of, a long time after you should". WS

Gandolfi Fish

In lazy articles and free plug magazines Cafe Gandolfi is often referred to as 'an institution'. Founded in 1979 it has a wonderful interior with furniture by Tim Stead and stained glass by John Clarke. There are many good reasons to go there, but the last few times I have, the food wasn't one of them. Next door is it's newish sibling, Gandolfi Fish, and it's here we came for lunch on Friday.

It has a modern interior with a huge expanse of glass that gives great views of the street. A small bar by the entrance is a nice spot to sip drinks while waiting for late arrivals. On a previous visit I'd asked for the cocktail list mentioned online but was told they'd stopped offering it due to a lack of interest. Customer's or staff's I wondered? Shame. But the wine list is good and includes a range of sherries and wines by the glass.

We drank the Chilean Errazuriz Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2008 at the bar and throughout the meal. It was, I think, £15.99 a bottle and everyone seemed to like it. Fresh, clean lemony taste but maybe a tad too sweet for the oysters I had to start.

The oysters themselves were splendid and reeked of the sea. With a drop of shallot and red wine vinegar they neared perfection. By far the best oysters I've had in Glasgow recently. £10.00 for 6 or £2.00 each. The waiter said they came from Loch Fyne. Others tried lobster pasty and pickled herring. Both went down very well.

At lunchtime you can choose from the carte or the special deals. We mixed between the two. I went for fish and chips at just under £10. There was a high batter to fish ratio, but what a batter! Gorgeous light and crispy right through. The fish was sweet and fresh. The chips were nice enough, but not in the same league as another purveyor of the 'just under £10' fish supper, Stravaigin.

Others had fish pie, also just under £10, a big plate of large langoustines, £24, and something crabby. Everyone said their food was great. Deserts were all £5. Ginger pudding was a big hit. On my last visit I'd tried the sticky toffee pudding. It was sublime, someone in the kitchen knows how to steam puddings. But I'd gone for the Pear tart, mainly because it came with custard. It was the posh stuff, more 'creme anglais' than Birds. The tart was fine, but frankly, I'd rather just have a big bowl of vanilla flecked custard. Why isn't it a desert in it's own right?

I've eaten here twice in three weeks. The owner was around this time. Last time he wasn't. The service was impeccable on both occasions. Even the toilets impress. Altogether, much better than eating in an institution.

Gandolfi Fish

84-86 Albion Street,

Glasgow

G1 1NY

0141 552 9475

HOW'Z IT HANGIN'

Sometimes, when I really can't get out of it, I have to come here. It's as grim inside as it is out. Though not if you're into fabric. Because if fabric floats your boat then this is El Dorado. Afterwards I headed off to somewhere with an equally grim exterior but a far more inviting stock. 

I've been trying to play Credit Crunch recently. A game of scrimping and saving. Hopefully we'll be too absorbed playing it to notice that our houses are now as worthless as our currency and our jobs are about as secure as, err, well our jobs.

My first purchase is well within the rules.

What I used to call winkles but the fishmonger here calls whelks. £4.99 kg. I'll be boiling these in very salty water for 5 minutes and eating them with a pin..... no shortage of them today.

The next purchase disqualifies me immediately. It's a rubbish game anyway.

But who could resist a wild sea bass for £13.49 kg? The fishmonger scaled and gutted it. My plan is to bake it with a few slices of ginger, a little mirin, grassy olive oil and some fresh herbs. A few years ago I planted up some old sinks with various herbs and then forgot all about them. Amazingly they're still there, so perhaps a few more points back on the Credit Crunch board. Fennel, chives and.....

Lemon sorrel. This stuff really tastes good. Can't decide whether to put it in with the fish to bake or chop it up with butter to serve? Probably not the sort of dilemma you're suppose to have in a global recession. The wine....

another present from Niven and Sabeen who just came back from Paris. They're not very good at Credit Crunch either.

Savoie Fayre

Angus and Judith came for dinner on Saturday. Angus, just back from snowboarding in France, turned up with L'Pelio Morzine. According to the label it's a 'saucisson de Savoie sans colorant'. As you can see, another guest became obsessed by it.

L'Pelio Morzine was delicious, that great French saucisson taste, and this one had walnuts too.

Angus has a new iPhone, and, like all the iPhone users I've encountered, spends a great deal of time showing it off.