Sunday afternoon at the bioscope

When Lauren (Catherine Tate) ends up working in Billy's Burger Bar she gets a bit upset when two of her friends pop in and suggest that maybe it's not so cool. FeedBlitz subscribers should visit the site to view.

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Dilly Diner of the Week

According the Guiness Book of Records this week’s Dilly Diner, the Kuappi, on the harbour edge of Iisalmi in Finland is the smallest restaurant in the world. There is only one table, two chairs, one bar, one toilet and a terrace with one table and two chairs. It is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to enjoy your beer in the relaxed Savo atmosphere. Don't miss the fabulous mini-bottle collection.

Of course there are some purists who would argue that this isn’t really a restaurant. Although you can get something to eat at Kuappi, it is not the main-point of this mini diner. If you wish to eat something, you can order a meal from the next-door restaurant, Olutmestari. They serve your meal in Kuappi. So it seems that you could possibly call your toilet the smallest restaurant in the world with food supplied via Mr Delivery!

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That Was The Week That Was

Most people could hardly contain themselves this week as His Gordoness took to tweeting. Maybe he’s trying to appear as normal as the rest of the twitters or maybe he’s trying to drum up more viewers for Hell’s Kitchen US but his tweets were as interesting as paint drying or to be honest as most other people’s tweets – “amazing first afternoon meeting the HK team again”….” first day back at hk - great tasting menu”…..” hell's kitchen has gone back to basics, we've had the most amazing pizza oven installed, can't wait”…….” kitchen nightmares usa highest figures yet, nearly 10 million. well done kn team, amazing work”…….” first night of hell's kitchen. if it carries on like tonight its going to be the best yet”……ho hum.



Meanwhile earlier in the week mere seconds after Ferran Adrià, world-renowned chef, announced the closing of his El Bulli restaurant in Spain, fans worldwide began tweeting everything from "Heart attack in progress!" to "the dream is gone." Adrià has said the closing is for two years for creative and personal reasons and that he may reopen a new restaurant in 2014. It is apparent that after his sabbatical diners will be waiting to experience something new. According to DailyBlender.com, a food and beverage industry global news site, foodies may get an additional bonus as Adrià is expected to produce an encyclopedia of his "elaborations, techniques and styles acquired after 30 years of creative research."



Finally that other molecular gastronomist Grant Achatz, chef of Chicago's Alinea restaurant felt obliged to have a tweet also proclaiming that he will not be opening a bar called Boom (or Bam, or Bang, or Pow or any other Batman sound effect) as his next project. "I can assure you we are not opening a place called Boom," the chef posted to his followers on Twitter. "You think some fact checking would be in order?"
"Alinea already plays around plenty with edible cocktails and other manipulations – but no new venue is on the cards” So it seems you can’t believe every twittering tweet, but you already knew that didn’t you?

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Spam spam spam spam

I can’t remember the last time I had SPAM but it was probably when I was an impoverished student many years ago. I do recall that my mother once flirted with SPAM fritters but they quickly disappeared from her limited culinary repertoire so I’m not really much of an expert on SPAM but army chef Corporal Liam Francis certainly is because he fed troops in Afghanistan on Spam-based recipes for six weeks and lived to tell the tale!
While most chefs enjoy the luxury of varied ingredients poor old Liam was forced to improvise dishes using the tinned meat after the Taliban shot down their food supplies when the civilian supply helicopter flying to Forward Operating Bases in the Sangin District was brought down, meaning no fresh deliveries could get through. Chef Liam said: 'We were on compound rations for six weeks, and we only had one menu: Spam. 'I was surprised what we could do - sweet and sour Spam, Spam fritters, Spam carbonara, Spam stroganoff, Spam stir fry...'A month and a half later fresh food finally made it to the base although there is no record that the squaddies actually realised that they had been on an all SPAM diet. He recalls: 'The first day off Spam, I prepared battered sausages, chips and curry sauce.” It doesn’t really seem like a paradigm leap but the Sergeant Major thought it was a real treat. Anyway there’s good news for the RSM - eleven different varieties of the product are now available, including Spam Hot & Spicy, Hickory Smoked Spam and Spam spread, with a plan to launch Spam sausages this year.

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Fruit or veg?

So what's the difference between fruit and veg ? Why is it that some products we consider to be vegetables, for example tomatoes, are in fact fruit and some that we consider to be fruits eg rhubarb, are in fact vegetables ? And more importantly who the hell cares ?
A tested definition of a fruit is the ripened seed bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible. So the fruit is any fleshy material covering a seed or seeds so therefore eggplants, tomatoes, cucumber, marrows, pumpkins and butternut are all fruits. Vegetables on the other hand are herbaceous plants cultivated for an edible part such as roots, stems, leaves or flowers placing rhubarb firmly in the realm of vegetables. Now the reason that this is so important is that researchers have recently discovered that fruit fans differ from vegetable lovers so before you start empathising with their results you better really understand where you stand in the fruit and vegetable stakes.
Vegetable lovers favour spicy foods, drink wine with their meals and will cook elaborate dishes for friends. Sweet toothed fruit fans plump for puddings, entertain fewer guests and are less adventurous in the kitchen. I don't why they spent so much time and money to discover this astounding information but if nothing else comes of it then at least it will keep me amused in the queue at Mr A's as I check out the basket of the person in front of me - is that a fruit or a vegetable ?........on balance are there more fruits or more vegetables?.........how many bottles of wine are lurking under those floppy spinach leaves ?........why has this oke only got boerewors ? I reckon it's going to keep me enthralled for hours.

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Rick keeps it local

Rick Stein is one of my favourite chefs. He always seems to have a measured approach to his cooking and life in general. He may churn out quite a lot of TV programmes but they’re more about the food than Rick Stein and so he’s managed to keep a relatively low profile. Not for him the urge to shock like that other Stein, Blumen Hestonstein, nor does he stoop to temper tantrums like His Gordoness or uttering expletives like that cheeky chappie from Essex, Jamie. That’s not to say that he hasn’t used his TV fame to good effect, after all he owns so many restaurants and businesses in his home base of Padstow that they’re seriously considering renaming it Padstein! But unlike his contemporaries he has resisted the temptation to spread his talents all over the place. Until now that is.
But in his usual measured manner Rick is to open his first business outside Padstow a mere 60 km away in Falmouth. His new fish and chip restaurant on Discovery Quay in Falmouth opens in March. The 130-cover restaurant, to be called simply Rick Stein’s Fish and Chips, will have a similar menu to the fish and chip restaurant on Padstow’s quayside, and will incorporate an additional oyster bar and takeaway facility. Rick, who operates four restaurants and a cook school in Padstow with wife Jill, in February last year also secured the leasehold of his local pub, St Austell Brewery’s The Cornish Arms in St Merryn, just two miles from Padstow. Certainly as far as he is concerned local is lekker!

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Watch out Heston!

If life throws you lemons make lemonade they say but it seems that most folk are happier to make ice cream. The "Gelato University" in Bologna dedicated to ice cream has seen a 90 per cent rise in enrolments as high-flying executives laid off in the recession seek to forge new careers producing the country's beloved gelato. More than 6,000 people attended the £600-a-week courses offered by the Gelato University in Bologna in 2008 but enrolments nearly doubled last year. Students come from all over the world, with budding gelato maestros attending from Australia, China, Sudan, Lebanon and Britain.
They have one dream in common: to learn how to make the world's best ice cream in the institute's high-tech laboratories and then use their new-found expertise to open gelaterie back home, from Beirut to Brighton. As well as learning how to concoct familiar flavours such as chocolate and vanilla, students experiment with more outlandish tastes, including gelato made from red wine, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and basil. "In China they have experimented with fish-flavoured gelato," said Patrick Hopkins, the American director of the university, which was established in 2003. "Gelato is a platform for flavours – you can adapt it to whatever culture you're in. Pear with Parmesan and lemon with basil are some of the more unusual ones our students have come up with." The university is an off-shoot of Carpigiani, an Italian company that manufactures about 70 per cent of the world's gelato-making machines.

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