Dilly Diner of the Week

I've got no time for the ridiculous circus we see on TV billed as the World Wrestling Federation championships, grotesquely muscular idiots with more oil on them than a packet of slap chips all trying to string a few words together at the top of their voices - what a bunch of tossers. So I'm not really sure how I would approach the regulars of this week's Dilly Diner who are also aficionados of the noble art of wrestling albeit restricted to the pedantry parts of the body. The Bentley Brook Inn and Fenny's Restaurant is the world headquarters of the fair game of Toe Wrestling it seems.
Every year in the tiny village in the Staffordshire Peak District grown men gather to engage in their chosen sport of toe wrestling. This toe-nement also attracts contestants from all over the world, so called women included, but what is really bizarre for an event of this nature is that it is sponsored by Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream ( don't even think of potential new flavour development ).
Claiming top honours in this strange sport is no mean feet, sorry I mean feat. The "wrestle" consists of raising one foot off the ground, while the toes of the other foot engage the opponent's, and each contender tries to push the other's foot over toward the dreaded line (which, strangely, consists of a wooden board). Winner is the best of 3 toe-downs and contestants experiencing a lot of pain can yield by screaming out "Toe much !" Of course no artificial stimulants are permitted although fortunately beer is considered to be a perfectly natural stimulant.

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That Was The Week That Was

One of the daftest stories this week was the news that Greenenergy, a biofuel company in the UK and Brocklesby Ltd, a specialist in waste cooking oil, have partnered to extract oil from fatty foods, such as crisps, pies and pasties, which would otherwise be destined for landfill or compost. Greenergy, which supplies one fifth of Britain’s road fuel, announced today that it was teaming up with Brocklesby Ltd, a company that recycles edible oils and food products. The deal will see high fat solid foods such as pies, sausage rolls, pastry and crisps, deemed unsaleable, converted into biofuel. They will process items which have been rejected by food manufacturers on the grounds they are either misshapen, overcooked or past their sell by date. So it appears that someone is going to use energy and ingredients to overproduce badly cooked sausage rolls which will then be converted into biofuel! Is everyone bloody mad?



Mind you they probably would have had some slim pickings this week as the entire UK guzzled down every sausage roll in sight as they celebrated the royal nuptials. Around the country there were thousands of street parties with people taking advantage of the extra bank holiday. There were 5,500 official applications for road closures in order to set up the kerbside celebrations Tesco said it had sold 120 miles of bunting, enough to wrap round Westminster Abbey 100 times. Its sales of champagne and sparkling wine were significantly up. While Marks and Spencer claimed sales of chicken drumsticks had doubled in a week to one million and sales of sausage rolls reached two million.



The formal lunch reception at Buckingham Palace was attended by 650 guests, who consumed 10,000 canapes, prepared by a team of 21 chefs with not a sausage roll in sight which was probably just as well since Wills and Kate had banned beer in favour of bubbly stuff. They felt it wasn’t quite appropriate to be knocking back pints in the presence of the Queen. And I dare say it wouldn’t be quite appropriate to bugger up the taste of your bubbly with soggy sausage rolls and HP sauce.

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Chefs Secret Sauce

Who could it possibly be everyone was asking as one of Britain’s top TV chefs yesterday hid behind a judge’s gagging order after being accused of sexual discrimination by a former employee? The female ex-worker also claims she was unfairly sacked because of what she knew about his private life. The renowned restaurateur did not attend the hearing in London, where an order banning his identification was granted. He can only be referred to as “L” and the order also banned publication of his company details. The judge ruled his business empire should only be referred to as “K Ltd”, although the gagging order is due to be challenged at another hearing in July. They claimed the chef’s privacy should be discussed at a closed hearing to prevent the public finding out details of the allegations. Not so much Chefs Secret Sauce as Chefs Secret Sauciness!

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I wish I could bake a decent croissant

There are few things in the culinary arena that I haven't tried my hand at over the years. Like most chefs my natural bias is towards working the stove top, grilling, sauteeing, poaching, stewing, vast bubbling pots of stocks and sauces but occasionally I've ventured into the pastry kitchen with less than stunning although still edible results. But one thing which has eluded me is how to make a decent croissant. Oh, I've eaten thousands of them all over the world, I know exactly what the perfect croissant should be, buttery, flaky and feather light but this pastry chef's work of art is one of the kitchen's supreme tests of skill.
Although something similar may have been already in production, we can pinpoint exactly when the croissant as we know it was invented. As the Turks tried to invade Budapest in 1686 by digging under the city walls, bakers, who were already at their work, raised the alarm and the attackers were chased off. As a reward for their vigilance the government allowed them to sell a speciality at a premium price which was essentially a bread roll which they cheekily shaped like a crescent to mock the crescent moon of the Turkish flag but it was the French who, later in the 19 th century, created the now familiar flaky dough that we associate with the dish.
Some things just haven't changed as far as the modern croissant is concerned, especially in Cape Town . We still pay a premium price for what is flour, fat and water, many of our bakers must be of Turkish origin because they still produce croissants which are beautifully shaped but taste like bread rolls and when you can find one which is buttery, flaky, crisp on the outside, tender and moist in the middle, then you can also find a little bit of kindness in your heart and forgive the French for lots of other sins.

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Whine about wine prices

I've given this a lot of thought and I can't figure out how they calculate wine prices. I know how they do it in restaurants, it's very simple, multiply the cost price by 4, add the average age of your serving staff and take away the number you first thought of, but how do the wine producers work out their selling price?
At the lower end of the market it seems to be relatively easy - so many tons of grapes yield so many litres of grape juice which yield so many litres of wine. Take the price of 750 ml of wine add the cost of the bottle, cork, closure and label and then put your mark up on and go out into the cut throat market place to sell your wares somewhere between R20 and R50. But what I'm interested in is, what exactly is the formula at the upper end of the wine trade? With the established estates and brands, how exactly do they arrive at a price for larny wine? Is it a case of less grapes available, then less grape juice, then less wine, then higher prices? Surely in that case the temptation would be to grow more grapes? Maybe there's a shortage of "terroir" to produce that exact wine, I can understand that. However the bit that baffles me is what exactly is the difference between a R70 bottle of wine, a R90 bottle of wine and a R120 bottle of wine ? Is it 10,000 litres of grape juice produced, 8,000 litres, 4,000 litres and so on - what is the formula? And is the % return on investment the same % for each band of pricing?
You see I know how they cost out food items like beef for example - it's all done by ratios, you only get a certain % of beef fillet per beast and the selling price is determined by a formula including the % yield from the total carcass, the cost price of the animal on the hoof and the % markup so there's certainly no thumb sucks involved and that's why fillet steak costs the same in Woolies, Mr A's and Checkers doesn't it? It doesn't? Are you sure? You're not suggesting that it's a case of " let's see what we can get away with?" I find that as difficult to believe of the consumer's friends as I do that fat cat wine farmers choose their wine prices after having consumed a tad too much of their own product and in an attempt to upstage their equally snooty neighbours.

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Wrinkle free pizza

So what happens when you take a classic dish and start buggering around with it? Well that's simple - you bugger it up! It is a constant source of mystery to me why people believe that when it comes to dishes which approach perfection, that they have something new to bring to the party. Mind your own bloody business I say.
I love pizza and I've probably tried all sorts of variations both from around the world and from my own pizza oven but pizza is simply a thin bread base, a sparing application of tomato sauce, grated mozzarella and seasoning in the form of salt and pepper, oregano and some finely diced garlic in olive oil. That's it, now leave it alone. But they just can't, can they? And sadly it has more to do with looking for their 15 minutes of fame rather than improving a classic. A so-called "anti-wrinkle" pizza created by a nutritionist in southern Italy has caused a stir, with pizza purists protesting against the desecration of the signature dish of Naples. The "healthy" pizza is made up of three times the amount of fibre found in a classic pizza and boasts that it contains more magnesium and iron, thanks to its ingredients, including wholemeal flour. At least eight vegetables or sauces in the pizza allegedly create the anti-oxidant effects against ageing: tomatoes, rocket, garlic, courgettes, basil, mushrooms, carrots and spinach. The Pope apparently loves the "anti-age" pizza. So they've tied up the healthy and the religious lobby, now they've just got to find someone who actually likes the taste.

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Sunday afternoon at the bioscope

Here's a wonderful clip of the "Big Yin" Billy Connolly explaining in his own unique manner exactly why Americans have an obesity problem.

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