‮hjap‮

I've recently developed something of an obsession with eggs benedict, and I have a whole jar of hollandaise sauce that needs using up, so I suppose I should get around to practising egg-poaching at some stage.

The Godlike Rob Manuel: doing the hard work so you don't have to.

It's the word vortex that gets me excited. It's the kind of thing that Doctor Who gets trapped in, and not the kind of word you normally find in cooking. I'm sure you could sell lots of cookbooks to geeks if only we had chapter titles like, "Omelettes and particle accelerators", "Tesla coils - fried eggs in nanoseconds", or even "Say no to whisks. Use the fork, Luke."

I've seen the vortex method described in another, otherwise reliable cookery text, so I suspect that the experiment linked to above was perhaps suffering from a lack of vinegar. I shall have to perform my own experiments.

...or just buy a poaching pan.

~

I'm getting really pissed off with the cookery pages in the Scotsman's Saturday supplement. The columnist quite obviously knows what she's talking about, but her idea of a chatty informal style appears to consist of telling everyone how she cooks stuff on her Aga. Those of us who own a mere `cooker' are spurned, cast aside like grains of salt from the basket of an old man.

Apparently the lassie is married to The Macdonald of Macdonald, who was the guy who complained when `McDonalds' tried to trademark the name. People buy her books and they're all full of tiresomely aristocratic rural nonsense about `pop down the lane and ask the cheerful rustic in the village to fillet you some fresh winkles from the beach'. I'm surprised she can make a living writing books targeted solely at people who live in mansions on Skye: especially since she's the only one who lives in a mansion on Skye and I presume she'll have already read it by the time it goes to press.

A word to the wise, Claire: apart from yourself, no one who can afford an Aga reads the bloody Scotsman. They're all taking the Torygraph and checking their portfolios in the FT. I'm sure you're a marvellous cook, but write for your audience, will you dear?

Did I say she knows what she's talking about? ``Food Flash: Using a potato ricer to mash the potatoes will ensure a really smooth mash''. Well, yes, but I think you're confusing the word smooth with the word shit. You might as well buy a packet of Smash if all you want is reconstituted potato pulp.

I am the King of Mashed Potato. My mash has texture, and flavour, and character. It's the kind of mash you could meet in the pub and discuss Wittgenstein with over a pint. None of this soulless puréed spawn-of-the-blender nonsense for me. I may have no degree and no career, but I am and will remain the Potato King. It's like a superpower, only not.

And no one can take it from me. (No, Alex, not even you.)

~

Watched the teaser for Doctor Who and then turned it off because the quality was shite. And for once I'm not talking about the script---although RTD needs another slap already.

NO SPOILERS, you bastards....