the walls are dense with weird bric-a-brac, posthorns, ladders, a silhouette of a scarecrow; they don’t take credit cards, they forgot to even offer us dessert, and weren’t around to be asked for stuff half the time — there was a mysterious noisy party going on somewhere deep in the bowels of the place; the pictures on the stairs down to the kitchen and washrooms were just frames with no pictures in; the menu is italian on one side, french on the other — tho fondue is surely swiss… and it was totally haunting and recommendable

40 redchurch street, just off the brick end lane of bethnal green road

THEY DON’T SERVE BUTTER <— wtf?? this is bafflingly awesome

YOU WILL NEED:
Young spinach leaves
Avocados
Pine nuts
Haloumi*
Vinaigrette**
Tomatos (optional)
Peppers (optional)
Crispy prefried bacon slices (optional)***

NOW DO THIS:
i: slice avocados (and plus chop toms and peppers if using)
ii: brown pine nuts in a frying pan
iii: do NOT look away while pine nuts are browning or they will instantly blacken — science fact, they are the schrodinger’s cat of utter charring
iv: griddlefry haloumi if poss for stripy effect, otherwise fry normal way
v: put everything in big salad bowl and consume in a frenzy

VARIANTS:
*any cheese will work, esp. if strong
**viz olive oil and balsamic and sugar if not on a diet
***Or ham or salami or anything cold-meatish really — becky is veggie so i added this entire dimension

prep time = how quick can you peel an avocado?

er ANYWAY yes, what i bought was FRIED DACE WITH SALTED BLACK BEANS, and i just et em cold and they were nice, in a salty-ish way — the fish was crunchy brown in its friedness, and about sardine sized, and the black beans were er er as you’d expect if you’ve had em… ie i’m not going to attempt a description, so boo to you if you wanted one

bonus translation komedy: on the tin, which is labelled in chinese (cantonese i imagine), dutch and english, it says “DO NOT CONTAIN THE ANTISEPTIC” and “BEWARE OF CAN OPENING”

The first time I saw Earl Brutus was at Glastonbury in 1998. MyPete had been raving about them for months having seen them in Amsterdam. After four days of torrential rain, spirits were low and, to be honest with you, I didn’t get it. Lots of shouting, sampled glam drums and a funny Japanese bloke who didn’t really seem to do anything. Everyone else was buzzing but I was just a bit confused. It was only when I saw them a second time, at the Attic in Cheltenham a few months later (and then every three or four months after that, well, MyPete booked the bands you see), that it clicked into place. There was lots of shouting, sampled glam drums, and a Japanese bloke who didn’t seem to do anything and it was ASTONISHING. A bunch of grizzled, rather scary-looking blokes making an almighty racket and central to it all, Nick screaming lyrics about army boys, suicides with stars in their eyes and asking us to show him our minds. The one thing that brutus gigs never were was boring, shambolic often yes, but visceral and communal. Watching non-believers faces as we punched the air, joining in with the terrace chant choruses, trying to keep up with Sun-Yu’s drinking speed (the main thing he did, i soon realised, was drink lager). Given that the post-britpop landscape was such a graveyard of plodding sub-travises and ska-punk it was only Earl Brutus and Arab Strap (more grizzled old men getting pissed) that seemed to do anything for me.

The last time i saw Earl Brutus was the weekend of the jubilee in 2002, at the ICA. As we sat in the bar we saw the huge crowds of people being marshalled away from the palace as a fire alert or bomb threat or something had caused the whole area to be evacuated. Safe inside the 10 foot thick walls, we were left alone to continue with the gig. I never quite worked out why they’d been booked for this gig, they were supporting the Parkinsons and hardly anyone else seemed that botherd about them, but, down the front, the hardcore had come out of the woodwork and the band didn’t disappoint they were the same drunken, shouty, visceral, idiot genius they always were.

I missed the “re-elect ken” gig they did in 2004, but always had half an eye out for them when looking through the guardian gig guide. Surely, i thought, one day they’ll be back, nearly every other chancer from the era has reformed, but now, I guess not.

Here are some shamefully underwatch youtube clips. Thank you Nick.

Come Taste My Mind Video

Navyhead Video

Short clip of the ICA gig mentioned above

Earl Brutus wreck the Austrian Embassy, 2001 (SAS and the Glam that Goes With It and Navyhead)

I pretty much believe the internet is full of great recipes to try, but the world of American volume-based recipes using cups and “sticks” of butter just doesn’t work in the UK. I end up poking anxiously with floury hands on my laptop trying to check whether a teaspoon is a teaspoon is a teaspoon. Well, NO MORE. I am coming up with a definitive cheat sheet for the fridge, but it is NOT HELPED by finding ridiculous sites like the above which claims the UK equivalent to 1 US “cup” is “3/4 of a cup and 2 dsp”. Leaving aside the fact that I am British and am not quite sure of the difference between a desertspoon and a teaspoon (the REALLY weeny spoons, I guess?) - NO! UK measurements do not involve cups! They involve weights, in grams, or at a PUSH I can accept pounds and ounces in old money. What NONSENSE is this site claiming?!

Or if anyone would like to say that the UK started it with Pints and Imperial Pints and I am just thick, they are welcome to Try It, but frankly - weight based measurements are the way to go. I mean, even if you DO measure by volume, a cup of flour is different to a cup of WALNUTS or whatever. The standard in the UK is metric, I just find it downright bizarre have NO clue what that site is referencing. I now judge it: UNHELPFUL! And my cheatsheet is back at square one as how can I trust anything else on that site?

And speaking of which, where can I buy a set of balance scales from these days? Are they the sort of things found in Past Tymes stores and bought by Live Roleplaying Enthusiasts? (Sorry Tom).

ii. They are still completely horrible :(

===========================

Chestnut Cupcakes with Chocolate (Kate) Ganache ♥♥♥ - makes at the least 12, probably some more depending on how much you fill the cases innit.

APPARATUS

one big bowl, one medium bowl, one little bowl
2 x cake baking trays
cake cases
wooden spoon
tongue to lick spoon with
electric whisk or well-developed biceps (mmmm Yamapi’s arms mmmmm)
blender multiprick thing

OPTIONAL
1 x laptop computer to watch Proposal Daisakusen on for the aforementioned Yamapi’s arms omg like seriously he was wearing a white vest and oh god NRGRGHHHH ihwsi fuohsauioghighuiahuiohuig I nearly died.

INGREDIENTS

110g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
200g sugar (i used half caster/half golden caster here)
80-100g chesnuts! (i used frozen ones - will explain what I did with these shortly)
110g room temperature butter plus a splodge more (a teaspoon cut off the side did me)
250ml semi-skimmed milk (plus an extra splash)
1 tsp rice vinegar
2 big eggys
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract* (tho, see note below about this)

CHOCOLATE KATE ‘GANACHE’ (here we get way more inexact as I just hoofed this entirely)
A “big bar” (100g or so?) of any fair-trade dark chocolate, I used something that was 72% cocoa solids but I can’t remember the brand, sry
Splodge of that semi-skimmed milk from before
Splodge of the butter as well

METHOD

1. Preheat yr oven to 180C

2. Add 1tsp of rice vinegar (but I guess any vinegar will do!) to 250ml milk and leaving it to sit and curdle itself for at least 10 mins, or however long it takes you to do steps 3-5 :)

2. sift your flour and bicarb into a medium size bowl. You can do this whilst step 3 is boiling if you want…

3. OK, some explanation here - you want to somehow obtain a chestnut puree. I suppose you could just use store bought chestnut puree and save yrself f-d but I had some chestnuts in the freezer so here is what I did; Boil up your chestnuts and get them nice and soft and plonk them in a bowl. Get out multiprick and whizz the chestnuts. You will note with some dismay it is not quite a smooth puree so add your splodge of butter and splash of milk and don’t worry! it will ALL BE OKAY. Leave the chestnuts to the side for now cos they’ll have to cool off a bit whilst you…

4. Cream together your butter and sugar in the big bowl - I used an electric whisk but you don’t have to, just get it nice and fluffy, lots of beating. Then, add your eggs one at a time, beat some more. Then add your chesnut puree! And yep, beat more some! Plonk in the vanilla essence at this stage too.

5. Add the dry stuff (flour and bicarb) and fold it in in bits, alternating with your fake buttermilk mixture that you made in step 2. Taste some of it! Nom nom.

6. When all nicely mixed together, stick your cake cases in your tin and put a tablespoon of mix in each one - mine didn’t rise that much so don’t worry about overfilling as much.

7. BAAAAAAKE! 25 mins turning once, shifting the stuff round from lower shelf to top shelf if your oven is as bloody tempramental as mine.

8. Cool on wire rack. Or whatever.

KATE GANACHE:

Break up your chocolate and melt it in MARIE’S BATH (bain marie = glass bowl suspended over boiling water so the steam nicely melts your choc). Stir stir, lovely melty chocolate nom nom. You want it to get to a nice smooth consistency so it can go on the top of your cupcakes, so add in milk veery gradually and stir around - it will look like it’s going a bit gritty but it will smooth out - add a wee bit of butter towards the end as well. As a ‘guide’, my mixture went a little lighter brown rather than the original very dark as a result of adding the milk… then I added it to the cupcakes by dipping the back of a spoon in the kate ganache and then laying the spoon on top of the cupcakes. It was a little messy but sadly the decor of cupcakes isn’t my strong point.

*Feedback: sadly no taste of chestnuts remained at the end. JUST as they came out the oven there was something nice and subtle there, but as they cooled it just went away. And for some reason we got a strange tang of… orange?? I just don’t even KNOW, you guys. I’m not sure whether I should be using more chestnuts, or whether a different type of sugar would bring out the chestnut flavour rather than overwhelm it. Also, you’ll see I used vanilla extract there - I’m not sure if that was actually necessary here, if I were trying it again I don’t think I’d use it, or if you MUST, just the tiniest splash you can fit in… any ideas, o readers, as to why chestnut may not be chestnut?

News reaches us from blackleg our intrepid reporter, MattDC, that scenes like the above are no longer permissable at Glastonbury as THE MAN has BANNED brothers from selling plastic 2 litre bottles of their yellow nectar. We are not yet sure if this is due to the plastic making a right old mess or the fact that each bottle contains approximately 14 units of alcohol.

If you have joined our Pilton Boycott this year (and thank you all 850,000 of you* that have) but are still hankering after peary goodness, brothers is now available quite widely. Use their excellent ciderfinder to find yr nearest stockist!

UPDATE: This just in “Theres a dude selling rockingdadchairs! ACTUAL ROCKING DADCHAIRS! Omg”

*based on reports in previous years of a million people trying to get tickets on the first day

Here’s how to make a Caucasian when you want your customer to look at you with a mix of horror, pity, disbelief and contempt! As practiced by the horrible shifty barman at the London Excel Novotel.

AVOID THIS HOTEL FOR DRINKING. It’s SURROUNDED BY BARS, for a start, and the bar people are USELESS! If you’re with a large crowd who ‘have seats’, convince them that their seats are only making them weak. I failed in this task and my punishment was to drink this concoction.

HOWEVER - I recommend scamming a free breakfast at the Novotel as they have large hem-hem ‘decorative’ yellow peppers which are delicious when hungover, as well as large amounts of smoked salmon which you can pretty much scoff whole as they bring another bucketful instantly. HURRAH FOR CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION AND THE SOULLESS AUTOMATONS WHO PARADE THEIR FILTH IN THE DLR ZONE.

Anyway, here’s the recipe:

1. Get a pint glass and pour in two fingers of whole milk.
2. Slap a cocktail shaker on it and shake portentiously for about two minutes. Ignore look of puzzled fear from your customer. HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND HOW IT IS HERE.
3. Put the whole box-and-dice down and get a smallish glass. Half fill with ice water. YES WATER
4. Get a shot of vodka and pour it in.
5. Get a shot of kahlua and pour it into the watery vodka.
6. IMPORTANT NAY VITAL do NOT put the kahlua back on the shelf WITHOUT SPINNING IT THROUGH A MIND-BENDING PIROUETTE OF JUGGLING JIGGERY POKERY as in the film COCKTAIL starring TOM CRUISE. If you fail to include this step THE SHELF WILL BE ANGRY and take A TERRIBLE REVENGE.
7. Verrrry slowly drizzle the thick, lumpy milk that you’ve shaken within an inch of its life over the watery black mess, creating something that looks like a glass of curdled Guinness and also looks COMPLETELY UNDRINKABLE.
8. Slooooowly slide a cocktail straw or two into the mess so as not to disturb your artwork.

Nobody at the table could believe it was a white russian, and after I’d finished showing them the horror I stirred the damn thing up so it looked normal and tried it - it was both watery and unpleasantly strong, two things a white russian should never be. From now on I will call this version of the cocktail a Bernard Manning because it is the most offensive and yet self-satisfied Caucasian I have ever been presented with.

Here’s how to make a good white russian:

1. 1xVodka.
2. 1xKahlua.
3. Add between 3 and 5xMilk.
4. NO TOM CRUISE NO NO NO NO NO NO NO IT IS UNNECESSARY STOP THAT
5. If you want to get fancy, sprinkle a few chocolate shavings on top. Or serve it in a cup made of chocolate if you want to get obscenely fat. Both are perfectly acceptable.

But back to the Ship last night, where three Bass pumps smiled happily at me. So due to lack of choice and partially because I wanted to, I drank Bass all night. And hence the resurrection of this rarely seen FT column, when I try to describe the kind of drunk Bass made me - and everyone else there who was drinking it.

Let’s work backwards on this one. I got to the pub lateish (for me) so probably had only four pints, but this morning there was a definite presence hanging over me. Perhaps the famous red triangle was, like road signs of the similar shape, denoting a warning. Dehydrated, and surly, it was the feeling after a good night out. And working back from there, when I got in after drinking it I had bags of energy. I also managed to read on the bus quite happily without being too drunk, so its strong, but not in a mind addling way. Indeed I remember having some rather spirited but cogent arguments on the way out of the pub. High spirits in the pub too, where everyone seemed flush with bonhomie (and playing an anti-practical joke on someone helped). The beer itself was well kept but not much to write home about, a typical reliable Burton Ale. But whilst it lingers a touch, it was conducive to a really fun night out.

I drank Bass All Night and I was happy.

*Though it wasn’t his birthday and was actually Steve M, FT site designers birthday. Which make sit all quite confusing really.

**Turns out that the Bass Triangle is the UK’s first ever trademark!

AS IF! Not that I feel the re-re-brand is anything other than a deeply cynical move but it’s a well-timed one and likely to succeed in the short-term without damaging the brand in the long term. The cohort of consumers who identified with Marathon are now getting beyond the age where they buy countline confectionery - how better to get them to at least re-try the product? Nostalgia - especially for a cheaper age - works well in times of economic difficulty - and so does the parochialism which Mars is tapping into by jettisoning its ‘global’ Snickers brand. It’s a bit of free publicity in a sector where headline-making innovation is thin on the ground. And it’s sufficiently long after the Marathon brand was dropped originally for the move not to look like any kind of admission of error by Mars.

I chose Addicted To Curry on title alone. Here is what it’s about: a schoolgirl has been left in charge of her father’s curry house, which is failing because she can’t cook. She saves a dying man in the street who turns out to be an amazing young chef and an old friend of her father’s. Together they work to make the curry house a success! Every episode features:

• a business dilemma they must solve using the power of curry!
• a scene in which someone tastes the curry and goes “OMG THIS IS AMAZING!” for a whole page
• a curry recipe

The storytelling is fast paced though the art is very sketchy - sometimes faces have just been left off. Some nice touches though - I like the way the characters turn into dinky little cartoon creatures when they’re talking you through the recipe. I haven’t tried any of the recipes - they all seem happily inauthentic but probably quite tasty. And obviously this is a plot and style and subject matter you would never in a grillion years get in a Western comic, which is one of the things Western readers associate with manga and like about it.

Another thing Western readers associate with manga is gratuitous schoolgirl pervertalism, and Addicted To Curry also delivers on this. The talented young chef is also a lech and a groper, and every episode has a comical sequence in which he peers in on his employer in the shower, fondles her cousin, stares up her skirt etc, receiving a slap for his pains. This gets old very quickly - combined with the formulaic story structure it led me to give up on ATC after a few episodes. Interesting as an illustration of manga’s range, but not recommended.

KFC, listen to your core chicken constituency. KFC AM only makes sense if you mean ONE AM and what you mean is some kind of gravy bucket dirty chicken deal. I can only think that the indie sector has you rattled in this new chicken 2.0 era of the long tail (”Long tail? Stick it in the chicken popcorn maker.”) At this rate SF and HF will be making you a laughing (chicken) stock.

full size here

Anyway… COME DINE WITH ME. Last night’s was more than awesome. This show has grown — a day-time staple, it’s gathered celebrity editions, and now it comes in a new format. No longer a short show every day of the week covering 5 people — they now compress 4 people in to a one hour show. It’s a sensation. Well for something that’s come from day-time. (It even has a rip off version on the beeb hosted by Simon Rimmer who seems to be trying to be on telly every day of the week for an entire year.)

But then having established a regular format, with often witty and interesting people who occasionally come to verbal blows, it goes HAYWIRE. Remember that first edition of Wife Swap with the foul mouthed racist woman — it was well train wreck. This was much the same but written by Mike Leigh.

The point of the show, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is to impress strangeres with your culinary skill and hosting ability. Remember that.

We’re in Newcastle. (oh the shame of it all). And we have (mis)matched up a pompous Tory with aspirations to become an MP, a harpy, an oversize child and a quiet studious looking woman. Just guess who won? Go on. Run with that prejudice.

The Tory boy is Brian Moore. No not that one. This one reminded me of a less suave David Van Day. Throw away lines that were painful. Dinner-party question: “If you had a thousand pounds to spend, what would you get?” “Well I do have a thousand pounds…”.

For some reason Brian is making a point about cheap super markets and bought everything from Netto - intending to wow everyone with the sumptious 3 course meal and then reveal his secret. But he can’t keep his powder dry and blurts it out before the dessert. Which is a shame as the dessert is a killer - half bananas and tinned mandarin segments on a plate. Oh with squirty cream on it. “Check the website for the recipe” says the narrator (one of the ‘writers’ in Moving Wallpaper).

Brian does not get on with Brenda. Brenda has already explained, over the first meal of the week, that red-meat ‘isn’t digested it just rots inside you’. She later reveals that Brian’s meal has made her sick. A meal that she was augmenting with enormous quantities of Tabasco. Oh and extra fried chillies made for her on request. And she continues to mention this while they are eating another meal.

Brenda didn’t really like anything, managed to make faces at all the food presented to her, yet actually produced… well a very ordinary meal. The most uncomfortable meal I have ever seen on reality television. No on television full stop. Scripted drama has nothing on it. I might have to rewatch it to transcribe some of the exchanges. The studious lady and the overgrown child shrink into the background — ‘let it be over soon’ all over their faces. “Phenomenal” as Brian says. Repeatedly.

The drunk scoring and bitching in the cab on the way back from the dinner was just unbalanced. I actually had to stop watching at one point, from the pain.

Perhaps you have to have seen other editions to see how unusual and agonizing it all was. Nobody here seemed out to make any effort — like an extra filler episode with people pulled off the street at the last minute. These people had not thought “I have a killer signature dish and my parties are legendary, i should go on that telly show! Now where’s the application form”

The winner was the studious lady (Rebecca).

There’s been another subtle change in the sandwich range though: everything possible is now branded “British”. Ham and cheddar is now British Ham and Cheddar; British Chicken and British Beef feature prominently. This vaguely irked me but from a marketing POV emphasising British provenance is a win-win at the moment: it appeals to one segment because it feels less carbon-intensive, and to another (possibly quite different) segment because, well, it’s British. “Buy British” has in the past been associated with an appeal to protectionist, socially conservative ’little Englander’ values, which won’t have been wholly absent from M&S’ calculations, seeing as the M&S brand itself is a bastion of home counties Englishness. I think the confidence with which they’re using it here though is a reflection of the rise in respectability of British food and British cookery over the last decade. Presented right, “British” has become a premium label as well as a simple patriotic one - which handily lets M&S shunt up sandwich prices as food costs spiral.

All of which doesn’t help me at lunchtime as my options continue to narrow - something has gone very wrong with Pret in the last six months or so, too. At this rate I may have to actually keep my regular resolution of making my own sammiches.

(crossposted with Blackbeard Blog)

We note that Wagamama (on London’s Trendy Wigmore Street only for the timebeing) has commenced a new breakfast menu (pdf)! Your standard smoothies are still there, but what is this I see? Allow me to extract a few portions that drew my attn in particular…

breakfast yaki soba £5.50
teppan fried soba noodles with egg, smoked streaky bacon,
savoy cabbage, mushrooms and fresh chopped tomatoes (ed thinks: …. …. ….ed does not even KNOW)

wagamama kedgeree £5.50
a blend of sticky rice, naturally smoked haddock, spring onion and a
soft boiled egg bound in a curry sauce (ed thinks: haddock? curry sauce?? BREAKFAST?? BLEEE!!!)

okonomiyaki £4.95 (FOR BREAKFAST??? D00ds)
a traditional japanese style omelette filled with red and green peppers,
savoy and white cabbage and mushrooms topped with
katsuobushi (dried tuna fish shavings) and aonori (seaweed)(ed thinks: b-b-b-but… where will they COOK it?)

asa gohan v £3.95
a traditional japanese breakfast of sticky rice, miso soup and pickles
can also be ordered with grilled salmon (ed thinks: frankly I have sort of been of the opinion that whenever people claim this is a traditional japanese breakfast they are just taking the mickey out of me as in every single dorama I watch everyone is ALWAYS having either toast or cereal and I have not yet seen one single breakfast scene featuring rice, soup or pickles - not even in Gokusen(2) - bluddy kids?? Someone who has actually been actual Japan, not just telly Japan can probably inform me whether this is GENERALLY the case or not- please?)

They will also do you toast, pastries, a regular “full english”, scrambled eggs, coffee etc… but frankly in for a fusion penny in for a fusion couple of yen, am I right?

*for now - keep an eye on FT for GREAT NEWS for all our listeners.

Unaware of these tendencies lurking so nearby, I found myself surprised that upon sitting down to a dinner party in Holloway, the pleasant Chinese couple to my right who were cracking flavoured sunflower hulls and sucking out the contents with nimble aplomb announced to me, apropos of absolutely nothing (which is how these things always come out), that they were “very religious”. And left it there, picking at their seeds intently.

There really is little I enjoy less than discussing my dinner companions’ religious predilictions, but you have to say something, so I did.

“We’re Pentecostals,” he said, the mound of hulls having now grown to the size of a small anthill. She looked at me and said “Christian!”

“For 15 years,” the man said, grimly, I thought. After dinner was over he went out to the back patio and smoked the rest of a half-finished cigar, by himself.

Before that, though — but after the sunflower seeds — the entire table tasted what our host called “1000-year-old egg”. A delicacy in China and Hong Kong, 1000-year-old eggs are created by essentially burying eggs in mud for several weeks or months, turning the shell black, the white a translucent amber, and the yolk a mysterious dark green. A bit like some crash-landed alien, thawed out only in order to be eaten. (But will it change us if we do?)

The Chinese Pentecostals dug in, and smiled at our giggles and hesitant sniffing. They had nothing to fear from a 1000-year-old egg.

what’s next? steak plates? lamb chop pans? or just HOVER BACON?

Nice to see them still pushing the Dark Chocolate flavours, although I think I’m still yet to see a dark chocolate teacake in this ‘ere London. Then again! I am no teacake fan. Get your marshmallows off me bleeergh cough hack splutter. Even IF they are arguably the most fun to eat in their methodology as long as you do it correctly, ie smash the teacake against your forehead first in order to crack the chocolate coatin. If you like, you can shout “Haaaaaaai-YAAAA!” whilst doing so, but hey, it’s not essential. I’d shout “YAAAMAPIII DAAAAAAI-SKKKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII” - or I would - if I liked teacakes. But as I don’t - my confession remains…. unmade. DAMN YOU FOUL MARSHMALLOW.

I didn’t actually approach the longed-for experience with the serious intention of ending up semi-conscious on the bathroom floor, but that is indeed where I found myself after a night swigging alcopops like it really was lemonade.

I can inform ms easton that a night on her beverage (at 4.2%, stronger that bacardi breezers and only just weaker than smirnoff ice) would almost certainly result in exactly the same outcome and, if my experiences are anything to go by, probably a much worse morning after…

I suppose it’s quite handy when your mum runs a social enterprise body though…

Of course the Rolo milkshake has been around occasionally in McDonald’s, though I don’t think there were any toffees in the bottom of the cup. And again McDonald’s have been flogging their soft ice-cream / chcoclate bar concoctions for years. But the dessert drink? I’m not sure we need.

That said I have a completely different brand category people might want to consider. The starter coffee. Yes people like a soup, or maybe a prawn cocktail, but sometimes you are sleepy when you go into a meal. One of the FT writers was given looks of horror when she ordered a coffee for a starter recently - it strikes me this must be rectified before we can tackle dessert drinks!

However this weekend the spelling mistake was corrected by the specials menu, where along with a pretty awesome looking Pork Belly, the frog got a make-over as: WICKED CRAZY FROG.

Who could turn down eating that annoying thing? And it was very very tasty. Usual frogs legs caviats apply, it tastes a bit like a more amphibious set of chicken wings, and the wickedness seems to be akin to the wickedness of the Wicked Zinger Meal at KFC. And the joy of knowing you were eating a number one artist as well!

But really I was just annoyed because of what I hoped the site was: a food science exploration into whether or not a given use-by date actually means it. As I understand use-by dates, they’re enormous bet-hedges: what they mean is “if you eat this before this date it won’t be horrible” not “if you eat this after this date it WILL be horrible” - but the gap between horrible and non-horrible after the date passes varies hugely by foodstuff. I am always deeply wary of post-UBD milk, bread is also a danger zone, but other dairy products (cheese, butter, etc.) are fine for a good while after, and convenience food, weirdly enough, seems very conservative on its use-bys. (This post was prompted by a tub of chilled four cheese pasta sauce, forgotten about until 10 days after use-by and then ate largely to punish myself for buying the wretched thing in the first place - but it was fine! (i.e. tasted as bland as it always would have - the four cheeses are in there to NEGATE one another not enhance!)).

Where the UBDs really go into “help!” territory is meat - there is clearly some wiggle room but how much? Since moving house we’re now within striking distance of a good and trustworthy butcher, so hurrah nom nom tasty meat but also no use by dates. What, oh readers, are your policies on use-by dates?

(I am open to persuasion that UBDs in general are a huge conspiracy by supermarkets to get us to buy more stuff, but of course for the individual punter they’re also a good way to get extra discounts, especially at Waitrose in my experience.)