I am fond, when time allows of trawling charity shops for cookbooks from time to time. This isn't done purely for reasons of miserliness, I hasten to point out, the bookshop's shelves groan with TV tie-ins, dreadful diets, ego-driven celeb nonsense. There is the odd new cookbook which interests me, occasionally a chef I rate (because they're, y'know, a chef) will bring something out, but on the whole I'm more interested in getting a broader picture, rather than what's currently in fashion; were you to look at one of my menus you'd quickly realise that that's not what we're about. Though I remarked to my business partner just the other day that our rootsy, earthy sort of thing appears to be enjoying a moment. Still, we'll be out of fashion again in a few months, and thank god for that.
No, I trawl the charity shops just to get a bit of perspective, maybe come across a few ideas, but more just out of a sort of jobbing curiosity. And it was in this spirit that I picked up a copy of Matthew Fort's Rhubarb and Black pudding; basically a hagiography of Paul Heathcote, who's a reasonable sized deal round these parts. It's a curious, but interesting book,a little uncritical perhaps, and possibly guilty of glamorising the often grotty business of cooking professionally; but Fort has an easy, approachable style, and, crucially, knows his stuff. There are a few recipes, but what grabbed me were the essays that link them. Interviews with Heathcote's suppliers, snapshots of day to day restaurant life. What set me off on this particular meander was Fort's musings on the nature and quality of good service, and how undervalued it is, both as a profession and by the public at large.
There is a link that can be drawn between the rise in celebrity chefdom and the diminuition of appreciation of service, time was the restaurateurs were the stars, the front of house swanning about while the chefs toiled anonymously. Now the focus is on who's doing the cooking, not necessarily a bad development, but it does lead to less appreciation of poor old front of house, the ones whose job it is to make sure your evening runs smoothly, your class is full and your dishes arrive in smooth order.A restaurant is the sum of it's part, not a chef and a bunch of automata.
So please, this holiday season, should you dine out, pay your waiter some mind, they may not have cooked your food, but your meal wouldn't be as good without them.
I absolutely love trees, and I get quite irate when they get cut down. One of the aspects of life with which I most often find myself most at odds with my fellow man is that I'm not really a fan of the tidy garden. I like to see a bit of biodiversity knocking about the gaff, and to that end I welcome the somewhat overgrown hedge, am pro the bit of lawn left to run riot, and, most of all, very anti cutting down trees. I love the things, habitat, provider of shade, easy on the eye, home to the songbirds that delight the ear at dawn, the best alarm clock of all. To me, cutting a naturally growing tree down is an act of errant vandalism, as well as monumental entitlement, it's been around longer than you. So, this being the case, let me say this. The public outcry over the felling of the tree at Sycamore Gap is sentimental, overblown nonsense, and the fact that the two men found guilty of it have been given a custodial sentence is completely insane. Prison? For cutting down a Sycam...