Food Thoughts

Branching Out

Trying to ring the changes, and give myself an interesting thing to do at the weekend, I tried a couple of recipes from the River Cafe Cookbook. Pork cooked in milk was satisfying, though I overcooked the pork a little. Good to serve a dish where the sauce is meant to curdle. Even better was the potato gratin with pancetta; although it contained a large amount of very thick cream, it was much lighter and fresher than a gratin dauphinoise. Maybe the 'authorities' are onto something when they extol Italian food over French. I'll let you know in due course.

'Writing about food is like dancing about architecture' - adapted quotation from whom?
Increasingly disillusioned with restaurant food - either poor quality ingredients (ethnic), boringly formulaic (national chains) or vastly overpriced (even without a star). I can do all this at home myself, except that my family won't pay ten quid for a starter. Is there really nothing between a chain bistro and Le Manoir Aux Quatre Saisons? Outside London, I'm not sure there is, and if I lived in London I couldn't afford to eat out much anyway. So give up eating out, or just give up on expecting an amazing culinary experience when I do? More cheerfully, good ingredients are easier than ever to find, so perhaps that's what to do.