Silverbrow on Food

Taste Fringe, sod Taste of London

If you're thinking of going to Taste of London this weekend, don't. Go to Taste of London Fringe instead.

Organised by Susan Smillie, editor of the Guardian's always excellent Word of Mouth blog - they have some top flight writers don't you know - this is the alternative to the oh-so-corporate Taste of London.

For the last few years Taste of London has been rather mediocre. This year, they have also done a very efficient job of putting my and other bloggers' noses out of joint.  I've heard that a number of real, professional journalists are similarly miffed - well done ToL!

It all started when ToL approached me and others asking if they could put banner 'ads' on our sites. Except they didn't want ads in the traditional, sense. They didn't want to pay. I'm not precious, I know the pecking order of SoF in the greater scheme of things.  But I also know that there is some value to ads on my website and I wasn't about to give it away for free.  Taste of London seemed shocked that I wasn't bowing and scraping at their Tasty feet. It is what is known in the trade as a PR Fail.

So, it's a rubbish event, hosted by people who don't give a toss about those of us who are passionate about our food - sounds like a compelling combination.

If you want fun and frolics and even a bit of aquatic action, then The Taste Fringe it is.  Follow either Word of Mouth, Susan's Twitter updates, or the Twitter hashtag #tastefringe (you don't need to be registered on Twitter to do either of the last two) to learn more about where and what is going on this weekend.  I'll close by wishing well all those who sail on the good ship Finale.

UPDATE: This post has generated a bit of heat.  See Bea in the comments below.  I fully accept her argument here and on Twitter that there are people exhibiting who really do care and the I shouldn't chuck them in the same bucket as the PR department.  Whilst she is right, I don't think I did bunch them all together. But if that was the interpretation then I am sorry.  If you read it the way it was intended, then carry on, nothing to see here.

What to buy

With the magazines full of what to buy your nearest and dearest food obsessive, I thought I might as well get in on the game.

If you're serious about cooking, the best way to improve it is by learning from the experts.  I loved my day with Dan Lepard, he's repeating the sourdough course in January.  Or, how about a master class with two Michelin starred chef Eric Chavot, at The Capital.

I like the idea of Square Mile Coffee's six or twelve month coffee subscriptions.  For a one-off charge of £45 or £90 respectively, they will send you every month a 350g bag of coffee beans.  This is one for the coffee connoisseur: they only send out beans, and the beans are roasted for filter brewing rather than espresso.  Or a cheaper option for the coffee lover is a tasting event.

During the course of the year I got a bit too excited about the raft of high quality books due to published and generally I haven't been disappointed.

Although, unfortunately you can't get The Big Fat Duck Cookbook for £60 any more, it is available at £80, a decent discount to the £100 coverprice.  If you ask me it's great value for money.  I emphasise the word me in the last sentence.  I know a lot of people think I'm insane for saying that.  But for me, it is well worth it.

I'm slightly sceptical about A Day at elBulli and not sure I'd have bought it if the great man hadn't signed it with a little dedication to Silverbrowlette.  Grant Achatz's book Alinea has done a better job of living up to the hype, although the website associated with it, Mosaic, has underwhelmed.

A great bargain at the moment is Thomas Keller's new book Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide which Amazon are selling for £20, a whopping 60% discount to the coverprice.  You can get Keller's seminal tome The French Laundry Cookbook for £20 as well.  A little more expensive at £28 is Bouchon. It's bouef bourgignon recipe is still my favourite.

This year saw the publication of the softback edition of Made in Italy: Food and Stories one of my favourite books. It's great value at £12.99.

Aiden Byrne's Made in Great Britain was a bit lower profile than some of the others published during the year, but is beautiful.  I imagine it's the type of food available at his new gaffe.

Another great purchase this year has been Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts. I haven't yet got round to writing up about my tarte tatin, but suffice to say it was one of my proudest culinary achievements this year.

For more ideas take a look through the little shop I've setup with Amazon where I've even created departments for your shopping pleasure: essential reading; my full library; Jewish cookbooks; food writing and kitchen kit.

A night with Ferran Adrià

This is cross-posted on The Guardian's Word of Mouth blog. The post over there also includes a video of Jay Rayner with Ferran Adrià.  I seem to be unable to embed it here, but here is the link.

It would be trite and a little too convenient to describe Ferran Adrià as "...a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." Nonetheless, there is something about the man that is hard to pin down. It's not just that he's chef patron of elBulli, repeatedly ranked the world's number 1 restaurant, you want to know more. Can all the hype be true? I wasn't the only one hungry for answers. Over 900 of us filled the Queen Elizabeth Hall last night to hear him interviewed by Jay Rayner.

The premise for the London visit is Adrià's new book A Day at elBulli and except for the gratuitous flogging and signing at the end (I succumbed), the book didn't make much of an appearance. If there was a theme to the evening, it was that Adrià was at pains to make clear that what he does is no more scientific than almost any other cooking.

He kept referring to a new language and that to create a new language you need a new alphabet, new grammar, new tools and processes. He argues that his style of cooking is this new language and that, with every new technique, he's building up the alphabet.

He once again refuted that his style of cooking, or that of Heston Blumenthal, could be described as Molecular Gastronomy. Instead, he was keen to demonstrate that his food had deep roots. He argued that his cooking is a progression from the food and culinary techniques most of us practice at home. He clearly sees progress as vital, but is desperate that it isn't seen as elitist.

During the evening he showed a series of videos demonstrating his techniques. One of the most popular was the combination of coconut milk, a Thermomix, a syringe, a kids balloon (blue) and the obligatory iSi whip. The result - a coconut made of coconut milk - sounds a bit flat in black and white, but looked stunning on the screen. As did an espuma stuffed tomato juice balloon and the jelly and sorbet strawberries which, though they sound horrific, looked outstanding.

And that's the risk with his type of food. It often sounds and even looks ridiculous and so it is an easy target for the critics, but as Adrià pointed out, there are many horrendous mistakes made with pizzas and omelettes and these rarely warrant column inches. He argued that chefs who wanted to experiment shouldn't worry about mistakes as long as they remained "humble and honest".

He was into his humility. He seemed to get dewy eyed reminsicing about his lunch today at Manze's. Yes, that Manze's, the pie and Mash shop. It turns out an Evening Standard journalist thought it would be a good idea to take him there. He described Manze's as "fantastic" because of its honesty and history (if Manze's have a PR team, this has got to be their wet dream.)

So all in all, it was a great evening. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Adrià came across as warm and humourous, even in translation, and yes, very intense. He clearly feels the focus on the science is a distraction and wants people to understand what lies behind his food. I think he did a great job of explaining that. Then again, from the repeated moans and groans of pleasure at the videos, he may well have been preaching to the converted.

There was a Q&A session at the end. I was tempted to ask a question but frankly felt a little intimidated. I had two thoughts on my mind. First, what impact would the economic downturn have? Second, where was he having dinner afterwards? I've no idea his thoughts on the first question. As for the latter, the bigwigs at Phaidon, his publisher, took him to The Wolseley. I hope he had a better time than others have recently. I'm not sure where in London I'd take the world's greatest chef. If he hadn't had eels for lunch, possibly The Golden Hind or St John?

Where would you take Ferran Adrià for dinner?

Ferran Adrià in discussion with Jay Rayner

As promised, I'm planning on liveblogging Ferran Adrià's talk in London tonight and you can follow it below.

If all goes to plan, I'll start at about 7.30pm GMT.  If you can't make it live, or take Douglas' comment to heart, you should be able to use the box below to read the transcript afterwards.  But just to reiterate, that is if the technology works.

I'm wired

My caffeine intake on most days is a latte from Monmouth (double shot of espresso), maybe a Diet Coke and then a double espresso in the afternoon.  I'm pretty careful not to have caffeine much after 5.00pm.  If I do I'm awake all night.

Today, I had my usual at brekkie, an abstemious green tea at lunch and a double espresso after lunch.  I then had four double espressos tonight.  So I'm wired.  I've spent the day exhausted and now I'm wide awake, typing with heart palpitations, beads of sweat running off my forehead and clammy palms.

And all because of Square Mile Coffee Roasters' Taste of Australia event.  I've never been to a coffee tasting and this was a bit of a revelation.  Most - but not all - of my fellow sippers seemed to be caffeine pros.  I was just there for the fun of it, and it was great.

I enjoyed learning about the four coffees we were tasting, I enjoyed my long and disturbing chat with Chris about cookbooks and kitchen utensils and I enjoyed at last meeting James.  We've been in blog contact, we've emailed and I'm responsible for people randomly turning up for cups of coffee.

I agree with Chris that Seven Seeds was my favourite, it was fruity, chocolatey and I thought there was a hint of dill, which it seems is no bad thing.  Seven Seeds' video gives you an idea of just how geeky these coffee addicts can get.  Brilliant stuff. (As an unrelated aside, if you want to learn how to get high-def YouTube videos, check out Jason Kottke's suggestions.)

The New Yorker on food scarcity

The New Yorker makes a strong argument that a free market in food is not always a good thing. 

They're not advocating collective farms, but they do warn against the dangers of half-arsed market forces.  People need a reliable source of food, it's less important that it is efficient.

I wonder if the IMF et al would change their rules on marketing boards if they had their time again?

This article is from the New Yorker's must-buy, annual, food issue, which is out now, dated November 24. 2008.  The full contents is here.

I'm going to liveblog the Ferran Adrià event - I hope

Using the rather clever software available from Cover It Live, I'm hoping I can give a running commentary on Ferran Adrià's talk next week.

I'm doing this because a) I want to see if the technology works and b) slightly more altruistically, for the sake of those people who emailed asking for the tickets I had going spare and were disappointed.

If you want to follow the liveblog, just return to Silverbrow on Food from 7.30pm (GMT) a week today (Monday, 24 November) and it'll be just like sitting in the Queen Elizabeth Hall next to me.  Or at least that's the plan. 

You can fill in the form below to get an email reminder of the event.