I like to wrestle with a steak, shirts off like William Shatner in Star Trek, the hard-won bits are where the flavour is and that’s why onglet is so good. Flatiron’s steak is butter smooth, you could cut it with an airline spork, but they do a pretty good job of getting some texture and caramelisation on the outside, so saving it from being anodyne.
Marque -Mark Best
This is ultimately a book you will in fact probably never cook from but you will enjoy enormously. It will make you want to search out restaurants that take the care, the creativity and the time that Marque does to deliver a dining experience beyond the norm. You’ll eat with renewed appreciation of what it takes to be a chef at this level and you’ll savour every morsel because you’ll have a very good idea of just how very hard it was to create.
Conch. The mollusc that gives you more
Prized all over the Caribbean region, the edible mollusc conch is nowhere more popular than in The Bahamas, where it is pronounced’conk’. Judith Baker has a nose around the beach and brings back a recipe.
Nuovo Mondo: Modern Italian Food. Stefano De Pieri and Jim McDougall
Nuovo Mondo is a collaboration between Stefano de Pieri, Italian originally of course, and Jim McDougall who was born an Aussie. Together they set out to create dishes that break moulds. Stefano admits he is a conservative chef, marinaded in tradition. Jim, once his apprentice, is brimming with new ideas and together they set out to surprise each other, to create new dishes together and argue amicably in pursuit of the exciting.
The curious case of the Minervois
The region’s wines are well known, the region less so. Nick Harman attends the yearly festival of art, culture food and wine in Minervois, Languedoc-Roussillon.
New year -same old. A prediction from Old Gourmet
It’s the time when newspapers, magazines and websites make predictions about next year. No one ever checks back on these predictions to see how accurate they were, which is is just as well because they almost certainly weren’t. Let’s face it, if the future was that predictable we’d all be millionaires sitting in the sun, not sitting in the office bashing out filler copy in the week after Christmas. Bitter, moi? Not at all.
The Food of Morocco – Paula Wolfert
Morocco is still a mysterious place but it is accessible, a vast area with cooking as varied as its landscape, towns, villages, souks and medinas. Tangiers, Casablanca, Marrakech are all names that conjure up memories of classic films, as well as of Led Zeppelin, and Paula Wolfert has over 50 year’s experience in country. This lavish book is another expert excursion into the cooking she loves so much.
Cakeadoodledoo Festive Recipe- Brandy Snaps
Not many of us couldn’t slot in the odd light, crisp, caramelised brandy snap on top of the usual skipload of festive fodder. Just don’t get all clever and try and assemble ahead of time- or they, and you, will be reduced to a mere sad, sticky mess.
Salvatore Calabrese’s Hangover Cures
Urgh. You open one eye, then the other. Not both together. Too much, too soon. If you’re unlucky the room will still be spinning. Your mouth’s dry and your memory alarmingly- or thankfully- blank. But World’s Leading Cocktail Expert Salvatore Calabrese is here to save the day!
Preserving with Le Parfait
Cranberries. They’re taking up my entire fridge. Not the Irish rock band you understand (they wouldn’t quite fit), but the firm, sharp red berries that scream’Christmas’ as loudly as that other familiar red sphere, Santa. In preparation for the big day, I’m determined these will’linger’ no more. The Christmas bird will have its berry-based bedfellow!