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 appear to have moved into the pub. Now, I don't wish to give the impression that this has come as a complete surprise to me, we'be been planning to do so since shortly after I bought it, but still, it's sort of snuck up on me and now I'm waking up and thinking what happened? How come I'm here? The reason for this discombobulation is that this move was initially a temporary measure. Mrs Coastalblog had some relatives coming to stay, and it made sense to put them up in our house while we decamped to the flat. It's still a work in progress, but a mad week of cleaning and carting stuff around made it habitable. I had a suspicion that once we were in we'd be back and forth for a few weeks. As with many of my hunches, I was completely and utterly wrong. As it turned out, once we were here, we were here. Things moved at pace and, now our kitchen appliances have been installed, there's no going back, the old house is unusable. It's left me with slightly mi