THE FOOD ROOM & LIBRARY, LONDON SW1

UPDATE: The new term at the FOOD ROOM & LIBRARY starts tomorrow, 28th September 2010. Cooking Basics courses will run every Tuesday, Intermediate classes on Wednesdays and Advanced and Ambitious courses every Thursday - between 11.00 and 12.00 or 14.00 and 15.00. Courses cost from £25 per person (up to a maximum of 10) - for 45 minutes of quick-step tips and tricks, a glass of wine/cup of coffee and tasting samples of the food prepared - up to £120 - for demonstrations (on Thursday afternoons between 1.00 p.m. and 3.45 p.m), which are extensive, detailed sessions for up to 6 students, including lunch with wine, coffee/tea and take-home tasting samples, plus use of The Food Library afterwards.

The Food Room & Library is the brainchild of Jane Lunzer Gifford. Trained at Leith’s, Jane has spent the past 30 years cooking and teaching about food. She has also written cookery books, done food photography and created dishes for all sorts of events. 'Maximum impact with minimum effort’ is Jane’s principle – and is the basis for the demonstrations she gives in The Food Room, a beautiful, calm, comfortable and spacious kitchen in Jane's Eccleston Square home. She gives demonstrations either on a one-to-one basis or to groups of up to ten (ranging from £25 to £120 per person) and tailors her lessons to suit her clients’ needs. She teaches how to taste, assess and 'tweak' recipes and stresses the importance of presenting food beautifully. She does not believe in sticking rigidly to a recipe, when it can be just as successful - and much more fun - to go off-piste. Jane believes that with a little coaxing and one or two guidelines, anyone can cook with confidence and panache.

Adjoining The Food Room is a wonderful library of 700 food-related books, a resource which she is happy to share. Guests at the demonstrations or Library subscribers (see below) can drop by, have a cup of coffee and enjoy the thoughts of writers such as MFK Fisher, Jane Grigson, Fergus Henderson and Nigel Slater, explore the esoteric simplicity of Japanese cookery through Shizuo Tsuji or dip into the learned scientific explanations of Harold McGee. Some of the titles in Jane’s collection date as far back as the 1700s and give a fascinating insight into how approaches to food have changed - or not - over time. The Library continues to grow – selectively – and many contemporary publications are for sale at 10% less than cover price. Orders can be placed in advance for books about to be published, and the Library offers a search service on behalf of clients for titles no longer available from the usual sources.

There is also a small selection of some of the best cookery equipment for sale – pieces that Jane considers highly useful. Cards and gift-wrapping are available too.

The Food Library annual membership fee of £200 is inclusive of drop-in use, menu planning and cookery advice, magazines to browse and refreshments. It is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 8.45 am to 11.30am. After hours access is available by appointment, and questions can be emailed at any time – with a response guaranteed within 24 hours. Membership of the library gives individuals a 10% discount on demonstrations.

The Food Room & Library
80 Eccleston Square
London SW1V 1PP
020 7630 6036 / 07920 755 998
www.thefoodroomandlibrary.co.uk

Lay & Wheeler's Bordeaux 2009 Offers

Wine merchants, Lay & Wheeler, have been assiduous in sending their customers emails to let them know about the release of prices for the 2009 vintage in Bordeaux. I did not taste the wines en primeur and prices are looking on the high side, but, if you want to take a punt, below is maybe one of the wines to opt for, as indeed are many of the 'second wines' of the Grands Vins. L&W say it is "easily the best second wine of Ducru-Beaucaillou that we have ever tasted".

Visit the Lay & Wheeler website at www.laywheeler.com/Bordeaux2009 to see all their Bordeaux 2009 releases to date, or contact one of their wine consultants on 0845 330 1855 to discuss the wines and the vintage.


2009 La Croix de Beaucaillou, St-Julien £297 per 12 bottle case in bond
Very attractive and pure, perfumed, blueberry and blackcurrant nose, with creamy notes and a touch of graphite. On palate the fruit is pure and focused. The tannins are fine and accessible and the finish is fresh and of good fruit length. Gently expressed, very well balanced and likely to represent a fabulous quality to price ratio.
Drink: 2015-2023

CARBON DATING OF WINE

This is an extract from an article that appeared in Drinks Business....it looks as if the skills of MWs will soon be redundant!

"Scientists searching for a way to spot cheap wines being passed off as fine vintages have developed a method of carbon-dating wine to prevent forgery. The method involves measuring the trace amounts of carbon released into the atmosphere during atomic bomb testing in the 1960s that have been absorbed by vines and into the wine. The technique allows scientists to pinpoint exactly which year the wine was made, with the levels of carbon in the atmosphere having gradually reduced year-on-year since testing ended.

Speaking at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco, Dr Graham Jones from the University of Adelaide, Australia, said that misrepresenting the vintage is a never-ending problem for collectors, with up to 5% of wines sold globally thought to be fake. He said: “The problem goes beyond ordinary consumers being overcharged for a bottle of expensive wine of a famous winery with a great year listed on the label.

The age of a wine can be accurately measured by comparing the amount of carbon-14, which was released by bomb testing in the 1940s to 1960s, to the amount of carbon-12".

WHISKY TASTING IN PERPIGNAN

We are sadly not going down to Roussillon for Easter, but for those of you who might be, Perpignan drinks retailer, La Part des Anges, is holding a whisky tasting on Friday, 2nd April from 7-9pm, at 2bis rue des Coquelicots, near the Palais des Congres, at which Julian Hutchings will be present. It costs 5 euros. For more information and to subscribe to the Cave La Part des Anges newsletter, write to: cavepartdesanges@gmail.com.

Kinloch Lodge's 'beer flights'

Michelin-starred Kinloch Lodge in Sleat on the Isle of Skye, which is owned by bestselling cookery writer Claire Macdonald, has begun to offer ‘beer flights’ to match every dish on its menu. The restaurant already offers ‘wine flights’, ‘malt whisky flights’ and ‘beer and dram chasers’.

Sixteen beers have been selected - fifteen of which are from Scotland – making this one of the most extensive bottled-beer lists of any Scottish restaurant.

Sam Smith’s raspberry beer from Yorkshire is the only English beer. The others come from Skye, Orkney, Arran, Edinburgh, the Black Isle, Alva, Alloa and Fraserburgh. Other ingredients include heather and seaweed, which were used in brewing before the arrival of hops in the 1500s.

Tom Eveling, who manages the restaurant, says the reaction to the ‘beer flights’ has been very positive.

For more information, visit: www.kinloch-lodge.co.uk.

Restaurant La Carmagnole, Perpignan

This could not be more of a contrast to the Auberge de l'Ill, but is, nevertheless, a real find, for which we thank the same friends (Mary Ann and Neil) who recommended Le Petit Comptoir in Narbonne (see below). We have now been there twice and have decided we will time our future visits to Perpignan in order to return. Tucked away from the main hustle and bustle, but still in one of the old town's characterful, narrow streets, this is a small (26 covers), unassuming restaurant which is open for lunch only (till 3pm), except on Sundays. Inside, the walls are lined with old photos and prints, but also some rather lurid mosaic tiles, but the atmosphere is warm and welcoming. The menu, scrawled on a blackboard, consists of three starters, three mains, four 'tartes salees' (quiches) and four desserts. Perfectly acceptable wines (from Dom Brial) are served in carafes. Mains, including the quiches, served with salad, are 8.50 euros, but a main plus starter or dessert is a mere 11 euros. All the food is home-cooked (except for bread and ice cream) and simply delicious - just as bistro food should be. Remarkably, it is both cooked and served by the chef/owner - with no help whatsoever - and yet the service is speedy and efficient. On our last visit, we chose tagine de porc aux pruneaux et amandes (tagine of pork with prunes and almonds), a copious plate of tasty, tender pork, infused with a rich, red wine and cinnamon sauce and served with a generous portion of cous cous and lapin sauce moutarde (rabbit in a mustard sauce) which was again a generous portion of tender meat, served with a deliciously piquant sauce and a mash of potato and carrot. For pudding, we chose a tarte a la rhubarbe (rhubarb tart) and tarte aux amandes et au chocolat (almond and chocolate tart). I usually avoid pastry in restaurants, but had spotted that a neighbour's tarte salee looked as if it had a nice, thin crust, so took the plunge. The pastry was not only thin, but crisp and flavoursome. The rhubarb, set in a clafoutis-like filling, was nicely tart. The chocolate in the other tart was good quality and not too sweet and the pastry just as crisp and tasty.

With Ryanair reinstating its flights to Perpignan from Stansted in late March and flights there from other cities with FlyBe (times vary), this beautiful city makes a perfect, reasonably-priced destination for a long weekend.

La Carmagnole, 12 rue de la Revolution Francaise, 66000 Perpignan, tel: +33 4 68 35 44 46.

Alsace is Top Destination

I have always loved Alsace and was delighted to see that it had been just singled out by Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2010 as one of the top 10 regions in the world to visit.

Lonely Planet describes Alsace as a “mountainous, vine-ribboned region” and claims a “defining experience” would be “cycling among vineyards and wine cellars along the rural Route du Vin d’Alsace (Alsace Wine Route) one day and overdosing on city culture the next.” I am not sure I'd recommend cycling and wine tasting as a combined activity, but there is certainly a plethora (46) of well-signed wine trails in the vineyards, which are well worth following.

Apart from the appeal of its much-underrated wines, Alsace has, owing to the Vosges mountains, an enviably balmy and dry microclimate. It also has a surfeit of excellent restaurants, amongst which the Auberge de l'Ill at Illhaeusern - photo above - (www.auberge-de-l-ill.com) would certainly rank in my Top 10 eateries in the world.