i'm back!

a catalogue of accidents! forgot my gmail details and password so couldn't log in, but now i've cracked it...

currently in paris, enjoying the food. some thoughts tomorrow!

from the sublime...

things have been quiet on the food blog for some time, mainly because i am still trying to come to terms with the full-on tasting menu at reflets par pierre gagnaire. i'm still not really capable of writing about it in any coherent way, except to say it was almost certainly one of the top three meals of my life...

which brings me to a rather drastic extreme - a three day press trip to munich staying not in the city centre but out in the concrete wilderness of the exhibition centre. and what is it with germans and all that meat? even as a fish eater, i had to survive on barely adequate pasta for three days, whilst surrounded by more pig by-products that one could imagine possible. are they so keen on pork because it shows they're not jewish?

okay, forget the war. the really curious thing is that germany has a fine tradition of health - from naturism to an early adoption of wholegrains and so on. breakfasts are a treat - even in our poor hotel, there were six varieties of muesli, a dozen variants of healthy bread and giant platefuls of fresh fruit. it just seems to go downhill after that...

which gives me a brief chance to name check chef gabi at magnolia, here at the madinat in dubai. despite being german, her fine dining vegetarian dishes are a revelation - i just wish she had an outlet in munich...

the candyman can

let's talk irony for a moment. the newspapers here in dubai are full of the current epidemic of diabetes that is affecting residents - expats and, more seriously, emiratis. within a couple of generations, the local population has gone from a limited but reasonably healthy diet to a full-on, gorge yourself, fast food addiction. to see someone add six teaspoons of sugar to a small cup of coffee is not unusual. to watch parents sit their young children down with buckets of chicken or giant tubs of ice cream is common.

all the more ironic because the standard local diet of large servings of fresh vegetables in a meze followed by simply grilled meat or fish manages to avoid most of the pitfalls of the western diet.

depending who you listen to, at least a third of the adult population has a serious problem with diabetes and the number of children being classed as severely or morbidly obese grows year on year.

which is why i reacted with horror at the news that the world's largest sweet shop, some 10,000 square feet, has just opened in dubai and is already a key shopping/leisure destination. one colleague went recently and racked up a bill of over $75 in just a few minutes.

this cannot be good news.

welcome back, ange!

gordon ramsay's first overseas restaurant - verre in the hilton dubai creek - is coming up to its eighth anniversary. my, where does the time go to...

and to celebrate the occasion, current gordon favourite angela hartnett is coming back to the restaurant where she made her first big impact, for some special show-off menus and a cooking class or two. current exec chef matt pickup will be working side by side, of course.

verre is always a bit under the spotlight, because ramsay and family are fond of dubai and there's even talk of buying a place and raiding the kids here.

for a city now so used to celebrities that you have to be mega to be commented on, dubai foodistas are more excited about the first major chef visit of the season. and with ramsay's fiery ex-boss, marco pierre white, flying out shortly to open two restaurants in the capital abu dhabi, the heat is rising.

what to eat tonight?

all of us throw away food. we buy too much. we don't plan. and, living in a hostile environment, it's all too easy to forget to catch fresh food in the small window before it spoils.

equally, who knows what's lurking at the back of your storecupboard? i had a clean out of mine last weekend and i'm ashamed to stay i found tins of chick peas hidden right at the back that should have been eaten four years ago... not good!

so i was pleased to discover www.cookingbynumbers.com/ check your cupboard and fridge then type what you've got into the web site and it will come back with suggested recipes. you may have to experiment a bit, but if nothing else it will give you ideas instead of reaching for the home delivery menus - yes, we know you have a pile of them... now there's no excuse to waste food!

healthy and delicious!

i never need an excuse to eat indian food, but here's another reason. the spice turmeric, which gives so much indian food its deep yellow colour, is now being seen as a great health ingredient. that will come as no surprise to indians, who have been using the spice for centuries to treat arthritis, liver disorders, inflammation, general aches and more. you can even buy bandages impregnated with the spice to speed recovery.

the key ingredient is curcumin which now is showing promise against cystic fibrosis, colon cancer, alzheimer's and more. It could be the killer anti- ingredient - antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, antifiungal and anti-cancer. plus it's great in food, of course. try an american-style mustard - it's used as a colouring agent.

final excuse to add more to your diet: some doctors now believe that it acts as a work-out for the brain, by activating the genes that clear nerve-cell waste.

a fishy tale

that sustainability story just won't go away! in this week's 'sunday times', there's a report by environmental journalist charles clover into where the fish served in britain's restaurants actually comes from.

the rather shocking bottom line to the story is that, in many of the best restaurants, chefs who should know better are serving endangered fish. culprits in the uk include celebrity haunt nobu, which has endangered bluefin tuna on its menu, and (perhaps surprisingly) the poster boy for fish, rick stein, who has a range of fish on his menu which are on the marine conservation society's 'fish to avoid' list - halibut, wild salmon, turbot and Dover sole.

this is an issue that i often raise with chefs when i interview them and the depressing reality is that most of them subscribe to the 'taste has no politics' party. they want to do good things but customer demand etc etc etc...

it's an issue that affects me deeply.strangely you might think for a food lover, i've not eaten meat since i was 20 years old but i'm a fish fanatic. the thought of not eating again such 'common' species as haddock and hale is hard to accept, but accept it we need to do in order to help save at least a good proportion of the dozen of fish species currently at risk.

change is possible to help save some of the marine conservation society's 'at danger' 69 species. we just have to learn to say 'no' and to make it clear to restaurants that we're not happy that they're still serving fish they shouldn't.

but how do you find out what's at risk? the easiest way is to download the 'fish to eat' and 'fish to avoid' from the marine conservation society's web site: www.fishonline.org/ print them out and slip them in your pocket or bag when you go out to eat - together we can make a difference.