I've been back to work for only three days and I am already anticipating the weekend sleep-in with great pleasure. Yesterday I was too tired to cook dinner, so finished off the duck liver pâté I had made from our Christmas duck. I always forget how delicious (and easy) homemade pâté is until I make it again, and then kick myself mentally for not ( Read more... )

The seafood cocktail came out well, although I ran out of time and ended up making fresh lime mayonnaise rather than fresh hollandaise (to be honest, because it's an 'eat immediately' sauce I think hollandaise is best left to leisurely breakfasts of Eggs Benedict, rather than high-pressure dinner parties where you're juggling multiple courses and ( Read more... )

I rather enjoy cooking magazines - as long as I've eaten beforehand. They have a very visual appeal that goes straight to my stomach and tends to make me very, very hungry. Anyway, I bought an absolutely gorgeous eggplant the other week - firm and shiny and glowing white and the most beautiful shades of purple. It was almost a crime to eat it, but ( Read more... )

When I was about 10 or 11 my uncle Rocky, a chef at the time, told me that mixing coleslaw together with their hands was how chefs cleaned their fingernails. After that, I refused to eat coleslaw for years ( Read more... )